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Air Force spokesman Lt. Col. Ed Thomas said the transfer was safely conducted and the weapons were in Air Force custody and control at all times.

However, the mistake was not discovered until the B-52 landed at Barksdale, which left the warheads unaccounted for during the approximately 3 1/2 hour flight between the two bases, the officers said.

An investigation headed by Maj. Gen. Douglas Raaberg, director of Air and Space Operations at Air Combat Command Headquarters, was launched immediately to find the cause of the mistake and figure out how it could have been prevented, Thomas said.

Air Force officials wouldn’t officially specify whether nuclear weapons were involved, in accordance with long-standing Defense Department policy regarding nuclear munitions, Thomas said. However, the three officers close to the situation did confirm the warheads were nuclear.

Officials at Minot immediately conducted an inventory of its nuclear weapons after the oversight was discovered, and Thomas said he could confirm that all remaining nuclear weapons at Minot are accounted for.

“Air Force standards are very exacting when it comes to munitions handling,” he said. “The weapons were always in our custody and there was never a danger to the American public.”

At no time was there a risk for a nuclear detonation, even if the B-52 crashed on its way to Barksdale, said Steve Fetter, a former Defense Department official who worked on nuclear weapons policy in 1993-94. A crash could ignite the high explosives associated with the warhead, and possibly cause a leak of the plutonium, but the warheads’ elaborate safeguards would prevent a nuclear detonation from occurring, he said.

“The main risk would have been the way the Air Force responded to any problems with the flight because they would have handled it much differently if they would have known nuclear warheads were onboard,” he said.

The risk of the warheads falling into the hands of rogue nations or terrorists was minimal since the weapons never left the United States, according to Fetter and Michael O’Hanlon, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, an independent research and policy think tank in Washington, D.C.

The crews involved with the mistaken load at the 5th Bomb Wing at Minot have been temporarily decertified from performing their duties involving munitions pending corrective actions or additional training, Thomas said.

Air Combat Command will have a command-wide mission stand down Sept. 14 to review their procedures in response to this oversight, he said.

“The Air Force takes its mission to safeguard weapons seriously,” he said. “No effort will be spared to ensure that the matter is thoroughly and completely investigated.”

Bureau of Meteorology nat­ional climate centre chief Michael Coughlan said hopes were fading fast for desperately needed rains, reported The Age (7/9/2007, p. 4).

Food prices tipped to rise: "Is this drought over? Certainly not — we can’t predict when this drought will end," Dr Coughlan said. Murray Darling Basin Com­mission chief executive Wendy Craik said irrigators on the Mur­ray River, including many Victor­ian citrus growers and dairy farmers, faced their worst ever summer. Fresh produce would be hit and food prices would probably rise, Dr Craik warned.

Over half all agricultural land drought-declared: The experts were at a drought briefing in Melbourne organised by the Australian Science Media Centre. More than half of Australia’s agricultural land, including all of Victoria’s, is now drought-declared, costing the Federal Government $1.8 billion so far. Exceptional circumstances funding for many areas will run out in March next year. But the Government may extend the emergency relief, Department of Agriculture drought manager Matt Koval said. That would mean spending hundreds of millions of dollars extra to bail out farmers.

The Age, 7/9/2007, p. 4

South Australia had cut its forecast for total grain production this harvest by 21 per cent, helping push global wheat prices to a record, reported The Age (7/9/2007, p. B3).

Wheat prices double: The state might produce 5.5 million tonnes of all grains this harvest, down from an estimate of 6.98 million tonnes last month, Rural Solutions SA said in its latest crop report. Wheat prices had more than doubled in the past year as global demand outpaced supply and stockpiles shrank.

Crops dying: Two months of below-average rain and warmer than average weather have prompted reductions to forecasts. "Significant rainfall is needed immediately to stabilise crop yield potential at current levels," Rural Solutions SA said in the report on its website. "In the driest areas on Eyre Peninsula and the upper north, crops are dying off and will not recover, while other crops have been grazed or cut for hay if they have sufficient bulk."

Production down more than a fifth: Wheat futures for December delivery rose to a record $US8.49 a bushel on the Chicago Board of Trade on 6 September. South Australia might produce 2.58 million tonnes of wheat, down 24 per cent from the previous forecast, the agency said. Output of barley might be 1.9 million tonnes, 21 per cent lower than the estimate of 2.4 million tonnes a month ear­lier. South Australia was the country’s largest barley growing state.

The Age, 7/9/2007, p. B3

Palm oil plantations cause irreparable harm: "I call on the government to clearly rule out approval for an ethanol plant that uses palm oil as a feedstock," said Nicholls. "Palm oil production for the ethanol industry is an environmental blight on the landscape of Third World countries and contributes to greenhouse gas emissions across the globe. A BBC report a few weeks ago said the UN has been asked to act on this issue. A coalition of environmental groups in Indonesia has called on the United Nations to intervene in a palm oil project being planned in Borneo. The project will allocate up to 1.8 million hectares of land for palm oil plantations. The group fears the project will cause irreparable harm to Indigenous peoples’ territories and cultures."

Fuel from plants not necessarily green: "Dateline last month also broadcast a story about palm oil production and this should have prompted the minister into immediately ruling out the use of palm oil for ethanol production. The project should not be approved if there is any chance that Pinkenba has been selected so that imported palm oil can be unloaded for use as a feedstock. I hope the minister has not been suckered into the assumption that making fuel from plants must, by definition, be green and renewable. I join the Pinkenba community and Councillor McLachlan and call on the minister to categorically rule out the use of imported palm oil to produce ethanol."

Reference: Tim Nicholls, Member for Clayfield, Records of Proceedings, First session of the Fifty-Second Parliament, Queensland, 23 August 2007.

Erisk Net, 26/8/2007

Devondale (Murray Goulburn) says it supports the lifting of the Victorian State ban on genetically engineered (GE) canola. This is a serious threat to our GE-free dairy supply, since it is the biggest dairy company in Australia and canola meal is used as feed for dairy cattle. If you don’t want anything scary in your dairy take action now!

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