Nuclear and Indigenous Items of Interest

Peace Camp On-Going @ NTS, April 7th-11th, 2012

2011-10-29T11:09:00.000-07:00

Greetings, welcome to the latest RUMOR mill about the 2012 NTS Peace Camp Reunion

Johnnie Bob, Member of Western Shoshone National Member will be at Peace Camp to welcome walkers, from Sacred Peace Walk,2012. Las Vegas to Creech AFB, Home of the Drones and then on to NTS (NNSSS) Peace Camp. Where we want have NTS Peace Camp Reunion, 25th Anniversary . See http://www.nevadadesertexperience.org/programs/2012/peacewalk2012.htm for more real information on this actual walk

The dates we want April 7-11th, 2012. This is message that I sent last time we communicated. I asked NDE to contact Western Shoshone Council about extending Lent Program to accompany 4 day Peace Camp Reunion.

Jim Habber of NDE, though that it could happen, it looks like a NDE sponsored(?/or not) Peace Camp Reunion in 2012 is going to be possible. By piggyback on the Massive April 12th celebration, we would be able to let the world know of your plans, that to make possible in 2012.

Good News, what are your thoughts? I believe that we want the dates of April 7th- 11th. Is that still possible or have you already talked to Western Shoshone Council. Sorry for re-asking. Rich Sickler is doing this on his own & I am trying to help ,get as many original Peace Campers to attend. Check NevadaDesertExperience.org for more inf0 NDE is planning a Massive Gathering on April 12th, 2012 to happen with / and related to (?) events in 800ad & 1200ad events" this was a remark that Richard Ming La threw into a NDE conversation.

Will it happen? Be there to make it happen.

Can some one local (las Vegas) check with the Temple of www.sekhmettemple.com to see if we can get the big tent, if NDE does not already have plans for it, on the above mentioned dates?

We need your help to make this happen!

Newsflash Art Casey original person that started may show up http://peacecampnts.blogspot.com/

Be there if at all possible.

Would someone contact http://seedsofpeacecollective.org/ and see if they could make it?

WE NEED HELP

This Blog is not updated, it is for history about Corbin Harney

2010-10-22T13:51:00.000-07:00

This Blog is not updated, it is for history about Corbin Harney.

Peace,gregor

Please Visit New Blog

2009-06-05T09:53:00.000-07:00

The blog that is updated regularly is located at: http://gregornot.wordpress.com/ The new blog has much more information than this blog. This blog is not being updated at this time.
-gregor

5 Somali Pirates Drown With Share of $3M Ransom

2009-01-10T11:50:00.000-08:00

The capture was seen as a dramatic demonstration of the pirates' ability to strike high value targets hundreds of miles offshore.

On the same day the Saudi ship was freed, pirates released a captured Iranian-chartered cargo ship, Iran's state television reported Saturday. It said the ship Daylight was carrying 36 tons of wheat when it was attacked in the Gulf of Aden Nov. 18 and seized by pirates. All 25 crew are in good health and the vessel is sailing toward Iran, the TV report said.

The U.S. Navy announced this week it will head a new anti-piracy taskforce after more than 100 ships were attacked last year.

NATO and the European Union already have warships patrolling the Gulf of Aden and have intervened to prevent several ships from being captured.

More than a dozen ships with about 300 crew members are still being held by pirates off the coast of Somalia, including the weapons-laden Ukrainian cargo ship MV Faina, which was seized in September.

The multimillion dollar ransoms are one of the few ways to earn a living in the impoverished, war-ravaged country. Somalia has not had a functioning government since 1991 and nearly half of its population depends on aid.

Why a Tiny Alabama Town Wants a $375 Million Chunk of the Stimulus

2009-01-10T11:48:00.000-08:00

The tiny town, located near the Georgia border and 26 miles from the nearest "big city" of Anniston (population: 24,276), added 33 proposals—about two thirds of them related to "green" energy—to the list of "ready- to- go" projects assembled by the U.S. Conference of Mayors. Total sum: $375,076,200.

That comes out to nearly $2 million per Edwardsville resident, although E. D. Phillips, the town's representative to the U.S. Conference of Mayors, says the projects would affect a wider region that comprises about 80,000 people. That number includes residents of nearby rural areas that aren't already incorporated into towns, along with the residents of Talladega Springs (population: 124), which partnered with Edwardsville and local municipal utilities on the projects.

There's certainly no denying that Edwardsville has big ambitions. Through the various proposals, which include a renewable energy museum, scenic railroad, and vineyards, these small Alabama communities envision themselves becoming a cutting-edge demonstration project for energy sustainability and a hub for tourism.

"I know we look like some little Podunk town, and by the census, we are," Phillips says. "But we really think we've done some amazingly progressive things in the past two years."

The town's proposals began to develop more than two years ago, when Phillips and another town official became intrigued by the argument that renewable energy could create a rural renaissance. If any community needed economic revival, it was Edwardsville—even before the recession. At 28.7 percent, the town's poverty level was nearly equal to that of Nepal and more than twice the national average, according to the 2000 census.

Along with the more traditional proposals to replace streetlights with solar-powered lights (cost: $3,479,200), to install solar panels on the town hall (cost: $77,000), and to build solar-powered recharging stations for electric golf carts and vehicles (cost: $620,000), Edwardsville and Talladega Springs have assembled a set of even more far-reaching projects.

An outlay of $50.4 million, for example, would go toward installing water pipelines beneath roads to soak up the sun's rays, transferring heat. That technology is currently being used in the Netherlands, which found that while the cost of installation was double that of normal gas heating, the system halved the amount of energy required.

With big dreams, however, come big price tags.

"Do you know how hard it is to fund some of these projects when your tax base is so low?" Phillips says. "So we just breathed this sigh of relief when we found out about the stimulus package . . . especially when it had a focus on renewable energy."

Not everyone shares the sentiment.

"This really exemplifies the problem. Why are we buying light bulbs for a local community?" asks Tom Schatz, president of the watchdog group Citizens Against Government Waste. "If a municipality wants to save money, [it can] go out and buy the light bulbs. There is no reason the federal government should buy them."

One of Edwardsville's biggest proposed expenditures is for a "renewable energy museum and information dissemination center." Phillips envisions exhibits, audio tours, seminars, a research center, and a satellite lab run by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory.

To fund the museum, Edwardsville is requesting $32.1 million. That makes the facility the fourth most expensive museum proposed on the U.S. Conference of Mayors list—following facilities planned by Miami, Las Vegas, and Scottsdale, Ariz. (Some of those facilities have drawn their own controversy: Las Vegas's proposal for a $55 million "mob museum," for example, was used by Sen. Mitch McConnell this week as a prime example of pork spending.)

"I know we look like some little Podunk town, and by the census, we are," Phillips says. "But we really think we've done some amazingly progressive things in the past two years."

With big dreams, however, come big price tags.

Not everyone shares the sentiment.

Mystery Roar Detected From Faraway Space

2009-01-10T11:46:00.000-08:00

LONG BEACH, Calif. — Space is typically thought of as a very quiet place. But one team of astronomers has found a strange cosmic noise that booms six times louder than expected.

The roar is from the distant cosmos. Nobody knows what causes it.

Of course, sound waves can't travel in a vacuum (which is what most of space is), or at least they can't very efficiently. But radio waves can.

• Click here to visit FOXNews.com's Space Center.

Radio waves are not sound waves, but they are still electromagnetic waves, situated on the low-frequency end of the light spectrum.

Many objects in the universe, including stars and quasars, emit radio waves. Even our home galaxy, the Milky Way, emits a static hiss (first detected in 1931 by physicist Karl Jansky). Other galaxies also send out a background radio hiss.

But the newly detected signal, described here today at the 213th meeting of the American Astronomical Society, is far louder than astronomers expected.

There is "something new and interesting going on in the universe," said Alan Kogut of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md.

A team led by Kogut detected the signal with a balloon-borne instrument named ARCADE (Absolute Radiometer for Cosmology, Astrophysics, and Diffuse Emission).

In July 2006, the instrument was launched from NASA's Columbia Scientific Balloon Facility in Palestine, Texas, and reached an altitude of about 120,000 feet (36,500 meters), where the atmosphere thins into the vacuum of space.

ARCADE's mission was to search the sky for faint signs of heat from the first generation of stars, but instead they heard a roar from the distant reaches of the universe.

"The universe really threw us a curve," Kogut said. "Instead of the faint signal we hoped to find, here was this booming noise six times louder than anyone had predicted."

Detailed analysis of the signal ruled out primordial stars or any known radio sources, including gas in the outermost halo of our own galaxy.

Other radio galaxies also can't account for the noise — there just aren't enough of them.

"You'd have to pack them into the universe like sardines," said study team member Dale Fixsen of the University of Maryland. "There wouldn't be any space left between one galaxy and the next."

The signal is measured to be six times brighter than the combined emission of all known radio sources in the universe.

For now, the origin of the signal remains a mystery.

"We really don't know what it is,"said team member Michael Seiffert of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif.

And not only has it presented astronomers with a new puzzle, it is obscuring the sought-for signal from the earliest stars.

But the cosmic static may itself provide important clues to the development of galaxies when the universe was much younger, less than half its present age.

Because the radio waves come from far away, traveling at the speed of light, they therefore represent an earlier time in the universe.

"This is what makes science so exciting," Seiffert said. "You start out on a path to measure something — in this case, the heat from the very first stars — but run into something else entirely, some unexplained."

Please visit the new site

2009-01-10T11:40:00.000-08:00

Please visit the new site at http://gregornot.wordpress.com/ New stories all the time. the new site is also dedicated to Corbin Harney's work on Nuclear and Indigenous Issues. Come visit us now, thanks, gregor

Still runing on WordPress

2008-11-11T11:11:00.000-08:00

I am still keeping my blog on WordPress, after we solved our differences, PLEASE come see it at
http://gregornot.wordpress.com/
gregor,
Blog editor

Am running both my blogs

2008-11-06T09:17:00.000-08:00

Hi consistent readers,

So that Wordpress readers do not get shut out of any news due to my unknowing mistakes of their Terms of Agreement. I am am posting on both this blog and the Wordpress blog at:
http://gregornot.wordpress.com/

Kind, Regards,
gregor

Am returning to this blog system again

2008-11-06T09:14:00.000-08:00

Apparently there is a misunderstanding on my Wordpress Blog so I am reactivating this Blog.

You can catch up on the articles you missed, once my other blog is reactaved,

Sorry for the problems, with switching back and forth.

I failed to follow the rule if it's not BROKEN don't try to fix it

Kind, Regards,
gregor

Be sure to go to new site UPDATED DAILY

2008-09-21T10:30:00.000-07:00

http://gregornot.wordpress.com/

FOR LATEST INFORMATION

2008-08-24T10:31:00.000-07:00

PLEASE VISIT MY BLOG AT
http://gregornot.wordpress.com/

IT COVERS THE SAME MATERIAL. THERE IS NOT SENSE TRYING TO DECIDE WHAT TO PUT ON WHAT BLOG, SO I AM PUTTING EVERYTHING ON THE ABOVE BLOG.

THANKS FOR READ MY BLOG, HOPE TO SEE YOU ON MY WORDPRESS BLOG, GREGOR

But please read the past articles and video's especially on Corbin Harney and Shundahai Network that are located in this blog,
Kind, Regards, gregor

Reactors shut after checks reveal 'minor issues'

2008-08-20T07:09:00.001-07:00

Reactors shut after checks reveal 'minor issues'

Dungeness B power station

Electricty generation at Dungeness B nuclear power station is at a standstill after routine work revealed repairs were needed to steel reactor supports.

Three-yearly maintenance checks resulted in the first reactor station being out of action for several weeks.

Problems with the steel supports were noticed and when the second reactor was checked, similar safety concerns were raised and that had to be shut down as well.

Work has also been carried out on one reactor to strengthen fuel plugs.

A spokeswoman for British Energy, which runs the power station, said “There are no safety implications – it is a question of dealing with minor issues before they become serious.

“One of the reactors was shut down as standard procedure, but repairs to the plugs took longer than originally thought.

“The other was then shut down to enable work to be carried out on the supports.

“It is unusual for both reactors to be shut down at the same time and no electricity to be generated at all.”

The company admitted it had taken a “commercial hit” because of the works.

“We have no electricity being produced and we also have to pay for the repair work,” said the spokeswoman.

“Also we have contracts with customers to supply power and so we have to buy supplies in – and we are charged a premium rate.

“We cannot say when the reactors will be back online, but it’s fair to say shortly. I think we are on the home strait.”

New round of IAEA-Iran nuclear talks kicks off

2008-08-18T08:25:00.001-07:00

New round of IAEA-Iran nuclear talks kicks off
Tehran, Aug 18, IRNA

Iran-IAEA-Heinonen
The United Nations nuclear watchdog's deputy director general, Olli Heinonen, held talks with senior Iranian nuclear officials on Monday.

Deputy Head of Iran's Atomic Energy Organization (IAEO) Mohammad Saeedi and Iran's Permanent Ambassador to IAEA Ali Asghar Soltaniyeh were also present in the meeting.

Heinonen, arrived in Tehran early Monday upon an invitation of the IAEO.

Heinonen's previous talks with Iranian officials were held during his two-day visit to from August 7-8.

He had described his talks with senior Iranian officials as "constructive".

IAEA Director General Mohamed ElBaradei is due to present a report on Iran's nuclear program and the country's cooperation with the agency to the IAEA's Board of Governors in early September.

Russia considers nuclear missiles for Syria, Mediterranean, Baltic

2008-08-17T13:11:00.000-07:00

Russia considers nuclear missiles for Syria, Mediterranean, Baltic

DEBKAfile Special Report

August 17, 2008, 9:25 AM (GMT+02:00)

Russia’s nuclear-capable Iskandar missile

DEBKAfile’s military sources report Moscow’s planned retaliation for America’s missile interceptors in Poland and US-Israeli military aid to Georgia may come in the form of installing Iskandar surface missiles in Syria and its Baltic enclave of Kaliningrad.

Russian Baltic and Middle East warships, submarines and long-range bombers may be armed with nuclear warheads, according to Sunday newspapers in Europe.

In Georgia, Russian troops and tanks advanced to within 30 km of Tbilisi Saturday, Aug. 15. A Russian general said Sunday they had started pulling out after president Dimitry Medvedev signed the ceasefire agreement with Georgia and president George W. Bush called again for an immediate withdrawal.

After routing Georgia over the breakaway enclaves of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, Moscow appears to be eying Poland, the Middle East, and possibly Ukraine, as the main arenas for its reprisals.

One plan on the table in Moscow, DEBKAfile’s sources report, is the establishment of big Russian military, naval and air bases in Syria and the release of advanced weapons systems withheld until now to Iran (the S-300 air-missile defense system) and Syria (the nuclear-capable 200 km-range Iskandar surface missile).

Shortly before the Georgian conflict flared, Moscow promised Washington not to let Iran and Syria have these sophisticated pieces of hardware.

The Iskander’s cruise attributes make its launch and trajectory extremely hard to detect and intercept. If this missile reaches Syria, Israel will have to revamp its anti-missile defense array and Air Force assault plans for the third time in two years, as it constitutes a threat which transcends all its defensive red lines.

Moscow’s war planners know this and are therefore considering new sea and air bases in Syria as sites for the Iskander missiles. Russia would thus keep the missiles under its hand and make sure they were not transferred to Iran. At the same time, Syrian crews would be trained in their operation.

DEBKAfile’s military sources report Syrian president Bashar Assad will be invited to Moscow soon to finalize these plans in detail.

Military spokesmen in Moscow said Saturday and Sunday that Russian military planners to started redesigning the nation’s strategic plans for a fitting response to America’s decision to install 10 missile interceptors in Poland and the war developments in Georgia.

The chairman of the Israeli Knesset foreign affairs and defense committee, Tzahi Hanegbi, spoke out strongly Sunday, Aug. 17, against treasury plans to slash the defense budget. He warned that the military faced grave confrontations in the coming year - possibly on several fronts.

Gas Drilling Raises Water Well Concerns

2008-08-16T08:40:00.001-07:00

Gas Drilling Raises Water Well Concerns
	John Vogel jvogel@farmprogress.com
	August 14, 2008

Landowners from New York to West Virginia are rubbing their hands in anticipation of potential windfalls from leasing land for natural gas drilling. And a number have already pocketed deals.

But protecting stream and groundwater quality is of equal or greater value, cautions Bryan Swistock, Penn State Extension water resources specialist. "Decades ago, we weren't careful with coal mining. And, we're still paying huge sums to clean up acid mine drainage. We need to be careful and vigilant, or we could see lasting damage to our water resources from so many deep gas wells being drilled."

Drilleers are trying to tap the Marcellus shale formation, a mile or more down. Relatively new drilling technology employs horizontal drilling and hydraulic pressure to "frack" or fracture the shale layer so trapped gas can escape.

The real risks are…

"Fracking" requires several million gallons of water for each gas well. Some wells may be fracked more than once during their active life, which might span more than a decade, says Swistock. "Where that water comes from, and what the drillers do with it when it's recovered, is a big issue.

Fracking water will also have chemical additives - formaldehyde, benzene and chromates - along with natural contaminants from deep underground when it comes back to the surface. So it needs to be collected and treated or recycled properly. Only about 70% of what's injected is recovered for recycling.

Most municipal sewage-treatment plants can't or won't accept gas-well waste fluids. Another potential hazard from gas-well wastewater is the release of radon and other naturally occurring radioactive materials, notes Swistock.

"Radioactive substances are not uncommon in Pennsylvania groundwater to begin with," he says. And, waste fluids that come with gas production also may contain high levels of salt, metals such as iron and manganese, and traces of barium, lead and arsenic. "Although highly diluted with water, the proper treatment of all gas-well waste fluids is a big issue that needs to be addressed."

Sample well water beforehand

People who live close to gas-drilling operations should have their water tested by a third-party, state-approved lab, advises Swistock. "Homeowners who have their own well or spring and are within 1,000 feet of a gas-well site are very likely to be visited by water-lab employees hired by the gas company," he says. He advises taking advantage of this free testing. Make sure to get copies of the results, which are entitled to by law.

Want to do your own testing? Swistock advises against it. "It's important to have an unbiased expert from a state-certified lab collect the samples in case the sample results are needed for legal action," he explains.

Timing of sampling is also important. Have well water tested within a few months before drilling starts. Once a company has started drilling, it's too late.

If a resident decides to test for any impacts after the drilling has occurred, that needs to be done within six months. Drillers are presumed responsible for any damage to water supplies within six months after drilling has begun.

"The regulation written into Pennsylvania's gas and oil act states that any water supply within 1,000 feet of a gas well is the driller's responsibility for six months after drilling," he says. "If there's any complaint, the driller is guilty until proven innocent. Outside the 1,000-feet distance and six-month time frame, the burden of proof shifts to the homeowner."

Note: Visitors to Ag Progress Days, Aug. 19-21 at Rock Springs, Pa., can learn more about the impacts of the deep-well natural-gas boom in Pennsylvania and have questions answered about the legal, social, economic and environmental issues associated with gas exploration and production. A special program on it will be offered daily in the Ag College theme building

A related Natural Gas Impact Area exhibit in the nearby Ag Renewable Energy Tent -- at West 10th and Main streets – features Penn State's College of Agricultural Sciences experts, who will offer advice on natural gas issues.

Raleigh County Mountain at Center of Coal vs. Wind Debate

2008-08-15T18:33:00.001-07:00

Raleigh County Mountain at Center of Coal vs. Wind Debate

by Pam Kasey

Coal River Mountain in Raleigh County may soon become the center of an energy battle that pits fossil fuels against non-fossil renewable sources. At issue is this: Should we develop coal resources now if that will destroy wind resources that can be harnessed forever?

North Carolina-based community organizers Appalachian Voices decided to raise this question.

The group contracted national wind development consultants WindLogics to analyze some likely wind resources in southern West Virginia.

They learned that Coal River Mountain northwest of Beckley offers a high-quality wind resource: Class 4, the lowest class considered by utility-scale developers, up through the very high quality Class 7.

Computer modeling also showed that previous surface mining on adjacent Cherry Pond Mountain had reduced its wind potential.

“The wind rushes out of the valleys and as it hits the ridge, the higher the ridge, the more speed it gains as it goes up,” explained Rory McIlmoil, who was hired from Appalachian Voices by Coal River Mountain Watch earlier this year to coordinate a wind energy campaign. “By reducing the ridge altitude by hundreds of feet you change the wind patterns and therefore impact the wind speed.”

To get a measure of Coal River Mountain’s wind energy potential, McIlmoil counted the number of 2-megawatt turbines that could be placed on the mountain’s windiest ridges.

“Taking the wind map in GIS software I placed the turbines along every part of the ridge at Class 4 or higher wind speeds,” McIlmoil explained. “Using a spacing of three rotor diameters between turbines, I found that 220 turbines could fit along the ridges.”

Maximized in that way, such a Coal River Mountain wind project would be the biggest in the east as far as McIlmoil knows. The Backbone Mountain Wind Farm in Tucker County, the first one operating in the state, has 44 1.5 MW turbines; Invenergy plans to install 124 1.5 MW turbines at its Beech Ridge development in Greenbrier County.

With the standard assumption that the wind would blow about a third of the time, a Coal River Mountain project could generate 1.16 million megawatt-hours per year: more than several of the state’s operating coal-fired plants.

But Not So Fast

Massey Energy leases mineral rights from land holding companies on the mountain.

It has obtained permits for two coal mines and has applications for two others in the works, for what McIlmoil said totals more than 6,000 acres of mountaintop removal operations — also on the highest ridges.

The permitted mines are held up by U.S. District Judge Robert C. Chambers’ 2007 decision that halted four U.S. Army Corps of Engineers valley fill permits granted to Massey. Chambers halted the permits because the Corps did not sufficiently consider the environmental impacts of the valley fill process. Those Corps permits are necessary for companies to engage in mountaintop removal mining.

Massey’s appeal will be heard Sept. 23 in the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond, Va.

The Case for Wind

Recognizing that a Massey victory would lead to the mining of Coal River Mountain and destruction of its wind resource, CRMW is making its case publicly for wind over coal.

A wind farm would create 200 jobs during construction and 40 to 50 permanent jobs indefinitely, the group argues, while Massey’s mines would last only 14 years. Wind’s total job-years would exceed the mines’ in 27 years and would continue to sustain the community after that.

For Raleigh County, McIlmoil estimates that the current high coal prices would bring on average $1 million in severance taxes from Coal River Mountain for each of the 14 years. The wind farm, he said, could bring $750,000 each year indefinitely.

A wind energy project would allow for concurrent uses of the mountain, the group notes, including harvesting of ginseng and other wild plants, sustainable forestry, and even deep mining of coal.

And it would preserve local heritage, wildlife habitat and streams.

CRMW presented its idea at the Raleigh County Commission’s June 3 meeting.

And it has spoken with wind developers that recognize the appeal of a community that actually wants a wind project.

“A lot of developers are wary of West Virginia because most of the places where they propose wind aren’t in the coal fields — they’re in the non-coal-producing counties where there’s a lot of people with summer or winter homes or ski resorts and there’s a lot of opposition,” McIlmoil said.

“They know what the alternative is here, and they know the community members would prefer a wind farm,” he continued, “and at the same time they know that they have a lot of support on the ground if challenges do come about.”

As this article went to print, CRMW learned that its Coal River Wind campaign has been chosen for Co-op America’s Building Economic Alternatives award.

Can compromise save the whale? - Indigenous Natural Resourse

2008-08-12T10:36:00.000-07:00

Can compromise save the whale?

By Richard Black
Environment correspondent, BBC News website, Santiago

So it's official - both sides want peace. Or do they? As the International Whaling Commission (IWC) meeting came to a close, not everyone was convinced by the rhetoric of reason and good faith.

Heard in the corridor: "We've been down this road before", "They're not serious", "It's just a ploy to eat up time".

IWC history is bloody with betrayal. It will take more than an agreement to link arms and waltz off into the sunset to convince seasoned observers on both sides that anything more than a crock of frustration and heartache lies at the end of the path.

Also heard in the corridor: "We have to try", "It's the last chance", "Anything would be better than this mess".

Difficult deal

The EU has a very clear mandate - we want to have the moratorium, or any better alternative that would stop whaling in due course, except for aboriginal whaling

Giuseppe Raaphorst, Netherlands' whaling commissioner

Even the keenest of those involved with the plan for pro- and anti-whaling countries to spend a year working out their differences and trying to agree some kind of compromise package acknowledge there is a great deal of ground to be covered.

"There's no doubt there are big gaps here between those who want to kill whales and those who want to conserve them," says New Zealand's whaling commissioner Sir Geoffrey Palmer, whose background in international law and diplomacy is one of the reasons why the peace deal is even on the agenda.

"What we've done is to start a process. It may lead to a position that is better than the one we're in, and that would be a wonderful thing."

Coming from a country where 92% of the population opposes whaling - according to the environment ministry - Sir Geoffrey's priority is to secure a deal that is in some definable way better for whales.

