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Nuew Nukes for Texas? Back to Failed Energy Policy of '70s

Via NY Transfer News Collective  *  All the News that Doesn't Fit
 
Public Citizen - Sep 25, 2007
http://www.citizen.org/pressroom/release.cfm?ID=2516

Application for New Nuclear Reactors in South Texas 
Sends U.S. Back to Failed Energy Policies of the 1970s

Statement of Tyson Slocum, 
Director of Public Citizens Energy Program

NRG Energys request today to build two new nuclear reactors in
southern Texas is d(c)j vu all over again. The U.S. has been down the
nuclear power path " and it has proven to be expensive, polluting,
dangerous and a security risk. Nothing has changed with any of these
factors since utilities lost interest in nuclear power 30 years ago.
Electricity companies are testing a revised licensing process only
because federal politicians want to throw even more taxpayer dollars at
an industry with which they have become far too cozy.

With this application, NRG Energy is attempting to be the first in line
to obtain loan guarantees and other construction subsidies for nuclear
power granted in the Energy Policy Act of 2005. NRG Energy is not a
poor little start-up company venturing into an innovative field to
address energy needs. In the past 18 months, NRG Energy has made $835
million in profit and is positioning itself to receive federal handouts
that continue to prop up a mature industry that is not economically
viable.

Nuclear industry heads have candidly stated that without the federal
loan guarantees, the projects will come to a halt. There is no reason
for U.S. taxpayers to back loans for a technology that, according to
the Congressional Budget Office, has a default rate of well above 50
percent. NRG Energys proposed design for an advanced boiling water
reactor should not even be eligible for loan guarantees, the purpose of
which is to encourage advancement of new and innovative technology,
because advanced boiling water reactors are operating in Japan, and
several more are under construction in Asia. The technology isnt that
new, and it isnt that innovative. Further, NRG is hardly deserving of
taxpayer money; it paid $2 million in fines this year for falsely
reporting natural gas trading information.

The proposed reactors may be headed for billions in cost overruns just
as in the 1970s, especially given that the cost of steel and other
construction materials are skyrocketing. Two advanced boiling water
reactors were built in Japan in 1996 and 1997 at a cost of $4.21
billion and more than $3.64 billion respectively.

Public Citizen will fight these proposed reactors every step of the
way. The flaws of nuclear power " excessive cost, security threats and
long-lived radioactive waste " have not been solved. More nuclear
reactors will only exacerbate these problems. The future of nuclear
power looks a lot like the past. The first step to avoid repeating
history is to stop wasting taxpayer dollars on bailing out this 20th
century technology and focus on 21st century solutions that are clean,
safe, and sustainable.

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Canadian Military Wrote Afghan Prez's Speecj to Cdn  Parliament!

Via NY Transfer News Collective  *  All the News that Doesn't Fit
 
sent by mart

[More NATO War Lies Coming Unraveled - Canadian military wrote Afghan
president's speech To Canadian Parliament -mart]

The Canadian Press via CBC News - Sep 25, 2007
http://www.cbc.ca
http://tinyurl.com/2rsdow

Canadian military wrote Afghan president's speech: NDP

The NDP said Tuesday it has documents that show the Canadian military
effectively wrote Afghan President Hamid Karzai's speech to Parliament
last year.

NDP MP Dawn Black says she has documents that indicate Afghan President
Hamid Karzai's speech to Parliament last year was an 'elaborately
staged political stunt.'NDP MP Dawn Black says she has documents that
indicate Afghan President Hamid Karzai's speech to Parliament last year
was an 'elaborately staged political stunt.'

Black held a news conference Tuesday to release access-to-information
documents that suggest a team of military advisers prepared an initial
draft of Karzai's speech, delivered on Sept. 22, 2006

She quoted a situation report from Task Force Afghanistan as saying:
"Team prepared initial draft of President (Karzai's) address to
Parliament 22 Sep."

Black said Gen. David Fraser reports in the documents that "key
statistics, messages, themes, as well s overall structure (of the
speech) were adopted by the president in his remarks."

"What Canadians heard was not the voice of the Afghan people, but the
talking points of the Department of National Defence," Black said.

In the speech, Karzai thanked the families of soldiers killed in combat
and painted an optimistic, but not rosy picture of his country's future.

He also took direct aim at NDP Leader Jack Layton's opposition to the
war, saying those who believe the mission was weighted too heavily
toward combat and not enough toward reconstruction were wrong.

"There has been speculation about the resources that the Department of
National Defence is pouring into trying to sell this mission to the
Canadian people," Black said.

