Periscope

After a half century of exclusive use by a single tenant, billions of dollars of prime Asian real estate is about to become available for development. But there's a catch: the U.S. military and the South Korean government must first come to terms over a massive reorganization of GIs on the Korean peninsula. Under a 2004 deal, Washington will relocate its forces from bases throughout the country and consolidate them in a pair of facilities just south of Seoul. The agreement calls on South Korea to defray the costs of the redeployment by selling real estate once occupied by U.S. troops, much of which is prime acreage near urban areas. The ground beneath Camp Hieleah, in the southern port city of Pusan, for example, is estimated to be worth $1 billion.

The United States has already vacated more than two dozen installations, but South Korea refuses to take them back until the Pentagon complies with a new environmental law that stipulates its forces must make its old bases suitable for residential use before turning them over to Seoul. That would mean a significantly more thorough cleanup than what is called for under the 2004 agreement. Negotiations have intensified of late, and last week both sides brought in higher-ranking negotiators. The Pentagon wants the disagreement settled before its planned 2008 withdrawal from its main base in downtown Seoul, on one of the most valuable blocks of real estate in the entire Far East. Property hounds, stay tuned.

Stephen Glain

Nukes: Fallout in Iraq

Apart from the geopolitical fallout of a military strike on Iran's nuclear sites, there's reason to worry about the environmental impact. The International Atomic Energy Agency, which monitors Tehran's activities, is raising questions about dangers stemming from U.S. strikes on Iraq's biggest nuclear site during the 2003 invasion. In a report to be posted on the IAEA's Web site this week, the agency states that about 1,000 Iraqi men, women and children in a village near the former Tuwaitha nuclear-research facility are living inside an area contaminated by radioactive residues and ruins. "I can only guess that a lot of the damage at Tuwaitha was from bombing," Dennis Reisenweaver, an IAEA safety expert, told NEWSWEEK. "Any time you damage a facility that uses radioactive material, you have potential for spreading contamination." He said the agency was looking at other damaged Iraqi sites as well, but did not yet know the overall health impact. Asked to comment on the bombing, a spokesman for U.S. Central Command, Lt. Col. Barry Johnson, said, "We have no record of that here.

Michael Hirsh