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It is an honor for me to be able to speak to you today on behalf of indigenous people throughout the world whose lives have been dramatically affected by the proliferation of weapons. I bring you the greetings of the people of the Marshall Islands, and more specifically the paramount leaders of the Ralik chain, Iroijlaplap Imata Kabua, and Iroijlaplap Anjua Loeak, whose domains have borne the brunt of United States military weapons development - from the nuclear bombs of the Cold War to the missiles that carry them today. I lived on the island of Likiep in the northern Marshalls for the entire 12 years of the US atomic and thermonuclear testing program in my country. I witnessed most of the detonations, and was just 9-years old when I experienced the most horrific of these explosions, the infamous BRAVO shot that terrorized our community and traumatized our society to an extent that few people in the world can imagine.

A uranium enrichment facility under construction in southeastern New Mexico is preparing for more tests later this year. Gregory Smith, chief operations officer for Louisiana Energy Services, says that if an operational readiness review and another assessment of licensing performance are successful in August and September, the plant could go online before the end of the year. Officials with LES and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission met this week to talk about the National Enrichment Facility and the ongoing construction. An NRC official says LES has been through one operational review, but the second one this fall will be more in depth. The facility's centrifuges will produce enriched uranium for commercial nuclear power plants.

03.05.09 Savannah River Site Public Tours Aiken, SC 03.05.09 Portsmouth Site Citizens Advisory Board Mtg. Piketon, OH 03.05.09 Scoping Mtg.: EIS on Proposed Loan Guarantee for TX Energy, LLC, Industrial Gasification Facility Beaumont, TX 03.11.09 Nevada Test Site/Environmental Management Community Advisory Board Mtg. Las Vegas, NV 03.11.09 Oak Ridge Site Citizens Advisory Board Mtg. Oak Ridge, TN 03.11.09 Savannah River Site Public Tours Aiken, SC 03.12.09 Paducah Citizens Advisory Board Mtg. Paducah, KY 03.18.09 - 03.19.09 Environmental Management Site Advisory Board Chairs' Mtg. Augusta, GA 03.23.09 - 03.24.09 Savannah River Site Citizens Advisory Board Mtg. Aiken, SC 03.24.09 Savannah River Site Public Tours Aiken, SC 03.25.09 Northern NM Citizens Advisory Board Mtg. Santa Fe, NM 03.31.09 Public Mtg.: Revised Draft EIS on Decommissioning and/or Long-term Stewardship at West Valley Demonstration Project Irving, NY 03.31.09 Idaho National Lab/Environmental Management Citizens Advisory Board Mtg.

03.05.09 Savannah River Site Public Tours Aiken, SC 03.05.09 Portsmouth Site Citizens Advisory Board Mtg. Piketon, OH 03.05.09 Scoping Mtg.: EIS on Proposed Loan Guarantee for TX Energy, LLC, Industrial Gasification Facility Beaumont, TX 03.11.09 Nevada Test Site/Environmental Management Community Advisory Board Mtg. Las Vegas, NV 03.11.09 Oak Ridge Site Citizens Advisory Board Mtg. Oak Ridge, TN 03.11.09 Savannah River Site Public Tours Aiken, SC 03.12.09 Paducah Citizens Advisory Board Mtg. Paducah, KY 03.18.09 - 03.19.09 Environmental Management Site Advisory Board Chairs' Mtg. Augusta, GA 03.23.09 - 03.24.09 Savannah River Site Citizens Advisory Board Mtg. Aiken, SC 03.24.09 Savannah River Site Public Tours Aiken, SC 03.25.09 Northern NM Citizens Advisory Board Mtg. Santa Fe, NM 03.31.09 Public Mtg.: Revised Draft EIS on Decommissioning and/or Long-term Stewardship at West Valley Demonstration Project Irving, NY 03.31.09 Idaho National Lab/Environmental Management Citizens Advisory Board Mtg.

New Delhi: India has formally asked the United States to negotiate the "arrangements and procedures" under which American spent nuclear fuel will be reprocessed in the country, presenting the Obama administration with its first test of how committed it is to the India-U.S. nuclear agreement. The request was made last month, senior officials told The Hindu. Under the terms of the '123 agreement' on bilateral nuclear cooperation, Washington has six months to begin consultations and one year after that to reach an understanding with Delhi. "The clock has started ticking," an official said. "We have till the end of August 2010 to finalise an agreement."

The Army plans to measure airborne uranium levels at three monitoring stations on the Big Island over the next 12 months. Advertisement It has hired a contractor to do the testing for $150,000. The move comes after the Army in 2007 said it confirmed the presence of depleted uranium at Pohakuloa Training Area on the Big Island. The Army, after years of denials it used depleted uranium in the Islands, also said soldiers training in Hawai'i fired 714 spotting rounds containing depleted uranium in the 1960s. Depleted uranium is a byproduct of radioactive enriched uranium and has been used by the U.S. military in bullets and other weapons designed to pierce armor.

