Los Alamos to Get Back to Work in Two Months

["Sandy Perle" <sandyfl@EARTHLINK.NET>]

Index:



Los Alamos to Get Back to Work in Two Months

Hiroshima to mark 59th anniversary of atomic bombing Friday

U.S. to ship plutonium to France without armed escort

Nakagawa to return part of salary for nuclear fuel data

================================



Los Alamos to Get Back to Work in Two Months



SANTA FE, N.M. (Reuters) - Four more workers at the Los Alamos 

National Laboratory have been placed on leave because of security 

breaches, said the laboratory's director on Wednesday, adding that 

the leading U.S. nuclear weapons facility would not be fully up and 

running for two months.



Pete Nanos, director of Los Alamos, did not identify the suspended 

workers.



The four employees placed on investigatory leave bring to 19 the 

number suspended because two computer disks with classified 

information went missing early last month. Officials believe they are 

still at the lab.



Four others were suspended following an incident where a laser 

injured an intern's eye. The incidents prompted the lab to shut down 

operations.



Nanos said some non-classified work at Los Alamos had resumed, but 

the lab was still working to implement a better system to manage 

classified data.



"We are talking roughly a two-month period before the laboratory will 

be up again," said Nanos. He said he expected an investigation on the 

security breaches to conclude this month.



Workers at Los Alamos have been criticized for being cavalier about 

basic security requirements, and Nanos has said the culture at the 

lab must change in order for it to survive.



"The importance of these issues has really taken root in this 

laboratory," Nanos said.



Over the past year, a number of storage disks containing classified 

data have gone missing.



Other notable security breaches include the 1999 case of Taiwanese-

American scientist Wen Ho Lee, who downloaded enormous amounts of 

classified material onto a home computer. Soon after, two disks with 

classified material were reported missing only to be located behind a 

copy machine.



The lab is one of the preeminent facilities in the country on nuclear 

research and also conducts scientific studies in a variety of fields 

ranging from work on an AIDS vaccine to alternative energy sources.

------------------



Hiroshima to mark 59th anniversary of atomic bombing Friday



HIROSHIMA, Aug. 5 (Kyodo) - Hiroshima will mark the 59th anniversary 

of the U.S. atomic bombing of the city on Friday, with the mayor 

expected to criticize the United States for continuing to develop 

nuclear weaponry in defiance of international regulations, city 

officials said Thursday.  



In his annual peace declaration, Mayor Tadatoshi Akiba is also 

expected to demand the Japanese government reject moves to revise the 

country's pacifist Constitution at a ceremony to be attended by 

thousands of people, including Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi.



Akiba will call on the U.S. government to have greater respect for 

international rules and demand it lead efforts by nuclear powers 

toward the total elimination of nuclear arms.



The mayor is a former Social Democratic Party lawmaker known for 

opposing constitutional change as well as Japan's dispatch of troops 

to Iraq for U.S.-led reconstruction work.



He appears willing to challenge Koizumi and senior Liberal Democratic 

Party politicians inclined to revise the war-renouncing Constitution.



Akiba will also express concern about North Korea's nuclear 

development program and voice hope for the success of the 2005 Review 

Conference of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.



The 45-minute ceremony will start at 8 a.m. in Hiroshima's Peace 

Memorial Park. Other guests will include Alexander Losyukov, the 

Russian ambassador to Japan, and Pakistani Ambassador to Japan Kamran 

Niaz.



U.N. Undersecretary General Nobuyasu Abe will also attend on behalf 

of U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan.



At a press conference in Hiroshima, Losyukov expressed support for 

Hiroshima, which is seeking to take the initiative in achieving the 

complete abolition of nuclear weapons, saying, "It is good to set a 

target."



But he also told reporters of a need to prevent nuclear 

proliferation. "There are terrorists as well as country leaders who 

cannot adequately control nuclear arms."



In a separate press conference, Niaz justified Pakistan's nuclear 

testing by citing "security concern" and blaming its neighbor India.



"They (India) exploded nuclear devices. Pakistan was forced to 

follow," the ambassador said, adding that the tension between the two 

rivals should not be the only focus of the international community.



Concerns over nuclear proliferation should be addressed "by those 

(countries) who themselves have thousands of nuclear weapons 

and...the ability to destroy," he said.



The Hiroshima city government had asked seven nuclear weapon nations -

- Britain, China, France, India, Pakistan, Russia and the United 

States -- as well as North Korea to send government representatives 

to the ceremony.



North Korea had made no response as of Thursday, while the other 

countries except Russia and Pakistan declined the invitations.

