Friday, December 17, 2004

Russian Nuclear Fuel

Re: Russian Nuclear Fuel - 8 billion?by: steamshovel2002 (49/M/PO Box 161 Hinsdale,NH)
10/06/04 07:38 pmMsg: 4026 of 4122

So the question is –is the USA government, an American corporation and the current Putin regime, raping the vulnerable Russian people in their times of severe economic and political troubles in selling HEU from the nuclear bombs? So why aren’t the Russia’s building modern nuclear power plants –and fueling them without fuel expense for the life of the plant with the Russian fuel – maybe make a Russian economic development electric zones (cheap electricity)…

So why aren’t the Russian using the HEU for their own electricity and economic development? How come we aren’t helping them build nuclear power plants? How come we aren’t turning the HEU into the appropriate nuclear power plant concentrations –and leaving it in Russia for current and later nuclear power plant use. Wouldn’t the lowered Uranium oxide concentrations not be a bomb threat?

The DOE Highly Enriched Uranium Transparency Implementation Program is illusionally expressed as transparency –but it’s just the opposite. The USEC is an agent of the US government –we got a corporate legal non public shield over this –and there is nothing competitive about this, which makes this operation extremely vulnerable to large scale corruption.

This is set up by our government to be “not accountable” to the American public –and intentionally hidden within the shield of a private corporation.We have no idea if this is the best use of this material associated with the Russian’s long term interest. Would we sell our USA bomb HEU to foreigners in order gain outside currency? It may be transparent to a select group of USA and Russian elite bureaucratic people –but to the whole world it is extremely untransparent.

How come there is no transparency with the incomes streams and profits –on both sides of the Atlantic. Who is making money over this? Where is the money going on both side and are the amounts appropriate. Are their any special deals? Do we have confidence that the hard currency going to the Russian Federation is going towards the Russian public good –and not being diverted to gang and thugs?This has all the corrupt ingredients of the Iraqi United Nation’s food for oil program!Thanks,mike mulliganHinsdale, NH
Extreme foreign dependence “NUCLEAR”!
.........

“Neither candidate has an energy plan to lead America to energy independence.”

Of course nuclear has become one of the most unstable “foreign” sources of energy with 50% of our nuclear power energy coming from the Russian importation. I do believe we import uranium at about the same percentage as we import petroleum. It should be a concern, whereas we import oil from an assortment of different countries –where we are depending on 50% of the Uranium coming from one country that is becoming more unstable as we go -this is an extraordinarily brittle situation.

If you want energy independence –it’s not nuclear! I could make the case that our hard currency coming from this sale to the Russian is becoming a global security concern.

Thanks
Mike mulligan
Hinsdale, NH



Disputes slow arms protection in Russia

Posted 12/13/2004 11:38 PM

Disputes slow arms protection in Russia

By Peter Eisler, USA TODAY
WASHINGTON — U.S. programs to help Russia protect and destroy its nuclear, chemical and biological weapons are far behind schedule, despite President Bush's warning this fall that terrorists getting such weapons is "the biggest threat facing this country."
A half-billion dollars set aside by Congress in the past two years to secure or scrap Russian weapons sits unspent, a USA TODAY review of figures provided by program managers finds. Federal audits released in the past 18 months show hundreds of millions more have gone to ineffective projects.
The delays in safeguarding the stockpiles stem largely from disputes between the United States and Russia over how much access Americans need to inspect Russian weapons sites and verify that U.S. aid is spent properly. The U.S. government also has had trouble reaching binding agreements with Russia on how to manage U.S.-funded storage and disposal facilities — and who will be liable if one has an accident. (Related story: Renewal of deal in doubt)
"The window of cooperation seems to be closing," says Laura Holgate, a former Pentagon and Energy department official now with the Nuclear Threat Initiative, a group that supports non-proliferation efforts. "Our No. 1 threat is being held hostage to lesser concerns."
The assistance programs, managed by the departments of Defense and Energy, were set up in 1991 to safeguard and eliminate weapons of mass destruction in former Soviet states. But Russia has grown resistant to efforts it fears could undermine its sovereignty.
"We're seeing an increased emphasis by the Russians on protecting national secrets," says Paul Longsworth of the Energy Department's National Nuclear Security Administration.
Vladimir Yermakov, a senior counselor at the Russian Embassy, says some U.S. demands can be excessive. "You provide (assistance) on your terms and we take it on our terms. We are trying to marry the two."
The stakes are high: The U.S.-Russian pact governing the programs expires in June 2006, and the liability and access disputes could scuttle efforts to renew it.
Despite the snags, the Pentagon and the Energy Department say the programs have made progress. For example, 6,472 nuclear warheads have been destroyed, including the entire arsenals that Ukraine, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan inherited from the Soviets.
But progress is getting more elusive as the agencies turn to remaining stocks of nuclear, chemical and biological materials at Russia's more sensitive defense sites. Some examples:
• The Energy Department is behind schedule in upgrading protections on 600 tons of nuclear material at 115 Russian sites. At its current rate, the project could miss its 2008 deadline by two years. Longsworth insists that access disputes will be settled, and the department will be able to meet its goal.
• The Pentagon has been refused access to several Russian labs targeted for security upgrades to protect biological warfare materials. In a statement, the Pentagon said it won't fund the work unless it can verify that U.S. aid "is being used for its intended purposes."
• Delays in building a U.S.-financed chemical weapons disposal plant in Schuchye, Russia, make it unlikely that the country will meet treaty deadlines for destroying the weapons. Russia failed to meet Pentagon demands this year for a plan for the plant's use.

