urg:::Honeymoon AGM; Nuke Waste Shipment; HelenC; Misco USA

[Gavin Mudd]

Posted: Tue, 11 Jun 2002 13:19 ACST

Uranium company not bothered by protesters


The company behind Honeymoon uranium mine in South Australia's far north,
says it is not concerned about protests coinciding with its annual general
meeting in Canada today.

Environment groups in Australia and Canada will protest, because they are
expecting Southern Cross Resources to make an announcement about future
funding for the mine at today's meeting.

But Tom Hunter from Southern Cross Resources, says while it is hoped the
bulk of funding for the project will come from Canada, he is not expecting a
definitive announcement today.

Nor he says, is he concerned about the protest's impact on potential
investors.

"Uranium mining is a normal activity and very well accepted by investors in
Canada," Mr Hunter said.

"The largest uranium company in the world, Cameco, has Canadian headquarters
and has most of its operations in Canada and is a highly respected and
successful company."


© 2002 Australian Broadcasting Corporation

------------------------->

Tasman route tipped for risky nuclear cargo

11.06.2002

By CATHY ARONSON


Two ships carrying enough uranium and plutonium to make 50 nuclear bombs
could pass through the Tasman Sea, raising environmental and terrorism
concerns.

The Pacific Pintail and Pacific Teal - carrying 225kg of weapons-useable
mixed uranium and plutonium oxide fuel (MOX) - will travel from Japan to
England next month.

The ships could use one of three routes but Greenpeace fears they will
favour the Tasman because it is the safest. Of the other two, the Panama
Canal is considered a high terrorist risk and around the bottom of South
America is too stormy.

The fuel was shipped to Japan three years ago but the British
Government-owned British Nuclear Fuels, BNFL, admitted faking safety records
and was ordered to take the cargo back.

In March last year, the company also transported the same type of fuel on
the same ships between France and Japan, passing through the Tasman and
prompting a flotilla protest. Under international sea law, they could have
entered New Zealand's 200-mile exclusive economic zone but did not after the
Government asked them not to.

Foreign Minister Phil Goff has not yet been told if the boats will use the
Tasman but the Government is expected to again ask them to stay outside the
200-mile zone. New Zealand's nuclear-free zone extends 12 miles offshore.

Protesters are preparing to launch a flotilla of about 10 yachts to try to
intercept the ships. International experts have also warned that the ships
could be terrorist targets.

Mr Goff said the Government did not support the shipment because although
BNFL had safeguards, an accident at sea or "security risk" was still
possible.

The Government relied on an unofficial agreement that the ships would not go
through NZ's economic zone as they were allowed to under international sea
law.

Greenpeace nuclear campaigner Bunny McDiarmid said the organisation believed
the Tasman Sea was the most likely route.

Attempts by the Greens to force ships such as the Pacific Pintail and
Pacific Teal to stay out of the 200-mile zone by an act of Parliament failed
two weeks ago.

Co-leader Jeanette Fitzsimons' nuclear-free extension bill proposed to
extend the nuclear-free zone from 12 to 200 miles and include highly
hazardous nuclear waste and cargoes instead of just nuclear weapons.

"The same law of the sea gives states the right and duty to protect the
environment and fishery within the 200-mile economic zone. It's hard to see
how you can do that if you can't exclude hazardous cargoes from that area."

After Parliament voted against the bill, Mr Goff told the House that New
Zealand had in the past successfully opposed the ships entering its
exclusive zone without breaching international law.

"We are a small country. We rely on the rule of international law.

"If we show ourselves willing to breach international law, then we have no
credibility when we seek its protection."

BNFL could not be contacted but its website said a shipment would be moving
from Japan to Britain.

It says the vessels are strong and safe, armed with cannon and have armed
guards and reinforced hatch covers.

- Nuclear ships: frequently asked questions
- Anatomy of a nuclear fuels transport ship


© Copyright 2002, New Zealand Herald - www.nzherald.co.nz

------------------------->

Reluctant anti-nuclear campaigner

08.06.2002

By TIM WATKIN

- Dr Helen Caldicott


In 1989 when the Berlin Wall collapsed and one by one eastern European
countries rolled their Communist leaders out of power, the peace movement
around the world packed its collective bags and went home.

