NC Attorney General flip-flops on nuclear transports

Durham, North Carolina, Oct. 10— Amid increasing reports that terrorists have targeted US nuclear facilities, 27 state attorneys general (AGs) are urging Congress to move immediately to protect the nation’s nuclear power plants. But in North Carolina, Attorney General Roy Cooper is reluctant to stop transports of high-level waste by a huge utility. A military security expert has presented Cooper with a confidential report showing that the nation’s only shipments of the radioactive rods cannot be protected from attack.

In a sharply worded letter sent to Congress Wednesday, the 27 AGs complain that the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) has been slow to act despite evidence “that the potential threat to nuclear plants is very real.” The state officials expressed concern for “the vulnerability of spent fuel storage,” and called for enhanced protections for “one of the most vulnerable components of a nuclear plant – its spent fuel pools.”

NC Attorney General Cooper signed the letter to Congress, and last Friday, his top advisor told environmentalists that his department continues to review a legal petition filed by eighteen organizations. The groups are calling for Cooper to use his authority under the state constitution to block the shipments by CP&L/Progress Energy to its Shearon Harris nuclear plant, which is already one of the nation’s largest nuclear storage sites.

Cooper’s general counsel, JB Kelly, told representatives of the environmental group NC WARN (North Carolina Waste Awareness and Reduction Network) that the attorney general is concerned about CP&L/Progress being the only utility transporting waste fuel, about its waste pools, and the increasing threats to nuclear facilities. But the Charlotte News & Observer on Oct. 10 quoted Kelly downplaying the letter to Congress and the federal inaction, and saying Cooper sees no imminent threat or reason to take action, but “will continue to seek out information” regarding the safety of shipments.

At the meeting with Kelly, career Special Forces veteran Stanley A. Goff, who planned and coordinated numerous “force-on-force” exercises during a 24-year military career, described a confidential vulnerability assessment he prepared for Cooper. The report, which was sent to Kelly on Monday, details a variety of factors and specific scenarios that could lead to a serious radiation release in communities along rail lines, including Ft. Bragg, a critical US military base.

“These trains simply cannot be protected, “ said Goff, who now works with NC WARN. “Terrorists or mentally unbalanced people, domestic or foreign, have demonstrated the capability – and expressed the intent – to carry out these types of attacks, which in the case of waste fuel transport could represent the equivalent of a ‘dirty bomb.’”

Goff noted that the NRC recently proposed to deny a petition brought by NC WARN calling for the agency to stop the shipments until a first-ever terrorism evaluation is performed, and until communities along rail lines are equipped and trained for possible radiation releases.

Regardless of Bush administration efforts to license a waste dump in Nevada, CP&L/Progress will be the only utility shipping waste for many years, and Shearon Harris will remain the largest storage site. Federal studies show that transport accidents could cause large releases of radioactivity, while a waste pool fire could cause thousands of deaths and a half-trillion dollars in economic damage.

Source: NC WARN

Asheville activists air civil liberties concerns

By Liz Allen

Asheville, North Carolina, Oct. 8 (AGR)— On Oct. 7, people across the United States participated in local events to recognize First Monday, a day of action and resistance against the degradation of civil rights in this country since Sept. 11 and with the passage of the “Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism”(USA PATRIOT) Act. Events were sponsored by the Alliance for Justice, with cosponsors including the National Education Association, the American Civil Liberties Union and Amnesty International.

“While it is important to support the legitimate national security needs of the country, these needs are not met through the elimination of the rights and liberties that are the foundation of America,” said a statement from Alliance for Justice. People across the US collected signatures for a subpoena to Attorney General John Ashcroft, demanding information as to why he refuses to give out the names of detainees who are held without evidence, and how his revisions of the Attorney General guidelines as well as increased surveillance of the everyday activities of citizens make the country safer. Rob Close, organizer for First Monday events at University of North Carolina-Asheville (UNCA), reported that on campus the subpoena collected between 40 and 50 signatures in a matter of two hours. Another petition, to NC Senator John Edwards asking him to say no to the war in Iraq, collected around 160 signatures.

Participants in First Monday at UNCA expressed concern over the loss of student privacy, manifested in the use of the 1974 Family Education and Privacy Act’s exceptions that allow Universities to turn over specific information on students without university liability. They also criticized the abridgement of constitutional rights to free speech and freedom of association under the Patriot Act and Ashcroft’s policy revisions: civil disobedience can now be considered “domestic terrorism;” non-citizen “material witnesses” can be detained indefinitely if they are suspected of having a link to terrorists; and Ashcroft has powers of surveillance as extensive as those of J. Edgar Hoover. At UNCA, students and at least one professor wore masking tape over their mouths to bring attention to the issue.

Clark Walker, Chairman of the Libertarian Party of Buncombe County, who was registering people to vote at the UNCA event, expressed concern that the government had too much power. “The government’s business is to protect us, not to enlist us as helpers to spy on fellow citizens,” Walker commented.

