[NukeNet] Japanese Nuclear Plant Logs 3rd Radiation Leak, Russia/West Tensions Escalate, More

[Bill Smirnow]

 http://www.mothersalert.org  http://www.mothersalert.org/moreinfo.html

   1. Japanese Nuclear Plant Logs 3rd Radiation Leak
  2. U.S. Indicts Man in Theft of Atomic Tool
  3. Russia, West May Face More Conflict
  4. 1 Dead in Attack on Anti-Nuke  Protesters




   http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/20/world/asia/20leak.html
   Nuclear Plant Logs 3rd Radiation Leak

  a..                E-Mail
  b.. Print
  c.. Reprints
  d.. Save
  e.. Share
    a.. Digg
    b.. Facebook
    c.. Newsvine
    d.. Permalink



By THE NEW YORK TIMES
Published: July 20, 2007
KASHIWAZAKI, Japan, July 19 - Troubles at a Japanese nuclear power plant
damaged by an earthquake on Monday continued Thursday when the plant's
operator reported that it had detected a third radiation leak.

In a statement, Tokyo Electric Power, the operator, said that it had found
tiny amounts of radioactive material in an exhaust filter at the plant,
which was shut down Monday during a magnitude-6.8 earthquake near this city
in northwestern Japan. The material was detected Wednesday, meaning it might
have leaked a day or two after the earthquake, Tokyo Electric said.

The company said the amount of radioactive material was too small to pose a
health risk. Still, the discovery is sure to add to criticism of Tokyo
Electric, which has repeatedly apologized for delays and mistakes in
reporting the extent of damage at the plant.

The company said the force of the earthquake set off a string of accidents,
including a spill of slightly radioactive water and an earlier leak of
radioactive material into an exhaust filter.



2. http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/20/us/20nuclear.html

 U.S. Indicts Man in Theft of Atomic Tool


  a..                E-Mail
  b.. Print
  c.. Reprints
  d.. Save
  e.. Share
    a.. Digg
    b.. Facebook
    c.. Newsvine
    d.. Permalink



By PHILIP SHENON
Published: July 20, 2007
WASHINGTON, July 19 - A low-level contract worker at a nuclear cleanup site
in Tennessee was accused of stealing equipment used to enrich uranium and
trying to sell it to undercover F.B.I. agents, law enforcement officials
said Thursday.

The worker, Roy Lynn Oakley, a 67-year-old former employee of Bechtel
Jacobs, a government contractor, had no contact with terrorists or criminal
groups and appeared to have been motivated solely by greed, the officials
said. The Energy Department said the tube-like equipment was not radioactive
or, by itself, dangerous.

The charges were in an indictment issued Wednesday, and unsealed Thursday,
in a federal court in Tennessee.

Mr. Oakley, whose job had been to escort official visitors on and off the
cleanup site, the East Tennessee Technology Park, pleaded not guilty on
Thursday. If convicted, he faces up to 20 years in prison.

The technology park, which adjoins the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, once
housed a government plant for the enrichment of uranium for nuclear weapons.
The site was closed in 1987 and turned over to Bechtel Jacobs for cleanup.

Law enforcement officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they
were not authorized to discuss details of the case with reporters, said it
was unclear how Mr. Oakley might have obtained the equipment, which included
sections of so-called barriers, the filtering equipment that helps separate
weapons-quality uranium from other forms of the element. The officials said
Mr. Oakley was captured in a sting operation in which F.B.I. agents
pretended to be representatives of a foreign government; they would not
identify the government.

The indictment is the latest evidence of security problems in the nation's
nuclear laboratories.

Earlier this month, a worker at the Los Alamos nuclear laboratory in New
Mexico who had high-level security clearances was arrested on cocaine
charges. Last October, classified information from Los Alamos was uncovered
in a drug raid at a nearby trailer park.

Mr. Oakley's lawyer, Herb Moncier, was quoted by The Associated Press on
Thursday as saying that his client did not take anything of significance
from the Tennessee site.

 3.
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/world/AP-Russia-Poisoned-Spy-Tensions.html

   Russia, West May Face More Conflict

  a..                E-Mail
  b.. Print
  c.. Save



By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: July 21, 2007
Filed at 6:24 p.m. ET

MOSCOW (AP) -- The diplomatic struggle over Russia's refusal to extradite
the man suspected in the poisoning death of a former KGB agent in London
could hamper progress on an array of issues critical to the West.

After Britain ordered on Monday the expulsion of four Russian diplomats to
pressure Moscow, Russia retaliated in kind against four British diplomats,
suspended counter-terrorism cooperation with Britain, and probed the limits
of British airspace with strategic bombers.

These moves, chillingly reminiscent of the Cold War, may only be a taste of
what is to come.

''I hope we can still contain this crisis,'' Dmitry Trenin of the Moscow
Carnegie Center told The Associated Press on Saturday.

As a veto-wielding U.N. Security Council member, Russia is a critical player
in many issues of international importance.

In the past week, Moscow managed to prevent a Security Council vote on the
future status of Kosovo because it opposes a Western push for the Serbian
province's independence.

There are also concerns that Russia could thwart efforts to halt conflict in
the Darfur region of Sudan. The African nation is a major customer for
Russian weaponry. And Moscow is also involved in efforts to resolve the
Israeli-Palestinian crisis.

Russia has the world's largest reserves of hydrocarbons, still controls the
bulk of the Soviet nuclear arsenal, and has the means to deliver them
worldwide.

