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Call it another revolt of the generals. More than 13 years ago, the nation's military leaders told civilian defense officials they wanted to limit spending on missile defenses and to emphasize the protection of forces deployed overseas over defense of the American homeland against a long-range missile threat. Last week, after a lengthy internal Pentagon review and against the backdrop of new limits on overall military spending, the generals again threw their weight behind a relative contraction of the effort to defend against long-range missile attacks. They cited needed budgetary savings and more immediate threats in demanding faster work to protect overseas forces and bases against shorter-range attack.

MOSCOW, September 21 (RIA Novosti) - A missile defense system developed jointly by the world's leading powers could eliminate the global threat of nuclear strikes, a former top Russian military official said on Monday. The U.S. last week announced the cancellation of plans to deploy an anti-missile system in central Europe, which had been fiercely contested by Moscow. NATO has since said it is willing to consider a joint missile defense project with Russia. "If we return to the issue of a European missile defense system, which was abandoned a few years ago and included the U.S., we could organize mutual controls, and use the means available to all participants, in order to control the mutual nuclear potential," said Col. Gen. Viktor Yesin, who led the Strategic Missile Forces in 1991-1993. If a global missile defense system was to be built in cooperation with Russia, France, Italy, Israel and Britain, on equal terms, then China would also need to be included, he said.

Nuclear Pyschosis at the New York Times Tom Friedman's Idiocy Atomique France's atomic power industry is a failed radioactive flame. Its 58 reactors are unpopular, unsafe, uneconomical, dirty, direct agents of global warming, weapons proliferators and major generators of atomic waste for which there is no management solution. But self-proclaimed "green advocate" Thomas Friedman seems to think otherwise. In his just published New York Times op ed "Real Men Tax Gas" Friedman applies the term "wimp" to those who fail to fight global warming. But in true corporate style, he can't face the hard truths about France's industrie atomique. To wit:

t appears Vermont Yankee is getting an out-of-state site to store its low-level nuclear waste. The nuclear power plant has been storing its low-level waste at the Vernon reactor since its long-time disposal site in South Carolina closed last year. But now a facility owned by Waste Control Specialists LLC in Andrews County, TX, has won final approval from regulators to build a disposal site. Construction documents still need approval and then the site will take about a year to build. Yankee's owner, Entergy Nuclear, says once the Texas site is built disposal costs will shrink. WCAX News

t appears Vermont Yankee is getting an out-of-state site to store its low-level nuclear waste. The nuclear power plant has been storing its low-level waste at the Vernon reactor since its long-time disposal site in South Carolina closed last year. But now a facility owned by Waste Control Specialists LLC in Andrews County, TX, has won final approval from regulators to build a disposal site. Construction documents still need approval and then the site will take about a year to build. Yankee's owner, Entergy Nuclear, says once the Texas site is built disposal costs will shrink. WCAX News

t appears Vermont Yankee is getting an out-of-state site to store its low-level nuclear waste. The nuclear power plant has been storing its low-level waste at the Vernon reactor since its long-time disposal site in South Carolina closed last year. But now a facility owned by Waste Control Specialists LLC in Andrews County, TX, has won final approval from regulators to build a disposal site. Construction documents still need approval and then the site will take about a year to build. Yankee's owner, Entergy Nuclear, says once the Texas site is built disposal costs will shrink. WCAX News

In a speech to an international business group at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, U.S. Sen. Lamar Alexander warned that the United States will suffer if the rest of the world passes the U.S. in development of nuclear power. The "real fear," he said, will be waking up on a windless day when the light switch doesn't work. Alexander, the chairman of the Senate Republican Caucus and an increasingly outspoken advocate for the nuclear industry, said Monday: "There are 40 reactors under construction in 11 countries around the world and none of them in the United States. The country that invented nuclear power and that gets 70 percent of its carbon-free electricity from nuclear power hasn't started a new nuclear power plant in 30 years."

