Russian Environmental Digest (REDfiles) is a compilation of the week's major English-language press on environmental issues in Russia. 24 - 30 April 2000, Vol. 2, No. 17 1. U.S. - Russia Summit To Tackle Star Wars II 2. Russia Wants To Continue Talks with US on Nuclear Weapons 3. Word of a String of Missile Accidents in The Former Soviet Union 4. Worst Effects of Chernobyl Nuclear Disaster Still To Come 5. 30,000 Chernobyl Clean-up Workers Die since Accident, Many Suicides 6. Ukraine Commemorates 14th Anniversary of Chernobyl Disaster 7. Over 25% of Russians Fear Chernobyl-style Accident Could Occur Again 8. Nature Watch: Ice Bug Comes in from Cold for Rare Showing 9. Russian, Japanese Officials Discuss Atomic Energy Cooperation 10. Moscow Doing Well out of US Uranium Exports 11. Russia To Suggest Global Nuclear Control System 12. Ministry Official Promotes Nuclear Energy Case 13. Russia Wasting Millions in Oil and Gas Spillages 14. Sewage System Failure Makes Khabarovsk Vulnerable to Typhoid 15. Greenpeace Seeks To Protect Baikal Seals 16. Russia To Cut Black Caviar Exports by Third 1 U.S. - Russia Summit To Tackle Star Wars II The Toronto Star, April 28, 2000 Under attack around the world for Star Wars II, the United States declared its new weapons system plan will be an issue at an upcoming Russian-American summit. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright said yesterday President Bill Clinton will discuss the U.S. National Missile Defence (NMD) with Russian President Vladimir Putin when they meet in Moscow June 4-5. Leaders in Russia, China, Canada, Britain, France and other nations have warned that America will launch another global arms war if it insists on pursuing the $30 billion (U.S.) system. Russian leaders have said they will not reduce nuclear warhead stocks, as promised, if the Americans proceed with NMD. Yesterday, Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov repeated his charge that NMD would require re-opening the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) treaty that limits both nations' weapons. ''We believe - and it has been stressed at the highest level - the ABM treaty of 1972 should remain a cornerstone" for strategic nuclear arms control, he told a media briefing with Albright. ''We are confident that this corresponds to the interests of both Russia and the United States." Albright countered that the U.S. intends to seek changes to the ABM treaty, which bars both nations from building new national defence networks. ''I also expressed American determination to continue working with Russia to promote nuclear stability through further mutual reductions in our arsenals and through preserving the ABM treaty by adapting it to meet 21st-century needs." The Pentagon argues NMD is needed to protect the U.S. from rogue nations' long-range missiles - weapons they could not produce when the ABM was signed, but now can. For two days, senior defence officials from both countries talked at a top- secret Pentagon ''tank." Albright and Ivanov emerged to say neither side has budged. ''We don't agree on all issues," Albright said. ''This is only to be expected. After all, we can't both be right all the time." In Washington and in Moscow, Ivanov said, ''there is an effort, a will, to find a solution to the problems on which we have differences." A top Pentagon official said the Americans were trying to persuade the Russians to accept NMD. ''I don't think there was any new ground broken in the tank," said Adm. Craig Quigley. ''The limited NMD system we are contemplating should not be viewed as a threat to the Russians. The system we are contemplating is a relatively small number of interceptor missiles which would be effective against a relatively small number of incoming missiles from rogue nations, not effective against the massive sort of strike such as Russia could produce if it wished." Albright appeared ready to confront the Senate's most powerful force on foreign affairs, North Carolina's Jesse Helms. Helms promised Wednesday to block any White House bid to retool arms treaties or forward NMD to avoid handing Clinton a plum. Helms, a Republican, said he would not back anything that could bind the president who replaces Clinton in January. ''I don't think we can take a pause for the rest of the year in defending U. S. national interests, the threats are (not) taking a pause," Albright said. ''So I disagree with Senator Helms." (back to top) 2 Russia Wants To Continue Talks with US on Nuclear Weapons ITAR-TASS News Agency, April 27, 2000 Russia will "lower not the threshold of the employment of nuclear weapons", but the number of nuclear