nuclear-news

The News That Matters about the Nuclear Industry

The nuclear devastation in northeastern Kazakhstan

Kazakhstan’s Painful Nuclear Past Looms Large Over Its Energy Future, The Atlantic 13 May 13, The central Asian country is positioning itself as a global nuclear leader, but it’s haunted by the lasting impacts of Soviet testing decades ago……….. Kazakhstan is moving forward with plans to build a civilian nuclear power facility for domestic energy needs, possibly on the Aktau site of a now defunct Soviet-era plant…..

“Kazakhstan’s people and environment have endured tremendous suffering as a result of Soviet nuclear weapons testing,” said Dr. Togzhan Kassenova, an associate in the Nuclear Policy Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. “The majority of people, if asked, would express support for global nuclear disarmament and would display pride of Kazakhstan’s own record in shutting down its nuclear testing site and removing all nuclear weapons from its territory.”……
 August 29, 1991, closure of Semipalatinsk, the world’s second largest nuclear weapons testing site. At the beginning of the Cold War, Stalin chose the remote corner of northeastern Kazakhstan, also known as “The Polygon,” to test the first Soviet bombs. When Lavrenti Beria, the head of the KNVD secret police, selected the site, he claimed it was “uninhabited.” It wasn’t.
Mayak disaster
Today, the area (which is not surrounded by a barrier of any kind to prevent humans and animals from roaming freely) has been called the “ world’s worst radiation hotspot.“……. Read more »

May 14, 2013 Posted by | environment, Kazakhstan | Leave a Comment

East Kazakhstan’s 812 million tonnes of highly radioactive uranium tailings

Josef Stalin’s nuclear legacy remains in East Kazakhstan Scotsman.com, 9 October 2012  “…..It was over 20 years after the end of atomic testing in the Polygon that the world began to take notice, but Stalin’s legacy may yet have an impact that could threaten future generations across the globe. The mining of uranium to manufacture the atomic weapons tested in the Polygon has left a staggering 812 million tonnes of highly radioactive uranium tailings (waste byproduct). They lie in dilapidated dumps in four of the five Central Asian republics, posing not just an imminent threat to the environment but a potential flashpoint for violence and conflict. Read more »

October 9, 2012 Posted by | Kazakhstan, Reference, Uranium, wastes | Leave a Comment

Nuclear weapons do not make a country safe.

Mr. Umarov said that Kazakhstan fully supports a proposal by Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to adopt a nuclear weapons convention, noting the suggestion of his country’s president that, as an important step in that direction, the United Nations should adopt a Universal Declaration of a Nuclear Weapon-Free World.

Africa: Nuclear Weapons Are No ‘Guarantee of Security,’ Kazakh Foreign Ministers Tells UN Debate  AllAfrica.com  30 Sept 12,  The inability of nuclear weapons to guarantee a country’s security or independence was highlighted in the speech of Kazakhstan’s Acting Minister of Foreign Affairs, Kairat Umarov, to the United Nations General Assembly today. Read more »

October 1, 2012 Posted by | Kazakhstan, weapons and war | 2 Comments

Leah McGrath Goodman, Tony Blair and issues on torture (with added radiation)

Image

Published by arclight2011- date 15 Sep 2012 -nuclear-news.net

[…]

Accusations: Despite the mockery of the film Borat, leaked U.S. cables suggest the country was undemocratic and used torture in detention

Other dignitaries at the meeting included former Italian Prime Minister and ex-EU Commission President

Romano Prodi. Mr Mittal’s employees in Kazakhstan have accused him of ‘slave labour’ conditions after a series of coal mining accidents between 2004 and 2007 which led to 91 deaths.

[…]

Last week a senior adviser to the Kazakh president said that Mr Blair had opened an office in the capital.Presidential adviser Yermukhamet Yertysbayev said: ‘A large working group is here and, to my knowledge, it has already opened Tony Blair’s permanent office in Astana.’

It was reported last week that Mr Blair had secured an £8 million deal to clean up the image of Kazakhstan.