It seems incredibly naive of a movement that had become so battle-hardened
and influential in such a short time, but many reasoned that if the Soviet
bloc was gone, so was the threat of nuclear war.

Dr Helen Caldicott thought as much. She had toured the world in the 80s
preaching the anti-nuclear message, was nominated for a Nobel peace prize
and co-founded the 23,000-member "Physicians for Social Responsibility",
which won the peace prize in 1985.

She became the scourge of right-wing politicians the world round, dismissed
as "irresponsible and extreme" by groups such as the powerful Washington
think-tank the National Centre for Public Policy but adored by peace and
green groups.

Her lecture tour of New Zealand in the early 80s is credited with turning
public opinion in favour of a nuclear-free policy.

In an Auckland hotel last week, the veteran peace campaigner drops her
steely gaze for a moment and sighs. "We thought we'd won," she says. "When
the Berlin Wall came down we thought, 'Right, finished'."

To make the point, the Australian-born campaigner who splits her time
between her home land and the United States, symbolically washes her hands
in mid-air.

"I thought everything was hunky-dory ... 'We've helped to end the Cold War,
the weapons are going to be put away'."

Of course, they never were. As you read this, the US has around 2500 of its
7000 nuclear weapons on hair-trigger alert, and Russia about 2000.

The US military, intelligence services and weapon-making corporations -
those Caldicott calls "the death merchants" - have been finding new enemies.

Some have been altogether unthreatening - despite military provocation, it
turns out the Chinese want to trade goods more than insults, and North Korea
can't even feed itself. But first Iraq and then a terrorist leader by the
name of Osama bin Laden have lived up to their billing.

In response to the September 11 attacks, US President George W. Bush has
announced a US$48 billion ($98 billion) increase in military spending for
next year, taking the spend to a total of $379 billion ($775 billion).

That's the largest increase in US military spending in 20 years and is 22
times the amounts the "states of concern" - Iraq, Iran, Syria, North Korea,
Cuba and Libya - spend on military force put together. The death merchants
are back in business.

Which means Caldicott is back, too. Having stepped out of the debate through
the 90s - unsuccessfully standing for parliament and returning to medicine,
her first professional love - Caldicott is reluctantly getting back on
stage. The makeup and funky streaks in her hair fudge her age, but she's 63
and would rather not embark on another campaign.

"It's a pain in the neck," she says, part-sigh, part-growl. "I realised
recently I really resent these people so much. My life's work was going to
be medicine and I love it. But I've had to give it up."

Instead she's back on the lecture circuit and back in print, with a new book
titled The New Nuclear Danger, written to update her famous 1984 book
Missile Envy.

"The book was written to say, 'Hey, we haven't finished our work. We've got
to get off our couches again and set to and finally finish it'."

D ETERMINED as she is to dust-off the peace movement and put its concerns
back on the political agenda, this time it will be more difficult. This
time, it's not new - and therefore not news. There must be some doubt
whether the techniques of the 80s will work 20 years on.

In Australia, the media have largely ignored her book. "They say, 'She's
been saying this for 30 years', as if that negates reality. They don't want
to be disturbed from their comfort zone."

Problem is, the Aussie media may well be reflecting the public mood. Nuclear
war is yesterday's worry. Been there, fretted over that. These days it's GM
and terrorism. One look at the T-shirts worn by the cause-celebre crowd
reveals that. Most people think the nuclear threat has diminished.

"The public thinks that the weapons have been eradicated. The Cold War
ended, Russia's not an enemy. So why would they still be on hair-trigger
alert? Why would America still have a policy to fight and win a nuclear war?
But they are and they do."

Consider these points from Caldicott's book :

* The Pentagon's official list of nuclear targets has grown from 2500 in
1989 to 3000, including China for the first time.

* Contrary to Cold War nuclear policy, those targets now include non-nuclear
states.

* The US department of energy's nuclear laboratories have embarked on "a
second Manhattan Project", spending US$5-$6 billion ($10-$12 billion)
annually for the next 10 to 15 years to design, test and develop new nuclear
weapons.

* The Bush Administration is pledged to fast-track plans for the Star Wars
missile-defence system.

* The Pentagon has speculated that it might use low-level nuclear weapons if
the US attacks Iraq.