His government would be able to sell nothing less to its public, and the same goes for Australia, the UK, the US and most of the European and Latin American countries involved in the IWC

Thoughts and views on the IWC, whales and whaling

In pictures

The biggest prize for these governments would be to secure an end to scientific whaling - not only to close Japan's current operations in the Antarctic, but also to prevent the provision ever being used again for large scale hunting.

Japan insists for now that it will not agree to give it up, although some observers believe this is a negotiating tactic.

From some standpoints, Japan would have little to lose and much to gain by ceding ground. The scientific whaling programme costs government money, and earns little but international opprobrium.

Anti-whaling countries would also be likely to insist on a ban in international trade in whale meat. This would go down badly with Norway and Iceland, where some in the industry see Japanese stomachs, rather than those of their compatriots, as the logical and profitable destination for their catch.

Circular argument

For all the talk of respect and a different way of approaching things - they're not going to compromise in any way

Laila Jusnes, High North Alliance

What about what the whalers would want? Almost certainly, a lifting - however partial and nuanced - of the commercial whaling moratorium, which was agreed back in 1982 in language that suggests a temporary measure.

Can the anti-whalers go that far?

"I'm afraid that for at least half if not a majority of the countries here present, that would be unacceptable out of principle, even if you would help the whales," says Giuseppe Raaphorst, the Netherlands' whaling commissioner, who has been one of the voices in the EU seeking an accommodation.

It may be an accurate summary of the situation.

If it is, that is not going to impress leaders of the pro-hunting bloc, already dismayed at this meeting by the decision not to allow Greenland's Inuit hunters to add humpback whales to their annual catch.

"I'm afraid that we're just walking around in circles," says Laila Jusnes of the High North Alliance, which represents whalers, sealers and fishermen in the Arctic.

Guide to the Great Whales

"When it came down to anything of substance, like with the Greenland request, we saw that for all the talk of respect and a different way of approaching things, they didn't mean it - the EU blocked it with help from the Latin American countries and Australia and New Zealand - and that just showed us that they're not going to compromise in any way."

This version of the reasoning behind the refusal of Greenland's extra quota is, of course, starkly at odds with that given by countries voting against it.

And Giuseppe Raaphorst believes the EU is not duty bound to block any move that entails lifting the moratorium.

"The EU has a very clear mandate - we want to have the moratorium, or any better alternative that would stop whaling in due course, except for aboriginal whaling."

Seeking clarity

Where this will end up in a year's time, after all the various formal and informal meetings and dialogues and workshops and email exchanges have taken place, is anyone's guess.

Even IWC chairman William Hogarth, who has been driving the peace initiative, acknowledges that a year is a very short time in which to turn a snarling bear pit of suspicion into a modern, relevant environmental treaty organisation.

At times your head aches with the complexity.

So it was refreshing to see, in the lobby of the Santiago hotel which has hosted this year's meeting, an exhibition of startlingly huge photographs of whales - a humpback turning upside down, apparently frolicking; a mother and calf; a close-up view of a giant cetacean eye.

And then you remember - so that's why it matters.

Listen to Interview with IWC CHAIRMAN William Hogarth

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7478850.stm

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7478847.stm

Russians in control of nuclear supply firm

2008-08-11T15:30:00.001-07:00

Russians in control of nuclear supply firm

Sunday, 10 August 2008

Russian nuclear energy company OAO Atomenergoprom has acquired a controlling interest in Hungarian nuclear fuel-loading apparatus and cooling pumps maker Ganz Energetika. Atomenergoprom will gain a 51% stake in Ganz, which will retain 49%. The value of the deal was not disclosed. Atomenergoprom – an arm of Russian state-held nuclear energy holding Rosatom Corp – expects to double Ganz’s sales to Russia to nearly EUR 20 million within a year. The Russian firm, which constructs and operates nuclear power plants and extracts uranium, had reportedly earmarked EUR 30 million to purchase nuclear plant parts suppliers in Europe and Russia in 2008.

Mushrooms still exhibit elevated levels of caesium from Chernobyl

2008-08-11T12:08:00.000-07:00

Finnish wild mushrooms still exhibit elevated levels of caesium from Chernobyl nuclear accident

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The wild mushrooms tested in various parts of Finland still exhibit elevated levels of the radioactive caesium-137 that originates from the Chernobyl accident in 1986, while the caesium content of berries and animals has already become almost zero.
In addition to mushrooms, some hares and the predatory fish in small lakes still contain radioactive caesium.

”In the areas with the largest fallout, the level of radioactive caesium can be considerable. However, mushrooms can be eaten in moderation, even when the contents are high, exceeding the hightest permissible level recommended for commercial mushrooms”, says researcher Eila Kostiainen from the Nuclear Safety Authority (STUK).
The easiest way to reduce the caesium content is to pre-process the mushrooms with water.
”Caesium is water-soluble and can be disposed of with water. The most important thing is to soak or boil the fresh, dried or salted mushrooms in abundant water and to throw away the water after the process.”
The drying of mushrooms alone does not reduce the level of radioactive caesium.

After the Chernobyl accident, the rain and airborne discharge swept over Southeastern and Central Finland, the districts of Häme and Pirkanmaa, as well as Ostrobothnia.
Based on the severity of the caesium fallout from Chernobyl, STUK has divided the Finnish territory into five categories.
The fifth category with the maximum level of radioactive contamination includes the localities of Artjärvi, Asikkala, Elimäki, Juupajoki, Jäppilä, Kuhmoinen, Kuorevesi, Lempäälä, Längelmäki, Mänttä, Nastola, Orivesi, Padasjoki, Pieksämäki, Pirkkala, Ruotsinpyhtää, Sahalahti, Sysmä, Tampere, Viiala, Vilppula, and Ylöjärvi.
The studies showed considerable variation in the levels of caesium in wild mushrooms, even within the same region. Moreover, the caesium amount is still 60 % of the content from the Chernobyl fallout.
However, the radiation amount from food is less than 1% of all radiation an average Finn is exposed to annually.
A considerably higher amount of radiation comes from radon gas exposure in dwellings. Radon affects indoor air quality, the source of the contamination being the the ground under buildings.

Why Wait? Build your Own- Step-by-step guide to applying or a nuclear site license

2008-08-11T12:06:00.000-07:00

In a separate matter, the UK Health and Safety Executive has published a new step-by-step guide to applying or a nuclear site license for a nuclear power station (in the UK). Aimed at organizations aiming to build new nuclear power stations, the guide sets out what they must do to prepare for a site license.

Follow this link to get the information to submit an application to apply fora nuclear site license for a nuclear power station. Surley you can do it a well as the next person.

Be your own Nuclear Power or learn the steps on how to apply for one. Nuclear Fuel and the appropriate

Lean how to apply to build your own

India nuclear energy market attracts Japan

2008-08-11T11:37:00.000-07:00

India nuclear energy market attracts Japan

NEW DELHI, Aug. 11 (UPI) -- India's nuclear energy market has drawn Japan's attention, even as it firms up its stand on the Indo-U.S. civilian nuclear deal.

As the nuclear deal goes before the Nuclear Suppliers Group this month for securing a waiver, Japan, an NSG member, is keen to ensure getting a share of India's nuclear energy market.

"The Japanese industries do have cutting-edge advanced nuclear power generation technology. Certainly we think our companies are as competitive as any other companies abroad to do business in India," Kazuo Kodama, Japanese Foreign Ministry press secretary, told the Press Trust of India in New Delhi during a visit.

The Indo-U.S. nuclear deal has been cleared by the International Atomic Energy Agency, and now goes before the 45-member NSG. Later it will be sent to U.S. Congress for ratification.

The PTI report said Japan's expression of interest in the Indian market is significant even though it hasn't officially announced what position it will take at the NSG.

McCain’s Michigan Melt-Down Madness

2008-08-11T11:32:00.000-07:00

I know that I published this article a couple of days ago. I very STRONGLY feel that this article and what it implies! It Is critical (no pun intended) to the upcoming ELECTION and the future of the seventh generation. So I am publishing it again, for those that may have missed it in the Beijing Olympic madness! Please pass this article to friends, co-workers and your children (as the are the real recipients of this proposed action) by a Presidential candidate, no less. gregor, editor of this blog and this is my personal feelings.

McCain’s Michigan Melt-Down Madness

by Harvey Wasserman

Leave it to John McCain to pick the site of a horrific atomic meltdown to symbolize his push for nuke power.

McCain says he wants at least 45 more US reactors as part of his “do everything” campaign for American energy independence. Apparently that strategy does not include inflating car tires, long known as one of the easiest, cheapest and most reliable ways to significantly improve auto gas mileage. McCain had only ridicule for Barack Obama’s ideas to fight waste in our energy economy.

Indeed, the term “efficiency” has no apparent place in the McBush lexicon. The “drill drill drill” mantra speaks only of production, a “supply side” Reaganomic approach to a problem whose fastest solution is to cut back on demand. As if turning off lights in empty rooms or making cars run cleaner is somehow an affront to American manhood, more production is the one and only idea in McCain’s energy plan.

Thus it was fitting he chose Monroe, Michigan for a nuke-powered energy push. The town’s central square hosts a statue honoring General George Armstrong Custer, wiped out by Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse at the Little Big Horn in the summer of 1876.

More important was the melt-down at Monroe’s Fermi Unit I on October 5, ninety years later.

Fermi I was a sodium-cooled fast-breeder. Its promise was not only electricity “too cheap to meter,” but a fuel system that would magically generate more than it used. This astonishing fantasy was part of a government sponsored “Peaceful Atom” push to paste a happy face on the nuclear weapons industry.

Fermi I was key in a number of ways. Detroit Edison’s legendary boss, Walker Sisler, told the feds he would be a prime nuke booster. But like the rest of the nation’s utility execs, he demanded protection against the monstrous liability that could come with a major melt-down.

So in 1957, before the “inherently safe” Fermi I was built, Congress passed the Price-Anderson Act, shielding reactor owners from the billions in lawsuits that would follow a catastrophe. Since they believed it would be a short time before private insurers stepped in, the bill was only good for 15 years. Since then, it has been constantly renewed. Today the prospective builders of new reactors demand this same federal insurance protection. So the “temporary” acknowledgement that private insurers won’t touch atomic reactors is now a permanent shield for this “safe” technology.

Fermi I was subjected to the first major legal challenge to reactor construction by the United Auto Workers legendary lawyer Leo Goodman. The UAW took Edison all the way to the Supreme Court, where it lost 7-2. In a benchmark minority decision, Justices William O. Douglas and Hugo Black warned that nuclear power involved “a lighthearted approach to the most awesome, the most deadly, the most dangerous process that man has ever conceived.”

In 1966 a blockage occurred in the $100 million plant’s cooling system. Because it carried highly volatile liquid sodium, which can explode when exposed to air, all of southeastern Michigan stood at the brink of an unthinkable catastrophe. Police officials seriously debated evacuating Detroit, just forty miles north.

But an explosion at Fermi would have permanently irradiated the Great Lakes and a gigantic area of land stretching hundreds of miles in all directions. Countless thousands of people would have died from both short-term and long-term radiation sickness. One actual victim from the releases that did occur may have been then-Vice President Hubert Humphrey, who spoke in Monroe the day after the accident, and later died of cancer.

The public was kept totally in the dark. That day I served as Editorial Director of the University of Michigan Daily, where we were tapped in to the core of the nation’s major news sources. Though I was the Time Magazine and United Press International correspondent for Ann Arbor, just forty miles west, I never heard a word about this accident until I stumbled upon John G. Fuller’s legendary WE ALMOST LOST DETROIT in 1974. Writing for the Readers Digest Press, Fuller’s astonishing tale still sends chills down the spines of a whole generation that lived in the neighborhood and never suspected the danger we were in.

So Monroe is indeed a fitting global symbol for nuclear power. In mere moments, a $100 million asset became a multi-billion-dollar liability, and millions of people and square miles were put at unconscionable — and uninsured — risk.

But for John McCain, none of this seems to matter. His fellow nuke backers argue that the Fermi-style fast breeder is no longer on the table.

In response, we suggest that the next time he’s overseas pumping his global creds, he can lead a “more nukes” rally at Chernobyl. And when he comes home, MCain can complete the trifecta at Three Mile Island.

Harvey Wasserman’s SOLARTOPIA! Our Green-Powered Earth is at www.harveywasserman.com, along with his HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. In 1989 he was given the Leo Goodman Award for safe energy activism by the Citizens Energy Council’s Larry Bogart. This article was originally published by http://freepress.org.

Nuclear Study Bill Before Governor, Four More Waiting To Be Transmitted

2008-08-11T11:30:00.000-07:00

Nuclear Study Bill Before Governor, Four More Waiting To Be Transmitted

Monday, August 11, 2008 02:58 PM

Guam
Guam - Only one bill passed by the Legislature early Saturday morning has made its way to Acting Governor Mike Cruz’s desk and the officials in the Legislature say they don’t expect the four other measures to be transmitted until just before the end of the workday.

Currently, Adelup’s legal team is reviewing Bill 349, which appropriates $250,000 to the Guam Environmental Protection Agency for an independent study of the water and sediment in Apra Harbor. Lawmakers and the Executive Branch called for another look at the Harbor after the Navy admitted the nuclear submarine the USS Houston leaked radioactive water over the span of two years. The measure also gives money to the rhinoceros beetle eradication efforts.

But the lawmaking body passed other bills at a late-night session last week. An omnibus education bill would order textbooks for the Guam Public School System, pay outstanding obligations for the school lunch program, and gives the Superintendent and the Guam Education Policy Board the authority to lift schools’ population caps. Adelup is also waiting on the final versions of a measure from Senator Frank Ishizaki implements a graduated pay raise for law enforcement officials, legislation from Senator Frank Blas tightens arrivals from countries under an advisory from the Centers for Disease Control or the World Health Organization, and a bill from Senator B.J. Cruz that limits the term someone can serve as the Acting head of an agency or a board or commission member.

Written by Phillip Leon Guerrero, Pacific News Center - Guam, Saipan, CNMI, Asia-Pacific

‘Nuclear Weapons: For Bragging Rights or M.A.D. Rites?’

2008-08-10T14:57:00.000-07:00

‘Nuclear Weapons: For Bragging Rights or M.A.D. Rites?’
Jack L. Key

Will Nuclear Proliferation Become Armageddon? Iran and that country’s headlong attempts at uranium enrichment for nuclear weapons manufacture has again focused world attention to use of these terrible weapons of mass destruction. Now we read that Syria and N. Korea are also involved in nuclear proliferation in a Middle East regional boiling pot of hatred and religious conflict. Is this the true Biblical philosophy of a world-ending bloody battle in modern times?

American military nuclear strategies must be upgraded and improved from those of Cold War times in order to deal with a volatile and a nuclear-armed Middle East. Comments of world leaders during the last few weeks and ultimatums by Israel have heightened these anxieties and brought more focus to the American presidential elections later this year. Is a quick-strike nuclear war the only viable option?

Must America just sit and wait for some religious lunatic or puffed-up evil country such as Iran to attack us with nuclear weapons and kill hundreds of thousands—perhaps millions—of us? September 11, 2001 showed us it could happen—and probably will. Our nuclear policies must be dramatically overhauled now!

An American nuclear strategist at The Oak Ridge Center for Advanced Studies in Oak Ridge, Tennessee wrote a newspaper article last September that held special interest for me. His article dealt with theories and policy statements by Thomas Schelling, a Nobel Economics laureate most social democrats think shaped the nuclear deterrence policies that contribute to the so-called “international security environment” and lack of nuclear war we have experienced since 1946.

Briefly, Schelling’s theory states the “nuclear deterrence” over the past 6 decades was that no state that had developed nuclear weapons has ever attacked another state armed similarly with nuclear weapons, and this alone has deterred nuclear war. Schelling also advocates nuclear weapons are for “having and not using”. Due to the equalizing threat of mutually assured destruction (MAD), these weapons cannot win wars but only prevent them.

In my opinion, the article misjudges this fact and Schelling’s theory, as well as the behavior of developed nuclear states over the past decades since America used the first atomic bomb to end the war with Japan and WWII in 1945.

The article went so far as to assume that the horizontal proliferation—the spread of nuclear weapons to other states—can maintain the same theoretical logic while referring to N. Korea, Iran, Pakistan, India, Israel and China as those of the U.S., Russia, Great Britain and France over the past 60 years.

It is not only false logic to assume these states will behave as the original four nuclear states, but that Schelling’s basic point in his theory, “get a nuke and permanently rule out invasion from other powers”, is fatally flawed.

That assumes that the vertical proliferation—the building of more and better nuclear weapons and delivery systems by nuclear nations—is controlled, and that political and military aggressiveness no longer exists in any nation simply because they possess a nuclear weapon.

That certainly is NOT the case, as evidenced by the new warheads and missile delivery systems recently announced by Iran and N. Korea and several of the major powers in defiance of existing treaties. The current aggressive leadership and unsettled political situation in Iran, and possibly Syria, N. Korea and others, blatantly exposes Schelling’s theoretical flaws, and is a perfect example of both the horizontal and vertical proliferation problems.

India and Pakistan, the Central Asian region’s two most warring nations, succeeded in the late 1990’s in obtaining nuclear weapons without a whimper from the Western Allies or United Nations, and surprised us all.

Did the two countries buy them or make them? Who provided the technology to manufacture, or who sold them the weapons and why? You may have two guesses, and both may be correct. All the evidence points to China and Russia, through their intermediary, N. Korea.

Unfortunately, the high academic standings of both Schelling and the Oak Ridge nuclear strategist alone is not nearly enough to make life and death judgments regarding world nuclear armament and use strategies.

THE COLD WAR STANDOFF

Only the American nuclear arsenal and the fact the U.S. had used the weapon in WW II combat was the security blanket for the free world during the Cold War, and certainly not an academics’ unproven theory.

If the U.S. had not kept pace with the Soviet Union on nuclear weaponry and delivery systems during all those years, does anyone doubt this country would not have been overcome politically or by war and become a Soviet satellite in the volatile Cold War years of the 1950’s?

During my own military service in the U.S. Navy I hunted Soviet Navy nuclear submarines in the Atlantic and North Atlantic. Both navies were armed with nuclear weapons and easily could have used them if the occasion ever arose. They were aboard my ASW aircraft many times, although never fused. In my personal military confrontations with Soviet naval units in those Cold War years, on every occasion they seemed to find ways to avoid direct intimidation or confrontation with our U.S. naval units—as we did with them.

Perhaps unknown to the Soviets at the time however, was that an American response to any overt naval action by them would have been almost impossible, due to the heavy restraints placed on U.S. Naval Commanders by the U.S. political leadership. Once the lengthy process of obtaining final permission to fire a weapon, either nuclear or conventional, was received from Washington, we would have already been defeated by faster Soviet approval action, which had only one on-board restrictive process, and did not require direct permission to fire from Moscow.

American policy in this regard, while upgraded since those years must be further upgraded to meet the current world conditions, especially in the Middle East and Persian Gulf. The Soviet naval mission, whatever it may have been at the time, would have been completed and well on their way to the next victory before we could have cleared permission to fire and set codes.

We all should remember that after the fiasco in Vietnam, when know-all Democrat politicians and strategists opted to fight an armed conflict from their desks in Washington that killed over 58,000 young Americans, it is the trained experts in the military who are best suited to plan and fight America’s battles, not civilian overseers. While oversight is needed, it is not needed on the battle line.

Americans should also be aware that even today, 18 years since the close of the Cold War, Chinese and Russian submarines armed with some one hundred or more nuclear missiles with multiple warheads lie off both coasts of the United States at all times. Because the political rhetoric has been turned down does not mean that the military readiness of either Russia or China has been lessened.

Nor has our own defenses and potential nuclear offensive weapons systems been completely shut down. President Bush has kept his promises to America and upgraded some of our outdated systems and has kept us free of further terrorist attacks and military provocations, with some exceptions such as the USS Cole.

But our country does not have the air defense or missile protection to stop over 80% of those enemy submarine missiles, plus other hidden hostile land-based missiles, from hitting their pre-set targets of American cities, military installations, missile sites and nuclear naval units.

While it is true the U.S. has both nuclear missile submarines and land-based missiles operating as a nuclear deterrent, some near both Russia and China and also armed with multiple nuclear warheads, it would not be possible to stop or overcome a sneak nuclear and biological attack from either country on the U.S. and Canada even with effective early-warning systems and devices.

If severely damaged from U.S. retaliatory strikes after a sneak attack, both aggressor countries would still be capable of immediately invading the destroyed U.S. and Canadian lands and cities and killing the remaining populations with biological weapons. This may be accomplished in weeks, not months or years. Under the current known political and congressional restraints and our military capability, our combined American-Canadian military could be defeated in approximately one hour in this type scenario. Both American and Canadian populations could be eliminated in less than a week.

The world was simply lucky during the Cold War era that the U.S. had used nuclear weapons once before in combat in ending World War Two and the Soviets knew it and feared it. That is what kept Soviet fingers off the nuclear trigger, not academic theories or paper strategies.

China did not enjoy a nuclear parity with the U.S. until the last decade. They were dependent early on with nuclear weapons and delivery systems purchased from the Soviets and were not then a large threat—not so now. China is engaged in the largest military upgrades in history and has the world’s largest military machine, and Russia has upgraded its nuclear forces while the U.S. has been busy elsewhere.

These facts alone have been the real nuclear deterrence up until now—a Mexican standoff between the three major nuclear powers.

If anyone doubts that honest opinion, then read the speech of the (then) Chinese Defense Minister Gen. Chi Hoatian in 2005 to the Chinese Communist Central Committee. He advocates not only nuclear war with the U.S. and that it is inevitable, but also how to “depopulate” America before the Chinese invade the country.

The speech was published on the Internet by several watchdog websites, as well as in the conservative press, and is still available by searching the web (at this writing).

A NUCLEAR TERRORIST WAR?

We should be deeply concerned that the world is approaching the casual use of these terrible weapons. If some Islamic jihadist murderer, other middle east zealot, a left-over communist ideologue such as rules in Venezuela or Cuba, or the paranoid Chinese with their itchy trigger fingers fire just one weapon at either Taiwan, the Navy’s Pacific or Atlantic Fleets, American Middle East forces or the U.S. mainland, then the end begins.

World War Two history tells us Hitler would have used WMD’s in his last days, and so would Tojo’s fanatic Japanese warlords if they’d had them. Castro said he would have used them in the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962 if the Soviets had given him the fusing codes to fire their first missiles placed on Cuban soil.

Thank God Soviet Premier Krushshev retained missile control until the warheads were removed from Cuba. Maybe even Nikita Krushshev would have fired earlier in a weak moment, no one knows for sure. And for the record, neither President John F. Kennedy nor Bobby Kennedy had not one thing to do with preventing a nuclear holocaust from Cuba. It was totally Krushshev’s call from the get-go. He probably saved the world in spite of the Kennedys’ stubborness.

Now the Chinese communists tell us they will use nuclear weapons against us if America interferes in their solving of the “Taiwan Question”. Russia recently reverted to a hard line stance over U.S. defense missile plans in Europe, and has threatened to re-target their missiles at us. Iran and North Korea are both posturing with their missiles and possible nuclear weapons capability, and daring the world to stop them. Terrorist cells are always a threat

The loony tunes leaders of Iran and N. Korea may not yet have a weapon, but are almost certainly making them. So what makes the great liberal thinkers and writers of today so sure we can trust other opponents such as these now?

Are they so naïve as to think N. Korea and China are being forthright and truthful? That Russia has disarmed? That the Middle East is a peaceful brotherhood of countries? That the current religious idiot and loose cannon heading up Iran wouldn’t use any weapon or kill any person to achieve his goals? That Osama Bin Laden wouldn’t use a nuclear device on America if he could find one? Or even buy one? And who is to say terrorist plans are not already underway and that nuclear strikes could occur now?

If Democrat President Bill Clinton had shown some guts in the 1990’s after the initial Islamic terrorist attacks on America we might have prevented 9/11 and the Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts altogether and saved over 7,000 American civilian and military lives.

Millions of innocents died before and during the two world wars, and before the world and their own state-supported falsehoods and failures finally stopped the Sino-Soviet march of communism. Do we want millions more to die before we as a country rise up and stop the nuclear weapons progression and world terrorism dead in it’s tracks? Attacking and destroying Iran now could quite possibly save the rest of the world from destruction at a later time.

We can no longer wait to be attacked and killed first, as in 1941 and 2001, and then retaliate automatically as we have in the past. With nuclear weapons we would lose millions dead in a single attack—and possibly the ability to retaliate successfully—and we could lose a nuclear war, our country and many more millions of our citizens.

America must have a first-strike strategy, just as it’s enemies do—and the world should know it and be forewarned.

TERRORISM AND AMERICAN POLITICS

President Bush has been hampered and obstructed from quickly handling the Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts by American liberal politicians, biased media, leftist academics, anti-war fanatics, uninformed no-win policy makers and lack of solid intelligence.

We should remember the American military defeated Iraq in two weeks, and only after the U.S. mainstream media empires embraced the Iraqi insurgency did it flourish. America’s runaway socialist media has used the terrorist war crisis and the horror of 9/11 for their own selfish purposes, just as Osama Bin-laden and his deputies predicted almost 7 years ago—when they said publicly American TV and newspapers would make them a winner.