[…]

Mr Blair also visited Kazakhstan in 2008, and in 2003 Lord Levy went there to help UK firms win contracts.

[…]

Max Keiser talks to investigative journalist and author, Leah McGrath Goodman about her being banned from the UK for reporting on the Jersey sex and murder scandal. They discuss the $5 billion per square mile in laundered money that means Jersey rises, while Switzerland sinks.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gA_aVZrR5NI&feature=player_detailpage#t=749s

And as well as protecting the guilty child sex/torturers/murderers of the island of Jersey I believe that they are also protecting the tax dodgers from any association.. its just good PR!

FORMER Prime Minister Tony Blair was reportedly involved in helping to keep alive the world’s biggest takeover by Jersey-incorporated commodities trader Glencore of mining company Xstrata.

11/September/2012

[…]

Mr Blair was said to have attended a meeting at Claridge’s Hotel in London towards the end of last week which led to the Qatari Sovereign wealth fund supporting a final revised bid from Glencore for its shareholding. Read more »

September 15, 2012 Posted by | - Chernobyl, - companies, 1 NUCLEAR ISSUES, Belarus, civil liberties, depleted uranium, environment, Fukushima 2012, health, Japan, Kazakhstan, marketing, politics international, Russia, secrets,lies and civil liberties, UK, Ukraine, USA, wastes, weapons and war | 1 Comment

Kazakhstan’s nuclear fuel bank or nuclear graveyard?

Nuclear fuel bank or nuclear graveyard? Asia Times, 5 Sept 12, By Zhulduz Baizakova  Kazakhstan plans to build an international nuclear fuel bank in Ust-Kamenogorsk (Oskemen), in the country’s east, at the site of Ulba Metallurgic Plant, part of the giant national company Kazatomprom, which produces fuel tablets for nuclear power plants.

While the authorities are keen on the plan, some citizens are seriously questioning it – questions that are likely to remain largely unanswered.  Read more »

September 6, 2012 Posted by | Kazakhstan, Uranium, wastes | Leave a Comment

Kazakhstan’s radioactive disaster continues

Radioactive fallout from nuclear blasts have given Semey and neighboring villages abnormally high rates of cancer and birth defects.

Local oncology centers are screening tens of thousands of patients, trying to detect and treat tumors at early stages. People living in the area are still predisposed to breast and pulmonary cancer.

We are getting more and more disabled infants, each passing day their number increases. Environmental factors work slowly – we can see their effects in 10 or 20 years, in the first, second, third or fourth generation.”

VIDEO Kazakhstan’s Nuclear Legacy Euro News, 14/04/10 http://www.euronews.com/2010/04/14/kazakhstan-s-nuclear-legacy/  At the elderly care home in Semipalatinsk, we met 85 year old Praskovya. Semipalatinsk, or Semey, is a city 150 kilometers from the main Soviet nuclear weapons test site.

Praskovya is a former warehouse manager who used to work in a small town bordering the restricted area in the 1950s. She witnessed one of the nuclear explosions: “We were curious, so we went outside to watch. When the explosion happened, it looked like a large bowl, with black smoke and flames coming from the bowl. Then it rolled into a ball, and
a smoke column went up, and at the top, the mushroom appeared. And then the soldiers came and made us leave the street, shouting “it’s not allowed, it’s not allowed”. But we already saw everything interesting. And then everyone got health problems. Read more »

May 17, 2012 Posted by | health, Kazakhstan | Leave a Comment

Japanese govt’s nuclear push with Kazakhstan, and the global nuclear industry web

A complex web of agreements across national borders links many of the biggest players in the nuclear industry.

 “Japan hasn’t used the Fukushima disaster as an opportunity to push for renewable energy or energy efficiency,”   “Instead, it has used the time since the disaster to push for the restart of nuclear reactors.”