arsenals, Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov told journalists at the National Press Club here, commenting on the new Russian military doctrine. Noting the doctrine's defensive nature, he stressed that it "contains Russia's concrete commitments to continue talks with the United States on the further reduction of strategic armaments". This is confirmed by the Russian parliament's ratification of a "package" of documents on START-2 and the 1972 ABM treaty, as well as on the global nuclear tests ban treaty. These steps, Ivanov stated, "are a sort of visiting card of the new Russian leadership, proof of our priorities on the international arena and in our relations with the United States". Now, the Russian minister believes, "much will depend on the course that the U.S. administration will choose". "Either Washington will ratify a similar 'package' of documents to perpetuate the ABM treaty, which would pave the way for the continuation of the process of substantially cutting the number of strategic offensive weapons and consolidating strategic stability," Ivanov stated, "or the upper hand will be gained by the U.S. plans to build up a national missile defence system, which would inevitably undermine the entire disarmament architecture, which our two countries were busy building together with the international community for the past thirty years." Ivanov stressed that Moscow was proposing "a constructive alternative to the collapse of the ABM treaty". It includes, he said, "the drafting of a START-3 treaty, envisaging the reduction of strategic offensive weapons down to the level of 1,500 warheads, cooperation on non-strategic ABM in keeping with the 1997 New York agreements, joint analysis of the real dimensions of the new missile menaces, serious discussion of the global system of controls over the nonproliferation of missiles and missile technologies, political and diplomatic work with the so-called threshold states". "There is still time to avoid a fatal mistake," the Russian minister stated. "There must be no rush in such matters, the more so since the general atmosphere of the relations between our two states shows that there is a huge potential for mutual cooperation". "This potential of the Russo-American relations was accumulated over several past years and we must take care of it," Ivanov stressed, adding that this view was shared by many people in the United States. The minister expressed the conviction that the subject of promoting strategic stability would be "central at the upcoming Russo-American summit in Moscow, scheduled for June 2000". (back to top) 3 Word of a String of Missile Accidents in The Former Soviet Union CTV Television, April 24, 2000 There is word tonight of a string of missile accidents in the former Soviet Union. In one case, an unarmed Russian cruise missile slammed into a passenger ferry on the black sea. There were nor casualties. But in another incident, a missile hit an apartment in Ukraine killing civilians. Confirmation of the accidents came on the same day the United Nations issued a stark warning on the threat of nuclear weapons. Victims families were in shock after a missile struck an apartment block twenty kilometres northeast of Kiev. Three people were injured, rather were killed and five injured. The missile smashed the roof and fell seven stories through the building. It had been fired 120 kilometres away during Ukrainian army manoeuvres. The incidents occurred as the United Nations opened a conference on limiting nuclear weapons. The UN Secretary General Koffi Annan warned that nuclear war, quote, remains a very real possibility. (back to top) 4 Worst Effects of Chernobyl Nuclear Disaster Still to Come The Ottawa Citizen, April 26, 2000 The United Nations released a new assessment of the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear meltdown yesterday saying the worst health consequences for millions of people may be yet to come. ''At least 100 times as much radiation was released by this accident as by the two atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki combined'' at the end of the Second World War, said a 32-page booklet released to mark the 14th anniversary of the disaster. Three people were killed in the explosion on April 26, 1986, and 28 emergency workers died within the first three months, the report said. The booklet said the three countries most affected by the radiation -- Belarus, Ukraine and Russia -- continue to pay the price. ''Not until 2016, at the earliest, will be known the full number of those likely to develop serious medical conditions'' because of delayed reactions to radiation exposure, said UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan. (back to top) 5 30,000 Chernobyl Clean-up Workers Die since Accident, Many Suicides Deutsche Presse-Agentur, April 25, 2000 Every tenth person among 300,000 Soviet citizens involved in cleaning up after the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear reactor explosion has died, Itar-Tass news agency said Tuesday quoting Russian health officials and activists on the eve of the 14th anniversary of the catastrophe. In 38 per cent of cases the cause of death was suicide, according to the Health Ministry in Moscow and the "Chernobyl" society of victims of the disaster. It was not specified how many of the 30,000 deaths was directly due to radiation exposure, but of the official total of 174,000 registered disaster workers, 50,000 are now classed as invalids. The explosion of the fourth reactor at the Chernobyl power plant in Ukraine on April 26 1986 was the worst ever accident in the civil use of nuclear power. Radioactive clouds thrown up by the blast mainly affected Ukraine, Belorussia and Russia but also spread across Western Europe. The immediate area around the station is still classed as uninhabitable, while 52,000 people were evacuated in just the neighbouring Bryansk region in Western Russia. Some 8,400 families still refuse to leave the overall evacuation zone, Itar-Tass said. (back to top) 6 Ukraine Commemorates 14th Anniversary of Chernobyl Disaster Europe Information Service, April 28, 2000 Thousands gathered on April 26 to mark the 14th anniversary of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster, which is believed to have killed thousands from radioactive fall-out and poisoned huge tracts of land in the former Soviet Union. Radio -elements thrown into the atmosphere were equivalent to 500 Hiroshima bombs. Some 15,000 people are said to have died, according to unofficial sources, as the Soviet authorities did not produce an official death toll. Despite the immediate danger of the damaged reactor, the international community is still unable to provide for the necessary funds - USUSD363 million are still missing - to reinforce the sarcophagus. A donors' conference will be held in Berlin in mid-July in view to settle the Chernobyl case. Commemorations of the 1986 fire and explosion in Chernobyl's fourth reactor unit were perhaps most poignant in the small Ukrainian town of Slavutych, built especially for plant workers after the disaster. Residents passed through the town's main streets after midnight, pausing at 1.26 a.m. when bells tolled to mark the time of the world's worst civil nuclear accident. In Belarus, which was downwind from the catastrophe and suffered some of the worst damage, President Alexander Lukashenko visited contaminated regions. Mindful of the anniversary, Belarus's upper House of Parliament unanimously voted to ratify the global nuclear test ban Treaty, less than a week after Russia did likewise. Mr Lukashenko is expected to sign the document into law. Russian leaders led ceremonies honouring "liquidators" - firefighters and pilots who died dumping sand and chemicals on the blazing reactor. Every year, thousands of people stream to a black column in the Russian town of Slavutych, which is 35 km from the power plant and outside the danger zone from which residents have been banished. Soviet authorities initially remained silent about the tragedy and then tried to play down its consequences before admitting to the scale of the tragedy and seeking outside help. Data now show that thousands died in the aftermath and millions suffered medical problems as a result of the blast, which spewed radioactive clouds over most of Europe. Tens of thousands were evacuated from contaminated areas. In Kiev, Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma laid flowers at a church honouring victims and stood in front of a monument depicting three storks in flight. Vladimir Putin, President-elect of neighbouring Russia, said in a message to people suffering from the effects of the explosion that Chernobyl "still casts a shadow over millions of Russians. It is Government's sacred duty to ensure safety from radiation and rule out any repeat of the Chernobyl nightmare". Ukraine relies on nuclear power for about half its electricity, but President Leonid Kuchma promised to honour a pledge to close Chernobyl's last operating reactor by the end of this year. "We have already taken a political decision that we are ready to close Chernobyl", Mr Kuchma said while visiting a bone marrow transplant centre. "But there are some conditions to be met." In 1995, Ukraine promised the G-7 club of leading industrial nations to close the power station in 2000 in exchange for aid to