The National Energy Summit & International Dialogue will take place in Washington, DC on September 23-24 at the Mayflower Hotel. A live webcast will feature gavel-to-gavel coverage of both days, including exclusive interviews and in-depth analysis. Please visit with us regularly as the speakers and agenda are updated on a frequent basis. Also, check out our interactive blog as we endeavor to engage in a vigorous discussion in the days leading up to this exclusive event. The National Energy Summit & International Dialogue broadcast has concluded. You can view the vidoes from the summit here. Click here to learn more about the Council on Competitiveness.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission will hold its annual public meeting with Babcock & Wilcox Nuclear Operations Group officials at 6 p.m., Sept. 28 at Lynchburg City Hall. The public meeting will include a report on the NRC's performance review of B&W's operations from June 2008 through June 2009. The performance review examined safety and the handling of nuclear materials at B&W's Mt. Athos Road facility in Campbell County. The NRC investigation concluded that B&W operates safely. NRC officials will be present to answer questions from people who attend.

The World Health Organization has slashed the safety limits of radon to a tenth of its current level, noting that the naturally occurring radioactive gas causes up to 14 percent of lung cancer cases. "In view of the latest scientific data, WHO proposes a reference level of 100 becquerels per metric cube to minimize health hazards due to indoor radon exposure," said the UN health agency in a report published this week. "However, if this level cannot be reached under the prevailing country-specific conditions, the chosen reference level should not exceed 300 becquerels per metric cube," it added. Becquerel is a measuring unit for radioactivity and reference levels represents the maximum accepted radon concentration in a residential dwelling. A previous WHO report published in 1996 had fixed the reference level at 1,000 becquerels per cubic metre. After smoking, radon is the second biggest cause of lung cancer, killing tens of thousands of people a year, said the WHO.

The Independent Member for Kalgoorlie, John Bowler, expects the Labor Party will eventually abandon its anti-uranium stance. The Opposition Leader, Eric Ripper, has rejected reports of an internal rift over the issue. It comes after the shadow treasurer, Ben Wyatt, said a future Labor Government would not shut down mines approved by the current Government.

A difference in interpretation of a diplomatic document in 1959 apparently led to a secret pact allowing Washington to bring nuclear weapons into Japan--and decades of denials from Tokyo, former officials said. The revision of the Japan-U.S. Security Treaty in 1960 introduced a "prior consultation" system between the two nations about nuclear wea-pons. At that time, Japanese officials believed prior consultation would be conducted when U.S. ships and aircraft carrying nuclear weapons anchored or landed in Japan or even passed through Japanese waters or airspace. However, U.S. officials thought that the 1959 document meant that such acts would not require prior consultation.

Why should we abolish nuclear weapons? This apparently naive question seems to have become a matter of debate, writes Hiromichi Umebayashi, founder and special advisor of Peace Depot, Inc. Japan. In this article, the author writes that in Japan there is a deep-rooted desire for nuclear abolition that derives from its first-hand experience of the appalling damage caused by nuclear weapons. Yet this does not seem to be enough to constitute a successful argument for "a world free of nuclear weapons". The effort to bring about a nuclear abolition must be indivisibly and essentially integrated with the challenge of creating a more equitable, just, and humane global society. The need for a global solution to problems like poverty and climate change is a given, as if tacitly mandated by the standards that guide civilised human society. Nuclear abolition, in contrast, tends to be confined within the category of weapons linked to national security. It is not seen as a moral and global moral issue. To succeed, the nuclear abolition movement must be brought into a wider sphere of people's thinking.

All local authorities should have plans drawn up for considering applications for radioactive waste in landfills. That's the view of the authority set up to get local government and the nuclear industry talking. Nuleaf's executive director, Fred Barker, said some people were 'willing to stick their head above the parapet' but they were shouted down by political leaders in local government. He went onto explain, at RWM in Birmingham last, that there were many contracts available for dealing with local level radioactive waste from industries such as hospitals. And the Ministry of Defence (MoD) which is due to start decommissioning its fleet of cold war era nuclear submarines in the near future.

It's good news that President Obama has kicked back the Pentagon's "timid" proposals for a new nuclear posture review in favour of a radical rewrite (Barack Obama ready to slash US nuclear arsenal, 21 September). Breaking out of the "more of the same" approach is key to making progress towards abolition. It was disappointing, then, to read David Miliband's comments, pushing attention off on to Iran and North Korea, as usual (New nuclear resolve, 21 September). Perhaps this isn't surprising when you consider that the UK's nuclear policy remains the replacement of Trident - a cold war system with no conceivable military use, and irrelevant to our contemporary security needs. But the population has noticed that the world has changed even if the government hasn't - a significant majority now opposes Trident replacement.