How Long Will Japan’s Nuclear Recess Be? Enter KazakhstanTruth Out , 15 May 2012  By Steve Horn,    ”……Japan Announces Big Nuclear Deal with Kazakhstan Unmentioned by all but two news outlets was the fact that a day before the announcement, the Japanese government signed a deal with Kazakhstan’s state-owned nuclear giant, KazAtomProm, to begin supplying Japan with more nuclear fuel starting in 2013. Read more »

May 17, 2012 Posted by | Japan, Kazakhstan, politics international | Leave a Comment

Iran poses no nuclear threat. But what about Kazakhstan?

Uranium Diplomacy:The US Double-Standard in Kazakhstan and Iran, THE REAL NEWS, 18 APRIL 2012  By Allen Ruff and Steve Horn [This is a slightly revised version of  "Uranium Double-Standard: The U.S., Kazakhstan and Iran," that originally appeared at Nation of Change. It is the second installment of an ongoing series on U.S. involvement in Kazakhstan. The first originally appeared at Truthout and is also available here.]

Iran’s alleged “nuclear threat” has taken center stage among diplomats, military men, and politicians in Washington, Tel Aviv, and the West at-large.
Despite the fact that investigative journalists Seymour Hersh, Gareth Porter and others have meticulously documented the fact that Iran, in fact, poses no nuclear threat at all, the Obama Administration and the U.S. Congress have laid down multiple rounds of harsh sanctions as a means to “deter” Iran from reaching its “nuclear capacity.”
The most recent round featured a call to boycott Iran’s oil industry by President Obama.
While rhetorical attention remains focused on Iran’s “threat”, there is an “elephant in the room”: Kazakhstan’s booming uranium mining and expanding nuclear industry –  a massive effort involving U.S. multinational corporations and an authoritarian regime increasingly tied to Washington.
Double standards have long reigned supreme in U.S. foreign policy. Few examples illustrate that better than the contrast between Washington’s stance toward the nuclear ambitions of Iran and Kazakhstan…… Read more »

April 19, 2012 Posted by | Kazakhstan, politics international | Leave a Comment

Kazakhstan says Japan will continue to buy its uranium

Japan to Purchase Contracted Kazakh Uranium, Kazatomprom Says Bloomberg,  By Nariman Gizitdinov and Yuriy Humber - Feb 23, 2012 Kazatomprom (KZAP), the state nuclear company in the world’s biggest uranium-producing nation, said its Japanese customers will take delivery of the fuel they agreed to buy even as the country idles its atomic stations.

The supply contracts with Japan haven’t changed, Chief Executive Officer Vladimir Shkolnik told reporters in Almaty, Kazakhstan, today without identifying the buyers…..
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-02-24/japan-to-purchase-contracted-kazakh-uranium-kazatomprom-says.html

February 25, 2012 Posted by | business and costs, Kazakhstan, Uranium | Leave a Comment

Nuclear bomb testing – a horror that is hard to ban

Perhaps because its people understand firsthand the horrors of living with the effects of nuclear testing, Kazakhstan has fully supported efforts to ban nuclear testing and nuclear weaponry, and has given up its nuclear arsenal. 

Politics Clouds Efforts to Ban Nuclear Testing, By Elizabeth Whitman, UNITED NATIONS, Sep 5, 2011 (IPS) – On Aug. 29, 1949, the Soviet Union conducted the first of 456 nuclear tests in Semipalatinsk in Eastern Kazakhstan, at the site where it ultimately held over two-thirds of all Soviet nuclear tests without warning inhabitants of the region of the impact of exposure to these tests.On Aug. 29, 1991 the site closed, yet the devastating health and environmental effects continue to plague the region to this day. Read more »

September 6, 2011 Posted by | Kazakhstan, politics international | Leave a Comment

Kazakhtsan – land of nuclear human nuclear radiation guinea pigs

 

 

As for the locals, they were little more than guinea pigs…. it is so hard to prove the link between nuclear fallout and the diseases that may strike afterwards.According to Dr. Marat Sandybaev, head of the local oncology centre, cancer rates in the area are still twice as high as the national average, and it is estimated that birth defects are up to 10 times higher.