CALDICOTT says contrary to public belief, the nuclear threat is greater now
than ever. And don't be lulled into complacency by the fact we haven't blown
ourselves up yet. To think that just because it hasn't happened it won't
happen makes no sense, she says.

To illustrate, she tells of a 90-year-old patient who had an accident. He'd
never had an accident in 60 years and he couldn't believe what had happened.

"It's not logical. On that logic you could say I'm still alive, therefore
I'm never going to die."

Caldicott blames former US President Bill Clinton for the fragile state of
affairs. In the early 90s the political and public mood was ripe for
disposing of nuclear weapons, she argues, and Clinton failed to follow
through.

"I'm so pissed off with him," she fumes. "Stupid man ... He failed to
abolish nuclear weapons with a friendly Russia and a very compliant Yeltsin.
He needed to be liked and he was hopeless. We're in a very serious position
because he left the weapons in place."

Here that old naivety kicks in again. She suggests, incredibly, that because
George Bush snr had started unilateral disarmament, he would have rid the
world of nuclear weapons had he stayed in power.

Arguing that nuclear weapons are the greatest menace to life on earth seems
a little archaic post-September 11. Underlying every story since has been
the message that we have a new concern. Terrorism is the new enemy.

Caldicott begs to differ. Nuclear power still has more potential to kill
than a busload of terrorists. Not that the two are mutually exclusive.

"Terrorists have nuclear weapons all round America - 103 nuclear reactors.
In each reactor core is as much radiation as that released by 1000 Hiroshima
bombs. And it's very easy to melt a nuclear power plant down." Further,
about 100 suitcase hydrogen bombs are missing from Russia's Cold War
inventory.

India and Pakistan's conflict over Kashmir, teetering as it is on the tip of
a missile, threatens millions of lives. (But, says Caldicott, fall-out from
a nuclear war on the subcontinent could not reach us in the south. "The
hemispheric air masses do not mix at the equator.")

Yet for all that potential destruction, the US and Russia should still
concern us most, she says. "It's only America and Russia who can destroy
life with a nuclear winter, because only they have enough weapons to do it."
(In case you're wondering, she says "enough" is 1000 bombs on 100 cities.)

What about the Treaty of Moscow last month, in which Russia and the US
promise to slash their long-range nuclear warheads by two-thirds ?

That only made things worse, Caldicott says. In fact, the Americans only
have to store their warheads, not destroy them, and neither country has to
fulfil its promise for 10 years, when both Bush and Putin will have left
office.

"Everyone can do what they want under this treaty and they can get out of it
at 90 days' notice," she says, adding that the US is still building around
80 new bombs a year. She says the most dangerous outcome of September 11 is
that it has given the hawks supremacy in Washington.

Caldicott gets wound up about the Bush Administration.

"I have never seen an Administration so dangerous," she says.

Her arguments, however, are undermined by her anger. While denouncing bin
Laden as a wicked murderer, she says his arguments that US-led sanctions and
weekly bombing raids are killing innocent Iraqis are "good points".

I ask about the good points of the Bush Administration.

"This mob in charge is just terribly dangerous. I see no good points at
all," she says.

It's the trap peace activists always risk falling into - being so critical
of the bullying superpower that they become dogmatic and alienate public
sympathy.

Still, her criticism of Bush's advisers is not to be dismissed. Consider
this quote from the New York Times in February: "There will be no stages ...
this is total war. We are fighting a variety of enemies. There are lots of
them out there ... If we just let our vision of the world go forth, and we
embrace it entirely, and we don't try to piece together clever diplomacy,
but just wage a total war, our children will sing great songs about us years
from now."

No, that doesn't come from bin Laden or one of his coterie. That was said by
Richard Perle, chair of the Defense Policy Board, an unofficial bipartisan
group that includes Henry Kissinger, Newt Gingrich and former CIA director
R. James Woolsey, and which advises Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and
Bush.

If the US follows the hawks, Caldicott predicts nuclear proliferation as
smaller countries strive to keep up with US escalation, and nuclear
holocaust within the next 20 years.

But she is not without hope. Caldicott is planning to set up an institute in
California called the Nuclear Policy Research Institute. All she needs is a
million dollars a year for five years and she thinks she can have nuclear
weapons abolished.

"We have to reproduce the groundswell that we had in the 80s," she says.
"The politicians respond to a groundswell. We've done it before and I know
how to do it again."


© Copyright 2002, New Zealand Herald - www.nzherald.co.nz

------------------------->

Thousands of nuclear items missing in America

By Barton Gellman in Washington

June 12 2002


Long before the arrest last month of Abdullah al Muhajir, the United States
Government concluded that Osama bin Laden controls enough cesium, strontium
or cobalt to mount a radiological attack in the US.

The problem for al-Qaeda, analysts believed, was reaching America with the
crude device.

But counter-terrorist sources said al-Qaeda might try to buy or steal the
contaminants in America.

The US intelligence community believes bin Laden's cache of radioactive
metals remains in south and central Asia. No sign of the nuclear materials
has been found by US forces in Afghanistan, and analysts lean towards the
view that bin Laden is unlikely to risk transporting such a scarce and
valuable resource across US borders.

Counter-terrorist officials said they were focusing their investigation on
the theory that al Muhajir's plans relied on a domestic source of nuclear
isotopes.

Plutonium and weapons-grade uranium are thought to be well secured in the
US, but that is not true of lower-grade nuclear materials needed for a dirty
bomb.

Thousands of private companies and universities use cesium, strontium,
cobalt or americium to treat cancer patients, irradiate food against
microbes, sterilise equipment, monitor oil wells and inspect welding seams.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission reported last month that US companies have
lost track of nearly 1500 such radioactive parts since 1996, and more than
half were never recovered. Up to 30,000 radioactive parts have been
abandoned or thrown away, according to the Environmental Protection Agency.

Of the thousands of nuclear sources still in use - or decommissioned - many
are thought to be vulnerable to theft or sale on the black market.

In 1998, thieves stole 19 tubes of medical cesium from a hospital in North
Carolina. To this day authorities have no idea where the material went, said
Johnnie James, a local radiation emergency co-ordinator.

The biggest obstacle to handling industrial cesium is the same intense
radiation that makes it useful in a bomb, said Arjun Makhijani, a
nuclear-trained engineer and president of the Institute for Energy and
Environmental Research.

"It's not difficult to get a hold of this stuff, but if they don't know what
they are doing, they could easily kill themselves," he said.

Until the recent change of attitude by analysts, the US Government gave only
modest attention to the risk that terrorists would build a dirty bomb
domestically.

"Since September 11, there has been no urgency about materials accounting
and reporting - and this should Priority No. 1," Mr Makhijani said.

- The Washington Post


Copyright © 2002. Sydney Morning Herald. All rights reserved.

------------------------->

I'm being held illegally, says 'dirty bomber'
By STEPHEN HEDGES in Chicago
13jun02


A lawyer for "dirty bomber" Jose Padilla claims the US Government has
illegally detained the suspected al-Qaeda saboteur.

Padilla, 31, also known as Abdullah al-Muhajir, was arrested last week amid
US Government claims he was planning to explode a 'dirty bomb' - a
highly-contaminating mixture of radioactive material and high explosives -
at a target inside the US.

But his detention without charge as an "enemy combatant" has intensified
criticism the US Government is denying Padilla his rights.

US President George W. Bush yesterday denounced Padilla as a "bad guy",
insisting that the suspected terrorist and former Chicago street gang member
was "where he needs to be - detained."

Padilla's lawyer, Donna Newman, challenged the Justice Department's decision
to transfer her client's case to military jurisdiction.

"My client is a citizen," Ms Newman said. "He still has constitutional
rights: the right to counsel, the right to be charged by a grand jury - and
they have not charged him."

Ms Newman, who says she has been denied access to Padilla since Monday, is
expected today to file a motion asking a federal judge to review the
Government's action.

Padilla, a US citizen who the US Government says travelled to Afghanistan
and joined Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda network, has been in federal custody
since May 8, when FBI agents detained him at Chicago's O'Hare International
Airport as he stepped off a flight from Zurich.

Since his arrest, Padilla had been held as a material witness - someone
believed to have knowledge critical to an investigation. He also had been
subpoenaed to testify before a federal grand jury investigating al-Qaeda.

Though Padilla's legal status remained unclear on Tuesday, top
administration officials said he could be held indefinitely in a military
prison while his case was under investigation.