The great American media empires of newspapers, the New York Times, Washington Post and others, press agencies such as the Associated Press and major TV networks like ABC, CNN, CBS and NBC have been re-formed since 9/11 and the election of President Bush.

Their mission now is to harass the government, provide anti-war propaganda, progressively change national policy, politics, education, and religion and obliterate cultural origins. Reporting the news truthfully and without bias is no longer a multi-media function.

Now mass media is full of glee as Congress mulls passing a “Shield Law” that would ban U.S. judges from using their power to extract news sources—true or untrue- -from reporters and editors and TV news producers. For the first time in our history, the public will be censored from ever knowing the truth. The so-called “Fairness Doctrine” will further empower the socialist press and shut down free and open radio reporting.

These media-programmed changes in our democratic life principles are taking place from small cities and towns to large metropolitan areas. Are you aware your city or town newspaper is no longer owned locally? Did you know your local TV station and newspaper are probably owned by the same media giant? That you see, read and hear only what they prepare for you—along with their views, biases and political leanings, day after day, week after week, year after year, generation after generation and so on?

Movie and TV moguls and liberal magazines such as TIME, NEWSWEEK and the NEW YORKER spew out hatred of our governmental institutions, our armed forces and prey on the minds of young adults on a daily basis. Our schools and colleges are organized with rewritten history that portrays America as a failing, racist and war-mongering country while preaching a “social-progressive” curriculum and poisoning our children’s minds.

Our great universities turn out teachers, journalists, doctors and lawyers that have been taught by academics and professors who openly teach socialism and communism as their ideal societies. Our Christian religion and its teachings are ridiculed and our cultural values belittled by leftist politicians sitting in the power chairs of America.

Just this weekend of August 1, 2008 a parade and mass demonstration was held in New York City that called the USA the “world’s aggressor” and aligned President Bush with Napoleon and Hitler as the world’s “most hated dictators.” This happened in our own country by foreigners and Islamists who entered freely! And they were protected by our own police forces! Where else but in America?

President Bush’s War on Terror’s military policies do have flaws—all combat policies do—but thank God we have a man such as George W. Bush who took it personally when we were viciously attacked that fateful day in September 2001 when 3,000 defenseless American men, women and children were murdered at their jobs by cowardly Muslim fanatics.

The President has kept the Islamic killers at bay, and enemy leaders confused and in disarray by showing them everyday we DO indeed carry a big stick, and will walk softly only until being tread upon—and will still fight the good fight—for the time being, at least.

Even with many hardened enemies in the media and in Congress, the President has presided over 7 years of the greatest American prosperity the world has ever seen. And all that while fighting a 6-year War on Terror in two foreign countries and keeping America free from further terrorist attacks—and it seems the country hates him for it.

History will record Mr. Bush as one of our greatest presidents, but his approval rating on leaving office next January is one of the lowest in history. The Democrat Congress record is even worse.

Bush has defeated an evil dictator in Iraq and the Taliban in Afghanistan and faced down N. Korea and Iran. He is building new American missile defenses in Europe and the Pacific Rim. President George Bush has given “Homeland Security” a new meaning and globalized the fight against international terrorism. He alone held the country together after 9/11, and single handedly kept us from engaging in a nuclear catastrophe in the Middle East after the killings in New York and Washington.

Could we trust socialist democrats Hillary Clinton or B. Hussein Obama to do the same? Trust liberal quitters and “progressives”such as Harry Reid, Ted Kennedy, John Kerry or Nancy Pelosi to determine national policy? I don’t think so.

Defeatist policies, socialist principles and weak government will get many more American innocents killed in this mean and dangerous world we live in. We must have a sound, but formidable military strategy and effective nuclear policies, not a quick-draw, shoot from the hip fragmented design implemented by showy politicians with no military experience such as was employed by two Democrat presidents during the Vietnam conflict.

Misjudging the use of weapons of mass destruction by evil and power-mad countries and Islamic terrorist organizations will destroy the world as we know it—and all in the blink of an eye.

Jack L. Key, Ph.D

Jack L. Key, Ph.D. is a retired healthcare professional and a veteran of U.S. Navy aviation. He is the author of “Gideon’s Trumpet” a parallel of peace and war in the 21st century, and also writes political commentary for both print and electronic media. http://www.authorsden.com/jackkey

Physicist who helped develop A-bomb reflects on experiences in first visit to Hiroshima

2008-08-09T12:08:00.000-07:00

Physicist who helped develop A-bomb reflects on experiences in first visit to Hiroshima

Hinton sits in front of the Atomic Bomb Dome at the Peace Memorial Park in Hiroshima's Naka-ku during her first visit to Hiroshima on Aug. 5.
Hinton sits in front of the Atomic Bomb Dome at the Peace Memorial Park in Hiroshima's Naka-ku during her first visit to Hiroshima on Aug. 5.

Joan Hinton, a physicist who participated in the Manhattan Project -- the U.S. drive to develop a nuclear weapon during World War II -- spoke about her experiences during a recent visit to Hiroshima, where tens of thousands of people perished in the Aug. 6, 1945 atomic bomb attack on the city.

Left with a feeling of despair after the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki that claimed so many lives, Hinton, now 86, moved to China, where she has lived for the past six decades as a dairy farmer.

On Aug. 5, a day before the 63rd anniversary of the Hiroshima attack, Hinton made a visit to the Atomic Bomb Dome, a building in Hiroshima that was left in rubble to serve as a reminder of the atomic bomb's destructive power.

"Awful," she said, looking up at the steel frame of the dome, before carefully reading through the English explanation placed near the structure.

During an interview at a hotel in Hiroshima, Hinton spoke of her experience as a physicist who had thought pure science was supreme, not knowing the atomic bomb would be dropped on Japan.

During the world's first atomic bomb experiment in the outskirts of Los Alamos, New Mexico, on July 16, 1945, Hinton watched with excitement as the mushroom cloud rose into the air. The explosion marked a moment of fruition for the Manhattan Project, which began in 1942 and employed as many as 129,000 people at one stage in a race against Germany and the Soviet Union to develop a nuclear weapon.

"I thought pure science was above everything," Hinton said.

Hinton, a talented young physicist who had already built a device to measure radiation, joined the project in 1944 at the age of 21. She took on the task of purifying plutonium, and was given a "white badge" that gave her access to all data and research facilities in the project -- one of only around 100.

At the time, Hinton says, people didn't think that the bomb would be used to kill many people in the war -- Germany had surrendered unconditionally two months before the nuclear experiment took place.

But on Aug. 6, the atomic bomb exploded over Hiroshima. Hinton, who learned about the bombing in the newspaper, was lost for words.

"We didn't know," she said.

After the war, Hinton took part in a movement against the use of nuclear weapons. She traveled to Shanghai, China, in 1948, amid a civil war and later moved to Inner Mongolia.

Questioning her disappearance from the United States, an American magazine labeled her an atom bomb "spy." Her whereabouts became known in 1951, when an English-language paper in China published a letter she addressed to the Federation of American Scientists. Part of the letter read as follows:

"The memory of Hiroshima -- 150 thousand lives. One, two, three, four, five, six ... 150 thousand -- each a living, thinking, human being with hopes and desires, failures and successes, a life of his or her own -- all gone. And I had held that bomb in my hand."

Sixty-three years have passed since that morning when the bomb exploded over Hiroshima. Even now hibakusha, or atomic bomb survivors, suffer from aftereffects of the bombing, and there are still people who hate the United States.

It's not easy for Hinton to find words to say to the survivors: "What should I say?"

Full text of 2008 Hiroshima Peace Declaration

2008-08-09T12:05:00.000-07:00

Full text of 2008 Hiroshima Peace Declaration

The following is the full text of the Peace Declaration issued by Hiroshima Mayor Tadatoshi Akiba at a memorial ceremony on Wednesday, the 63rd anniversary of the atomic bombing of the city.

-----

Another August 6, and the horrors of 63 years ago arise undiminished in the minds of our hibakusha, whose average age now exceeds 75. "Water, please!" "Help me!" "Mommy!" -- On this day, we, too, etch in our hearts the voices, faces and forms that vanished in the hell no hibakusha can ever forget, renewing our determination that "No one else should ever suffer as we did."

Because the effects of that atomic bomb, still eating away at the minds and bodies of the hibakusha, have for decades been so underestimated, a complete picture of the damage has yet to emerge. Most severely neglected have been the emotional injuries. Therefore, the city of Hiroshima is initiating a two-year scientific exploration of the psychological impact of the A-bomb experience.

This study should teach us the grave importance of the truth, born of tragedy and suffering, that "the only role for nuclear weapons is to be abolished."

This truth received strong support from a report compiled last November by the city of Hiroshima. Scientists and other nuclear-related experts exploring the damage from a postulated nuclear attack found once again that the only way to protect citizens from such an attack is the total abolition of nuclear weapons. This is precisely why the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and the International Court of Justice advisory opinion state clearly that all nations are obligated to engage in good-faith negotiations leading to complete nuclear disarmament. Furthermore, even leaders previously central to creating and implementing US nuclear policy are now repeatedly demanding a world without nuclear weapons.

We who seek the abolition of nuclear weapons are the majority. United Cities and Local Governments, which represents the majority of the Earth's population, have endorsed the Mayors for Peace campaign. One hundred and ninety states have ratified the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. One hundred thirteen countries and regions have signed nuclear-weapon-free zone treaties. Last year, 170 countries voted in favor of Japan's UN resolution calling for the abolition of nuclear weapons. Only three countries, the US among them, opposed this resolution. We can only hope that the president of the United States elected this November will listen conscientiously to the majority, for whom the top priority is human survival.

To achieve the will of the majority by 2020, Mayors for Peace, now with 2,368 city members worldwide, proposed in April of this year a Hiroshima-Nagasaki Protocol to supplement the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. This Protocol calls for an immediate halt to all efforts, including by nuclear-weapon states, to obtain or deploy nuclear weapons, with a legal ban on all acquisition or use to follow by 2015. Thus, it draws a concrete road map to a nuclear-weapon-free world. Now, with our destination and the map to that destination clear, all we need is the strong will and capacity to act to guard the future for our children.

World citizens and like-minded nations have achieved treaties banning anti-personnel landmines and cluster munitions. Meanwhile, the most effective measures against global warming are coming from cities. Citizens cooperating at city level can solve the problems of the human family because cities are home to the majority of the world's population, cities do not have militaries, and cities have built genuine partnerships around the world based on mutual understanding and trust.

The Japanese Constitution is an appropriate point of departure for a "paradigm shift" toward modeling the world on intercity relationships. I hereby call on the Japanese government to fiercely defend our Constitution, press all governments to adopt the Hiroshima-Nagasaki Protocol, and play a leading role in the effort to abolish nuclear weapons. I further request greater generosity in designating A-bomb illnesses and in relief measures appropriate to the current situations of our aging hibakusha, including those exposed in "black rain areas" and those living overseas.

Next month the G8 Speakers' Meeting will, for the first time, take place in Japan. I fervently hope that Hiroshima's hosting of this meeting will help our "hibakusha philosophy" spread throughout the world.

Now, on the occasion of this 63rd anniversary Peace Memorial Ceremony, we offer our heartfelt lamentations for the souls of the atomic bomb victims and, in concert with the city of Nagasaki and with citizens around the world, pledge to do everything in our power to accomplish the total eradication of nuclear weapons.

(Tadatoshi Akiba, Mayor, The City of Hiroshima)

(Mainichi Japan) August 6, 2008

Thousands gather to mark the anniversary of the atomic bombing of the Japanese city

2008-08-09T11:52:00.000-07:00

Nagasaki remembers
(01:32) Report

Aug. 09 - Thousands gather to mark the anniversary of the atomic bombing of the Japanese city

About 27,000 of the city's estimated 200,000 population died instantly, and about 70,000 had died by the end of 1945.

The toll is updated every year as more victims die of radiation sickness and 3,069 names were added to the list of the dead this year, bringing the official death toll to 145,984.

Benet Allen reports.

Soundbites:
# Shigeko Mori, Nagasaki atomic bomb survivor
# Yasuo Fukuda, prime minister

Thousands remember atomic bombing of Nagasaki on 63rd anniversary

2008-08-09T11:45:00.000-07:00

Thousands remember atomic bombing of Nagasaki on 63rd anniversary

People gather during a memorial ceremony at Nagasaki Peace Park on Saturday morning.

NAGASAKI -- Thousands of people including atomic bomb survivors gathered in Nagasaki on Saturday in a ceremony to mark the 63rd anniversary of the Aug. 9, 1945 atomic bomb attack on the city.

This year marks the 100th anniversary of the birth of Takashi Nagai (1908-1951), a physician who cared for wounded survivors, or hibakusha, in spite of his own injures. In a Peace Declaration during the ceremony at Nagasaki Peace Park, near ground zero, Nagasaki Mayor Tomihisa Taue quoted Nagai, saying, "There is no winning or losing in war; there is only ruin."

"There is no future for humans without the elimination of nuclear weapons," Taue said. He requested that Japan continue to take a leading role in working toward the elimination of nuclear weapons and turning into law Japan's three non-nuclear principles of neither possessing nor manufacturing nuclear weapons, nor permitting their introduction into Japan.

The ceremony began at 10:40 a.m., with about 5,650 people, including hibakusha, in attendance. Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda attended the ceremony, along with House of Representatives Speaker Yohei Kono, Health, Labor and Welfare Minister Yoichi Masuzoe, and representatives of eight countries.

Last year, representatives of 15 countries attended the ceremony, but the number dropped this year as a result of the Beijing Olympic Games that began on Friday.

Russia was the only country possessing nuclear weapons to be represented at the ceremony. The United States, which recently acknowledged that a small amount of radioactive cooling water leaked from the nuclear powered submarine USS Houston when it called at ports in Japan, did not make an appearance again this year.

At the beginning of the ceremony, three books containing the names of 3,058 hibakusha whose deaths were confirmed over the past year were enshrined in front of a peace memorial statue. With the addition, there are now 147 books containing the names of 145,984 people who have died.

At 11:02 a.m., the minute the bomb exploded over the city, ceremony participants held a moment of silence.

In a Peace Declaration read out at the ceremony Taue mentioned that people including former U.S. secretaries of state Henry Kissinger and George Schulz had submitted an article on steps toward a nuclear free world, adding that the authors were promoting the United States ratification of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, calling for the elimination of nuclear weapons.

The declaration pointed out that Russia and the United States are said to together possess 95 percent of the world's nuclear warheads and said these two countries "should begin implementing broad reductions of nuclear weapons."

Speaking on hibakusha, whose average age passed 75 for the first time this year, the declaration urged the Japanese government to quickly provide atomic bomb survivors with "support that corresponds with their reality."

In an address at the ceremony, Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda, who flew in directly from Beijing after attending the Olympic Games opening ceremony, said Japan would hold fast to the three non-nuclear principles and take the forefront on the international stage to eliminate nuclear weapons and achieve lasting peace. He added that Japan would abide by recently introduced guidelines for recognizing hibakusha and provide recognition to as many people as possible.

A representative of atomic bomb survivors also called for the elimination of nuclear weapons, describing them as weapons that in an instant burn everything, claim hundreds of thousands of lives, and leave people suffering all their lives even if they manage to survive.

Bombing of Nagasaki remembered today

2008-08-09T11:35:00.001-07:00

EVENTS: Bombing of Nagasaki remembered today

The 27th annual Atomic Cities Peace Memorial ceremony will be held at 8:30 p.m. today in the John Dam Plaza across from the Federal Building in Richland.

The ceremony, planned by World Citizens for Peace, marks the anniversary of the atomic bombing of Nagasaki, Japan, using plutonium produced at the Hanford nuclear reservation during World War II.

It will include the ringing of a model of the Bell of Peace, a gift sent by the mayor of Nagasaki to the people of Richland in 1985. The Bell of Peace is a church bell recovered from ruins near ground zero in Nagasaki and rung to console survivors.

The model of the bell in Richland will be rung in memory of the Americans who died at Pearl Harbor and the Japanese who died at Nagasaki.

World Citizens for Peace also plan a silent peace vigil from noon to 1 p.m. today in John Dam Plaza.

Iran nuclear plant to begin work soon

2008-08-08T09:15:00.000-07:00

Iran nuclear plant to begin work soon
Fri, 08 Aug 2008 06:25:34 GMT

Bushehr nuclear plant

Iran expects to witness its first Russian-built nuclear power plant come on stream in early 2009 in its southern port city of Bushehr.

Head of Iran's Atomic Energy Organization Gholam-Reza Aqazadeh said the initial launch of the power plant should take place in the current Iranian calendar year, which ends on March 20, 2009.

"We expect that Russia will fulfill its commitment and launch the power plant," Aqazadeh told ISNA in an exclusive interview on Friday.

In January 1995, Iran and Russia signed an $800 million contract that committed Moscow to completing one of the two nuclear reactors in Bushehr within four years.

Atomstroiexport, the Russian subcontractor helping to build the plant, has delayed the construction by more than a decade.

Iranian Energy Minister Parviz Fattah said late last month that the 1000-megawat power plant would be operational 'within a year'.

"Had the nuclear plant been launched, we could have reduced the level of the electricity shortage we faced in Iran this year by nearly 50 percent," Fattah added.

The news comes as the Islamic Republic suffers from daily power outages because of a dramatic drop in rainfall in the current Iranian calendar year.

The shortage in electricity has forced Iran's Energy Ministry to adopt a rationing program by scheduling power outages across both urban and rural areas in the country. Each area sees electricity cut for up to four hours a day.
Fri, 08 Aug 2008 06:25:34 GMT

Bushehr nuclear plant

Government officials seek response plan to radioactive leak

2008-08-08T09:06:00.000-07:00

Despite this government officials like acting Governor Mike Cruz, Speaker Judi Won Pat, and Senator Frank Blas Junior met today as they believe the leakage stresses the need for an independent process and protocol to monitor the leakage of waste in Apra Harbor and future leaks.

As we reported Senator B.J. Cruz recently introduced Bill 349 that seeks to appropriate $100,000 to Public Health's Environmental Health Division to conduct an independent investigation and study of the leakage of radioactive material into Apra Harbor by the U.S. Navy. The legislation would also require a permanent monitoring device be installed at the entrance of the harbor to detect and provide early warning signs of any radioactive contaminants that may be discharged into Guam's waters.

The acting Governor and Speaker Won Pat requested Bill 349 be placed on emergency status without a public hearing as lawmakers have already agreed to act expeditiously on the legislation. Public Health and Guam EPA are currently working with their federal counterparts to address the issue.
The acting governor adds that U.S. EPA has agreed that the amount of leakage was minimal however they are questioning how the data was presented and are recommending that Guam pursue independent testing.

In light of the leak and the Navy handled the release of information, Senator Ben Pangelinan sent a letter calling for major changes at Big Navy. "I believe that the actions of the local Naval command to withhold information of the leakage of the nuclear elements into Guam waters over a two year period is inexcusable and unacceptable and as such today I am sending off a letter to the Commander of the Naval Forces in the Pacific Admiral Keating in Hawaii for the removal of the local Naval command," the Democrat lawmaker stated.

Meanwhile Congresswoman Madeleine Bordallo issued the following statement: “I have been updated on the status of the U.S.S. Houston incident. I was told that the valve leakage has occurred since 2006, which extended the number of locations which were potentially impacted. The Governments of Malaysia and Republic of Singapore were also informed that the U.S.S. Houston made port calls in those countries during this period. In addition, it is believed that this small amount of weepage from the valve and the subsequent tests of Apra Harbor by the U.S. Navy indicate that the leakage of water from the submarine did not harm the environment or place the residents of Guam or crew in danger. I will continue to work to ensure the safety of the residents of Guam as well as the sailors on-board our nuclear submarine force. I have requested and will receive a more comprehensive briefing from the U.S. Department of Energy, which has shared oversight on the safe operation of the U.S. Navy’s nuclear propulsion program. I also want to further explore how this defective valve went unnoticed during previous maintenance or while the ship was in service.”

Six nuclear protesters arrested at North Anna plant visitors area

2008-08-08T08:54:00.001-07:00

By CARLOS SANTOS

TIMES-DISPATCH STAFF WRITER

Six anti-nuclear power protesters were arrested at the North Anna power plant's visitor center yesterday after refusing to leave at its closing time.

Richard Zuercher, a spokesman for Dominion Virginia Power, said about 25 protesters showed up at the visitor's center near Mineral in Louisa County at about 2:30 p.m.

The protesters at one point sat down in the center's exhibition hall and began chanting anti-nuclear sentiments, he said.

Zuercher said Virginia Power officials spoke to the protesters and asked them to leave by 4 p.m., when the visitor center normally closes. Some refused to leave and authorities were called.

By the time State Police and Louisa County Sheriff's Department deputies arrived, only six protestors remained in the building and were arrested for trespassing. They were cheered by the crowd as they were led away, said Zuercher. No one was injured.

"Dominion recognizes the people's right to speak their mind but we don't endorse illegal activity,'' said Zuercher.

The center is about 1 mile from the company's two nuclear reactors.

The protesters align themselves with such environmental advocacy groups as Blue Ridge Earth First!, Rising Tide North America, and Nuclear Watch South, said Mary Olson, a spokeswoman for Nuclear Watch South.

Olson said the protest was held because "we're trying to show visible opposition to the revival of nuclear power. Virginia Power appears poised to build another reactor at its North Anna plant.

"Part of what we're doing is sending up flares that this is happening,'' said Olson.

"Nuclear reactors are cost prohibitive, slow to build, and have an ecological footprint that is several times larger than that of wind, solar and other efficiency technologies," she also said in a statement.

"Every dollar spent on nuclear proliferation is money lost on safer, sustainable methods of generation," she added.

Contact Carlos Santos at (434) 295-9542 or csantos@timesdispatch.com.

No easy answers on nuclear waste

2008-08-07T16:23:00.000-07:00

No easy answers on nuclear waste

Thursday, August 07, 2008

The facts and figures surrounding Yucca Mountain, the proposed Arizona site that would hold the nation's nuclear waste, never fail to astonish. The cost, which continues to climb with each passing year, now stands at an estimated $96 billion. And the amount of waste, which by some calculations could come in at 122,000 tons, is not easily brushed aside.

But there is one number that stands out among all the others, that forces one to take a serious step back to consider the implications of Yucca Mountain specifically and the nation's nuclear waste more generally: Some of the spent nuclear fuel will remain highly radioactive for a million years.

What we've got on our hands here is a very real - and very long-lasting - problem.

We have argued previously in this space that a rush toward Yucca Mountain may not be the wisest of choices. Imagine tons and tons of dangerous spent nuclear fuel hurtling across the nation on interstate highways and on rail lines and aboard barges, zipping through urban and suburban areas, beside rivers and lakes and municipal water supplies, through rural farmland and across bridges great and small. Then, imagine this happening year after year - without a single accident.

It's almost enough to make you think that doing nothing at all is the best choice. Until you consider what doing nothing at all actually means.

There is no easy solution to this problem. And it is not going to just go away.

Yucca Mountain is in the news again following the newest cost estimate from the Energy Department. It should remain a real part of the debate as calls for the construction of new nuclear power plants continue to mount. We are not suggesting that the reality of nuclear waste should rule out new nuke plants. But it has got to be a part of the discussion.

The nation doesn't need to come up with definitive plans tomorrow, but we shouldn't wait forever. We don't, after all, have a million years to decide on the next - and wisest - nuclear move.

UN nuclear watchdog in Tehran talks amid sanctions calls

2008-08-07T16:14:00.001-07:00

	Photo 1 of 3

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad

UN nuclear watchdog in Tehran talks amid sanctions calls

20 hours ago

TEHRAN (AFP) — The UN atomic watchdog's number two was in Tehran on Thursday for a new round of talks on Iran's nuclear drive as Western governments said the time had come for the Security Council to impose fresh sanctions.

The two-day visit comes a day after six world powers discussed Iran's response to their latest offer to resolve the nuclear standoff, which has helped push world oil prices to record levels.

It was not clear if Heinonen's visit was directly related to the incentives being offered to Iran to freeze uranium enrichment activities, a process that Western nations fear could be diverted to build an atomic weapon.

A diplomat close to the International Atomic Energy Agency said Heinonen's visit was likely to concentrate on clarifying outstanding questions the watchdog has about Iran's nuclear programme rather than the incentives offer.

Heinonen has made a series of visits to Iran as part of the agency's longstanding efforts to make sure there is no military dimension to the programme, the last on April 28.

That visit focused on studies that the IAEA suspects Iran carried out in the past into the engineering involved in making a nuclear warhead.

But a source at the Iranian atomic energy organisation insisted that these "alleged studies" would not be on the agenda of the new talks.

In his last report on Iran in May, IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei accused Tehran of withholding key information on the so-called weaponisation studies.

Iran dismissed the allegations as "baseless", insisting it had provided a comprehensive response.

It has since gone further, with Vice President Gholam Reza Aghazadeh, who heads Iran's atomic energy organisation, insisting that the alleged weaponisation studies were not a matter for the UN watchdog.

"We are dealing with it through other channels. Measures have already been taken and we will follow them up if necessary and if appropriate," Aghazadeh said last month.