Renewal of deal to secure Russian arms in doubt

Posted 12/13/2004 11:38 PM



Renewal of deal to help secure Russian arms in doubt
By Peter Eisler, USA TODAY
WASHINGTON — This was to be the year that Russia began getting tens of millions of dollars in U.S. assistance to build a plant to convert 34 tons of plutonium into fuel for commercial nuclear reactors.
But not a dime of the $50 million Congress set aside to start construction has been spent.
In 2002, Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham called the project "central to enhancing our national security" in a post-Sept. 11 world. But construction of the plant, a pillar of U.S. efforts to help Russia protect and destroy nuclear, chemical and biological weapons, has been stalled for years, largely because of a dispute on how much liability the U.S. government and its workers would bear in any accident.
The dispute is one of several slowing U.S. efforts to help Russia deal with surplus arms. The work is done under Defense and Energy department programs that provide U.S. money to help former Soviet states protect and eliminate weapons of mass destruction.
"We need to get rid of these weapons in Russia ... (and) these problems are frustrating us," says Sen. Richard Lugar, R-Ind.
The bilateral agreement authorizing the programs expires in 2006. And disputes on liability and other issues threaten its renewal.
"Without (a new pact), I think all of our programs would have to stop," says Paul Longsworth of the Energy Department's National Nuclear Security Administration. "Obviously, we're concerned if we don't get resolution soon."
Destruction moves slowly
More than a decade after the United States set up programs to help former Soviet states protect and eliminate weapons of mass destruction, some goals remain less than half completed. Some of the weaponry destroyed:
Defense Department programs:
Weapon
No. destroyed
% of goal
Strategic nuclear warheads
6,472
49%
Intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs)
559
58%
ICBM silos
470
66%
Submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs)
541
75%
SLBM launchers
408
65%
Nuclear-powered ballistic-missile submarines
27
65%
Strategic bombers
137
86%
Energy Department programs:
Upgrading security for 600 tons of nuclear weapons material at 115 sites:
Goals
% of material secured
Initial stopgap security upgrades
46%
Comprehensive security upgrades
26%
Source: Departments of Defense and Energy



But renewal talks haven't begun.
The programs were born in 1991, after the Soviet Union's collapse. Several of the emerging states inherited nuclear, chemical and biological weapons, and the United States feared the arms could reach rogue nations or terrorists.
The programs, spending about $1 billion a year, have destroyed thousands of nuclear warheads, missiles and submarines, and big stocks of chemical and biological agents. But they're controversial.
"On (the U.S.) side, there are people who say the Russians are cheating, they just want the money," says Vladimir Rybachenkov, counselor at the Russian Embassy. "On our side, there are some who say the Americans just want to get their noses into our" military sites.
The Pentagon's inspector general has cited several projects as wasteful. In one case, the Pentagon spent $100 million to build Russia a plant to destroy fuel from nuclear missiles. After it was built, Russia said it was using the fuel for commercial rockets. So the plant is idle.
Russia also has yet to use a high-security nuclear materials storage facility built with about $400 million in U.S. money. At issue is what material it will hold — and how the United States can verify that it won't store fuel for new weapons.
The Pentagon now wants binding agreements with Russia on how U.S. assistance will be used. But the pacts can take months to reach.
Other causes for delay:
•Access. Russia has refused U.S. demands to enter several nuclear, biological and chemical sites where security is in doubt. The resistance is mainly from Russia's internal security force.
The Pentagon refuses assistance unless its program managers can visit a site to verify that money isn't misspent. But Russian officials say some access demands exceed what they allow. "There are technical means to verify (work) ... without what we call 'intrusion,' " Rybachenkov says.
Access snags also have slowed an Energy Department push to upgrade security at Russian sites holding 600 tons of nuclear weapons material. Russian and U.S. officials are in talks on the problem, and the department forecasts increases in its rate of installing safeguards. But even if it moves at unprecedented speed, it will miss a goal for completion in 2008.
•Funding. Congress has put conditions on the release of money for several projects, especially those aimed at securing Russia's chemical and biological weapons. The conditions require the administration to "certify" that Russia is meeting a host of criteria, such as disclosing data on its chemical and biological stockpiles, or improving its record on human rights.
The rules stymied construction of a Russian plant to destroy thousands of tons of chemical munitions. At Lugar's urging, Congress gave President Bush authority last year to waive certification, but the plant now is years off schedule.
•Liability. The impasse on the plutonium-conversion program centers on a U.S. insistence that any work agreement include 100% liability protection for its agencies and workers, even for individual acts of sabotage.
That language is in the current agreement on U.S.-Russian cooperation, but the plutonium program isn't covered. And Russia's legislature has passed a law barring similar language if the pact is renewed.