finish two reactors at other plants. But officials in Ukraine, which owes more than USUSD1 billion for gas supplies to Russia, have complained that Western assistance remains insufficient. "To close the station having no nuclear waste storage facilities?" an irritated Mr Kuchma said. "We cannot take such a decision only for the sake of political gains", he added. One week beforehand, the UK Government announced that they would pledge GBP10.5 million (some Euro 16 million) to reinforce the concrete 'sarcophagus' around the damaged reactor at the Chernobyl power plant. (back to top) 7 Over 25% of Russians Fear Chernobyl-style Accident Could Occur Again Interfax News Agency, April 24, 2000 Over a quarter of Russian citizens (26%) consider very likely the possibility of an accident similar to what happened at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in Ukraine 14 years ago happening in Russia. Another 43% regard such a possibility as rather likely, 17% as unlikely, and 4% believe that it is virtually impossible. Ten percent of the respondents said they did not know. These data were provided to Interfax on Monday by the All-Russian Center for Public Opinion Surveys (VTsIOM), which had conducted a representative poll of 1,600 adult Russians before the anniversary of the Chernobyl catastrophe on April 26. The statistical margin of error of such polls is no more than 4%. (back to top) 8 Nature Watch: Ice Bug Comes in from Cold for Rare Showing Sunday Telegraph (London), April 30, 2000 One of the first pictures to be published of a rare and elusive "ice bug" that inhabits the Rockies and parts of Russia is to appear in the newly compiled Handbook of Insects. The northern rock crawler (Grylloblatta campodeiformis) is related to the cricket and cockroach, but is part of a separate insect order discovered only in 1906. It exists in colder parts of the northern hemisphere, surviving at high altitudes on a diet of dead insects parts. It is so well adapted to its chilly environment that it will die of heatstroke if held in the palm of a human hand. Pale brown and yellow, and growing to a maximum of 1.2in, the insect has long antennae, no wings and, when young, bears similarities to an immature earwig. The handbook has been written by George McGavin, the assistant curator of the Hope Entomological Collections at Oxford University's Museum of Natural History, and a lecturer in biological and human sciences at Jesus College, Oxford. "Ice bugs are a very small order on their own," said Dr McGavin. "The Grylloblatta is a single family divided into 25 species or so. It was first found in the Canadian Rockies in 1906. "Originally it was thought it had to be a primitive grasshopper or cockroach. It was so aberrant - it was unclear where it fitted among the other orders, so it was finally agreed that it was in an order all of its own. "I expect most people in the UK won't ever see an ice bug. Even people in North America are unlikely to have seen them." Dr McGavin pointed out: "They hunt during the day and also after dark. They eat dead prey or insect bits that have blown about in the air. They are an unusual insect. It's rare to find a whole new order of insect. The chances of finding a new order today are relatively low." Finding a new species, however, is much easier. He said: "So far we have identified only about a fifth of the insects in the world." The handbook contains only about 600 species. In Britain alone, there are something like 21,000 species. "You might find 1,000 of these in a largish garden if you looked carefully enough," he said. "This book is more of an introduction - a celebration of insect diversity." Published by Dorling Kindersley, the Handbook of Insects contains hundreds of colour photographs. Part of it is devoted to the recent insect immigrants which have come into Britain as "stowaways" - larvae in imported timber, for instance - or have been blown across the Channel from Europe or northern Africa. Insect migrants include a number of beetles and the French wasp, or "killer wasp" as it was dubbed following attacks on several people a few years ago. "In fact, this wasp is no bigger than the normal British wasp," said Dr McGavin. "The reason it has attacked humans more is because, having come from a warmer place, it makes its nests in more exposed places. "Our wasps are far more shy and retiring and make nests underground or hidden away in sheds. That's why people accidentally knock into the French wasps more often and get stung." Subtle climate changes are also making it easier for some migrant species to survive in Britain. Dr McGavin added a note of caution: "Species such as bed bugs and head lice