On Wednesday, Britain and the United States said the six powers now had "no choice" but to seek new UN sanctions after Iran failed to give a "clear positive response" to their latest offer of trade and technology incentives in return for an enrichment freeze.

The two governments said there was now agreement among the six powers, which also include China, France, Germany and Russia, that a new sanctions resolution should be discussed at the Security Council.

The powers "have agreed that, while informal contacts between (EU foreign policy chief Javier) Solana and (Iranian negotiator Saeed) Jalili will continue, we now have no choice but to pursue further sanctions against Iran, as part of our dual-track strategy," British junior foreign minister Kim Howells said.

But Russia's UN ambassador Vitaly Churkin said he was unaware of any such consensus on sanctions.

"It may well be that in the course of those discussions some members of the six raised the issue of the sanctions," Churkin said. "But to the best of my knowledge there has been no firm agreement or understanding or concerted work in this regard."

Churkin said that the Group of Eight wealthy industrialised countries would discuss the issue of whether to seek further sanctions at a ministerial meeting next month.

He added that ministerial talks by six major powers on a new round of sanctions were likely to continue during the UN General Assembly session scheduled from September 23 to October 1.

"The main thing to remember is the negotiating track is open... There are contacts between the parties... We need to focus very much on the negotiating opportunities which this may produce," Churkin said.

The Security Council has already ordered three rounds of sanctions against Iran over its defiance.

The United States and its allies say Iran's nuclear programme could be a cover to develop atomic weapons and Washington has never ruled out military action over the standoff.

But Iran insists that as a signatory to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, it has the right to develop nuclear technology which it says is aimed at generating electricity for its growing population.

Atomic blast trips cancer time bomb

2008-08-06T12:09:00.001-07:00

Atomic blast trips cancer time bomb

August 06, 2008

John Collins believes his time in Hiroshima after World War II left him with bone marrow cancer.

By Jim Campbell WHEN the atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima 63 years ago today, it paved the way for a cancer time bomb inside Toowoomba man John Collins.

Mr Collins served in the Australian Army as part of the clean-up crew at Hiroshima 23 months after the infamous bomb wiped out the city.

He operated bulldozers and other machinery for four months, and it was in that four months he came into close contact with fallout from the bomb that Mr Collins says caused his bone marrow cancer (polycythemia vera or PV).

After four months, Mr Collins said his health deteriorated significantly.

"My hair started to fall out and I actually started to urinate blood," Mr Collins told The Chronicle not long after his 80th birthday.

"They took me to the hospital tent for a check-up, but couldn't determine what was wrong, so I was eventually sent home."

It was after he returned to Australia that Mr Collins faced another battle.

He was diagnosed with cancer and, in 1988, he approached the Department of Veterans' Affairs to help with his medical treatment costs.

"I have no doubt at all that my illness was caused directly from the work I did at Hiroshima," Mr Collins said.

But the department ruled otherwise. Between 1989 and 2004, Mr Collins made five unsuccessful appeals against the decision.

"The government told me in writing that by the time our clean-up crew got there (Hiroshima) radiation levels would have been negligible.

"But actually, fallout material has a half-life of about four-and-a-half billion years."

Their decisions hinged on a medical statement issued by the Repatriation Medical Authority that said, "Collins' PV can only be caused by his inability to get treatment for it on active service."

That statement, Mr Collins said, was completely nonsensical.

"Britain, North America and New Zealand accept contact with atomic fallout as a direct cause for my illness, but Australia still refuses to," he said.

"I wouldn't waste the last 20 years of my life fighting for this if I didn't know it was right and there was an injustice being committed against myself and my fellow veterans.

"What I'm fighting for is a legal principal and for disadvantaged veterans it wouldn't make any difference to the war pension I currently get. It's just a matter of justice."

Mr Collins has published The War of the Veterans, a book that tells his story. He has a powerful ally in Dr Roger Dunlop, past president of the Australian Medical Association.

Dr Dunlop, a nuclear veteran himself, said the case was very complex, but the law refusing Mr Collins compensation was simply wrong.

"What we're trying to do is to have the new government repeal the law," Dr Dunlop said.

"There was no doubt he had the beginnings of PV when he left Japan."

Dr Dunlop said he had even considered taking the issue to the International Court of Justice.

"Persistence is the only way to do it," he said.

"And John Collins is bloody persistent.

"He's got a very strong sense of public duty and he's given years of hard work to our veterans.

"I think we will win in the long run."

The Lies of Hiroshima Live On, Props in the War

2008-08-06T11:26:00.001-07:00

The Lies of Hiroshima Live On, Props in the War Crimes of the 20th Century
The 1945 attack was murder on an epic scale. In its victims’ names, we must not allow a nuclear repeat in the Middle East

by John Pilger

When I first went to Hiroshima in 1967, the shadow on the steps was still there. It was an almost perfect impression of a human being at ease: legs splayed, back bent, one hand by her side as she sat waiting for a bank to open. At a quarter past eight on the morning of August 6, 1945, she and her silhouette were burned into the granite. I stared at the shadow for an hour or more, then walked down to the river and met a man called Yukio, whose chest was still etched with the pattern of the shirt he was wearing when the atomic bomb was dropped.

He and his family still lived in a shack thrown up in the dust of an atomic desert. He described a huge flash over the city, “a bluish light, something like an electrical short”, after which wind blew like a tornado and black rain fell. “I was thrown on the ground and noticed only the stalks of my flowers were left. Everything was still and quiet, and when I got up, there were people naked, not saying anything. Some of them had no skin or hair. I was certain I was dead.” Nine years later, when I returned to look for him, he was dead from leukaemia.

In the immediate aftermath of the bomb, the allied occupation authorities banned all mention of radiation poisoning and insisted that people had been killed or injured only by the bomb’s blast. It was the first big lie. “No radioactivity in Hiroshima ruin” said the front page of the New York Times, a classic of disinformation and journalistic abdication, which the Australian reporter Wilfred Burchett put right with his scoop of the century. “I write this as a warning to the world,” reported Burchett in the Daily Express, having reached Hiroshima after a perilous journey, the first correspondent to dare. He described hospital wards filled with people with no visible injuries but who were dying from what he called “an atomic plague”. For telling this truth, his press accreditation was withdrawn, he was pilloried and smeared - and vindicated.

The atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki was a criminal act on an epic scale. It was premeditated mass murder that unleashed a weapon of intrinsic criminality. For this reason its apologists have sought refuge in the mythology of the ultimate “good war”, whose “ethical bath”, as Richard Drayton called it, has allowed the west not only to expiate its bloody imperial past but to promote 60 years of rapacious war, always beneath the shadow of The Bomb.

The most enduring lie is that the atomic bomb was dropped to end the war in the Pacific and save lives. “Even without the atomic bombing attacks,” concluded the United States Strategic Bombing Survey of 1946, “air supremacy over Japan could have exerted sufficient pressure to bring about unconditional surrender and obviate the need for invasion. Based on a detailed investigation of all the facts, and supported by the testimony of the surviving Japanese leaders involved, it is the Survey’s opinion that … Japan would have surrendered even if the atomic bombs had not been dropped, even if Russia had not entered the war and even if no invasion had been planned or contemplated.”

The National Archives in Washington contain US government documents that chart Japanese peace overtures as early as 1943. None was pursued. A cable sent on May 5, 1945 by the German ambassador in Tokyo and intercepted by the US dispels any doubt that the Japanese were desperate to sue for peace, including “capitulation even if the terms were hard”. Instead, the US secretary of war, Henry Stimson, told President Truman he was “fearful” that the US air force would have Japan so “bombed out” that the new weapon would not be able “to show its strength”. He later admitted that “no effort was made, and none was seriously considered, to achieve surrender merely in order not to have to use the bomb”. His foreign policy colleagues were eager “to browbeat the Russians with the bomb held rather ostentatiously on our hip”. General Leslie Groves, director of the Manhattan Project that made the bomb, testified: “There was never any illusion on my part that Russia was our enemy, and that the project was conducted on that basis.” The day after Hiroshima was obliterated, President Truman voiced his satisfaction with the “overwhelming success” of “the experiment”.

Since 1945, the United States is believed to have been on the brink of using nuclear weapons at least three times. In waging their bogus “war on terror”, the present governments in Washington and London have declared they are prepared to make “pre-emptive” nuclear strikes against non-nuclear states. With each stroke toward the midnight of a nuclear Armageddon, the lies of justification grow more outrageous. Iran is the current “threat”. But Iran has no nuclear weapons and the disinformation that it is planning a nuclear arsenal comes largely from a discredited CIA-sponsored Iranian opposition group, the MEK - just as the lies about Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction originated with the Iraqi National Congress, set up by Washington.

The role of western journalism in erecting this straw man is critical. That America’s Defence Intelligence Estimate says “with high confidence” that Iran gave up its nuclear weapons programme in 2003 has been consigned to the memory hole. That Iran’s president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad never threatened to “wipe Israel off the map” is of no interest. But such has been the mantra of this media “fact” that in his recent, obsequious performance before the Israeli parliament, Gordon Brown alluded to it as he threatened Iran, yet again.

This progression of lies has brought us to one of the most dangerous nuclear crises since 1945, because the real threat remains almost unmentionable in western establishment circles and therefore in the media. There is only one rampant nuclear power in the Middle East and that is Israel. The heroic Mordechai Vanunu tried to warn the world in 1986 when he smuggled out evidence that Israel was building as many as 200 nuclear warheads. In defiance of UN resolutions, Israel is today clearly itching to attack Iran, fearful that a new American administration might, just might, conduct genuine negotiations with a nation the west has defiled since Britain and America overthrew Iranian democracy in 1953.

In the New York Times on July 18, the Israeli historian Benny Morris, once considered a liberal and now a consultant to his country’s political and military establishment, threatened “an Iran turned into a nuclear wasteland”. This would be mass murder. For a Jew, the irony cries out.

The question begs: are the rest of us to be mere bystanders, claiming, as good Germans did, that “we did not know”? Do we hide ever more behind what Richard Falk has called “a self-righteous, one-way, legal/moral screen [with] positive images of western values and innocence portrayed as threatened, validating a campaign of unrestricted violence”? Catching war criminals is fashionable again. Radovan Karadzic stands in the dock, but Sharon and Olmert, Bush and Blair do not. Why not? The memory of Hiroshima requires an answer.

johnpilger.com

Expanding Waste

2008-08-06T10:57:00.001-07:00

Expanding Waste

Estimated cost of Nevada nuke-waste dump soars

Posted at 3:46 PM on 05 Aug 2008

The total cost of dumping nuclear waste at Nevada's Yucca Mountain repository will hit $96.2 billion, the Department of Energy estimated Tuesday. The estimate has jumped 38 percent, excluding inflation, since 2001. And it assumes no new construction of nuclear reactors; to put that in perspective, John McCain is pushing for the U.S. to build up to 45 new nuclear plants by 2030. The Energy Department ambitiously assumes that Yucca will begin accepting waste in 2020, continue through 2070, and close in 2113. It also estimates that the site could take in as much as 122,000 tons of nuclear waste, even though Congress has limited Yucca's capacity to 77,000 tons. About 64,000 tons of used reactor fuel is already chillin' at 121 temporary sites across the U.S., and more than 2,000 tons are added each year.

Yucca Mountain cost estimate is increased

2008-08-05T15:15:00.001-07:00

Yucca Mountain cost estimate is increased

Published: Aug. 5, 2008

WASHINGTON, Aug. 5 (UPI) -- The U.S. Department of Energy says it has revised upward its cost estimate of the Yucca Mountain nuclear repository from its 1983 start to closure in 2133.

Officials said the new system life cycle cost estimate includes money needed to research, construct and operate Yucca Mountain for 150 years.

The new cost estimate of $79.3 billion, when updated to 2007 dollars totals $96.2 billion -- a 38-percent increase from the last published estimate in 2001 of $57.5 billion.

Ward Sproat, director of the department's Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management, said the updated estimate takes into account a substantial increase in the amount of waste to be shipped and stored at the repository and more than $16 billion for inflation.

"This increased cost estimate is reasonable given inflation and the expected increase in the amount of spent nuclear fuel from existing reactors with license renewals," Sproat said. "We have marked significant project milestones this year and look forward to … nuclear waste currently sitting at 121 temporary locations around the country being safely stored at Yucca Mountain."

DNC: John 'Not In My Back Yard' McCain Brings His Yucca Support to Nevada

2008-08-05T07:15:00.000-07:00

DNC: John 'Not In My Back Yard' McCain Brings His Yucca Support to Nevada

Last update: 12:48 p.m. EDT July 29, 2008

WASHINGTON, July 29, 2008 /PRNewswire-USNewswire via COMTEX/ -- Senator John McCain today will bring his promise of four more years of President Bush's failed energy policies back to Nevada. The last time he was in the Silver State, McCain gave a 3,000 word speech on energy that didn't mention Yucca Mountain or solar power once. Instead, McCain focused on his newfound support for offshore oil drilling, which even he and President Bush admit will have only a "psychological" impact on gas prices. McCain's support for offshore drilling may not provide economic relief for working families, but it did open a flood of new support for McCain's campaign from the oil and gas industry.

McCain may be reluctant to detail his record on Yucca Mountain, but the facts are clear. Except for some election-year hedging during his two presidential campaigns, McCain has repeatedly been a champion of Yucca Mountain. In fact, despite his admitted concern about shipping nuclear material through Arizona McCain wants to build at least 45 new nuclear power plants and says dealing with spent nuclear fuel is a "NIMBY" problem that we must have "guts and the courage" to address. See the DNC's web video "NIMBY: Not In McCain's Back Yard: http://youtube.com/watch?v=h29B--3vBbg

"During his 25 years in Congress, Senator McCain has been a part of America's energy problem by repeatedly voting against the kind of policies that would create green jobs in Nevada and break our dependence on fossil fuels," said Democratic National Committee spokeswoman Karen Finney. "Now, McCain is promising more of the same by pandering to his new friends in the oil and gas industry and promising to store tons of spent fuel in Nevada, even though he's not comfortable shipping the material through Arizona on its way there. America's working families deserve new energy ideas, not more of the same failed policies that have cost us jobs, driven energy prices through the roof, and done nothing to make America less dependent on foreign oil."

The following is a fact sheet on McCain's support for Yucca Mountain:

MCCAIN HAS CONSISTENTLY SUPPORTED YUCCA...

McCain Has Consistently Voted to Approve Yucca Mountain As A Nuclear Waste Dump Site. In 2002, John McCain voted to approve a site at Yucca Mountain as a repository for nuclear and radioactive waste. After the vote, McCain said that storing nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain would answer "one of the most important environmental, health and public safety issues for the American people." In 2000, McCain voted to override the presidential veto of legislation that would establish a permanent nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain. In 1997, McCain similarly voted to establish a repository at the Mountain. McCain voted yes on a similar bill in 1996. [2002 Senate Vote #167, 7/9/2002; The Arizona Republic, 7/10/2002; 2000 Senate Vote #88, 5/2/2000; 1998 Senate Vote #148, 6/2/1998; 1997 Senate Vote #42, 4/15/1997; 1996 Senate Vote #259, 7/31/1996; 1996 Senate Vote #256, 7/31/1996]

McCain: "I Am For Yucca Mountain." The Las Vegas Sun reported that in 2007 McCain told the Deseret News, "I am for Yucca Mountain. I'm for storage facilities. It's a lot better than sitting outside power plants all over America." [Las Vegas Sun (Las Vegas, NV), 5/28/08]

McCain: "I Believe That Yucca Mountain Is A Suitable Place For Storage." At a campaign event in Springfield, Pennsylvania, McCain said, "I believe that Yucca Mountain is a suitable place for storage and I know that there's controversy about it and lawsuits and all that. But shouldn't America, a country as smart and as wise as we are, be able to find a place to store spent fuel?" [CNN Live Feed (Springfield, PA), 3/14/08]

McCain Senior Adviser Holtz-Eakin Called Political Opposition To Yucca Mountain "Harmful To the U.S. Interests." "McCain criticized both Democrats for their opposition to Yucca Mountain. 'The political opposition to the Yucca Mountain storage facility is harmful to the U.S. interest and the facility should be completed, opened and utilized,' McCain adviser Holtz-Eakin said." [Reuters, 5/6/08]

McCain: "We Will Build At Least 45 New Nuclear Plants." In a speech in Denver, Colorado, McCain said, "We will develop more clean energy. Nuclear power is the most dependable source of zero-emission energy we have. We will build at least 45 new nuclear plants that will create over 700,000 good jobs to construct and operate them." [CNN Live Feed, Speech (Denver, CO), 7/7/08]

...EXCEPT WHEN HE HEDGED IN CAMPAIGNS

2008: Campaigning In Nevada, McCain Said He Could Be Compelled To Reverse Support For Storage Of Nuclear Waste At Yucca Mountain. The Las Vegas Review-Journal reported that "On the nuclear dump site about 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas, which most Nevadans oppose, McCain stressed the importance to national security of finding somewhere to store spent nuclear fuel currently at power plants across the country. But he indicated he could be persuaded to end his support for Yucca as the site. 'I will respect scientific opinion,' he said. 'The scientific opinion that I had up until recently was that Yucca Mountain was a suitable storage place.'" [Las Vegas Review-Journal (Las Vegas, NV), 3/29/08]

1999: McCain Made Same Vague Promise To Consider Other Sites For Disposal To Nevadans Prior To His 2000 Run. On a trip to Nevada in February 1999, McCain met with key supporters in the gambling industry and the editorial board of the Las Vegas Review-Journal. The Associated Press reported that McCain's votes to store nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain could hurt him among Nevada voters. According to AP, "McCain said he is willing to hear arguments on the issue of whether Yucca Mountain, 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas, is suitable as the nation's nuclear waste repository, but he said the storage problem must be resolved." McCain also said, "I'm not expert enough to know if that's the place or not, but it's unconscionable to leave nuclear waste sitting around in facilities forever." [Associated Press, 2/17/1999]

MCCAIN HAS HIS OWN NIMBY PROBLEM.

MCCAIN 2008: Dealing With Spent Nuclear Fuel Is A "NIMBY" Problem, US Must Have The "Guts And The Courage." At an energy briefing in Santa Barbara, CA, McCain spoke about spent nuclear fuel and said, "But it's not a technological breakthrough that needs to be taken. It's a, it's a NIBMY problem. It's a NIMBY problem. We've gotta have the guts and the courage to go ahead and do what other countries are doing and they are reducing the pollution to our environment rather dramatically without any huge pain to anybody." [CNN Live Feed, Briefing (Santa Barbara, CA), 6/24/08]

MCCAIN 2007: Just Don't Ship it Through My Back Yard. "Interviewer: What about the transportation? Would you be comfortable with nuclear waste coming through Arizona on its way, you know going through Phoenix, on its way to uh Yucca Mountain? McCain (Shaking Head): No, I would not. No, I would not." [Nevada Newsmakers, May 2007: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GPlaHQCKc34]

Tallevast water treatment leaks

2008-08-05T07:14:00.000-07:00

Tallevast water treatment leaks

Residents see polluted water spill onto ground

Fire trucks were called to Tallavast on Sunday as a leak was reported at the beryllium plant near the children's center. Photos taken by Wanda Washington, resident.

Buy it: Order this photo now

By GARY TAYLOR

gtaylor@bradenton.com

TALLEVAST --

Polluted water in a treatment system leaked and filled secondary containment before residents of the beleaguered neighborhood said they heard and saw it pouring over the top onto the ground Sunday.

When reported to emergency services at about 1:30 p.m., fire and environmental personnel rushed to the site at the former beryllium plant, 1600 Tallevast Road, turned off the treatment system and sucked up 6,000 gallons of water behind a high metal containment wall for transport to a state disposal facility.

The beryllium plant is the source of a leak of toxic chemicals that has spread underground over 200 acres.

A spokeswoman for Lockheed Martin Corp., which is responsible for the cleanup of the underground plume, said late Sunday "there was a leak in the groundwater treatment plant," but that no toxic water had escaped outside containment.

Two community leaders said they had photographs to prove the water had escaped and, as they stood about 10 feet from the containment wall, the weight of the water behind it bowed the wall out and worried them that it might give way and spill onto the grounds of the Tallevast Community Center adjacent to the treatment site.

As part of the initial cleanup, Lockheed is pumping contaminated groundwater through a treatment system and then discharging the treated water into the county sewer system.

The breach gave rise for two Tallevast residents to a greater question of whether the massive cleanup of the toxic plume was being done safely.

With another Tallevast resident, Wanda Washington, at Wal-Mart developing photos of the water "overflowing at a very rapid rate," according to Ward, the situation was called "a possible health hazard."

Lockheed's Gail Rymer said late Sunday the incident would cause the corporation to look at the treatment system that failed and improve it.

The treatment system will remain turned off, she said, until it is understood what happened and fixed.

The water that escaped into containment, according to Lockheed's Rymer, was "contaminated water" pumped up from the toxic plume underneath Tallevast, and was going to be treated. She called it "pre-treatment water."

Added Rymer: "The cause of the leak has not been determined. But we have begun a thorough investigation of the incident to determine the cause. The treatment center will remain shut down."

She said the company called for the state Department of Environmental Protection to send pumper trucks to the site to suck up the contaminated water inside the containment perimeter. Two trucks came, observers said, loaded the water and drove it to Lakeland for disposal.

An official with the DEP in Lakeland did not return a phone call.

Ward, who lives down the street from the treatment site, said another resident alerted her.

"From the street, you can hear the water running over the wall," Ward said.

At the site, she described what she saw as "water coming up to be treated, and running over the wall."

She said the overflow was then running back down to the ground.

Ward and Washington are officials of FOCUS, a residents' advocacy group in Tallevast.

Rymer said a Lockheed engineer at the site said there was a small area of discoloration of the outside of the metal wall, but that he and others found the ground outside the wall to be dry.

Ward and Washington hurried to the site before calling emergency services.

After documenting the situation, the pair called for a quick response.

"I was just concerned it could be a possible health hazard," Ward said.

Two Manatee County fire engines came to the scene, and one firefighter shut off the system.

Asked if any official at the site had said to her that there had been a toxic spill, Ward said, "No one said that."

Told Lockheed Martin said the treatment water had been contained inside the secondary catch wall, Ward said, "No, that's not the case. We saw it coming out over the wall. The containment wall was actually bent from the weight of the water."

The WMD That Really Should Be Worrying Us

2008-08-04T11:13:00.000-07:00

The WMD That Really Should Be Worrying Us
If al-Qa’ida was unleashing this weather of mass destruction, we would do anything to stop them
by Johann Hari

Imagine if tomorrow the CIA and MI6 discover that Osama bin Laden has invented an incredible new weapon. This machine - stashed away in some dusty Afghan cave - doubles the intensity of hurricanes, causing them to drown a US city and kill nearly 2,000 people. It turns Spain and Australia dry in the worst droughts on record. It makes the oceans acidic, killing essential parts of the food chain. It is causes these acidic seas to rise and wash away whole nations like Bangladesh and Tuvalu. And if the machine is left switched on for too long, it will drown London and New York and Lagos and Kinshasa too.

This machine exists. It is called global warming - and we are our own Bin Laden. The world’s scientists say our greenhouse gas emissions are causing this planetary cooking as surely as HIV causes Aids or smoking causes lung cancer.

If al-Qa’ida was unleashing this weather of mass destruction, we would do anything - anything - to stop them. But because the enemy is inside each one of us, we stagger on, building more airports and coal power stations and shrieking for cheaper oil. We are suffering from what psychologists call an “external context problem”: this is so far outside anything we have experienced before, it instinctively seems it cannot possibly be true, no matter how much evidence washes at our feet.

This week, a small band of the sane is gathering to try to shake us awake. In the English countryside of Kent, thousands of ordinary people have set up camp to demand the British Government cancel its plans to build a new coal power station, with six others to follow. Coal is the worst warming-weapon, responsible for half of all the greenhouse gases humans have pumped into the atmosphere. It is twice as warming as the next worst fossil fuel - natural gas - and more than a hundred times worse than wind power. The Climate Camp protesters are refusing to be part of Generation Zzzzzzzz, drugged by celebrity and consumption. Armed only with the science, they are urging us to be rational, now, while we still can.

To grasp the urgency of the situation, let’s look at one aspect of global warming that has been widely overlooked. As you lie on a beach this summer and stare at the ocean, you should be aware it is becoming rapidly more acidic - because of your emissions.

The oceans are the greatest carbon sink we have. They have inhaled a third of the carbon dioxide pumped by us into the atmosphere and buried it on the ocean floor. But there is a price. When CO2 combines with water, it creates a fizzy carbonic acid. You taste this acid on your tongue every day in your can of Coke. The more carbon the ocean soaks up, the more acid it produces. Since the start of the Industrial Revolution, the acidity of the seas has soared by 30 percent, and by the end of my life, it will have increased by 150 percent - unless we reverse course fast. “A change of that magnitude is more than we have seen in 20 million years,” says Richard Feely of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in Seattle.

Turning the seas acidic sets off a series of disasters, only some of which can be predicted in advance. Disaster one: The collapse of the oceanic food chain. At the turn of the century, the US, Japanese and German governments were so impressed by the capacity of the oceans to mop up CO2 that they proposed compressing emissions from power plants and pumping the goo into the sea. So a series of tank-experiments were set up to see what would happen. Once the water became strongly acidic, the shells of dozens of sea creatures - from sea urchins to molluscs - simply dissolved, and they died. The food chain collapsed; almost everything else in the experiment died too.