The British-Russian diplomatic fight escalated over Britain's demand that
Russia hand over Andrei Lugovoi, a former KGB officer. British prosecutors
charged him on May 22 with the killing of Alexander Litvinenko, the former
KGB officer turned Kremlin critic who was poisoned with the radioactive
isotope polonium-210.

Trenin said the $14 billion in annual trade between Russia and Britain
should act as a brake on both sides. So, too, he said, should the presence
in London of many wealthy and influential Russians, who have made the
British capital their second home.

President Vladimir Putin on Thursday dismissed the tensions as no more than
a ''mini-crisis,'' an irritant in relations between Russia and the West.

But so far neither Britain nor Russia show any sign of yielding.

Russia has said its constitution does not permit the extradition of its
citizens, and accused Britain of deliberately worsening relations.

A spokesman for Prime Minister Gordon Brown said Britain would continue to
press Russia to hand over Lugovoi. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice
suggested the U.S. would back London, asking for ''the full cooperation of
Russia.''

Putin, meanwhile, is unlikely to extradite Lugovoi under any circumstances,
Trenin said.

''To do that after everything that's happened would be a loss of face, which
will be totally incomprehensible,'' he said.

Moscow has not said what halting bilateral cooperation on counter-terror
measure means. Analysts say, though, that Russia has relatively little
intelligence on terror groups that threaten Britain because Moscow's efforts
are focused on fighting domestic militant groups in the Caucasus.

The conflict between Russia and the West goes far beyond the Litvinenko
case.

The Kremlin has accused the U.S. of encouraging regime change in ex-Soviet
states, in order to weaken and isolate Russia. U.S. insistence on building
an anti-missile system in Central Europe has drawn ferocious opposition from
Putin.

After Washington refused to alter its missile defense plans, Putin suspended
participation in a landmark European arms control treaty July 14.

Viktor Kremenyuk, deputy director of the Institute of USA and Canada Studies
of the Russian Academy of Sciences, said Moscow is at a critical point in
its history, trying to decide what role to play in global affairs.

He said Russia stands between three ''elephants:'' Europe, with one of the
world's strongest economies; China, with 1 billion people and rising
industrial might; and the Islamic world, with its fast-growing population
and religious militants.

''What is Russia going to do about these giants?'' he said. ''Russia must
make a decision to join one of these camps.''

Russia's logical choice is to join Europe, Kremenyuk said. But to do this,
Russia will have to adopt a Western-style democratic system and fully open
its markets, he added.

Russia's need to integrate with the West but its refusal to pay the price
for such integration is the underlying cause of the current tensions,
Kremenyuk said.

 4. http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/world/AP-Russia-Demonstrator-Killed.html

 1 Dead in Attack on Protesters

  a..                E-Mail
  b.. Print
  c.. Save



By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: July 21, 2007
Filed at 6:17 a.m. ET

MOSCOW (AP) -- Attackers dressed in dark clothes and wielding metal pipes
raided a camp of environmental protesters in Siberia early Saturday, leaving
one dead and several injured, a spokeswoman for the local administration
said.

Eight demonstrators were hospitalized after the attack, one of whom later
died from his injuries, according to the spokeswoman for the Angarsk city
administration, who was not authorized to give her name.

A criminal investigation had been opened in connection with the attack, she
said.

More than 20 demonstrators had been camped out by a reservoir near Angarsk,
about 2,600 miles east of Moscow, to protest nuclear waste processing at the
state-owned Angarsk Electrolysis Chemical Plant, Russian news agencies
reported, citing local police.

Two suspects in the attack have been detained and 13 others identified, the
RIA Novosti agency reported, citing a local police source.

Police spokesman Valery Gribakin was quoted by the ITAR-Tass news agency as
suggesting that theft had appeared to be a motive for the attack: Police had
confiscated a rucksack and telephone from the detained that had belonged to
the protesters, he said.

''Investigators are inclined to believe that the attack was motivated by
hooliganism with the aim of stealing property,'' he said.

Angarsk is located about 60 miles from the southern tip of Lake Baikal, the
world's largest freshwater lake and a symbol for some of Russia
environmental heritage.

Russia is working to set up a uranium enrichment center at the electrolysis
plant to enrich uranium from Kazakhstan -- a major uranium ore producer.

President Vladimir Putin proposed setting up the center in 2006 as a way to
provide uranium fuel to nations intent on building nuclear power plants
while making sure they don't develop weapons programs.

Enriched uranium supplied by the center would be made available only to
countries which have undertaken the appropriate nonproliferation
commitments. These would include a pledge of no use for nuclear explosive
purposes and acceptance of International Atomic Energy Agency safeguards.
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: article-sponsor.gif
Type: image/gif
Size: 437 bytes
Desc: not available
Url : http://mail.energyjustice.net/pipermail/nukenet_energyjustice.net/attachments/20070722/78fd8bfb/attachment.gif 
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: jos_nyt_88x31_np.gif
Type: image/gif
Size: 5753 bytes
Desc: not available
Url : http://mail.energyjustice.net/pipermail/nukenet_energyjustice.net/attachments/20070722/78fd8bfb/attachment-0001.gif 
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: SUN_88x31.gif
Type: image/gif
Size: 9956 bytes
Desc: not available
Url : http://mail.energyjustice.net/pipermail/nukenet_energyjustice.net/attachments/20070722/78fd8bfb/attachment-0002.gif 
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: waitress_88x31_nowplaying.gif
Type: image/gif
Size: 5578 bytes
Desc: not available
Url : http://mail.energyjustice.net/pipermail/nukenet_energyjustice.net/attachments/20070722/78fd8bfb/attachment-0003.gif