"I never thought that the Canadian military would go this far. This
raises serious concerns about the independence of the Afghan president
and origin of his recent comments to Canadian media in Kabul."

Black said she plans to call for an emergency debate on the issue in
the House of Commons when Parliament resumes next month.

She also said she will seek an investigation by the Commons defence
committee into the military's communications campaign.

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

Photo:
http://tinyurl.com/2ltfah

"The party's defence critic, Dawn Black, said the papers indicate
Karzai's address was an 'elaborately staged political stunt.' " 

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Iraqi Resistance "Surge" May Drag Brits Back into Basra

Via NY Transfer News Collective  *  All the News that Doesn't Fit
 
The Independent - Sep 26, 2007
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/article2998939.ece 

Surge in Basra killings may force British back to city

By Kim Sengupta in Baghdad

A surge in violence in Basra has raised the prospect of British troops
having to go back into the city if the security situation deteriorates
further. Yesterday, a suicide bomber killed three people and injured 20
others in the city in the latest sign of violence resurfacing in the
Shia south after a comparatively quiet period.

Two senior aides of Grand Ayatollah Sistani, the spiritual head of the
Shia, were killed in the region last week in a series of targeted
assassinations that had also seen the deaths of two provincial
governors and a police chief in recent months.

General Jalil Khalaf, of Basra police, said after yesterday's blast:
"The target was police headquarters and more people could have died. We
do not know yet who is responsible".

Southern Iraq, with its lucrative oil wealth, has been the scene of
bloody internecine fighting between the Mehdi Army, led by the radical
cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, the Badr Brigade and the Fadhila party. British
forces, who withdrew from their last remaining base in Basra City
earlier this month, remain officially in charge of security in the area
and UK commanders have said that they are ready to step back in if
necessary with a battlegroup, the Royal Welsh with Challenger tanks, on
standby for such an eventuality.

The Iraqi commander who has taken over from the British in Basra,
General Mohan al-Furayji, had brokered a peace deal between the various
Shia factions but, according to sources in the militia, there is rising
tension between the groups. The American military in Baghdad,
meanwhile, has repeatedly claimed that Iranians are shipping large
quantities of weapons into the south. The killing of the two Sistani
aides raised the number of Grand Ayatollah's advisers killed to five in
three months. Amjad al-Janabi was shot dead as he left a mosque in
Basra and Ahmad al-Baraqawi was shot as he drove home in Diwaniya. A
Shia politician in Basra said: "I think we know who is ordering these
killings. It is a very powerful and well known man, but we are too
afraid to say the name in public."

Meanwhile, a reconciliation gathering between Sunni and Shia leaders
and the US military at a mosque in Baquba turned into a scene of
carnage after a suicide bomber blew himself up, killing 28 people
including the police chief, senior commanders and sheikhs from a number
of prominent tribes.

The attack, during a ceremonial meal, is the latest in a series of
lethal blows against American attempts to mobilise local groups against
al-Qa'ida in Iraq and its large contingent of foreign fighters. Those
attending the meeting included Shia militia, Mehdi Army and the Sunni
groups the Islamic Army and the 1920 Revolution Brigade, which had
until recently been involved in fighting against American forces.

The deaths at Baquba brought the numbers killed to 45 in less than 24
hours including the Basra bombing, six killed in a double car bombing
in Baghdad and six more in a truck bombing in Tal Afar. A total of 92
people were also injured in the various bombings and shooting around
the country.

The US military confirmed yesterday that American officers had attended
the reconciliation meeting at Baquba, the capital of the volatile
Diyala region. It was the second attack this month by insurgents
against America's new allies. On 13 September Abdul Sattar Abu Risha,
the Sunni tribal leader fighting al-Qa'ida in Anbar, and lauded by
George Bush during a visit to Iraq, was killed by a bomb near his home
in Ramadi.

The blast at Baquba took place at Ifthar, the breaking of fast during
Ramadan, on Monday evening. Among the dead were Haji Najim, a former
leader of the 1920 Revolution Brigade, named after resistance against
British invaders at the time, who had been instrumental in the group
agreeing to a truce with US forces, and Brigadier General Ali Delyian
al-Jorani, the chief of Baquba police. The governor of Diyala, Raad
Rashid Mulla Jawad, was among those injured while his brother, who was
also his bodyguard, was killed.

Diyala province is of strategic significance in the Iraqi conflict as
it is a route through which Sunni insurgents slip into Baghdad.


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On Wed, 26 Sep 2007 05:06:26 +0000, NY.Transfer.News wrote:

> Surge in Basra killings may force British back to city

In your dreams.