One of the creatures that is killed by acidity is the pteropod, a tiny little sea snail. That doesn’t sound like a big deal - until you realise pteropods are the major food source for salmon, herring, cod and pollack. If they die, so does the staple food of hundreds of millions of humans. So long, and thanks for all the fish.

Disaster two: the death of coral. Acidic oceans dissolve coral like a fizzing paracetamol in a glass. So the coral reefs - the rainforests of the ocean, home to a quarter of all sea life - are dying at a rate that has staggered the scientists who study them. And the Reefer Madness gets worse: atolls like the Maldives and Tuvalu have foundations made of coral, so they will dissolve and collapse, if rising sea levels don’t get them first.

Disaster three: the seas will lose their ability to soak up carbon dioxide. The creatures that currently “eat” carbon dioxide and sink to the bottom of the ocean - shelled plankton - are killed by acidity. The result? A sharp acceleration in global warming up here. There is even a fear the vast amounts of methane stored in the oceans will be destabilised and rise to the surface. The last time this happened, 55 million years ago, it caused warming so rapid most life on earth died. Think of it as the fart at the end of the world. That’s why the biological oceanographer Professor David Hutchins says: “Frankly, ocean acidification is apocalyptic in its impact.”

But remember: these are only some of the effects on the oceans - and the oceans are only one dimension of global warming. Suddenly the analogy with the al-Qa’ida psychosis doesn’t seem so extreme. As the environmental writer Mark Lynas notes: “If we had wanted to destroy as much of life on earth as possible, there would have been no better way of doing it than to dig up and burn as much fossil hydrocarbon as we possible could.”

We need a sea change before the seas change irreversibly. That’s why I will be going to the Climate Camp. Where will you say you were when the carbon bomb was fired into the atmosphere?

–Johann Hari

Gallery: Nuclear Blasts Show Terrifying Power

2008-08-03T18:25:00.000-07:00

Gallery: Nuclear Blasts Show Terrifying Power

from Wired Top Stories by Tony Long

: Courtesy National Nuclear Security Administration/Nevada Site Office

It was 63 years ago today that the United States detonated the very first atomic bomb. Three weeks later, the only two A-bombs dropped in warfare destroyed Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan. Many nuclear -- and thermonuclear -- bombs have been tested since. Here are some images.

Left:
Operation Upshot-Knothole, conducted at the Nevada Proving Ground between March 17 and June 4, 1953, consisted of 11 atmospheric tests: three airdrops, seven tower tests and one airburst. Upshot-Knothole involved the testing of new theories, using both fission and fusion devices.

House No. 1, located 3,500 feet from ground zero, was completely destroyed on the first day of testing. The elapsed time from the first picture to the last was 2⅔ seconds. The camera was completely enclosed in a 2-inch lead sheath as a protection against radiation. The only source of light was that from the detonation. Frame No. 1 (upper left) shows the house lighted by the blast. Frame No. 2 (upper right) shows the house on fire.

: Courtesy National Nuclear Security Administration/Nevada Site Office

"The island of Elugelab is missing!" President Truman heard this short report from Gordon Dean, chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission, following the "Mike shot," conducted as part of Operation Ivy. Mike, which delivered 10.4 megatons, was the first full-fledged hydrogen bomb to be detonated. It vaporized the small islet of Elugelab in the Eniwetok Atoll.

: Courtesy National Nuclear Security Administration/Nevada Site Office

Official observers view the Wasp Prime air drop at the Nevada Test Site on March 29, 1955. It was the second detonation of the day. Apple-1 came five hours earlier, marking the first time two nuclear devices were set off on the same day.

Operation Teapot consisted of 14 shots, or detonations, conducted during the first half of 1955. Teapot's objective was to evaluate the tactical applications of a variety of devices for possible inclusion in the nuclear-weapons stockpile, as well as to study civil-defense requirements.

: Courtesy National Nuclear Security Administration/Nevada Site Office

This base camp near Los Alamos, New Mexico, supported Project Trinity. The first atomic bomb in history was successfully tested nearby in July 1945. Trinity represented the culmination of the Manhattan Project, the U.S. effort to build and detonate an atomic device. Within 24 days of this test, the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were laid waste by atomic bombs.

: Photo: Corbis

The first atomic bomb is readied for testing near Alamogordo, New Mexico, in July 1945.

: Photo: Corbis

J. Robert Oppenheimer, in white hat, and Gen. Leslie Groves, military commander of the Manhattan Project, examine the twisted wreckage that is all that remains of a 100-foot tower, winch and shack that held the first nuclear weapon before its July 16, 1945, detonation. On the far right is Victor Weisskopf of the Manhattan Project's Theoretical Division.

: Photo: Nagasaki Atomic Bomb Museum/Corbis

The exact moment of detonation at Nagasaki is captured in this remarkable photograph. Notice the three people in the foreground, as yet unaware that anything has happened. The destruction of Nagasaki followed that of Hiroshima by three days and compelled Japan to surrender, ending World War II.

: Photo: AP/Kyodo News/Hirofumi Kimata

Asa Takii, 114, Japan's oldest woman, seen in this June 1998 picture, was a survivor of the Hiroshima bombing. The blast killed her husband and family, but Takii survived despite being trapped in the rubble of her home for days before rescue came. She died at a nursing home at Kurahashi Island near Hiroshima on July 31, 1998.

: Photo: Corbis

July 1, 1946, in the Marshall Islands: A mushroom cloud erupts in the North Pacific Ocean over the Bikini Lagoon during the first of the two detonations of Operation Crossroads. The series studied the effects of nuclear radiation on large ships, and the United States assembled a fleet of 90 obsolete naval vessels, including a few captured German and Japanese warships, for the test. Several ships can be seen here, silhouetted against the blast.

Hopi Prophecy All 3 videos

2008-08-03T13:21:00.000-07:00

Handed down from ancient times, the Hopi Prophesy delineates the path of peace, and harmony with nature. Where we have deviated from that path, the prophecy has correctly predicted the results. Which path lies before us? What does the future hold? Hear a message of tribal elders for our modern world.

Originally broadcast on New Mexico PBS station KNME.

Hopi Prophecy Part 2

Hopi Prophecy Part 3

My Solution To Prevent The New World Order

2008-08-03T13:12:00.000-07:00

Many people these days are blindly following traditions, leading their lives to boredom, and unrealization of Truth. There is an agenda many call, "New World Order." Many people are not aware of this threat, but many are becoming aware of it everyday. I believe, very soon, that the mass majority of people will stand up to this threat, and attempt to overthrow it. This is known as a Revolution. Though in order to defeat the New World Order, you must not attempt such a violent revolt. What we perceive with our five senses, is NOT reality. Life is but a dream, thus death being our awakening. Most do not accept this, but I advise you to research EVERYTHING. The ONLY conspiracy is the one preventing us to REMEMBER our TRUE nature and instincts of life. We are more powerful than you think. Though living in this dream with a mind set of Revolution with the help of violent protest, will NOT even NUDGE the New World Order. It is useless. Revolution is an illusion, perceived by us to conditionally think as the solution. The ONLY solution, is EVOLUTION. RISE up and reclaim your destiny. It's not time to wake up yet. It's only time to realize, that THIS is the dream. And dreams come true. Time to grow up. Time to evolve. Evolution Is Now. RISE.

Greenpeace files complaints on Areva nuclear leaks

2008-08-03T12:12:00.000-07:00

PARIS (Reuters) - Greenpeace France filed two complaints against nuclear power company Areva over an uranium leak this month that triggered public outrage, as well as older leaks that were later found on the same site.

On July 7, Areva accidentally poured around 18 cubic meters of liquid containing uranium, which was not enriched, onto the ground and into the river at the Tricastin nuclear site, prompting local authorities to launch an official enquiry.

"Greenpeace hopes that all the light will be shed on the radioactive leak of this month but also on older leaks and their origin," the group said in a statement on Thursday.

"We especially want responsibilities to be clearly established and sanctions to be taken," it added.

Greenpeace lodged the two complaints with the public prosecutor of Carpentras in southeast France. If the complaints are upheld, Areva could face fines of up to 75,000 euros ($117,200) per complaint and up to two years of imprisonment for the manager in charge.

Areva was not immediately available for comment.

French anti-nuclear group Sortir du Nucleaire also said this week it was launching legal action over the Tricastin incident.

The second complaint Greenpeace launched concerned the discovery of radioactive waste buried in a hill under a layer of earth at Tricastin, which had also leaked.

"This storage, in unacceptable conditions on the Areva site, shows neglect and an unlawful storage of radioactive waste," the group added.

(Reporting by Muriel Boselli, editing by Anthony Barker)

EPA Gagged: What Does Agency Have to Hide?

2008-08-03T11:10:00.000-07:00

EPA Gagged: What Does Agency Have to Hide?

Tribune Editorial

It seems the Environmental Protection Agency has something to hide.

If it didn’t, there would be no need for the memo e-mailed June 16 to EPA employees directing them to keep quiet if they are contacted by a reporter. More startling, the memo tells EPA staff to stay mum if they are approached by the EPA’s own inspector general’s office or investigators from the Government Accountability Office.

“Please do not respond to questions or make any statements,” the e-mail advises agency staff. It states that questions or requests for information or documents should be directed to senior staff members who, apparently, know how to keep the agency’s ducks in a line.

Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, an environmental group that calls itself an alliance of state and federal environmental professionals, obtained the e-mail and posted it on its Web site.

The gag order is especially troubling since the EPA has come under fire recently for inappropriate political entanglements. The Associated Press reported that the memo was a response to a May 2007 audit by the inspector general’s office that found the EPA did not respond earlier to IG reports on problems with water enforcement and other issues.

Moreover, the agency has done nothing to regulate CO2 emissions despite a Supreme Court ruling clarifying that the EPA has authority to do so. On Tuesday, four Democratic senators, all members of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, called for the resignation of EPA administrator Stephen Johnson and asked Attorney General Michael Mukasey to investigate whether Johnson lied to another Senate committee and put politics ahead of its mission.

In January, Johnson testified that he alone had made the decision to prohibit the state of California from regulating vehicle emissions more stringently than the federal government. A former EPA official has disputed Johnson’s statement, saying Johnson had been about to grant California a partial waiver but had been pressured by the White House to change his mind.

During World War II, the term “loose lips sink ships” meant the war could be jeopardized by letting secrets out. The EPA is not fighting a war, but it obviously fears that the truth could put it in a bad light. If there is a battle, the agency should be on the side of full disclosure, not lined up with the Bush White House and polluters against the environment and the health of Americans.

A new Apollo project needed to solve the energy crisis

2008-08-03T10:08:00.000-07:00

A new Apollo project needed to solve the energy crisis

Pete Ashdown
Article Last Updated: 08/02/2008 01:50:55 PM MDT

Last month we saw a Utah Republican congressional full-court press in favor of the oil and gas industries.
Heir-apparent to the 3rd Congressional District Jason Chaffetz flew to Alaska and returned with the startling revelation that the energy crisis was solely the fault of Democrats. First Congressional District Rep. Rob Bishop notified his constituents via a slick newsletter that we need more oil, gas and coal.
Finally, our senior senators joined forces to write an op-ed that gored the Democrats for all our energy woes, declaring all this country needs is a second dance with costly oil-shale and subsidized nuclear power.
With a dysfunctional Congress, both parties can claim a portion of the blame for high gas prices and a lack of sensible energy policy.
The question still begs as to what Bishop and Sens. Orrin Hatch and Bob Bennett were doing to further their current goals for the oil industry from 2001 to 2007, when their party controlled Congress and the White House. It is more revealing to look further back to the much-maligned President Carter who, in 1979, during the first oil crunch, set goals for our country so we'd never see a second energy crisis.
Carter proposed that U.S. automakers attain a whopping 48-mile-per-gallon fuel efficiency by 1995. He demanded that we curtail imported oil by imposing fees. Finally, Carter proposed windfall taxes on oil
companies to fund alternative energy and a goal of generating 20 percent of our power from solar by 2000.
What happened? It would be nice to see an explanation from Hatch, since he was a three-year senator in 1979. His explanation not forthcoming, my presumption is Carter's visionary energy goals were tossed on the trash heap, along with the solar panels he'd installed on the White House, when Ronald Reagan moved in.
America then increased dependency on foreign oil and forfeited automobile innovation to Japan. Middle East oil-rich dictatorships went on to become even wealthier and more entrenched.
A small patch of Alaskan wilderness, coastal drilling, oil-shale magic, nuclear power subsidies, less regulation on fabulously wealthy companies - these will make us energy independent and gasoline inexpensive again?
How many times will we buy these fables before our elected officials are laughed out of office? What party repeatedly fought any increase in Corporate Average Fuel Economy standards until a pathetic compromise of 35 mpg by 2020 was passed last year?
GOP mocking of Carter's energy policy has been redirected toward Al Gore, who challenged this country with an apparently hysterical goal of energy independence using renewable sources within a decade.
This country retooled its entire industrial sector nearly overnight in order to fight World War II. America fulfilled President Kennedy's challenge to land on the moon in under a decade. Yet become energy independent with renewable technology in the same amount of time? Sorry, we'll leave that kind of innovation to advanced countries like Brazil, Denmark, Iceland and Sweden.
Solving our energy problems by loosing the reins on the oil, gas and coal companies is a deal that requires us to forget 30 years of history. This bargain ignores the hidden health costs of polluted air and water and insists that consumption of energy is not correlated to the price.
In spite of their feel-good commercials, these companies are not here to solve our energy and pollution problems. They're here to make a profit.
America not only needs leadership that understands the full spectrum of energy sources, but also has the courage to seek the unknown again. The Manhattan and Apollo projects were not efforts undertaken for a profit.
Rather these projects are an example of an uniquely American way to solve difficult problems: Our best scientists were given a goal and full support to reach it quickly. Science is the solution to the energy crisis.

---
* PETE ASHDOWN is CEO of XMission, an Internet provider.

Honecker's nuclear bunker opens

2008-08-02T09:16:00.000-07:00

Honecker's nuclear bunker opens

The BBC's Tristana Moore takes a look around the bunker

A once-secret bunker designed to shield communist rulers of the former East Germany from a nuclear attack has opened to the public.

The three-storey complex, finished in 1983, was intended to house leader Erich Honecker and 400 staff.

At the time it was one of the communist world's most advanced bunkers. Now the walls are covered in mould and the decontamination chambers long-defunct.

The bunker, north of Berlin, will be open for three months.

The Berlin city authorities say they will seal it with concrete afterwards.

Honecker, who ruled the German Democratic Republic (GDR) for almost two decades, is thought to have visited the bunker only once.

"Contemporary witnesses told us that Honecker was more or less frightened or shocked when he walked through here," said Sebastian Tenschert of the Berlin Bunker Network - a group that campaigned for the bunker to be opened.

Top secret?

Groups will be given short tours through the ill-lit complex - where they will see offices and control rooms once intended for the elites, now covered in green slime and reeking of mould.

It was said to be the most advanced bunker in the Warsaw Pact countries

They will be led along submarine-like tunnels divided by heavy metal doors, leading on to 170 rooms.

The three storeys reach a depth of 70m (230ft) below ground.

The bunker was fitted with a fountain, air conditioning and "springed" rooms able to cushion residents from detonations.

It was built in a forest 25km (16 miles) north-east of Berlin, near Wandlitz, where the whole East German government was accommodated in a special colony.

The bunker was surrounded by a village occupied almost entirely by members of the feared East German spy agency, the Stasi.

Falko Schewe, who worked on the building, described the project - codenamed 17/5001 - as "not that top secret".

"My wife and mother knew about the special work which I did, but no-one else knew what I was working on.

"I was a very normal GDR citizen except that I worked for the security ministry."

Link to video: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/7538720.stm

Nuke proponent seeks communities for waste sites

2008-08-02T08:52:00.000-07:00

Nuke proponent seeks communities for waste sites

Waterford, Haddam not in the mix

The Nuclear Energy Institute has located two communities interested in hosting commercial interim nuclear waste storage facilities, but it won't identify them.

The towns of Haddam and Waterford, past and present homes to nuclear-power facilities here in Connecticut, are not among several towns that have approached NEI voluntarily, said Marshall Cohen, NEI's senior director for government affairs.

Cohen said New England towns as a whole are unlikely candidates because nuclear power tends to be more controversial here.

As first reported Wednesday in the Platt's Nuclear News Flashes and confirmed Thursday by Cohen, the NEI has been talking with rural towns on both the East and West coasts that may be interested in storing spent fuel at sites that already house nuclear waste.

The U.S. Department of Energy recently reapplied to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission for a license for Yucca Mountain in Nevada, a proposed permanent repository for the waste, but there are no pending applications for any interim storage facilities, said NRC spokesman Neil Sheehan.

Cohen said that the NEI has been talking with towns that have volunteered to host interim storage sites. U.S. lawmakers have talked off and on about the potential need for such sites because of the delays plaguing Yucca Mountain.

The environmental and security concerns raised by such steps should require full disclosure, said Paul Gunter of the watchdog group Beyond Nuclear, which alerted the media with a press release.

”We're concerned that this whole process is starting out 'behind the curtains,'” he said. “It's particularly troublesome because it involves transportation routes.”

”We think it should be an open process that includes everybody who is potentially affected,” Gunter added. “It's not cute to be hiding it like this. We really want to know where these sites are.”

Waterford First Selectman Daniel Steward confirmed Thursday that he has had no conversations with NEI on the topic.

Millstone Nuclear Power Station is already host to two operational and one closed reactor, as well as additional storage bunkers that house spent fuel.

Millstone's storage bunkers were erected as temporary, Steward noted, with the intent of having the spent fuel eventually moved to a permanent national storage site such as Yucca Mountain.

NEI represents the commercial nuclear industry and is involved in policy development.

”We, the industry, are not going to wait for DOE,” Cohen said. “We're out in the country looking to see if there are communities who after seeing what storage looks like, how it works, (if they'd) voluntarily be interested in locating a facility” in their towns.

He refused to identify the towns having those conversations.

”It's not appropriate for me to do that yet,” Cohen said. “It's not being done in secret, it's being done in fairness to the communities. The licensing process will be public when it happens.”

He accused Beyond Nuclear of using “scare tactics and misinformation,” saying, “all they want to do is kill nuclear energy, and they'll use everything they can.”

Haddam is home to the former Connecticut Yankee reactor, which has been decommissioned. First Selectman Anthony Bondi could not be reached for comment.

P.DADDONA@THEDAY.COM

US says Iran fails to win much NAM support on nuclear issue

2008-08-02T08:40:00.000-07:00



Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad

US says Iran fails to win much NAM support on nuclear issue

15 hours ago

WASHINGTON (AFP) — Iran has failed to win much support for its disputed nuclear drive from its friends in the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM), US officials alleged Friday.

State Department officials showed reporters in Washington two statements they said they obtained from unidentified NAM members at a ministerial meeting in Tehran to highlight points Iran had added and NAM deleted.

A draft statement, for example, had a phrase that NAM ministers "affirmed that Iran as a state party to the NPT (Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty).... has the right to have its fuel cycle program for peaceful purposes."

But the phrase was deleted in a later statement.

The draft seen by reporters also read that "the ministers are of the view that sanctions imposed on Iran for its nuclear program are of political nature and should be promptly removed.

"They further affirm that with increased cooperation of Iran with the agency to resolve all remaining issues about its past and present nuclear activities the issue of Iranian nuclear program should be solely dealt with within the agency framework and there is no legal basis that the UN Security Council proceeds in this regard," according to the draft.

But that passage was deleted in the later statement -- something US officials said was a rebuff to Iran's attempt to deal only with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and avoid a role for the UN Security Council.

"It's a black eye for Iran," a senior State Department official said on condition of anonymity.

"The (UN) Security Council has been clear on Iran's obligations. The IAEA has been clear that Iran has not been transparent," he said.

"And now they can't even get their friends from the NAM to come out in support of their interpretation of their program. It actually reinforces just how isolated they are," he told reporters.

The official would not say which members failed to back Iran but expected strong allies Cuba and Belarus to have supported Tehran.

Nor would he predict whether the NAM meeting could prompt Iran to change its stance in talks with the United States and other world powers which are demanding Iran halt its uranium enrichment program.

Hiroshima Day

2008-08-02T08:07:00.001-07:00

Hiroshima Day

On Wednesday, Aug. 6, beginning at 6 a.m., members of the Oak Ridge Environmental Peace Alliance and other peace activists will hold a remembrance ceremony at the Y-12 nuclear weapons plant and read the names of those who died in the A-bomb blast over Hiroshima, Japan, in World War II.

The Oak Ridge plant enriched the uranium used in the bomb dropped on Hiroshima.

OREPA coordinator Ralph Hutchison said the group plans to have a peace lantern event three days later, on the anniversary of the Nagasaki bombing.

Hutchison said there are no plans to hold a protest rally, concert or cross-town march to Y-12, although he said some people from Michigan and elsewhere will arrive in town to participate in the remembrance ceremony. (Here's a link to video from last August's protest.)

Sidenote: This year's anniversary falls on the same day (first Wednesday of the month) that the Dept. of Energy tests its sirens at its Oak Ridge facilities, including Y-12. That's means it's going to get mighty loud at the plant's entrance around noon.

DOE spokesman John Shewairy said he didn't realize the confluence of events, but he said it was important to maintain consistency in the emergency-preparedness tests. In other words, the show must go on.

DOE reaches deal on fines after missing 2 deadlines for waste shipment

2008-08-01T08:13:00.001-07:00

DOE reaches deal on fines after missing 2 deadlines for waste shipment

By Annette Cary, Herald staff writer

The Department of Energy will pay a $25,000 fine and pay for a natural resource expert for Hanford after missing two deadlines for preparing radioactive waste to be shipped to New Mexico for disposal.

The resolution was reached in an agreement between DOE and the Washington State Department of Ecology, which regulates Hanford.

DOE and its contractor Fluor Hanford have prepared 3,766 cubic yards of transuranic waste -- typically debris contaminated with plutonium -- for shipment to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant, a national repository for transuranic waste in New Mexico.

However, under the legally binding Tri-Party Agreement DOE was required to have about 3,600 cubic yards ready by the end of 2006, a total of 5,040 cubic yards by the end of 2007 and a total of 6,480 cubic yards by the end of 2008.

DOE ran into trouble on the deadline when work slowed to clean up the Plutonium Finishing Plant in central Hanford as money was shifted to clean up contamination closer to the Columbia River. It had expected to be producing large amounts of building rubble contaminated with transuranic waste from tearing down buildings in the Plutonium Finishing Plant complex.

Instead, it had to retrieve and prepare more drums of transuranic waste that had been temporarily buried after Congress ruled in 1970 that all transuranic waste must be shipped to a repository.

With no repository available for decades, DOE temporarily buried drums that might contain transuranic waste. Now, the badly deteriorated drums are being dug up.

The retrieved drums are X-rayed for waste that's not allowed at the national repository, are repacked in some cases and have their radioactivity level verified before they can be certified for shipment to New Mexico.

"This is a very fair resolution to a complicated issue, and we're pleased to have been able to come to an agreement with the Department of Ecology," said Geoff Tyree, DOE spokesman.

DOE had asked for more time since September 2006 to do the work. But the state denied the extension in early 2007, saying that it needed to see more effort on DOE's part to prepare transuranic waste for shipment.

"Over the past year and a half they have been trying to increase the rate at which they certify the waste that comes out of the ground," said Ron Skinnarland, waste management section manager for the Department of Ecology. "They have made efforts to improve."

Under the deal reached by the state and DOE, it was agreed that DOE must certify, or have ready to ship, 720 cubic yards of transuranic this fiscal year, which ends Sept. 30. DOE still must formally apply for the change in deadlines under the Tri-Party Agreement, but is on track to meet the revised goal, Tyree said.

The state also acknowledges that DOE did not have as much transuranic waste generated from the Plutonium Finishing Plant as it originally expected and that it has not had adequate funding to certify as much buried waste as required, Skinnarland said.

Although the state has repeatedly chastised the federal government for Hanford budgets that are inadequate to meet its legal cleanup obligations, the state has agreed with its priorities for spending the money it does have, Skinnarland said. Among DOE's priorities are building the vitrification plant, emptying tanks, shipping weapons-grade plutonium off site and cleaning up contaminated areas closest to the Columbia River.

Under the Tri-Party Agreement, the state could have issued a fine of up to $5,000 for the first week the 2006 and 2007 deadlines were missed, then $10,000 for each additional week for each deadline.

However, the state did not see an advantage of pulling money away from cleanup, Skinnarland said.

"Putting some of the penalty proceeds to work at Hanford just makes good sense," he said.

In addition to the $25,000 fine, DOE has agreed to spend $650,000 to bring an expert from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to Hanford to help assess potential natural resource injuries to the land. The expert would be hired by Jan. 1 and would work for three years.

Following completion of cleanup of soil and ground water at Hanford, federal laws require that natural resources -- including plants, animals and ground water -- be restored to their original condition and remaining environmental injuries mitigated.

Assessing the potential damage is the first step in preparing a natural resource recovery plan, the state said.

DOE's natural resource obligations have been the subject of a federal district court lawsuit filed by the Yakama, Nez Perce and Umatilla tribes and the states of Oregon and Washington. In 2007, just before Keith Klein, DOE Hanford Richland Operations Office manager, retired, DOE agreed to assess damage to natural resources. But the agreement did not come with any additional money attached.

The expert position created under the enforcement resolution will bring institutional knowledge from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, which has experience in natural resource damage assessments, to Hanford, the state said.

By assessing damage to natural resources before cleanup is complete, the work may be done in a way to lessen impacts on natural resources or prevent further damage, Skinnarland said

Panel says Indian Point nuke 'safe' despite local concerns

2008-08-01T08:03:00.001-07:00

Panel says Indian Point nuke 'safe' despite local concerns

Washington (Platts)--31Jul2008

The Indian Point nuclear power plant is "safe and secure but has areas
that need improvement," an independent panel concluded Thursday after
reviewing the station in response to opposition from local groups and
officials over an application to extend its operating license for 20 years.

    "First, Indian Point is a safe plant," the panel said in a statement.
"Second, Indian Point's relationship with the public and officials, in
particular on matters regarding emergency preparedness, is not healthy."

    The panel recommended that plant operator Entergy make continued
investments to maintain safety levels, engage in "aggressive and proactive
communication" with the community and upgrade the station's emergency response
facilities and safety equipment.

    It also said that the company should follow through on its plan to
address critical staffing shortages and invest more in the aesthetics of the
plant "to visibly convey to workers and the public that Entergy is committed
to the care and protection of the station."

    Entergy CEO J. Wayne Leonard in March appointed the panel's co-chairs,
who then selected 10 other panel members.

    Entergy asked the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission in April to renew the
operating license for Indian Point, which has two operating reactors. Indian
Point-2's license expires September 28, 2013, and Indian Point-3's expires
December 15, 2015.

    Decommissioning of Indian Point-1, which has been shut since 1974, is
expected to be completed in 2020.

    Several groups and county and state officials complained that a timely
evacuation would be impossible in the event of a serious accident at the
plant, about 25 miles from New York.

    For more news, request a free trial to Platts Nucleonics Week at
http://www.platts.com/Request%20More%20Information/index.xml?src=story
or subscribe now at http://getnucleonicsweek.platts.com

Atomic power generation waits for nuke deal cue

2008-07-31T09:56:00.000-07:00

Atomic power generation waits for nuke deal cue

New Delhi (PTI): There is no better time than now for the Indo-US nuclear deal to come through, as atomic power plants are running at less than 50 per cent of their capacity for want of fuel, feel Power Ministry officials.

Shortage of nuclear fuel means under-utilisation of installed capacity in general. The generation is less than 50 per cent of the installed nuclear power capacity of 4,120 MW, a senior Power Ministry official told PTI.

The deal with the US would give India access to American nuclear technology and fuel that would allow all its 22 atomic reactors to run in full capacity.

The fuel shortage at present is so acute that some of the nuclear power plants were closed down a couple of months ago. However the country is exploring the possibility of using 'Thorium' as fuel but any breakthrough is not expected in the near future, the official said.

Japan police raid company, suspect nuclear exports

2008-07-31T07:52:00.000-07:00

Japan police raid company, suspect nuclear exports

By JAY ALABASTER – 8 hours ago

TOKYO (AP) — Authorities raided a company in southwestern Japan on Thursday on suspicion it illegally exported machinery that can be used to make nuclear weapons, police said.

Police raided the headquarters of Horkos Corp., a maker of machining tools and construction equipment, and several other sites in the city of Fukuyama, about 370 miles southwest of Tokyo, said police spokesman Ryoji Manda.

The company is suspected of exporting equipment without obtaining government authorization, he said.

In 2004, Horkos exported several "machining centers" to South Korea, from where they could then have been sold to other countries, Japanese media reported. The equipment is highly precise and can be used to make components for centrifuges that enrich uranium for use in nuclear bombs.

Repeated calls to Horkos Corp. went unanswered Thursday.

Japanese law requires domestic companies to get permission before exporting high-precision manufacturing equipment. Despite the regulations, some advanced equipment from Japan has reportedly been exported to countries looking to develop nuclear weapons.

In 2006, Japanese police arrested the president and other employees of Mitutoyo Corp., and the company later admitted it broke the law in a case involving the export of precision three-dimensional measuring devices.

Japanese news reports said the International Atomic Energy Agency had earlier discovered Mitutoyo-made machinery at nuclear-related sites in Libya during inspections.

Earthquakes and Nuclear Powr Plants

2008-07-31T07:44:00.000-07:00

Thousands of articles appeared within hours of the July 28th Chino Hills quake. Hundreds of those articles cited the quake's proximity to the San Onofre Nuclear Plant. Hundreds also cited the loss of cell phone availability. Had the quake resulted in damage to the nuclear facility emergency planning would have been seriously hampered.

ENVIRONMENT
Perhaps California needs to seriously consider the impacts of allowing aging reactors to extend current operating licenses for an additional twenty years. Both reactor facilities have recently been licensed to store high level radioactive waste onsite. And both reactor facilities are located on earthquake active coastal bluffs.

If you would like to ensure that production of highly radioactive waste is limited to current operating licenses (2025 term), please contact the Alliance for Nuclear Responsibility.

U.S. fires captain of Japan-bound nuclear warship

2008-07-31T07:33:00.000-07:00

TOKYO (Reuters) - The U.S. Navy said it had replaced the captain of a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier scheduled for a controversial berth in Japan after blaming him for a fire on board on the warship.

The United States has been trying to allay fears over the planned stationing of the George Washington in Japan, the only country to have suffered nuclear attacks.

Doubts about the ship's safety were renewed when a fire broke out on board in May, and the plan has sparked two demonstrations in recent weeks.

U.S. Naval Air Forces said in a statement it had fired commanding officer David C. Dykhoff and another officer over the incident and installed Captain J.R. Haley as the ship's new commander.

A U.S. investigation determined that the likely cause of the fire, which blazed for 12 hours and seriously injured one sailor, was unauthorized smoking that ignited oil stored inappropriately, the statement said.

Rear Admiral James Kelly, the head of the U.S. Navy in Japan, and James Zumwalt, a senior U.S. Embassy official in Tokyo visited Japanese foreign ministry officials to explain the results of the investigation, the ministry said in a statement.

Japanese officials told their U.S. counterparts they were satisfied with the investigation, but wanted U.S. forces to continue to make efforts to prevent a recurrence.

Tokyo is also satisfied that the ship is safe, the foreign ministry said.

The George Washington is currently undergoing $70 million dollars of repairs in San Diego, which has delayed its arrival in Japan by several weeks
It is now scheduled to depart the United States on August 21 and arrive in Yokosuka, 45 km (28 miles) southwest of the heavily populated capital, in late September, the statement said.

Many Japanese are sensitive about the use of nuclear power by military forces. The Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki came under nuclear attack from the United States at the end of World War Two in August 1945

Think Outside the Bomb

2008-07-30T08:03:00.000-07:00

Think Outside the Bomb
Conference

When: Saturday, Aug. 18, 2007, 8 a.m. to 8 p.m.

Where: UCSB Campus, Santa Barbara

Cost: Not available

Age limit: Not available

Categories: Workshops

Description: National grassroots conference to inspire action for nuclear abolition.

With Speakers:
Shigeko Sasamori, a survivor of the Hiroshima atomic bombing

Myrna Pagan, a leader of the effort to evict the US military base in Vieques, Puerto Rico

Steve Lopez, a leader of the Fort Mojave Nation tribal resistance to nuclear waste dumping

Andrew Lichterman, program director of the Western States Legal Foundation

Julia Moon Sparrow, a co-founder of the Shundahai Network, most famous for its association with recently-deceased Western Shoshone activist and spiritual leader Corbin Harney

David Krieger, president of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation

Members of the student network that coordinated the May 2007 "No More Nukes In Our Name" hunger strike at the University of California

Kickapoo Nation declares health care emergency

2008-07-30T07:35:00.001-07:00

Kickapoo Nation declares health care emergency

Story by Kendall Jones (Contact)

9:22 p.m. Monday, July 28, 2008

Download:

The seats inside the Kickapoo's health center are empty. There has been a steady flow of walk-ins to the clinic, but the one doctor who serves the patients is out sick today.

"Health care here has been off-and-on because we haven't had the physicians here every day," patient Joe Williams said.

There just isn't enough money to fund the center the way it should be funded. Kansas Kickapoo Chairman Steve Cadue says the U.S. has turned its back on the treaty to provide American-Indians with health care.

"This obligation is as old as the United States," Cadue said. "They've reneged on nearly every treaty obligation that they owe the Native-American people."

Digging begins at Hanford's H Reactor

2008-07-30T07:23:00.000-07:00

Digging begins at Hanford's H Reactor

By Annette Cary, Herald staff writer

Work has begun to dig up the waste burial grounds around H Reactor, a relic of the Cold War near the Columbia River at the Hanford nuclear reservation.

The start of work meets a legally binding Tri-Party Agreement deadline to begin cleanup of the burial grounds by Oct. 31 with three months to spare.

H Reactor irradiated fuel to produce plutonium for the nation's nuclear weapons program and also tested new processes and equipment. Much of the waste from the reactor was disposed of in unlined trenches, starting during the reactor's construction in 1948 and continuing through its closure in 1965.

To meet modern environmental standards, the Department of Energy expects to retrieve an estimated 276,000 tons of waste from sites near the reactor and the river. The work is being done by Federal Engineers & Constructors under a $9 million subcontract awarded by Washington Closure Hanford, which holds the DOE contract for Hanford cleanup along the Columbia.

With at least some cleanup work done at burial grounds near seven other reactors, workers have an idea of what to expect. They will dig up waste and soil contaminated with radioactive isotopes and with hazardous chemicals, which could include lead, asbestos, mercury, PCBs and acid. Items could include reactor hardware, process equipment and waste, laboratory equipment and waste, metals and construction debris.

Thorough records of what was disposed of in burial grounds near the reactor were not kept.

But "we're ready to safely handle any anomalies we may encounter or items not on existing inventory logs," Mark Buckmaster, project manager for Washington Closure, said in a statement.

That includes being prepared to find pieces of irradiated fuel which will be too radioactively hot for workers to get near.

The first pieces of spent fuel found when excavation of reactor burial grounds began were a surprise, since fuel was supposed to be carefully inventoried. But Hanford workers now have found about 66 whole and partial fuel pieces. The pieces, which are up to eight inches long, have radiation levels up to 200,000 times the exposure limit set by the Department of Energy, according to the Washington State Department of Ecology, a Hanford regulator.

To protect workers, the pieces are identified and handled by remotely operated equipment.

Most of the debris and contaminated soil to be unearthed near H Reactor will be sent to the Environmental Restoration Disposal Facility, a lined landfill in central Hanford for low-level radioactive waste. Any fuel pieces will require disposal at a federal repository, likely Yucca Mountain, Nev.

With work that started this week to dig up the clean soil above the H Reactor burial grounds, DOE is working on retrieval of waste in two reactor areas -- the 100 H Area and the 100 D and DR Area.

"We're happy they are working on two at the same time," said John Price of the Department of Ecology. "The concurrent work should allow DOE to increase the rate of waste being shipped."

DOE is required by the Tri-Party Agreement to have the first burial ground near the H Reactor excavated by the end of 2009, three excavated by the end of 2010 and all five by the end of 2011.

Egypt seizes Israeli radioactive cargo

2008-07-30T07:20:00.000-07:00

Egypt seizes Israeli radioactive cargo
Mon, 28 Jul 2008 03:49:36

Egypt has refused to allow entry to an Israeli truck carrying 3.5 ton of ceramics after high radiation levels were detected in the shipment.

Egyptian officials seized the goods at the Al-Oja border crossing after radiation detection equipment showed a high presence of radioactive material in the cargo, a security official told AFP.

A special team from the Egyptian Atomic Energy Authority (EAEA) was expected to inspect the shipment immediately, he added.

It is not the first time that an Israeli truck is denied entry to Egypt. In June, Egypt sent back to Israel a delivery of 32 tons of tiles because it was emitting high levels of radiation.

100 employees at French nuke site contaminated

2008-07-28T04:23:00.000-07:00

100 employees at French nuke site contaminated

The Associated Press

PARIS -- The French electric company EDF says that 100 employees have been "slightly contaminated" by a leak at a reactor site in southern France.

It was the third incident at a French nuclear site in recent weeks and the second at the huge Tricastin site.

An EDF spokeswoman says the employees were exposed to radioactive particles that escaped from a pipe in a reactor that had been shut down. It says the employees were exposed to radiation far below permitted levels, and went home but will be tested.

A leak of unenriched uranium at another facility at Tricastin led to a just-lifted ban on water sports and fishing in two rivers.

NAJA Convention Begins Unconventionally

2008-07-27T09:58:00.000-07:00

Native American Journalists Association

NAJA Convention Begins Unconventionally

By Jessica Delos Reyes

Just look how progressive Indian Country can be.

New members of the Native American Journalists Association were welcomed at a reception last night at the Viejas Casino, about 25 miles east of San Diego. The crowd was Native, but the fare wasn't. Example: Caviar on artichoke hearts.

Cocktail waitresses sauntered between the tables. Canapes were passed 'round but the diners each seemed to silently agree on how to handle the toasty appetizers: Smell 'em and put 'em back down.

Later, the lights dimmed in the casino's Dreamcatcher Lounge as the opening ceremonies of the 18th annual NAJA convention began. Traditional elders of the Kumeyaay spoke, welcoming their guests to their territory.

Then, the Campo New Bird Singers, a group of young men from various bands of the Kumeyaay, told stories through their bird-singing.

They stood side-by-side, their voices resonating through the large lounge in deep, rich tones. Each held a wooden rattle in his right hand. Shake. Shake. Roooollll. Their song was hypnotic.

The leader of songs, a young man wearing a red shirt that read "What's Your Fancy?" stood in the middle of his peers. As he began each song, the men to his right and left joined in, the tone swelling as voices were added down the line.

The syncopated rhythm of their songs quickly switched, with the youths deftly following the beat set by the leader.

Women are not allowed to sing the songs, but the young men don't know why. It's just the way it is.

Then, a young girl in cut-off jeans and a black jacket mysteriously appeared in front of the singers, her back to the audience. She swayed from side-to-side but kept her head down and her eyes averted from the men before her. They adopted her side-step movements.

An older woman joined the girl, her older body mimicking the younger.

"Anyone can get up and dance," Joseph Castelol, one of the singers, said after the performance.

"The songs all tell a story," interjected Marcos Cuero, another member. "The songs are about when the stars are coming out until the coming of the dawn."

Another singer and Cuero's cousin, James Cuero, added: "We sing because the people who have gone before us are now with us. It's time for everyone to get up and dance."

After a host of speakers addressed convention-goers, the vice chairman of the Sycuan band took the stage. Danny Tucker, wearing a silver-sequined vest over his white button-down shirt, danced and kicked a la Barry Manilow, belting out the words to Copacabana and other lounge tunes.

It was like going from the 1670s to the 1970s in the span of two hours.

LAND SWAP PLAN: Tribal leaders say oil benefits are short-term.

2008-07-27T09:55:00.000-07:00

LAND SWAP PLAN: Tribal leaders say oil benefits are short-term.

By TOM KIZZIA
tkizzia@adn.com

Published: July 21st, 2008 01:02 AM
Last Modified: July 21st, 2008 06:56 PM

ARCTIC VILLAGE -- The new generators in this remote Yukon Flats village shut down every night at 10:30, after the televised evening news, as a way to save fuel. The electric blackout ends in the morning, before caribou meat and other frozen goods begin to thaw.

Click to enlarge

Times are getting harder in Arctic Village, where diesel fuel arrives by air tanker and retails for $8.50 a gallon. But soaring fuel costs haven't softened opposition here and in other Yukon Flats villages to oil drilling in their own region.

A complex land trade that would hasten oil and gas exploration inside the Yukon Flats National Wildlife Refuge continues to draw protest from local villages, despite a promise of jobs and revenue from the region's big Native corporation, Doyon Ltd.

Indeed, packed houses at community meetings helped slow the six-year negotiation to a crawl, and time may now be running out for Bush administration officials who support the deal.

Gwichin Indian leaders say they are worried about pollution from oil spills in the vast wetland basin. They also fear changes to their hunting and fishing territory that would come with a road connection to the outside world.

Trimble Gilbert, the 73-year-old traditional chief in Arctic Village, said he is advising people to hone their hunting and trapping skills to prepare for the hard economic times ahead. An oil boom would offer only a short-term respite, he said.

"Yukon Flats oil, I don't think it's going to last very long. And what then?" Gilbert said during a recent community festival day, where he showed his authority by beating the village's young men in a bow-and-arrow contest.

OIL, GAS POTENTIAL

While debate over oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge immediately to the north has been a national cause celebre, the debate over the Yukon Flats Refuge has been mostly an obsession in Interior Alaska for the past four years.

But the Yukon case ripples with many of the same themes: national energy security, subsistence vs. jobs, a Native vs. Native power struggle.

It's a much smaller field, however -- estimates of oil on the Yukon Flats range from 173 million barrels of oil to more than 800 million barrels, compared to estimates for the Arctic coastal plain starting at 5.7 billion barrels and running much higher.

There's a better potential for gas than oil on the Yukon Flats, the U.S. Geological Survey has said.

MORE THAN 200,000 ACRES

For Doyon, which has been looking at the region's oil and gas potential since making its land-claims selections in the 1970s, the local opposition has been frustrating. The corporation has said the land swap and successful development of oil and gas fields there is vital to its future.

"It's clearly taken longer than most people anticipated," said Jim Mery, senior vice president for lands and natural resources for the Fairbanks-based Native corporation.

Mery pointed out that several Yukon Flats villages -- the smallest ones are losing their school-age population -- have favored the trade. Doyon's backers in other communities, he said, "choose not to engage in debate in a village setting."

The proposed land trade, first unveiled in 2004 after two years of private negotiation, would give Doyon 110,000 acres of refuge land with high oil and gas potential, and another 97,000 acres of subsurface drilling rights. Doyon would gain access to current inholdings via a swath of land through the middle of the wildlife refuge.

In return, the federal government would receive at least 150,000 acres of Doyon land inside refuge boundaries with good fish and wildlife habitat. Another 120,000 acres of Doyon inholdings could also be folded into the trade in the future.

INFIGHTING

The 11-million-acre Yukon Flats Refuge is the nation's third-largest wildlife refuge. Congress created it in 1980 under the complex sorting-out of Alaska's federal lands triggered by the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act a decade earlier. That act gave Doyon the right to select land around villages inside the refuge-to-be.

Refuge officials have promoted the exchange, saying the new federal acreage would improve the government's ability to manage the vast region of lakes and oxbow rivers for wildlife. National environmental groups oppose the swap, saying they worry about a precedent for opening refuges to oil development.

In the Interior, the topic has developed into a classic dispute between two Native power centers, the village-based tribes and the regional Native corporation.

"They're acting like any other corporation," said Dacho Alexander, chief of the Gwichyaa Zhee Gwichin tribal government in Fort Yukon, the area's governmental hub and a center of the opposition. "I think those special feelings (for a Native-owned corporation) went away a long time ago."

HIGH OIL PRICES

This year's escalation in oil prices has complicated the trade significantly.

With oil and gas drilling rights more valuable, the acreage trade worked out in 2004 is probably way out of balance, critics say. Fixing the deal could mean giving away much more Native corporation inholdings, which local villagers want to keep in Native hands.

Mery concedes that more Native land will probably have to be surrendered, up to a limit. The amount of extra acreage won't have to match the rise in oil prices because there's a risk that exploratory drilling will be disappointing, he said.

At the same time, the higher price makes it more likely that Doyon can go ahead with oil development on its own holdings in Yukon Flats, without any land trade, Mery said. Access is guaranteed to Native corporation land inside a refuge, subject to certain restrictions.

He said the corporation is discussing the possibility with several potential partners.

"We think in the current environment, this makes even more sense," Mery said. "We think there is a good case for the trade to be made to the next administration."

Critics portray the proposed trade as a ploy by the Bush administration to open more federal land to oil companies. They say the original plan was to approve the trade on a fast track, without an environmental impact statement.

"I don't think the refuge is supportive of this deal," said Fort Yukon's Alexander. "I think it came from the top down."

Yukon Flats refuge staff referred questions about the trade to a regional public affairs specialist based in Anchorage, who has not been personally involved.

Bruce Woods said the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service continues to support the trade as a good deal for the American public.The approval schedule has slipped, however, with the plan in a "holding pattern" while internal discussions over the appraisals take place, he said.

Release of a final environmental impact statement, originally scheduled for October, could be delayed, he said. A substantial change in the number of acres involved could require a separate document known as a supplemental EIS, he said.

"Obviously, we do not know at this stage when the final appraisal will be done, so it puts all the other dates up in the air," Woods said.

KEEPING PROMISES

Meanwhile, in the Yukon Flats villages, talk turns frequently to the North Slope villagers of Nuiqsut, who saw the Alpine oil field grow up next to them. Nuiqsut villagers spoke at a Gwichin gathering in Beaver several years ago.

"They were made the same promises. There'd be jobs, better schools, subsistence resources would be protected," said Alexander.

"They can see light everywhere they used to hunt and fish," said Gilbert, the chief in Arctic Village.

Gilbert's village has been prominent in the fight over drilling in the Arctic Refuge, which they contend could hurt the caribou herd on which they depend. The fight over the Yukon Flats Refuge, tribal leaders say, belongs more to the people around Fort Yukon. Arctic Village, though distant, is providing support.

Arctic Village is not part of the Doyon region but depends on the same healthy wetlands basin for its food, Trimble said. And all the area's villages are Gwichin, bound to help each other in times of famine for more than a century.

"We fight to keep it closed because of our hunting traditions," said Lorraine Tritt, 39, the elected tribal chief of Arctic Village. "I don't think money is that important to us. I think the food we eat is important."

VIGILANT GUARD ’08 EXERCISE WILL TEST PREPAREDNESS

2008-07-27T09:44:00.001-07:00

VIGILANT GUARD ’08 EXERCISE WILL TEST PREPAREDNESS

CARSON CITY, Nev. – Governor Jim Gibbons today helped kickoff Nevada Vigilant Guard ’08, a full-scale disaster preparedness exercise involving more than 2,000 participants from civilian emergency response agencies and National Guard units from seven western states. The Vigilant Guard ‘08 exercise simulates a 7.1 magnitude earthquake striking Reno, triggering widespread damage and destruction.

The joint civilian and military exercise got underway at 6 a.m. PDT when the simulated earthquake “struck” southwest Reno near the intersection of State Route 431—Mt .Rose Highway—and U.S. Highway 395. The drill, which includes emergency response units coming to Nevada’s aid from six other western states, will be staged through June 19 with different scenarios played out at specific sites in Washoe, Carson City, Douglas, Storey, Lyon, and Churchill counties.

At a news conference held at the State Emergency Operations Center in Carson City this morning, Gov. Gibbons said, “Vigilant Guard ‘08 has been in the planning stages for two years, and the earthquake scenario has turned out to be very timely given the recent seismic activity around Reno. Nevada must be fully prepared to respond swiftly and effectively to any emergency or disaster that may occur, including flood, wildfire or biochemical incident. This exercise will help achieve that goal.”

Nevada is among the nation’s most seismically active states, ranking No. 3 in larger quakes after Alaska and California. According to University of Nevada, Reno seismologists, a magnitude 7.1 earthquake in Reno would cause death, extensive injury, damage, destruction, disruption of transportation and utilities, and an economic loss of $3 billion to $11 billion.

Vigilant Guard ’08 will test and train participants’ skills in victim recovery, triage, mobile field hospital setup, evacuation by ground and helicopter, search and rescue, mass sheltering for displaced victims and pets, emergency food distribution, hazardous chemical spill response, and gathering of information. Assessing “damage” to buildings, roads, dams, pipelines, and other infrastructure is also part of the exercise.

The Nevada Division of Emergency Management is directing the exercise in conjunction with the Nevada National Guard. Participants in the exercise include emergency response agencies from six Nevada counties and more than 1,750 National Guard soldiers and airmen from Arizona, California, Hawaii, Idaho, Nevada, Washington state, and Utah.

Attendees at the news conference in Carson City this morning also heard from Frank Siracusa, Chief of the Nevada Division of Emergency Management; Maj. Gen. Cynthia Kirkland, commander of the Nevada National Guard; and State Geologist Jonathan Price, director of the Nevada Bureau of Mines and Geology, which includes the Seismological Laboratory at the University of Nevada, Reno.

“This exercise will provide participants an unprecedented opportunity to work and train together to strengthen their skills in all aspects of emergency preparedness,” Siracusa said. “As we undertake the emergency response activities, evaluators will assess our performance and recommend areas for improvement when the exercise concludes.”

Major General Kirkland said, “Although Vigilant Guard is a National Guard exercise program nationwide, it is critical that we include as many of our local, state, and federal partners as possible. In the guard we train like we fight, and since the guard responds to emergencies to support local and state partners, it makes sense to ensure we include as many as possible in the plan. The time to build relationships and learn about each others' capabilities is not when you're responding to an actual emergency.”

Price added, “No one can predict with certainty when an earthquake will occur, but we can take action to prepare, and Vigilant Guard ’08 is exactly what we should be doing right now. Most of the damage from the earthquake this exercise envisions would occur in Nevada, particularly in Washoe County, Carson City, Douglas, Storey, and Lyon counties. Damage also would occur in El Dorado, Placer, and Nevada counties in California, and may affect other counties as well.”

Price said the probability of a 7.0 earthquake occurring near Reno or Carson City within the next 50 years is between 12 percent and 15 percent, which he called “significant, but low enough that we can take action to be better prepared.”

“Living with Earthquakes in Nevada,” a guide to preparing for, surviving and recovering from an earthquake, is available online at www.nbmg.unr.edu/dox/sp27.pdf.

The federal government requires states to conduct Vigilant Guard exercises and provides funding through the U.S. Department of Homeland Security that is designated for training exercises. Nevada’s Vigilant Guard exercise, the 11th such exercise to be staged across the country, received a federal allocated of $1.5 million for National Guard and Nevada Division of Emergency Management mobilization.

To learn about specific exercises being staged in a particular county, go to http://dem.state.nv.us/coordinators.shtml to find contact information for the local Emergency Operations Center.

The public may notice an increased military presence during the exercise as National Guard and other troops participate in a variety of activities, including “victim” recovery and triage. However, the exercise will not stage any real-life impact on services or infrastructure during the week-long exercise. Information about Vigilant Guard ’08 activities can be found at http://nvstatejic.nv.gov.

Senator Harry Reid Wants to Change the Rules

2008-07-27T09:33:00.001-07:00

Senator Harry Reid Wants to Change the Rules
By Paul M. Weyrich

What makes the newest United States Senator more powerful than a ten-term Representative? Every Senator has the power to stop consideration of any legislation until his concerns are addressed or sixty of his colleagues agree to override his objection. That power, better know as the filibuster, is regularly asserted by Senators when they place a hold upon various bills. A hold is really a threat to filibuster.

Senator Harry Reid Wants to Change the Rules (Image: Wenn)

With up to six separate opportunities to filibuster any bill, a hold is a powerful tool to force the Senate to take due consideration of each and every Senator’s concerns. “It’s difficult to work around a Senator. Ultimately, it’s a cloture vote. It’s very time-consuming, and you can’t do that on most issues,” Maryland Senator Ben Cardin told THE POLITICO newspaper.

Before the August recess, the Senate is expected to consider a proposal by Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-NV) which would make the Senate more like the House of Representatives, where a one-vote majority is all that is needed to run roughshod over the interests of the minority.

Reid is cleverly disguising the impact of his idea by framing it as a means to undercut the already unpopular anti-spending hawk, Senator Tom Coburn, M.D. (R-OK).

Coburn is not afraid to block legislation, even when his actions hit close to home. Senator Ben Nelson (D-NE), reports THE POLITICO, “still betrays some anger after being in Coburn’s crosshairs a few months back over an earmark that Nelson was pushing for a Nebraska company which employed his son.” The Alaska delegation still is smarting over Coburn’s exposure of the so-called “Bridge to Nowhere,” its multibillion dollar raid on the Federal Treasury.

Reid plans a single up-or-down vote on a package of seventy or more spending proposals to which Dr. Coburn has objected. This massive bill, already nicknamed the “Coburn Omnibus,” is a frontal assault on the rights of all Senators.

Reid spokesman Jim Manley gave the game away when he told THE POLITICO that Coburn is “exercising his rights as a Senator, but his approach is contrary to the traditions of collegiality and bipartisan compromise in the Senate. No wonder it’s so hard to get things done when a handful of junior members insist on a their-way-or-the-highway approach to legislating.”

Senator Reid has not exactly been a shrinking violet when it comes to “my-way-or-the-highway” legislating. Reid has spent years blocking efforts to store spent nuclear fuel rods in Yucca Mountain, Nevada, terming the proposal “the screw Nevada bill,” before recently cutting the budget for this program by $108 million.

Manley has also said:

The idea that Senator Coburn is talking about the traditions of the Senate is ridiculous. Look what happened last time we did this. Senator Coburn held up action on dozens of bills for narrow, personal reasons, demanding debate and four amendments. These bills were held up for months; the Senate had to waste precious time to allow him to offer a few amendments. Each amendment failed by overwhelming bipartisan margins (63, 76, 67, 73 votes against), and the final bill passed 91-4 (Coburn, DeMint, Vitter and Inhofe being the only Nos). That is not debate and amendment; it is abuse, obstruction and delay.

Jim Manley, meet Senator Bernie Sanders (D-VT). Sanders has been insisting upon fast-track consideration of his bill to vastly increase taxpayer subsidies for heating oil, which is important to his New England State. Implicit in Sanders’ demand is a threat to obstruct and delay other bills until his concerns are satisfied.

Given that polls suggest a bigger Democratic majority in the 2009 U.S. Senate, Reid’s interest in curtailing the over two century-old power of Senate minorities to have their interests taken into account may be obvious.

Were Reid to have the unchecked powers of a latter-day Lyndon B. Johnson during a Democratic Administration, the leftist dream of another burst of Great Society-style legislation would be close to fruition: national health care, amnesty for illegal aliens, card-check unionization and every other plank of their agenda nearly would be unstoppable.

Yet it is hardly in the interest of leftist Senators like Edward M. (Ted) Kennedy (D-MA) or Christopher J. Dodd (D-CT) to be reduced to rubber stamps for the latest ideas from the White House.

Should the Senate pass Reid’s “Coburn Omnibus,” it will be crossing a procedural Rubicon from which there is no turning back.

Paul M. Weyrich is Chairman and CEO of the Free Congress Foundation.

'A Pageant Where You Butcher Sheep'

2008-07-26T10:17:00.001-07:00

Documentary film maker Billy Luther, left, and Crystal Frazier, former Miss Northern Navajo in 2005 AP Photo/Courtesy of ITVS/Independent Lens

'A Pageant Where You Butcher Sheep'

By Felicia Fonseca

ALBUQUERQUE (AP) — When young women head off to compete in the weeklong Miss Navajo Nation pageant, they bring along their evening gowns, jewelry, high heels, public speaking skills — and their butcher knives.

This is no ordinary pageant.

On the nation's largest Indian reservation where tradition reigns, contestants are required to speak their native language, make fry bread and butcher an animal that represents life to the Navajos — sheep.

"The pageant really gets people's interest because they say, 'Oh my gosh, a pageant where you butcher sheep.' That's really the grabber," said Billy Luther, a documentary film maker. "But I think people walk away learning the Navajo way of life and how much the Navajo people respect women."

Luther, whose mother was crowned Miss Navajo in 1966, offers a different take on what it means to be beautiful in his first feature-length documentary, "Miss Navajo," which aired Tuesday on PBS's Independent Lens. The film premiered at the Sundance Film Festival earlier this year.

Beauty is very much internal, Luther says. What Navajos perceive as beautiful might not be beautiful to others, he said.

"It's having the knowledge of your culture, it's having respect for your mothers and grandmothers, it's the language, fluency. As we say, that's harmony, that's what we strive for," said Luther, 32, who is Navajo, Laguna and Hopi.

Luther's documentary follows Crystal Frazier, a now-23-year-old Table Mesa resident, on her quest to become Miss Navajo during the 2005 pageant.

The pageant, held each year during the Navajo Nation Fair in Window Rock, Ariz., takes contestants of all shapes and sizes through skill and talent tests, and quizzes them on tribal government and Navajo beliefs.

For Frazier, a self-described introvert who raised chickens as a hobby, her insecurities centered on her ability to speak the Navajo language, which long had been passed down orally.

A panel made up of former Miss Navajos greets the contestants in one part of the film with the intent of finding out whether the girls truly know their Native language.

Frazier blanks on her turn. She wants the question repeated in English.

"I was just a deer in headlights," said Frazier, who was Miss Northern Navajo in 2004-05. "I remember being in the room and being in awe of seeing formal title holders. You feel the pressure, and you see all the lights from the cameras, and you just freak. I remember I didn't even hear a word."

The queen's panel was added in 2005 at the insistence of Sunni Dooley — the 1982-83 Miss Navajo.

"They know they are supposed to talk Navajo, but as you saw in the pageant, a lot of them entered without knowing their language," said Dooley, a storyteller from Vanderwagon. "They probably had memorized their clan, where they came from, who their parents are and who their grandparents are."

What the judges wanted was simple: Give the directions to your house, she said.

The pageant began in 1952 as somewhat of a popularity contest. The winner was crowned based on how much applause she got from the audience.

Until the early 1960s, two Miss Navajos were crowned, a traditional one and "one who looked like Jackie Kennedy," Dooley says.

Now only one queen is named and the contest is open to any Navajo woman age 18 to 25 who is single and meets other contest requirements, such as having a high school diploma or GED and no children.

Faced with a dwindling number of contestants, Dooley and other former Miss Navajos created a nonprofit group in Arizona this year to address how to make the pageant last.

"I think what's scaring a lot of these contestants is the sheep butchering part of it, also the Navajo," she said.

Ultimately, Dooley said she would like to see one girl representing each of the Navajo Nation's 110 chapter houses in the pageant.

"I think whoever wins that pageant, they can say, 'Yeah, not only did I compete against 110 girls but I can butcher a sheep with one hand,' " Dooley jokes.

Although his original intent wasn't to make a film about Navajo women, Luther sees the final product as an inspiration for young girls, some of whom consider Miss Navajo the ideal woman.

Some people who have watched the film consider it an important one about women, an unexpected story of a contemporary Navajo family or a language-in-crisis film, he said.

Luther says simply: "This is a film about a beauty pageant contestant, and there's a winner and a loser.

"But sometimes, as in life, the winners aren't always the winners and the losers aren't always the losers."

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission says The Reactor Revival Is NOT Ready For Prime Time

2008-07-26T10:06:00.001-07:00

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission says The Reactor Revival Is NOT Ready For Prime Time

by Harvey Wasserman

A devastating blow to the much-hyped revival of atomic power has been delivered by an unlikely source—the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. The NRC says the “standardized” designs on which the entire premise of returning nuclear power to center stage is based have massive holes in them, and may not be ready for approval for years to come.

Delivered by one of America’s most notoriously docile agencies, the NRC’s warning essentially says: that all cost estimates for new nuclear reactors—and all licensing and construction schedules—are completely up for grabs, and have no reliable basis in fact. Thus any comparisons between future atomic reactors and renewable technologies are moot at best. And any “hard number” basis for independent financing for future nukes may not be available for years to come, if ever.

These key points have been raised in searing testimony before state regulators by Jim Warren of the North Carolina Waste and Awareness Reduction Network and Tom Clements of the South Carolina Friends of the Earth, and by others now challenging proposed state-based financing for new Westinghouse AP-1000 reactors. The NRC gave conditional “certification” to this “standardized” design in 2004, allowing design work to continue. But as recently as June 27, the NRC has issued written warnings that hundreds of key design components remain without official approval. Indeed, Westinghouse has been forced to actually withdraw numerous key designs, throwing the entire permitting process into chaos.

The catastrophic outcome of similar problems has already become tangible. After two years under construction, the first “new generation” French reactor being built in Finland is already more than two years behind schedule, and more than $2.5 billion over budget. The scenario is reminiscent of the economic disaster that hit scores of “first generation” reactors, which came in massively over budget and, in many cases, decades behind promised completion dates.

In North and South Carolina, public interest groups are demanding the revocation of some $230 million in pre-construction costs already approved by state regulators for two proposed Duke Energy reactors. In both those states, as well as in Florida, Alabama and Georgia, Westinghouse AP-1000 reactors have been presented to regulatory commissions to be financed by ratepayers as they are being built.

This astounding pro-utility scheme forces electric consumers to pay billions of dollars for nuclear plants that may never operate, and whose costs are indeterminate. Sometimes called Construction Work in Progress, it lets utilities raise rates to pay for site clearing, project planning, and down payments on large equipment and heavy reactor components, such as pressure vessels, pumps and generators, that can involve hundreds of millions of dollars, even before the projects get final federal approval. The process in essence gives utilities an incentive to drive up construction costs as much as they can. It allows them to force ratepayers to cover legal fees incurred by the utilities to defend themselves against lawsuits by those very ratepayers. And the public is stuck with the bill for whatever is spent, even if the reactor never opens—or if it melts down before it recoups its construction costs, as did Pennsylvania’s Three Mile Island Unit Two in 1979, which self-destructed after just three months of operation.

According to Warren and Clements, Duke Energy and its cohorts have “filed some 6,500 pages of Westinghouse’s technical design documents as the major component of applications” to build new reactors. “Of the 172 interconnected Westinghouse documents,” say NCWARN and FOE, “only 21 have been certified.” And most of what has been certified, they add, rely on systems that are unapproved, and that are key to the guts of the reactor, including such major components as the “reactor building, control room, cooling system, engineering designs, plant-wide alarm systems, piping and conduit.”

In other words, despite millions of dollars of high-priced hype, the “new generation” of “standardized design” power plants actually does not exist. The plans for these reactors have not been finalized by the builders themselves, nor have they been approved by the regulators. There is no operating prototype of a Westinghouse AP-1000 from which to draw actual data about how safely these plants might actually operate, what their environmental impact might be, or what they might cost to build or run.

In fact, as the NRC’s June 27 letter notes, Westinghouse has been forced to withdraw key technical documents from the regulatory process. The NRC says this means design approval for the AP-1000 might not come until 2012.

The problem extends to other designs. According to Michael Mariotte of the Nuclear Information & Resource Service, the “Evolutionary Power Reactor” proposed for Calvert Cliffs, Maryland, “is way behind in certification” causing delays in the licensing process. Similar problems have arisen with the “Economic Simplified Boiling War Reactor” design proposed for North Anna, Virginia and Fermi, Michigan. “All of these utilities seem to want standardization for the other guy, not for themselves, so most of them are making changes to the ’standardized’ designs, says Mariotte. “Even the ABWR,” being planned for a site in south Texas, which has actually been built before, “has design issues” that have caused delays.

The problem, says Mariotte, “is that the NRC is still trying to go ahead and do licensing even with the designs not certified. This is going to lead to a big mess later on.”

But in the meantime, Public Service Commissions like the one in Florida, have given preliminary approval to reactor proposals whose projected costs have more than doubled in just one year. Florida Power & Light’s two proposed reactors at Turkey Point, on the border of the Everglades National Park, are listed as costing somewhere between $6 billion and $9 billion. FP&L refuses to commit to a firm price, and is demanding south Florida ratepayers foot an unknowable bill for gargantuan projects whose costs are virtually certain to skyrocket long before the NRC approves the actual reactor designs. By contrast, the “huge” preliminary deal just reached between Florida, environmentalists and U.S. Sugar to buy some 180,000 acres of land to save the Everglades is now estimated at less than $2 billion, less than one-sixth the minimum estimated cost of the two reactors proposed for Turkey Point.

In the larger picture, the depth of this scam is staggering. With no finalized design, and no firm price tag, a second generation of nuclear power plants is now being put on the tab of southeastern citizens whose rates have already begun to skyrocket. These reactor projects cannot get private financing, and cannot proceed without either massive federal subsidies and loan guarantees, or a flood of these state-based give-aways. They also cannot get private insurance against future melt-downs, and have no solution for their radioactive waste problem. Current estimates for finishing the proposed Yucca Mountain national waste repository, also yet to be licensed, are soaring toward $100 billion, even though it, too, may never open.

By contrast, firm costs for proposed wind farms, solar panels, increased efficiency and other green sources are proven and reliable. These projects are easily financed by private investors lining up to become involved. Some $6 billion in new wind farms are under construction or on order in the United States alone. They are established and profitable, and can in many cases can be up and running in less than a year.

The high-profile campaign to paint atomic energy as some kind of answer to America’s energy problems has hit the iceberg of its economic impossibilities. The atomic “renaissance” has no tangible approved design, and no firm construction or operating costs to present. There are no reliable new reactor construction schedules, except to know that it will be at least ten years before the first one could conceivably come on line, and that its price tag is unknowable.

In short, the “nuclear renaissance” is perched atop a gigantic technical and economic chasm that looms larger every day, and that could soon swallow the entire idea of building more reactors.

Harvey Wasserman’s SOLARTOPIA! OUR GREEN-POWERED EARTH, A.D. 2030, is at www.solartopia.org. He is senior advisor to Greenpeace USA and the Nuclear Information & Resource Service, and writes regularly for www.freepress.org, where this article first appeared.

Radioactive Russian woman sparks airport evacuation

2008-07-25T10:53:00.000-07:00

AFP/Illustration Photo: Authorities evacuated the airport terminal in Vladivostok, in Russia's far east, after a flight arriving...

Radioactive Russian woman sparks airport evacuation

Thu Jul 24, 12:05 PM ET

MOSCOW (AFP) - Authorities evacuated the airport terminal in Vladivostok, in Russia's far east, after a flight arriving from Seoul set off a radiation alarm.

The alarm was called off when security officials pinpointed the source -- a woman who had just received radiation therapy, Interfax news agency reported Thursday.

The woman was released when it was established that South Korean doctors had treated her with iodine-131, a radioactive isotope used in nuclear medicine, giving her a level of radioactivity 15 times greater than the norm.

"Iodine 131 is a short-lived isotope, so the passenger should be back to normal in a month," Interfax quoted a customs spokeswoman at Vladivostok airport as saying.

Pakistan Warns That US-India Nuclear Deal Could Lead To New Arms Race

2008-07-25T10:45:00.000-07:00

Pakistan Warns That US-India Nuclear Deal Could Lead To New Arms Race

by Jeremy Page

ISLAMABAD - Pakistan has warned the international community that India’s historic nuclear deal with the United States could accelerate a nuclear arms race between Delhi and Islamabad.

The warning was made in a letter addressed to more than 60 nations as the Indian government, having survived a no confidence vote on Tuesday, dispatched diplomats to clear the deal with international regulators.

India must still negotiate a safeguards agreement with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), which has a board meeting on August 1, and obtain the blessing of the 45-nation Nuclear Suppliers’ Group (NSG).

But Pakistan warned key members of the IAEA and the NSG in its letter that the safeguards agreement would impair non-proliferation efforts and “threatens to increase the chances of a nuclear arms race in the sub-continent”.

India and Pakistan have fought three wars since they gained independence from Britain, and have been de facto nuclear weapons states since conducting tit-for-tat nuclear tests in 1998.

A peace process begun in 2004 has stabilised relations, but has made little progress on the most divisive issue — the disputed region of Kashmir - and the two sides remain deeply distrustful of each other..

Mohammad Sadiq, a spokesman for Pakistan’s Foreign Ministry, confirmed the contents of the letter, which he said was distributed to IAEA members in Vienna, but not released to the media.

“There are a number of questions about the deal, not only for Pakistan, but for many other countries,” he told The Times.

“There should be a model agreement that could be signed with any country that meets the criteria. It should not be country-specific.”

The US Congress must also approve the deal, which lifts a 34-year ban on selling US nuclear fuel and technology to India even though Delhi has refused to sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).

Indian and US officials say that all three steps could be completed in the next few months - although the White House has said that it could be pushed to get Congressional approval before President Bush steps down.

Meanwhile, the Indian government announced that it had sent its top diplomats to Germany, which holds the rotating chair of the NSG, and to Ireland, which has objections to the nuclear deal.

Ireland is one of the strongest proponents of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, which was proposed by Frank Aiken, Irish Minister for External Affairs, in 1958.

The Nuclear Suppliers’ Group - founded after India tested its first nuclear device in 1974 - is an informal grouping of 45 nuclear-exporting countries designed to prevent the proliferation of nuclear weapons and dual-use materials.

Its guidelines ban the export of nuclear fuel and technology to countries other than the five official “nuclear weapons states” - the United States, Russia, Britain, France and China - that do not have a specific agreement with the IAEA safeguarding their nuclear facilities.

India has submitted a draft safeguards agreement to the IAEA, under which it would separate its civilian and military nuclear facilities and allow IAEA inspections of the former.

But Pakistan said in its letter that the draft agreement had not listed the exact sites that would be safeguarded.

“What is the purposed of the Agreement if the facilities to be safeguarded are not known?” it asked.

Pakistan is not a member of the NSG, but it does sit on the current 35-member board of the IAEA - a United Nations agency - and is expected to vote against India’s draft safeguards agreement at the August 1 meeting.

A two thirds majority is required to approve the agreement.

Among Pakistan’s other objections are the date of the board meeting, which comes less than the required 45 days after a country starts circulating its draft.

The letter said that more time was needed because the agreement “is likely to set a precedent for other states which are not members of the NPT and have military nuclear programmes”.

Every Vote Counts

2008-07-25T10:44:00.000-07:00

Every Vote Counts

By April Gregory and Adelle Watts

Wakonda, a town of about 400 in South Dakota, is one of Clay County's smallest polling places. Voters drive in from as far away as Irene, S.D., to cast their ballot. Two students of the American Indian Journalism Institute talked to a few voters in Wakonda on June 3, primary election day in South Dakota.

[EDITOR'S NOTE: This audio slideshow was a class assignment at the American Indian Journalism Institute and was originally published on AIJI: Freedom Forum Diversity Institute.]

Russia Considers Using Cuba For Refuelling of Nuclear Bombers

2008-07-25T10:15:00.000-07:00

Russia Considers Using Cuba For Refuelling of Nuclear Bombers

by Luke Harding

MOSCOW - Russia was today considering the use of bases in Cuba for its nuclear bombers, in a move that revives memories of the 1962 Cuban missile crisis and which is likely to profoundly annoy the United States.

Russian military sources said that Moscow is contemplating using Cuba as a refuelling base for its nuclear-bomb carrying aircraft. The move is in retaliation for the Bush administration’s plan to site a missile defence shield in Europe.

Russia objects vehemently to the Pentagon’s plan. It says the US’s proposed system in Poland and the Czech republic - which formally agreed a deal with Washington last week - poses a direct threat to Russia and its security.

According to a report in Monday’s Izvestiya, the Kremlin now wants to use Cuba as a base for its long-range Tu-160 and Tu-95 strategic nuclear bombers. Citing a “highly-placed military source”, the paper said discussions had taken place.

“While they are deploying the anti-missile systems in Poland and the Czech republic, our long-range strategic aircraft already will be landing in Cuba,” the source told the paper. No final decision on landing bombers in Cuba had been taken, it added.

Today defence analysts told the Guardian there was little strategic point in using Cuba as a nuclear base - adding that the idea appeared to have been floated simply as a way of irritating the US and underscoring Russia’s anger.

Russia’s ageing nuclear aircraft have a range of 2,000-3,000kms - allowing them comfortably to fire a nuclear missile at the US from much further away, defence expert Pavel Felgenhauer said. “Frankly in Cuba they would be sitting ducks,” he added.

Additionally, there were other places were the planes could refuel, he said. “Any deployment in Cuba would be highly provocative and very costly. There would be no military advantage. Cuba would want compensation,” Felgenhauer said.

He added: “They [the Russians] are trying to tell the guys [in America] that if they don’t back out of their missile defence shield in Europe, we can make mischief in different places.”

It was not immediately clear whether Cuba had agreed to Russia’s proposal. In a brief, cryptic note posted on a government website, Fidel Castro said his brother Raul - Cuba’s president - was wise not to respond to the report.

Castro said that Cuba was not obliged to offer the US an explanation for the story, “nor ask for excuses or forgiveness.” Most observers believe that Raul - who took over from his brother in February - would be unlikely to agree to any request from Moscow.

But today’s apparent discussion is reminiscent of the 1962 Cuban missile crisis, when Khrushchev attempted to site nuclear missiles on the Caribbean island. His aim was to lesson the then strategic nuclear gap with the US.

Khrushchev eventually backed down and withdrew the missiles. The US secretly removed its missiles from Turkey. It also agreed not to invade Cuba and overthrow Castro’s communist regime.

During the Cold War, Cuba remained an important military ally for the Soviet Union. In 2002, however, Russia’s then president Vladimir Putin decided to close Russia’s Soviet-era radar and listening station in Cuba on the grounds of cost.

Last summer Putin ordered the resumption of worldwide bomber patrols by Russia’s nuclear aircraft. Although some experts have dismissed the flights as mere “willy waving”, Nato jets including from Britain have scrambled in response.

The US state department today said it had not had official confirmation from the Russian government about the report. “We continue to work with the Russians on this issue,” Gonzalo Gallegos told the Associated Press, referring to the US’s missile defence shield.

He added: “We have consistently made it clear to them that our proposed deployment of a limited missile defence system in Europe poses no threat to them or their nuclear deterrent.”

Russia’s new president, Dmitry Medvedev, has disappointed western observers who had hoped he might take a more conciliatory foreign policy line. During an address to ambassadors in Moscow this month, he explicitly criticised the US’s missile defence shield, promising Russia would respond ‘appropriately’.

Russia’s approach has recently hardened on several key international issues, experts say.