A supervisor on duty at the Vermont Yankee nuclear plant in Vernon tested positive for alcohol Monday and has had his access to the facility revoked, according to a spokesman for Entergy Nuclear, the plant's operator. Advertisement The incident was made public in a posting on the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's Web site Tuesday morning. Larry Smith, the Entergy spokesman, said the employee was a supervisor in the maintenance department for the facility. The 100-person department handles maintenance of the plant's electrical and instrument-control equipment and other duties. "He was not a licensed operator," Smith said. A licensed operator is someone who works in the plant's control room.

The Moruroa e Tatou nuclear test veterans association in French Polynesia has expressed surprise that a fresh compensation ruling is being appealed by the French state. This follows an undertaking by the French defence minister, Herve Morin, that in such matters the state would no longer go ahead with a challenge but accept court rulings. According to Tahitipresse, the head of Moruroa e Tatou says he wonders if the minister had lied or just used deceptive language. As the French compensation bill is to go to the French senate, the association has questioned the significantly lower compensation being considered for victims in French Polynesia over that offered in France.

Don McCarty has witnessed what many have only seen in photographs. The 85-year-old Navy veteran from Sparta was aboard the USS Albemarle during the first post-World War ll nuclear testing in the Bikini Islands. McCarty, a gunners mate, was on deck when an atomic bomb was detonated 7 miles away. "We didn't even hear it," said McCarty who was in Branson on Thursday for the 64th National Day of Atomic Remembrance.

After a 10-year gap, the United States on Thursday rejoined a biannual conference designed to win more support - including from the U.S. Senate - for the treaty banning all nuclear bomb tests. The session brought together foreign ministers and other envoys from more than 100 nations that have ratified or at least signed the 1996 treaty. A speech by Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton scheduled for later Thursday represented the first U.S. participation since 1999. The pact has lingered in a diplomatic limbo since a Republican-dominated Senate rejected it that year, but U.S. President Barack Obama has pledged to now "aggressively" pursue ratification.

Orange liquid swirled and pulsed in a clear acrylic tank just outside the Hanford nuclear reservation. The iron oxide that gave the tank's contents its bright color was one of several materials in the tank being used to simulate the heavy particles in radioactive waste that tanks at the Hanford vitrification plant will need to keep mixed. Once the vitrification plant begins operating to turn some of Hanford's worst radioactive waste into a solid glass form, some tanks will be in "black cells" that will be so radioactive after operations begin that humans cannot enter again. That means the mixing system that's been developed with no moving parts and is being tested now must work nearly perfectly for 40 years without the help of human hands.

The Women's International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF) Aotearoa Section welcomes the entry into force this weekend of Belgian legislation that prohibits government investments in firms that manufacture, use or possess armour and munitions that contain depleted uranium (DU). "This legislation complements the ban on the manufacture, testing, use, sale and stockpiling of uranium weapons which was passed unanimously by the Belgian parliament in 2007 and which also takes effect this weekend", said Christine Greenwood. "Although Belgium is not itself a user of DU munitions or armour, NATO Headquarters and military command are based there, and United States' uranium shipments regularly travel through the port of Antwerp", she continued.

The Women's International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF) Aotearoa Section welcomes the entry into force this weekend of Belgian legislation that prohibits government investments in firms that manufacture, use or possess armour and munitions that contain depleted uranium (DU). "This legislation complements the ban on the manufacture, testing, use, sale and stockpiling of uranium weapons which was passed unanimously by the Belgian parliament in 2007 and which also takes effect this weekend", said Christine Greenwood. "Although Belgium is not itself a user of DU munitions or armour, NATO Headquarters and military command are based there, and United States' uranium shipments regularly travel through the port of Antwerp", she continued.

St. Vincent and the Grenadines is the latest country to sign the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty. This is according to the global nuclear watchdog. The International Atomic Energy Agency said the signing ceremony took place Thursday at United Nations Headquarters. Thirty of the 33 States in Latin America and the Caribbean are now signatories to the treaty. The three non-signatories are Dominica, Trinidad and Tobago and Cuba.

A court in French Polynesia has begun hearing complaints from former workers at France's nuclear weapons test sites. The cases, being heard for the first time, relate to work in Mururoa and Fangataufa and seek recognition and compensation for ill health. Eight cases have been lodged, although five of the workers have already died of what have been called radiation-linked diseases. In March, the French government enacted legislation to allow compensation.

The nuclear test grounds in the wastes of the Gobi desert have fallen silent but veterans of those lonely places are speaking out for the first time about the terrible price exacted by China's zealous pursuit of the atomic bomb. They talk of picking up radioactive debris with their bare hands, of sluicing down bombers that had flown through mushroom clouds, of soldiers dying before their time of strange and rare diseases, and children born with mysterious cancers.