It's good news that President Obama has kicked back the Pentagon's "timid" proposals for a new nuclear posture review in favour of a radical rewrite (Barack Obama ready to slash US nuclear arsenal, 21 September). Breaking out of the "more of the same" approach is key to making progress towards abolition. It was disappointing, then, to read David Miliband's comments, pushing attention off on to Iran and North Korea, as usual (New nuclear resolve, 21 September). Perhaps this isn't surprising when you consider that the UK's nuclear policy remains the replacement of Trident - a cold war system with no conceivable military use, and irrelevant to our contemporary security needs. But the population has noticed that the world has changed even if the government hasn't - a significant majority now opposes Trident replacement.

LAST week Germany's nuclear waste storage site, which has so far cost nearly $2 billion, was pronounced 'dead' by the Environment Minister, and he was backed by the Federal Office for Radiation Protection. German newspapers had been reporting that the conservative government of the 1970s, led by Chancellor Kohl, had altered a scientists' report that came to the conclusion that the location in Lower Saxony was not suitable for long-term storage of nuclear waste, so that Gorleben could indeed be chosen.

Britain is prepared to scale back its nuclear capability as part of global disarmament efforts, Prime Minister Gordon Brown said Wednesday ahead of an address to the UN General Assembly. He told BBC radio that Britain was prepared to reduce the number of submarines that can launch nuclear missiles, but said there were no plans to cut the number of warheads. "Just as America and Russia are making those reductions, we are prepared to consider that, but only as part of an agreement," Brown said.

During the 53rd IAEA General Conference, delegates from the Russian Federation and Serbia signed a trade contract, laying the groundwork for the final repatriation of spent nuclear fuel from the Serbian Institute for Nuclear Sciences at Vinča to the Russian Federation. The Foreign Trade Contract (FTC) is a pre-condition for the spent fuel´s envisioned repatriation to Russia, setting out provisions for the safe and secure transport, reprocessing, storage and subsequent disposal of the high-level waste at Russian facilities. The FTC was signed by Mr. Sergey Kazakov, Director of the Russian Federal Centre for Nuclear and Radiation Safety and Mr. Radojica Pesic, General Director of the Serbian Public Company Nuclear Facilities.

Russia's plans to build a nuclear power plant in its Baltic territory of Kaliningrad, hemmed in between Poland and Lithuania, has local residents and environmentalists worried. Russian state energy corporation Rosatom announced plans last year to build a 1,200-megawatt nuclear plant near Sovetsk by 2016. The site is just 20 kilometres (12 miles) from Lithuania's border. But memories of the world's worst nuclear accident at Chernobyl in 1986 in what is now Ukraine has convinced residents like Lyudmila Litvinova and others who went to a meeting with local officials that the risk is too high. "Why would we want to succumb to a radiation risk here in Russia," Litvinova, 52, told AFP.

State officials Tuesday rejected a plea to place a moratorium on any more depleted-uranium shipments to an EnergySolutions site in Tooele County, possibly clearing the way for shipments next month of the radioactive waste. But the state still could require the company to remove the waste in the future. In an 8-3 vote, the Utah Radiation Control Board rebuffed a request from the anti-nuclear-waste group HEAL Utah to halt such shipments until the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission finishes a three-year examination of whether depleted uranium should be reclassified on the nation's radiation danger scale.

The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission will take about three years to write new rules for disposing of the kind of depleted uranium Utah is poised to accept next month. Agency officials are conducting a two-day round-table discussion in Salt Lake City to explain their process and get ideas. They said in Wednesday's session at the Marriott University Park hotel that new rules for the radioactive waste are needed because the volumes now being produced never were envisioned when NRC considered disposal methods in the 1980s. The new rules will affect where and how the powdered material should be buried -- in which climates and how deeply -- and will set standards for reviews of existing dumps, like the one EnergySolutions runs in Tooele County. That site in Clive piles up waste at ground level and covers it.

Nearly 300 of the world's top experts from 21 countries in dealing with subterranean nuclear waste issues are meeting this week at the Three Rivers Convention Center in Kennewick. They are sharing science and trying to better understand how to deal with the legacy of radioactive materials. The Migration '09 conference has booked the convention center all week. That means the Kennewick Public Facilities District Board of Directors must hold its monthly meeting Thursday across the parking lot at the Toyota Center. "This is the most important conference (in the world) relating to the science behind the solutions," said Thomas Fanghanel, a researcher from Germany who is chairman of the conference.