---------------



U.S. to ship plutonium to France without armed escort



WASHINGTON, Aug. 5 (Kyodo) - The U.S. government plans to ship 

weapons-grade plutonium from disassembled Russian nuclear arms from 

the United States to France for reprocessing, but the vessels will 

not be escorted by warships, according to U.S. Energy Department 

documents obtained by Kyodo News on Thursday.



Anti-nuclear groups have expressed opposition and concern that the 

two vessels transporting 140 kilograms of high-purity plutonium 

across the Atlantic Ocean could be targeted by terrorists, even 

though they are armed.



The plutonium to be shipped to France sometime this month can easily 

be used to make more than 30 atomic bombs, according to nuclear 

experts.



Under the Energy Department plan, the powdered plutonium, which is 

kept at Los Alamos National Laboratory in Los Alamos, New Mexico, 

will be shipped from the Charleston Naval Complex in South Carolina 

to France. The reprocessed fuel will be shipped back to the United 

States.



The two ships will guard each other during the voyage across the 

Atlantic, but will not be escorted by warships, according to the 

Energy Department plan.



Sources familiar with the shipment plan say the ships expected to be 

used are the Pacific Teal and the Pacific Pintail, which are involved 

in shipping reprocessed nuclear fuel from Europe to Japan.



The lack of military escort has raised concerns the ships could be 

hijacked, especially amid threats of terrorist attacks during the 

Olympic Games in Athens around the same period.



The Energy Department documents, however, say the method of mutual 

protection between the two cargo ships has satisfactory defense 

capability.



The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission gave the green light in June 

for shipping the plutonium to France.



Under a treaty between the United States and Russia, plutonium from 

disassembled nuclear weapons is to be reprocessed into plutonium-

uranium mixed oxide fuel, also known as MOX fuel, and consumed at 

nuclear power plants.



However, because no facilities to make MOX fuel exist in the United 

States, the plan is to manufacture four fuel rods in France as an 

experiment ahead of full-fledged implementation.



The arrangement of having armed transport ships protect each other 

instead of an escort by military vessels was first tried in 1999 when 

MOX fuel was transported from Britain and France to Japan.



The anti-nuclear groups have said that while it is difficult to use 

the hardened MOX fuel to make atomic bombs, such high-purity weapons-

grade plutonium can easily be processed to make nuclear weapons.



An atomic bomb can be manufactured with just 4 to 5 kilograms of 

plutonium, the groups said.

------------------



Nakagawa to return part of salary for nuclear fuel data



TOKYO, Aug. 5 (Kyodo) - Economy, Trade and Industry Minister Shoichi 

Nakagawa said Thursday he will return 20 percent of his one-month 

salary to the state to take responsibility for his ministry's failure 

to disclose data on the cost of burying spent nuclear fuel.



At a press conference, Nakagawa also said he gave verbal warnings to 

10 officials at the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry over the 

case.



In March, Kazumasa Kusaka, then chief of the Agency for Natural 

Resources and Energy, told parliament that the agency did not possess 

any estimate that shows the cost of burying spent nuclear fuel is 

much lower than that of recycling it.



METI withdrew Kusaka's remarks in early July after news reports that 

the agency did have an estimate from 1994. The Agency for Natural 

Resources and Energy is part of METI.



The incident sparked speculation that METI and the agency 

intentionally concealed the information to avoid calls for a review 

of the government's nuclear fuel recycling policy.



At the press conference, Nakagawa said 25 officials who might have 

known about the authenticity of Kusaka's remarks were questioned in 

an internal investigation launched after his remarks were formally 

withdrawn.



Ten of them said they were aware of the incorrectness of Kusaka's 

remarks but did not take action, such as reporting to their 

supervisors, Nakagawa said.



"This is a problem concerning the ministry as a whole and I must take 

responsibility in some form," Nakagawa told the news conference.



But he strongly denied the ministry hid the data on purpose.



METI has already given Kusaka an admonitory warning, while two other 

officials who helped him prepare for the parliamentary session have 

also received a warning. Kusaka has been serving as METI's vice 

minister for international affairs since June.



With the announcement of the punishment of 10 more officials and 

Nakagawa himself, Nakagawa said he wants to draw the matter to a 

close.



------------------------------------

Sandy Perle

Senior Vice President, Technical Operations

Global Dosimetry Solutions, Inc.

3300 Hyland Avenue

Costa Mesa, CA 92626



Tel:(714) 545-0100 / (800) 548-5100  Extension 2306

Fax:(714) 668-3149



E-Mail: sperle@dosimetry.com

E-Mail: sandyfl@earthlink.net



Global Dosimetry Website: http://www.dosimetry.com/

Personal Website: http://sandy-travels.com/





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