A Message From The Future

Date: Thu Oct 14, 2004 9:21 pm Subject: Re: The new Dark Age –“seat belts required” when reading!


Mike,

With all due respect, you take yourself way too seriously. I doubt any foreign or domestic leaders care about your letter much less are talking about it.Tim

, Michael Mulligan wrote:


+
The new Dark Age –"seat belts required" when reading!

Well, I have rattled the whole planet with this last week when I released it (10/10/04)–many capitals are talking about this scenario. As my mother told me all the time –you are nothing but trouble. I had gotten an Israeli response and we got Russian diplomats running to Iran. Believe me this is all window dressing that makes the government official's looking good. It's nothing but free drinking and dinners and deals.

In the shadow of this the republicans and democrats don't look very effective –and they were both beating around the bushes in the debates with this.

Some are now thinking I am a security threat to the United States of America (who have I been talking to) and others are saying that I have shifted the geopolitical position of our country on nuclear proliferation -relations between nations. Will I have started a military action in preventing a catastrophe? They are talking about me throughout Washington DC. Did the NRC respond to this already?

There is no greater governmental document on the planet that expresses the hopes and dreams of humanity –upholds the dignity of the human spirit –than our USA constitution. There are many documents of its equal -but none better in the world. I swear to god I love our constitution and I hold it sacred it in my heart.

I'll give you first shot at publicly disclosing this –but I will understand it if you can't. It's going to get out!

Thanks,
mike mulligan
Hinsdale, NH


Letter to the Editor:

I am speaking from the year 2106. Our planet has just begun to recover from the modern dark ages. They say truth is stranger than fiction –who would have thought airplanes could be used as political guided missile messages that destroyed two skyscrapers, witness the Twin Towers in New York City in 2001. These are the astonishing events that led to depopulating of half the planet. Modernity dropped back a century in time on average to 1900 throughout the world by 2020.

Ironically, this modern Dark Age holocaust saved the planet. We were heading over the unrecoverable cliff if we kept going the way we were. Human life would have ended on this planet earth without this nuclear exchange. What did we say about that life and evolution always protects itself? All of a sudden the planet wide political pressures of global warming, energy and resources shortages were drastically reduced because of the planet wide human and industrial die-off.

As we sit in 2106 on a global level -all of our political and educational processes have been drastically changed. We have developed a planet wide ethical and moral code. This came through a catastrophe of enormous proportions and the death and sufferings of billions of people. The way we look at our children today is so different than in the year 2004.

We know that any child born on this planet has the potential and the requirement –to change the course of history of this planet. We give even our poorest and disadvantaged children the finest educational tools that money can buy in the hopes that our child will change the course of our future history. Every child on this planet gets educated like this –and every child is our own child!

The extremist Islamic Iranian wilayat al-faqih eventually got a series of nuclear bombs in 2006. They detonated two bombs in Israel, one each over downtown Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. The Israelis never knew if it came by missile or was sneaked in through the boarders of a destabilized Iraq. Israel within hours immediately retaliated. They devastated Iran through a series of atomic detonation. The Israeli military destroyed the capitals of China, Syria, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia (and Holy City of Makkah (Mecca) and Russia. You have no idea what this did to the price of oil –this was devastating to the global economic system.