“It’s become much more rigid,” Felgenhauer said, adding that hardline officials inside Russia’s foreign and defence ministries appeared to be responsible. “There is uncertainty over who is really in charge of Russian foreign policy,” he said.

He added: “We are returning to policy positions agreed last autumn. There is no series attempt at compromise. Right now there is zero purpose in compromise until there is a new administration in Washington.”

“We are just spitting at each other,” he observed.

RNC Protesters Say They Reject Violence But Might Turn To Civil Disobedience

2008-07-25T09:44:00.001-07:00

RNC Protesters Say They Reject Violence But Might Turn To Civil Disobedience

MINNEAPOLIS/ST. PAUL - A local antiwar organization that is planning a march on the final day of the Republican National Convention said Wednesday that its demonstration will be “more militant” than protest marches earlier in the week.While eschewing violence, members of the Anti-War Committee told reporters at a news conference outside the Xcel Energy Center that its activity on Sept. 4 will involve “a variety of tactics” that could include civil disobedience with sit-ins and “die-ins.”

The activists added that there could be civil disobedience every day of the Sept. 1-4 convention, which will be held at the Xcel in St. Paul.

An antiwar march is already planned for Sept. 1, which organizers say could attract tens of thousands, and a poor people’s march is scheduled for Sept. 2, which could draw thousands more. Organizers of the Sept. 4 march predict a turnout of 2,000.

Leaders of the Anti-War Committee are key organizers of the Sept. 1 protest, which is sponsored by the Coalition to March on the RNC and Stop the War, and the committee is also a supporter of the Sept. 2 march, sponsored by the Poor People’s Economic Human Rights Campaign.

Speaking for the Anti-War Committee, Katrina Plotz and Misty Rowan said Wednesday that the St. Paul police issued their organization a permit, allowing them to march on the street earlier in the day but ending by 5 p.m. However, they said they planned to march around 5 p.m., using sidewalks if necessary, so they will be near the Xcel closer to the time when U.S. Sen. John McCain gives his speech accepting the GOP presidential nomination. The march will protest McCain’s support of the Iraq war, they said.

Tom Walsh, a spokesman for St. Paul police, said he had no comment.

Cindy Sheehan Is Putting Impeachment on the Table

2008-07-25T09:43:00.001-07:00

Cindy Sheehan Is Putting Impeachment on the Table

by John Nichols

Does anyone seriously doubt that one of the reasons why a House Judiciary Committee hearing will at least discuss the “I” word on Friday is Cindy Sheehan’s independent challenge House Speaker Nancy Pelosi?

Pelosi, famously, took impeachment “off the table” just before the 2006 election.

Then, this month, she edged it back on the menu — suggesting that the Judiciary Committee might take up the matter of Ohio Congressman Dennis Kucinich’s proposal to impeach the president for using deception to draw the nation into an illegal and immoral war.

Judiciary Committee chair John Conyers, the Michigan Democrat who has never made any secret of his desire to address the imperial reach of the Bush-Cheney presidency — especially on matters of war and peace — jumped at the chance to schedule the hearing. A two-hour session, at which the “i” word will be discussed openly by advocates such as Ohio Congressman Dennis Kucinich, is scheduled for Friday.

Though the hearing is unlikely to evolve into the full-fledged inquiry that many of us believe necessary, it is remarkable that in the summer of a presidential election year the key committee in a chamber where impeachment was supposed to be off the table will turn its attention to the tool that the founders afforded the legislative branch for constraining the executive.

Why is this happening now?

It is worth noting that this is petition-gathering season for independent candidates running in California. Sheehan, the mother of a slain Iraq War soldier who turned her grief into activism, and her supporters are busy collecting the 10,198 signatures that will be needed to get her name on the ballot.

Sheehan — echoing the sentiments of the millions of Americans who believe that it if it is wrong for a Republican administration to abuse the Constitution then it is just as wrong for Democratic leaders to refuse to defend the document’s principles — has made presidential accountability a central issue of her independent campaign in a city that has already overwhelmingly endorsed an impeachment initiative.

Indeed, Sheehan announced that she would challenge the speaker after it became clear — after President Bush commuted White House aide Scooter Libby’s prison sentence last summer — that Pelosi was blocking consideration of impeachment by the House.

Local media has focused on Sheehan’s advocacy for impeachment, noting this spring when she filed initial paperwork for her candidacy that the woman who has been referred to as “the Rose Parks of the anti-war movement” had decided to run because “seeing George Bush impeached would be a victory for humanity.”

Sheehan is a realist. She admits that her candidacy is “an uphill battle.”

But she has drawn significant television, radio and newspaper coverage in San Francisco, as well as endorsements from the local Green and Peace and Freedom parties and local officials such as the president of the city’s school board and plan commission. She has raised more than $100,000 for the campaign, attracted an energetic team of volunteers. And, now, as those volunteers hit the streets to collect the signatures to put Sheehan’s name on the ballot, Pelosi is suddenly showing some flexibility — the key word being “some” — with regard to the impeachment discussion.

No matter how many votes she gets in November, give Cindy Sheehan credit for opening up the debate — not just in San Francisco but in Washington.

John Nichols, a pioneering political blogger, has written The Beat since 1999. His posts have been circulated internationally, quoted in numerous books and mentioned in debates on the floor of Congress.

BIA limits distance for casinos

2008-07-25T09:37:00.000-07:00

BIA limits distance for casinos
The Associated Press
Article Launched: 07/18/2008 06:08:15 AM MDT

SANTA FE—The U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs has published a rule that says casinos should be located within 25 miles of a reservation headquarters.

But the rule has exceptions. Tribes may seek reservation status and permission to operate casinos on newly acquired land away from a reservation if tribes can show that a significant number of tribal members live nearby, can demonstrate a current connection to the property or if other tribal government facilities have been located on the land for at least two years before an application is filed for new reservation land.

In January, the U.S. Department of Interior turned down a request filed in 2004 by Jemez Pueblo to establish reservation land and build a casino near Anthony in southern New Mexico, 293 miles from the northern New Mexico pueblo.

The 1988 Indian Gaming Regulatory Act allows off-reservation gambling only on trust land controlled by a tribe. But the Interior Department said in its Jan. 4 letter that the proposed trust land was too far from the pueblo to provide jobs to tribal members.

The new rule on casinos is meant to resolve questions about when tribes qualify for exceptions to the federal law. It comes after a series of interim checklists published since 1994.

The Fort Sill Apache Tribe of Oklahoma has been trying to open a casino near Deming in southern New Mexico on land purchased by the tribe in 1998 and taken into trust by the Interior Department for the tribe in 2002.

Federal law prohibits gambling on Indian lands taken into trust after October 1988, except under certain conditions. Exceptions allow the Interior secretary to authorize tribes to open casinos away from historic reservation lands if, after consulting local and tribal officials and a state's governor, the BIA determines the casino would be in the tribe's best interest and would not be detrimental to the community where it is located.

New Mexico tribes operate casinos under compacts with the state and pay a share of the casino proceeds to it in exchange for exclusive rights to offer certain forms of gambling such as poker and roulette. Horse racing tracks have casinos but are limited to slot machines.

As of June, there were 423 Indian gambling operations in the country, operated by 225 tribes in 28 states, according to the National Indian Gaming Association. These include scores of smaller bingo halls as well as large casinos with slot machines.

———

Information from: The Santa Fe New Mexican, http://www.sfnewmexican.com

Copyright and Fair Use in the Classroom, on the Internet, and the World Wide Web

Airmen slept while guarding old nuke codes

2008-07-25T07:57:00.000-07:00

Airmen slept while guarding old nuke codes
Published: July 25, 2008 at 6:58 AM

MINOT AIR FORCE BASE, N.D., July 25 (UPI) -- Three U.S. Air Force officers fell asleep while in control of a component with old nuclear missile launch codes, violating procedure, military officials said.

Even though the codes for nuclear intercontinental ballistic missiles had been deactivated, it was a protocol violation, prompting an investigation, CNN reported Friday.

The July 12 incident at Minot Air Force Base, N.D., is the fourth alleged mishandling in the past year.

An investigation revealed the codes weren't compromised and the crew was inside an area protected by Air Force security, the Air Force said Thursday.

The incident occurred during the changing of components used to aid secure communications between an underground missile-control facility and missile silos near Minot, said Col. Dewey Ford, a spokesman for the Air Force Space Command in Colorado. Although the new component made the old code inoperable, the old launch codes were still contained in one of the new parts.

Ford said the airmen took the component to a building above the facility, locked the component in a lockbox, then three members fell asleep. Protocol calls for at least two members to be awake while in control of the component

U.S. needs to start a new START agreement

2008-07-25T07:50:00.000-07:00

Today, a House committee will take the first step in signaling where Congress stands on a pending nuclear energy agreement with Russia. The hearing represents a critical opportunity for the United States to make progress on limiting the threat posed by nuclear weapons.

Ratification of the agreement should come with a commitment to further joint action on dealing with Iran's nuclear program and as well as a commitment to developing a post-START agreement that codifies deeper nuclear reductions. Ratification of the nuclear cooperation agreement should signal to the new Russian president and the next American president that the American people require broader leadership on the part of both governments regarding reducing the threat posed by weapons of mass destruction.

On May 12, President Bush submitted to Congress the text of a proposed agreement on peaceful nuclear cooperation between the United States and Russia. The agreement would provide Russia with access to U.S. nuclear technologies and markets and the right to receive U.S.-origin nuclear materials into Russia for storage or processing. While the agreement is not necessary to do so, it could also give impetus for the United States and Russia to collaborate on providing nuclear fuel cycle services to non-nuclear states that are searching for solutions to their demand for energy.

Referred to by shorthand as a "123 agreement," after the section of the 1954 Atomic Energy Act, this agreement will become law if Congress does not act to amend or reject it. Because of the curious timing of the Bush administration's submission, the agreement will only have reached the 76th legislative day of consideration when Congress adjourns on Sept. 26, letting its fate fall to a new administration and Congress if the current Congress so chooses.

I strongly believe that we should not let the clock run out and punt a decision this important. Instead, we must seize this opportunity to make progress on several critical related issues. With North Korea's recent declaration of its plutonium, one of the greatest threats to global security is showing signs of resolution, leaving two significant challenges for both Russia and the United States: Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's quest for nuclear weapons, and the still oversized American and Russian arsenals at risk of theft and accidental launch.

The prospect of an Iran armed with nuclear weapons continues to be one of the greatest threats to the United States and to its allies. Despite assurances from Russia - contained in the Nuclear Proliferation Assessment that accompanied submission of the 123 document - that "its government would not tolerate cooperation with Iran in violation of its U.N. Security Council Resolutions," Russia continues to build a nuclear power plant at Bushehr, and thwarts harsher international sanctions against Iran.

Arms control experts warn that Russia remains actively engaged in missile, nuclear and advanced conventional defense cooperation with Iran. Underpinning Russia's security cooperation with Iran is Moscow's commercial interest in staying involved in a country with the world's second largest reserves of gas and third largest oil supply.

While the incentives for changed Russian behavior are hard to identify in the current climate, it is critical that Russia agree to cease nuclear cooperation with Iran, including construction of Bushehr. At a time of record windfall oil profits for Russia, abstaining from supporting Iran's nuclear program is a small price to pay for a more stable region.

Of equal concern is the loss of the last major arms control agreement of the 21st century when the START agreement expires in December 2009. START contains the transparency and verification protocols on which the Moscow Treaty relies. As the United States and Russia reduce the number of deployed nuclear weapons, pursuant to the Moscow Treaty, these rules are crucial. When START lapses, the United States will lose any ability to verify that Russia is reducing its arsenal.

The United States and Russia must negotiate a legally binding replacement to START. Only through such an agreement can we ease Russian concern that the United States is seeking a strategic advantage and begin to negotiate openly and clearly.

The 123 agreement complies with all arms control criteria listed in the Atomic Energy Act, so it does not threaten nonproliferation standards. That said, in the short term, it will probably offer only limited commercial benefit to U.S. firms. But what it should do is put the United States and Russia back on a path of serious cooperation, addressing the threat of weapons of mass destruction, the most serious issue the international community faces. If the agreement can be linked to serious cooperation from Russia on the threat posed by Iranian nuclear activities, and to an extension of the critical START protocols that expire next year, then it should be approved.

Rep. Ellen Tauscher, D-Walnut Creek, is chair of the Strategic Forces Subcommittee, a subcommittee of the House Armed Serviced Committee.

Melting Icecaps and the Global Ocean (Updated)

2008-07-25T07:25:00.000-07:00

Melting Icecaps and the Global Ocean (Updated)

We're doooooomed, doooo-- wait a minute.

If the Greenland icecap sees an even-more-significant melt, how soon do you need to pack your bags and head for the high country? Unless you live along the Atlantic coastlines of North America or Europe, you'll have a few decades, at least. And if the Antarctic icecap melts, we'll have even longer -- at least 50 years, probably much more. These are the surprising results of research undertaken by Detlef Stammer of the University of Hamburg, Germany, written up in "Response of the global ocean to Greenland and Antarctic ice melting," published in the Journal of Geophysical Research. New Scientist summarizes his findings thusly:

... the majority of Greenland's meltwater will stay in the Atlantic Ocean for at least 50 years, causing sea levels here to rise faster than expected. "The Greenland ice cap is much less of a threat to tropical islands in the Pacific than it is for the coasts of North America and Europe," he says. [...] Antarctic meltwater could be prevented from reaching much of the world for centuries due to strong currents in the Southern Ocean, says Stammer.

Stammer's work covered a 50-year time horizon, mapping the progress of freshwater runoff through "boundary waves, equatorial Kelvin waves, and westward propagating Rossby waves." Stammer describes the volume of melting ice in his model as reflecting "enhanced runoff," although it appears from the piece that this ends up being a fairly conservative take on how rapidly the ice could melt. It does not appear from the model structure that increased meltwater volume would affect the overall global ocean current flows; however, the argument Stammer makes in the article (under-emphasized in the New Scientist summary) is that the cold freshwater flux would have a significant effect on salinity and surface temperature. The salinity and temperature changes, in particular, could have a measurable impact on the warm water flows keeping Europe warm, so once again we're back talking about localized "whiplash ice ages" (Stammer does not suggest this, but it follows).

An even more important element (getting less play in the article, unfortunately) is the lack of significant sea-level increase in the global ocean in the first few decades of an enhanced Antarctic melt. Since the potential overall sea-level increase from Antarctic ice dwarfs the potential from Greenland, this is an important finding.

One question that leaps out for me: if you have a cold freshwater flux cutting down on mixing and surface temperature, what does that do to ocean thermal inertia? My sense is that a flux of colder surface water, aside from all of the havoc it would wreak on ocean ecosystems, might actually slow the pace of overall global warming. I'd welcome more educated analysis on this.

Stammer's work matches earlier, less complex, analysis, so there's a good chance it maps to reality. Even if the runoff flow is significantly greater than used in this model, we'll still see a slow wave of sea level increase, not reaching the Pacific and the Indian oceans for decades. In that sense, any delay of disastrous results is to be welcomed, since delays mean more time to figure out and implement mitigation and adaptation strategies.

There's an important element of politics in this, too. The first places to be hit by Greenland icecap runoff-induced sea level increases would be the east coast of North America and (somewhat later) the west coast of Europe; the low-lying developing nations of the Pacific and Indian Ocean regions wouldn't be affected for decades. In fact, looking at the sea-level increase maps in the article, it looks like the North American east coast gets hammered pretty hard fairly quickly. I have no desire for my friends along the Atlantic coast to suffer, of course, but a direct threat to New York, DC, London and the like is more apt to bring a rapid response than would a more generalized threat that would hurt Tuvalu or Bangladesh first. Sad, but probably true.

(Thanks to David Zaks for letting me read the article!)

Posted by Jamais Cascio at 3:25 PM | Permalink |

German Leaks Raise More Nuclear Fears

2008-07-24T08:50:00.001-07:00

Inter Press Service
ENVIRONMENT: German Leaks Raise More Nuclear Fears
by Julio Godoy

BERLIN, July 8 (IPS) - Confirmation that radioactive brine has been leaking for two decades from a German underground deposit for nuclear waste is yet another blow to the idea that nuclear power can safely increase electricity generation and simultaneously reduce emissions.

Radioactive leaks from the nuclear waste deposit Asse II near Braunschweig in Lower Saxony, some 225 km southwest of Berlin, were first discovered in 1988. The state-owned Helmholtz Institute for Scientific Research, which operates the centre, officially admitted the leaks only Jun. 16, under pressure from the German press.

Helmholtz spokesperson Heinz-Joerg Haury told German daily Sueddeutsche Zeitung that researchers "did not consider that the leaks were worth a declaration to the press. We did not have the feeling that the public would be interested in knowing that radioactive brine is leaking in Asse II."

Asse II, a former salt mine, is the oldest nuclear waste deposit in Germany. The abandoned mine was transformed into a deposit for nuclear waste in 1967, following the scientific hypothesis that rock salt pits are the best geological structure to store radioactive waste.

But in 1988, radioactive brine started to leak through the mine's walls. The site operator never informed the public.

Germany officially has four deposits for nuclear waste. Two other sites, Gorleben and Morsleben, are also abandoned rock salt mines. A fourth, Schacht Konrad, also in Lower Saxony, is a former iron mine.

No one has yet found a durable solution for storing nuclear waste, that remains highly radioactive for centuries.

France continues to deposit thousands of tonnes of highly radioactive waste into its nuclear fuel reprocessing plant at La Hague on the Normandy Atlantic coast, close to the English Channel.

In Germany, power plant operators have been "temporarily" storing nuclear waste in Gorleben, some 150 km northwest of Berlin. They are waiting for the government to decide whether it is geologically suitable as a definitive storage site.

Morsleben was the German Democratic Republic deposit for radioactive waste, and is now being dismantled (former East and West Germany reunited in 1990). Asse II is officially considered a "research site".

By June 2008, some 80,000 litres of a radioactive salt solution had accumulated there. The brine, eight times above the radioactivity limit, has been pumped to a deeper level, but some 30 litres of radioactive brine continue to leak every day.

In Germany, the maximum limit of radioactivity for material stored in open air is 10,000 Becquerel per kilogram. The Becquerel is the standard international unit of radioactivity, equal to one radioactive disintegration (change in the nucleus of an atom when a particle or ray is given off) per second.

Caesium 137, the chemical that is setting off the radioactivity from the brine, is produced from the detonation of nuclear weapons and as a by-product from nuclear power plants. It was most notably released into the atmosphere from the 1986 Chernobyl accident.

The Helmholtz institute is seeking to minimise the risks. "The Caesium 137 (detected in Asse II) will have lost its radioactivity in 90 years," Haury told the press. "Until then, the salt solution containing it is 950 metres deep, and safe."

Many others are not so sure.

"If the salt solution comes in contact with the radioactive waste, it can provoke uncontrollable chemical reactions," Rolf Bertram, professor emeritus for physical chemistry at the University of Braunschweig told IPS.

Geologist Wolfgang Kreusch says the leaks at Asse II are reason enough to reconsider the storage of radioactive waste in salt mines.

Kreusch, scientific counsellor to the village of Wolfenbuettel, less than 10 kilometres from Asse II, told IPS that "the heat emissions from the radioactive waste would lead to the heating up of the rock salt walls in the mines. This in turn can cause tensions in the salt structure, and leaks.

"And leaks in salt blocks are the worst possible event in a 'definitive" storage site for highly radioactive waste," he added.

Employees at Asse II say the mine is in danger. Gerd Hensel, project manager at the Helmholtz institute, admitted to local people that some pillars in the mine "have the phase of cracking already behind them."

Heller: Nuclear waste should stay put

2008-07-24T08:21:00.000-07:00

LAS VEGAS -- U.S. Rep. Dean Heller says he supports nuclear energy, as long as the waste is stored where it is produced.

Heller, R-Carson City, and 10 other Republicans including House Minority Leader John Boehner of Ohio traveled last weekend to Colorado and Alaska to inspect energy production facilities.

Heller said Tuesday that he's not worried that building more nuclear power plants could speed development of a nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas.

He said radioactive spent nuclear fuel can be stored on site at plants around the nation.

Heller said national energy policy needs to focus on conservation, renewable energy and the environmentally safe development of more sources of energy.

The burden of nuclear waste

2008-07-24T08:10:00.001-07:00

What you think An ancient analogy

The burden of nuclear waste

July 24, 2008

I recently came upon an interesting fact: If one of the pyramids in Egypt had been built to store radioactive waste from a nuclear power plant of that age, the pharaohs would have enjoyed about 30 years of "low cost" electricity.

We, on the other hand, would still be guarding this disposal site and would have to continue guarding it for another 25,000 years, while receiving no benefit from it whatsoever.

This immediately brought to mind three questions:

*What is the morality of unduly burdening others, without their consent, even when you have long ceased to exist?

*What is the cost of guarding nuclear waste for 30,000 years?

*Has this cost been calculated into the estimates for the new Florida nuclear power plants as reserves to be collected and passed on to future civilizations?

CRAIG WILLIAMS
CLERMONT

Goods Worth Millions Are Missing From Indian Agency

2008-07-24T08:01:00.000-07:00

By Derek Kravitz

Washington Post Staff Writer

Millions of dollars in equipment purchased by the Indian Health Service, including all-terrain vehicles and tractors, laptop computers and digital cameras, has been lost or stolen because of mismanagement, according to a report released yesterday by the Government Accountability Office.

Investigators said a whistle-blower, identified only as a "cognizant property official," called a government hotline a year ago, alleging widespread discrepancies in the agency's inventory. After auditing property records, investigators said they identified about 5,000 missing or stolen items at the agency's headquarters and 12 regional offices. The items are valued at roughly $15.8 million.

Based in Rockville, the Indian Health Service provides medical services to about 1.9 million people affiliated with federally recognized tribes of American Indians and Alaska natives. It operates under the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

Health Service officials objected to many of the findings, saying that most of the items were only temporarily misplaced and that some discarded equipment was outdated.

But investigators pointed to a number of "egregious" errors, including $700,000 worth of IT equipment damaged by "bat dung" in a storage room; a yard sale by government workers in Schurz, Nev., that resulted in 17 computers being given away for free; the theft of a desktop computer from a New Mexico hospital that contained a database with personal details about 849 uranium miners; and the creation of fake purchasing documents to purposely mislead auditors.

Jacqueline L. Pata, executive director of the National Congress of American Indians, a nonpartisan group that monitors federal Indian policies, said the loss of equipment in tribal lands only further exacerbates existing shortages, citing missing "jaws of life" equipment, which is used to help pull people from accidents.

"Car accidents are a leading killer in tribal country," she said. "I was a little shocked at how extensive some of the property loss was."

Democratic congressional leaders who received the report yesterday quickly pounced on the findings.

"It's disgusting what's happening at the Indian Health Service," said Sen. Byron L. Dorgan (D-N.D.), chairman of the Senate Indian Affairs Committee. "We can't continue to allow this. We have people dying because they can't get health care, and then we get a report like this."

Stolen Copper Radioactive

2008-07-24T07:58:00.000-07:00

Stolen Copper Radioactive

posted 11:23 pm Tue July 22, 2008 - Bedford Co., VA

reporter: Manuel Quinones posted by: Webteam

tags: copper • theft • radioactive

Some thieves are in danger. They stole from a local TV transmitter site, but probably didn't realize what they took is radioactive. They may also not have realized they were caught on tape. The suspects broke into the secured area on Thaxton Mountain where the FOX 21 broadcast tower is. They took a very expensive broadcasting tube and it contains hazardous materials and even some radiation. It looks like the thieves rammed their truck through a gate, then stole the tube from right outside the transmission building on top of the mountain. They were caught on surveillance video. You can see the pickup truck making a getaway. Workers here assume they stole the tube for its copper. They also tried to break in to the actual building, but were not successful. Little do they know that much of the tube's copper was taken out. What was left behind is potentially dangerous. Robert Lynch, Fox 21/27 - "It's not something that you want to handle. And we hope that whoever did this can see this video and know they are dealing with a hazardous substance that could be dangerous to them." We are very close to our very own ABC-13 transmitter and tower. It seems the thieves went though an old car there but didn't take anything, but because they stole from a broadcast facility, they are facing a federal charge.

Hanford Tank Waste Continues to Bedevil Clean-Up Crews

2008-07-24T07:57:00.001-07:00

Hanford Tank Waste Continues to Bedevil Clean-Up Crews
Austin Jenkins

SEATTLE, WA (2008-07-22) The Hanford Nuclear site in South Central Washington is the most polluted radioactive waste dump in the country. At the center of the Hanford reservation are hundreds of buried tanks that hold waste left over from plutonium production during World War 2 and the Cold War. A multi-year, multi-billion dollar clean-up is underway. But there are problems: an accidental spill of tank waste shut down clean-up for nearly a year. Recently, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) raised concerns about how much longer the aging underground tanks can hold up. KPLU's Austin Jenkins reports in the first of a two-part series on Hanford clean-up efforts.

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Hanford Tank Waste Continues to Bedevil Clean-Up Crews

2008-07-24T07:57:00.000-07:00

Hanford Tank Waste Continues to Bedevil Clean-Up Crews
Austin Jenkins

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