A film, produced by the Alliance for Justice, was also shown nationwide. The film, about 25 minutes in length, profiles people whose lives have been directly affected by the changes in governmental policy since Sept. 11 and the implications of those changes.

‘Globalizing Justice’ tour to address GM products, free trade in Guatemala

By Willy Rosencrans

Asheville, North Carolina, Oct. 16 (AGR)-- Guatemala, still reeling from the civil war which devastated its’ people in the 70s and 80s, faces new threats today, including incursions by biotech giants and a new free trade initiative. On Wednesday, Oct. 23, 7pm, the Network in Solidarity with the People of Guatemala (NISGUA) will bring its fall tour, “Globalizing Justice,” to address these issues at UNCA’s Laurel Forum in Karpen Hall.

Carlos Humberto Muralles, a Guatemalan agronomist, will speak at the tour. Muralles works with the Association for the Promotion and Development of the Community (CEIBA), which promotes participatory community development on the topics of health, agriculture, women’s rights, and education. CEIBA works primarily in rural communities of the northwestern highlands which were affected by the Guatemalan civil war; much of the region is marked by extreme poverty and high infant mortality.

CEIBA has long conducted field research on agricultural topics and has recently made transgenic products a primary focus. The UN World Food Program and the United States Agency for International Development distributed genetically modified corn to Guatemala in the form of international aid, including Aventis’ Starlink corn (never approved for human consumption due to its genetic resemblance to known allergens). GM FlavrSavr tomatoes were grown in Guatemala without the knowledge of authorities and may have spread beyond test sites.

CEIBA is also part of the growing movement to stop the Plan Puebla Panama (PPP). The PPP, a $10 billion development plan proposed by President Fox of Mexico, seeks to physically and commercially connect southern Mexico with the rest of Central America. It has the backing of all seven Central American countries, as well as the World Bank and the IMF. Establishment of the PPP would lay the groundwork for the US-backed Free Trade Area of the Americas, the focus of massive protests in Quebec in 2001.

The PPP would open the natural resources of the northern Peten region to exploitation by the biotech industry. It calls for the construction of up to 5 dams on the Usumacinta River, which would flood 10-12 million square kilometers and lead to widespread displacement, and an oil pipeline through the protected Maya Biosphere. Half of Guatemala’s 21,000 square miles of rainforest would be threatened by the PPP.

In addition to environmental damage, the PPP would open the doors to social adversity already familiar to the people of Mexico, whose already low standard of living has declined steadily under NAFTA for the last 8 years. Land privatization is a key component of the PPP, facilitating the shift to a maquiladora model in which indigenous populations are displaced and their lands sold to multinational corporations. Deliberations about the PPP have, as in other neoliberal planning sessions, been closed to the public.

This event is co-sponsored by UNCA Diversity and Multicultural Affairs, UNCA Presbyterian Campus Fellowship and Grace Covenant Presbyterian Church.

For more information, call UNCA’s Diversity and Multicultural Affairs Office at 828/232-5110.

Victim’s parents ordered to compensate his killer for ‘slanderous’ remarks

By Allie Morris

Greensboro, North Carolina, Oct. 9 (AGR)— Superior Court Judge William Craig ruled that Jessie Barber and her husband Calvert “Butch” Stewart, parents of Gil Barber, must undergo sanctions for their violation of a July mediation agreement between them and Guilford County Sheriff’s Deputy Thomas Gordy, who shot Barber to death on May 18, 2001. During the proceedings Gordy’s attorney William Hill pleaded, “Judge, you can’t let [Barber and Stewart] get away with this.” The Judge responded by issuing a $500 fine and ordering that they pay Thomas Gordy for his share of the mediator’s fee, and the attorney fees that Gordy incurred in bringing this Motion of Sanctions to court.

Gordy took Jessie Barber to court after she refused to discontinue public reference to the Deputy as a murderer. Judge Craig concluded that “the Plaintiffs’ contention that they were forced to sign the agreement under pressure or duress are meritless,” despite the mediation session’s extraordinary length, 8 hours, and the trying circumstances that Barber’s parents reported, not the least of which was sitting in the vicinity of the man who killed their son.

Though Gordy does not deny killing Gil Barber the court ruled that Gil’s parents’ use of the term “murderer” to describe Gordy is not a right protected by the First Amendment and substituting the word “killer” is “a contrived and facile attempt to avoid calling the defendant Gordy a murderer, and in this Court’s view, were a reprehensible flouting of the mediated settlement agreement terms.” The judge went on to call Barber and Stewart’s language “bad faith actions in this matter.”

To date, Deputy Gordy has not been subject to sanctions within the department and remains on duty since shooting a naked, unarmed, and severely injured Gil Barber last year.