 

Bringing life to a nuclear wasteland Can a nuclear test site be reclaimed? The Soviets detonated hundreds of bombs in Kazakhstan, poisoning the land and people. Louise Gray of the Telegraph travels to the notorious Polygon site and reports on plans to restore the region By Louise Gray, The Telegraph September 4, 2011 “…. Between 1949 and 1989, the Soviet Union detonated more than 456 nuclear devices on the Semipalatinsk test site, better known as the “Polygon.” Read more »

September 5, 2011 Posted by | health, Kazakhstan | Leave a Comment

Kazakhstan’s land of danger due to nuclear testing

Soviet nuclear legacy surfaces at atomic museum  , By Keith Rogers, LAS VEGAS REVIEW-JOURNAL, Sep. 3, 2011 Kazakhstan is grappling with lingering health issues and trying to rehabilitate the land 20 years after nuclear weapons testing stopped at the former Soviet Union’s proving ground .

Heavily contaminated areas of the Semipalatinsk nuclear site are closed to access by Kazaks who used the land for farming and grazing. The government, with the United States, is working to keep dangerous materials out of sinister hands, said Erlan Idrissov, Kazakhstan’s ambassador to the United States.

“All those years we have been trying to make a full assessment of the dangers that were brought to the land by nuclear testing,” Read more »

September 5, 2011 Posted by | environment, Kazakhstan | Leave a Comment

Cancer and birth deformities in city near to 456 nuclear bomb tests

City that suffered most calls for an end to nuclear testing, Telegraph, By Louise Gray, Environment Correspondent, Semipalatinsk, 29 Aug 2011, The people of Semey will gather for a strange celebration today. Under a huge statue of a mushroom cloud they will commemorate the end of a chilling experiment on their own people and call for a complete ban on nuclear testing.

Between 1949 and 1989 this area of eastern Kazakhstan was used by the former Soviet Union to test 456 nuclear bombs. The local population was not told about the risks to their lives – or indeed the health of their grandchildren.

It is estimated some 1.5 million people were affected by the fallout and decades on doctors blame high rates of cancer and birth deformity on the continuing effects of radiation. Read more »

August 29, 2011 Posted by | health, Kazakhstan | Leave a Comment

Another nuclear crisis would wipe out investment in uranium

While currently abandonment of nuclear power remains an option limited to affluent countries, one more cataclysm may nail the coffin lid of the nuclear power industry shut for good…., as another nuclear debacle in the U.S. following in the wake 1979’s Three Mile Island accident will undoubtedly prove too much, even for Madison Ave.’s PR spin doctors. No NPPS have been built in the U.S. since Three Mile Island and should bad things happen at Ft. Calhoun, where the Missouri’s water’s are still rising, the global market for uranium fuel for NPPs worldwide is going to crater, beginning with the U.S.

Kazakhstan’s Uranium Industry Could Lose Its Luster, By. John Daily,  OilPrice.com, 18 June 11-- What a difference a year and a tsunami make!

Western investors have been salivating over the post-Soviet space’s energy riches since the 1991 collapse of communism. While focusing on the Caspian’s hydrocarbon reserves other mineralogical riches awaited development as well, none more so than Kazakhstan’s vast uranium deposits. Read more »

June 19, 2011 Posted by | business and costs, Kazakhstan, Uranium | Leave a Comment

Highly secret transport of Highly Enriched Uranium to secret Russian facility

In the largest such operation ever mounted, U.S. and Kazakh officials transferred 11 tons of highly enriched uranium and 3 tons of plutonium some 1,890 miles by rail and road across the Central Asian country………….

U.S., Kazakhstan complete secret transfer of nuclear materials, KansasCity.com,  By JONATHAN S. LANDAY, McClatchy Newspapers, 18 Nov 10, WASHINGTON – Working under extraordinary secrecy, the U.S. and Kazakh governments in the past year have moved nuclear material that could have been used to make more than 770 bombs from a location feared vulnerable to terrorist attack to a new high-security facility. Read more »

November 18, 2010 Posted by | Kazakhstan, secrets,lies and civil liberties, Uranium | , , , , , , , | Leave a Comment

« Previous Entries    

Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.

Join 203 other followers