"We are not interested in trying him at the moment or punishing him at the
moment," said Secretary of Defence Donald Rumsfeld while travelling to
India. "We are interested in finding out what he knows."

Meanwhile, a US judge has thrown out one of the nine charges against accused
"shoe bomber" Briton Richard Reid, in a blow to tough new laws rushed
through Congress.

The charge of trying to destroy a "mass transportation vehicle" against
Reid, who is accused of trying to blow up a trans-Atlantic airliner with
explosive concealed in his shoes, was dropped after the judge ruled the
plane did not fit the legal definition of a vehicle under the new law.


© News Limited 2002 - www.theadvertiser.news.com.au

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The dirty bomb - the sum of all paranoia

June 12 2002


America is struggling with its worst nightmare, writes Gay Alcorn.


The biggest movie at the US box office is The Sum of All Fears, a horror
story based on a Tom Clancy novel about terrorists who detonate a nuclear
bomb at a Baltimore football stadium.

Customs officials were so worried that the film would panic Americans that
they held a media conference to reassure citizens that their nuclear sensors
would detect a bomb.

Reality has just about outstripped Hollywood's imagination. The foiling of
an alleged terrorist plot to detonate a radioactive "dirty" bomb in
Washington, DC, is now the stuff of administration press conferences.

Experts were pushed forward on Monday to explain that a "dirty" bomb is a
conventional explosive which spreads radiative material - not a nuclear
bomb.

All day, "dirty bomb experts" gave advice about what to do in the event of
an explosion. CNN's health reporter, Elizabeth Cohen, advised: "The first
thing you're supposed to do is take off your clothes."

Another helpful hint was to stay inside and seal all doors and windows.

Before September 11, the Bush Administration was obsessed with missile
defences to shoot down missiles from "rogue" nations - not on stateless
terrorists plotting nuclear, biological or chemical strikes.

Now, according to a recent report in The Washington Post, the Administration
is so alarmed about al-Qaeda's plans that it has deployed hundreds of
nuclear sensors along America's borders, in its overseas facilities and
around Washington.

In an interview with The New York Times in February, the director of
homeland security, Tom Ridge, was asked what was his biggest worry -
anthrax, smallpox, hijacked planes, poison gas ? "Nuclear" was his one-word
answer.

President Bush was briefed last November on al-Qaeda's nuclear ambitions and
capacities. The CIA briefing "sent the president through the roof,"
according to The Washington Post. Mr Bush ordered his national security team
to make preventing nuclear terrorism its first priority.

The US is clearly willing to be ruthless in doing so. Since September 11,
about 1200 foreigners, mainly from Arab and Muslim countries, have been
rounded up, mostly on minor visa charges. The Administration refuses to
reveal their names, or to allow their court hearings to be open to the
public.

Tens of thousands of visitors from countries which pose a high security risk
will now be photographed and fingerprinted on arrival. More than 400 accused
terrorists, including two Australians, are facing lengthy detention without
charge at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba.

The explanation regularly offered is that these people are foreigners. The
assumption is that Americans have rights to which aliens are not entitled.

American John Walker Lindh, accused of being an al-Qaeda member and
conspiring to kill Americans, faces charges in a civilian court. But with
Abdullah al Muhajir, an American national now accused of plotting to
detonate a "dirty" bomb, the Administration showed it was willing to strip
its own citizens of normal legal rights - the presumption of innocence, the
opportunity to answer charges.

A 1942 Supreme Court case appears to provide a precedent for detaining a US
citizen who has joined the enemy. As an "enemy combatant", al Muhajir will
be treated much like the inmates at Guantanamo Bay, to be released when
"hostilities cease" - whenever that is.

More broadly, the US now says it will take pre-emptive action against
nations or terrorist groups it fears may use nuclear, chemical, or
biological weapons against Americans, a shift that foreign policy analysts
say reverses the strategic assumptions since the end of World War II.

The era of deterrence as the operating principle of global security is over.
America has given up on containment, Vice President Dick Cheney said
yesterday. Terrorists were not deterred by the threat of an overwhelming
American response. "We will not wait until it is too late."


Copyright © 2002. Sydney Morning Herald. All rights reserved.