are also making a comeback due to their developing resistance to insecticides." (back to top) 9 Russian, Japanese Officials Discuss Atomic Energy Cooperation British Broadcasting Corporation, April 28, 2000 Russian Atomic Minister Yevgeniy Adamov, who is in Japan to take part in the 33rd conference of the Atomic Industrial Forum, met officials from the Japanese Foreign Ministry, the Ministry for Foreign Trade and Industry, and heads of the leading trade houses, Itotsu, Sumitomo and Marubeni. The meetings focused on the expansion of bilateral relations in the atomic energy sector, Adamov told ITAR-TASS on Wednesday [26th April]. "Earlier, our cooperation was based on information, which was circulated from Russia to Japan, and now we are ready to begin a new stage of cooperation in the areas of economy and trade," Adamov. Among successful results of cooperation, the Russian minister named the contract on Russian low-enriched uranium supplies to Japan, but he declined to specify the details of this deal. The sides also discussed the problem of processing weapons-grade plutonium, Adamov said. He noted that Japan attaches great significance to this issue as an organizer of the upcoming G-8 summit in Okinawa in July 2000. Adamov gave a report at the conference and spoke about the role of nuclear power engineering in solving the problems of economy, energy and environment. The minister said that the conference participants discussed measures to restore nuclear power engineering and develop it in future, Adamov told ITAR-TASS that the atomic energy potential facilitates the resolution of environmental problems. He recalled the 1997 Kyoto protocol which urges industrialized countries to cut down on the production of greenhouse gases. The Russian minister said "today only Russia has real proposals, based on the Chernobyl experience, on how to rescue the atomic energy sector from stagnation and ensure its development," he said. Adamov believes that it is necessary to concentrate on the conditions of ensuring security. "Today we are working on how to diminish the probability of disasters. Our next step is to extend the service of the nuclear power station," he said. Speaking of nuclear non-proliferation, the minister stressed that everything is based on the treaty, goodwill of states and inspections. "Now we are putting forth a new initiative - the treaty should be supported technologically. Technologies on which nuclear weapons and atomic energy are based should be separated," he said, adding that it is necessary to continue monitoring the nuclear non-proliferation regime. (back to top) 10 Moscow Doing Well out of US Uranium Exports British Broadcasting Corporation, April 28, 2000 Russia's exports of uranium fuel to the US have fetched 2bn dollars, the counsellor of the Russian Foreign Ministry's security and disarmament department, Vladimir Rybachenkov, told ITAR-TASS on Monday [24th April]. He said Russia and the US signed a contract for deliveries of uranium fuel for US nuclear power plants in 1993. Russia's factories started recycling high-enriched uranium into low-enriched uranium soon after the contract was made and shipped the first fuel batch to the US in 1994. Russia has "diluted" about 80 tonnes of uranium by 2000 and got about 2bn dollars in contract payments. Under the 20-year contract, which is estimated at 11bn dollars, Russia is to export 500 tonnes of recycled uranium from scrapped weapons. "It perfectly meets the national interests of our state," Rybachenkov said. He said "there is enough uranium at state storages for Russia to live comfortably in the nearest quarter of the century". Moreover, the implementation of the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (Start-2) will make the store still larger, with the disposal of warheads of heavy intercontinental ballistic missiles. The contract allowed Russia to create 6,000 jobs at three factories which convert high-enriched uranium. Given that the Russian Atomic Energy Ministry is inadequately funded by the federal budget, the uranium exports are crucially important for the Russian nuclear sector, Rybachenkov said. (back to top) __________ earthradioTV.com - Alternative News Forum for ecology, politics & consciousness. MIRROR SITES: USA http://www.earthradioTV.com/ CZECH http://mujweb.cz/www/ecologynews/ UK http://members.tripod.co.uk/ecologynews/ Canada http://www.ecologynews.com/ <A HREF="http://www.ctrl.org/">www.ctrl.org</A> DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion & informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are unwelcomed. Substance�not soap-boxing�please! 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