The majority of the financing of the Iranian nuclear bombs came from a surprising source. There is evidence today that there was an Al-Qaeda plot involved with the Russians and Iranians. It also seems that a few Russians generals held a grudge with the American involvement in the Afghanistan Vietnam, which led to the downfall of the old Soviet Empire. At the time Russia didn't have a real government –it was ruled by mafia don like figures.

The majority of the financing of the Iranian nuclear program came from the American electric utility rate payers. By 2004, the electricity in one out of ten households was being supplied from the Russian weapons grade nuclear material through the megaton to megawatt program. We were purchasing HEU grade Uranium from the Russian nuclear bomb building program and fueling up American nuclear power plants in the hopes of reducing the nuclear proliferation problems to the tune of one half a billion dollars a years. There was just too much money to be made at all levels of the production and manufacturing with this Russian nuclear material, for anyone to having any moral qualms with this.

A large proportion of the American monies got diverted into the Russian covert nuclear proliferation program that created the Iranian nuclear weapons. There was a theory that it was Chinese rocket technology that propelled the bomb to Jerusalem. It was common knowledge throughout the American political and intelligence bureaucracy that the American nuclear electric monies were disappearing in the Putin regime. We knew the Russians would sell weapon technology without a hint of morality –likewise most of the country's on this planet would sell weapons without a hint of morality including and especially the Americans.

To this day we wonder why the American CIA and intelligence community didn't inform the American public of this impending catastrophe. It is recognized that the American intelligence community was going under historic reorganizations because of the intelligence failures of 9/11 and the WMD failures of Iraq. It was discovered the American intelligence community had gotten even more blinded than the lead up to 9/11 because of the failure of the American public's responsibility to manage their political system by 2006. This became another item on a long list of American institutional political failures of recent.

We wonder to this day did the American intelligence community work for the particular political regime or did they work for the people at large? Why wasn't the American intelligence community working for the people's of the planet. What it was discovered, was a common relationship throughout the planet is the elites had transcended into competing for wealth and power among themselves –special access to markets and capital. They had forgotten that they were given this privilege in order to create stability and progress for the whole planet

It was a huge planet wide educational failure of theirs!

Thank You,

mike mulligan

Hinsdale, NH

Mike Mulligan And His Steam Shovel

When I was an employee at Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant in 1991, I wrote an anonymous letter detailing safety concerns to the Vermont governor and other state officials. I then sent off a copy of my concerns to the local anti nuclear group telling them to accuse the governor of sitting on these safety concerns. She quickly called a press conference and I got a NRC investigation of my concerns. I got the plant and the NRC to write a book full of new procedures and rules. Most of my concerns were found to be correct. I went on an individual campaign to challenge the plant, the state and NRC for the next two years raising many other national safety issues. I was one of the few individual in our nation who had ever changed the direction of a nuclear power plant safety culture. I eventually got fired from the plant.

Though these experiences, I was asked by a group of mother to investigate their serious safety concerns at a children’s institution for the severely physically and mentally disabled. I became an undercover low paid counselor at the institution. These kids lived separated from the families. This place was terribly dysfunctional. The medical care of these children were horrendous. As I was involved in high level management meetings detaining my concerns –we then had a preventable death of a child in our house. I was playing with this child the night before his death and I dearly loved this boy. I “took out” residential management through this death and later lead to the change-out of all management. I raised issues on a national level about the care of the disabled at these institutions. I later worked in a community setting with the care of the adult disabled. I watched the police arrest a cerebral palsy man I was caring for. He was just yelling. I visited him jail –they we violating his human rights with the jail being not adequate for his wheelchair. That’s when it hit me that a large percentage of the jail population was the mentally disabled. I expressed our whole system of care of the disabled; childhood, prisons and through death, as our “American Gulag”.

We had a small paper mill leaking wasted sludge into at small stream near my house. It was turning the water into a light milky color. I made a complaint to the NH state environmental people –their response was beyond pathetic to me. I went on a personnel campaign. I got all the state and federal agencies involve –I took video pictures and got the local paper involve. Through this they discovered the corporation and CEO were defrauding the banks to the tune of $400 million. An Arthur Anderson NE regional executive pleaded guilty to cooking the books and the corporation quickly went belly up. American Tissue was the 5th largest tissue maker in the nation. The parent company had a huge mill up north which got shutdown –it was the economic engine of the northern part of our state. Berlin NH lost tax revenues from the shutdown – and the small city went into a financial crisis leading to the layoff of teachers, police and some town officials.