A $90 million project has provided more confidence that Hanford's one-of-a-kind, $12.2 billion vitrification plant should operate as expected, according to the Department of Energy. DOE and its contractors just completed the first phase of testing at the Pretreatment Engineering Platform, a quarter-scale model of the process that will be used at the vit plant to separate Hanford tank waste into high-level waste and low-activity waste for separate treatment. DOE's goal is to minimize the amount of costly high-level waste canisters produced. "The facility has verified some of the key processes at the vitrification plant will work," said Bill Gay, a URS employee and assistant project director for the plant, formally called the Waste Treatment Plant.

Senate opponents of the nuclear test-ban treaty face "a new ballgame" 10 years after they rejected the global pact, the treaty's chief said Tuesday. If the U.S. and other key nations fail again to ratify the pact, the world will become a place with "more fissile material in more facilities with more people to handle it, representing a risk of (nuclear) terrorism," said Tibor Toth, executive secretary of the treaty's preparatory commission.

President Obama is planning to put Vice President Biden in charge of what is expected to be the difficult job of getting the Senate to ratify the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, administration sources said. Deputy Secretary of State James B. Steinberg spoke of the pending assignment at a Monday luncheon sponsored by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, but Biden aides said yesterday that they could not confirm when it will be officially announced.

"The number of workers at Bruce Power being tested for exposure to alpha radiation has risen to 190 from 19 and some workers have balked at working in the affected area. However, no one yet has fallen ill or shown levels above recommended guidelines. "We always knew it was going to expand," Bruce spokesman Steve Cannon said Thursday. "People are naturally concerned. It's totally understandable and we appreciate that. We're going to do everything we possibly can to let people understand that all precautions are being taken." Crews working to restart the Bruce A Unit 1 reactor in November first discovered the problem through routine air monitoring. Alpha radiation, typically associated with old or degraded fuel bundles, can cause radiation sickness if it's breathed in but can't penetrate the skin. Work was stopped while the area was ventilated with HEPA filters but has since recommenced, Cannon said. "

)I have lost a lot of sleep lately thinking about the nuclear train that is headed to Utah. During that time I have tried to think of something that I could do to help reverse the path that we are now on. The only thing that I could think of is to tell you my story and hopefully it will only be one of many, many Utahans putting a voice this issue. I know the effects of past radiation policies. I lost my father to leukemia after the nuclear testing in the 1950's and early 1960's that blanketed Utah. This has affected my entire life since I was 12 years old. I also fought my own battle with cancer in 1995. Ironically, it was radiation that saved me then BUT oh what a price I have paid! I was never really afraid of hell until I faced the effects of going through that treatment. The effects still linger even after 14 years. If I had known the true short-term and long-term effects of radiation treatment then, I would not have gone through with having the treatment. We should be asking what Utah gets out of the Energy Solutions deal to become the nuclear dumping ground for the world. How can we place short term gains and profits by gambling the entire future of Utah?

)I have lost a lot of sleep lately thinking about the nuclear train that is headed to Utah. During that time I have tried to think of something that I could do to help reverse the path that we are now on. The only thing that I could think of is to tell you my story and hopefully it will only be one of many, many Utahans putting a voice this issue. I know the effects of past radiation policies. I lost my father to leukemia after the nuclear testing in the 1950's and early 1960's that blanketed Utah. This has affected my entire life since I was 12 years old. I also fought my own battle with cancer in 1995. Ironically, it was radiation that saved me then BUT oh what a price I have paid! I was never really afraid of hell until I faced the effects of going through that treatment. The effects still linger even after 14 years. If I had known the true short-term and long-term effects of radiation treatment then, I would not have gone through with having the treatment. We should be asking what Utah gets out of the Energy Solutions deal to become the nuclear dumping ground for the world. How can we place short term gains and profits by gambling the entire future of Utah?

In April, U.S. President Barack Obama declared in a speech in Prague that the United States was committed "to seek the peace and security of a world without nuclear weapons." In September he chaired a meeting of the U.N. Security Council that unanimously supported this vision. Analysts and Western government officials say Obama's ability to begin delivering on his promise will be tested next year when Moscow and Washington resume haggling on an arms reduction pact and again at a key U.N. nuclear arms conference in May. They say success of a month-long review of the troubled 1970 nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) will depend largely on whether U.S. and Russian negotiators can first agree on a successor pact to replace the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty

In April, U.S. President Barack Obama declared in a speech in Prague that the United States was committed "to seek the peace and security of a world without nuclear weapons." In September he chaired a meeting of the U.N. Security Council that unanimously supported this vision. Analysts and Western government officials say Obama's ability to begin delivering on his promise will be tested next year when Moscow and Washington resume haggling on an arms reduction pact and again at a key U.N. nuclear arms conference in May. They say success of a month-long review of the troubled 1970 nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) will depend largely on whether U.S. and Russian negotiators can first agree on a successor pact to replace the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty