nuclear-news

International nuclear rules bent for India deal

• 15:46 08 September 2008
• NewScientist.com news service
• Anil Ananthaswamy

  Is it OK to bend international rules over the non-proliferation of nuclear weapons? That’s the question raised by the lifting of ban that has prevented India from trading in commercial nuclear fuel, equipment and technology.

  The Nuclear Supplier’s Group, a cartel of 45 member countries, voted on Saturday in Vienna, Austria, to waive the stringent requirements on nuclear commerce that had been imposed on India ever since it tested a nuclear bomb in 1974.

  After decades as a nuclear pariah, India now becomes the only country that can trade in nuclear materials without being a signatory to the nuclear non-proliferation treaty (NPT). The country has refused to sign the NPT, calling it discriminatory because it only allows the US, UK, France, Russia and China to legally possess nuclear weapons.

  The NSG’s special waiver exempts India from signing the treaty and is crucial for a proposed nuclear trade agreement between the US and India.

Don’t sell uranium to Russia: Aussie MPs

Australia should hold off ratifying a treaty to sell uranium to Russia, a Labor-led parliamentary committee has recommended.

Former prime minister John Howard and Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin signed the uranium deal worth $1 billion a year at the APEC meeting in Sydney a year ago.

Russia insists it will use the uranium for civilian nuclear power use and not to make nuclear weapons either in Russia or in another country.

But parliament’s joint standing committee on treaties, chaired by Labor’s Kelvin Thomson, on Thursday recommended the Rudd government not ratify the treaty until it was satisfied Russia was complying with its obligations under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).

The government should also be satisfied Russia would not abandon the NPT and give more consideration to recent political events in Russia, such as its conflict with Georgia, the report said.

Russia’s attempts to separate its civilian and military nuclear facilities should be completed and independently verified before sales proceed, the report said.

Inspections of Russian facilities proposed to handle Australian nuclear material should be completed by the International Atomic Energy Agency, it said………………………..

The Australian Greens condemned the treaty and welcomed the committee’s majority report.

West Australian Greens senator Scott Ludlam warned Russia could send Australian uranium to Iran if the sales went ahead.

“The safeguards regime, itself, is inadequate,” he said.

Fellow Greens senator Christine Milne says Russia could not be trusted because it was going back to its “old KGB days”.

India getting into Tarapur-like N-mess, says CPM
The Economic Times 18 Sept 08 Recalling that India had to ‘run from pillar to post’ for nuclear fuel after the US unilaterally terminated the Tarapur accord, the CPM has said the country could land in a similar mess with the 123 Agreement.

The CPM asked the prime minister to dump the deal saying documents submitted to the US Congress by president George Bush made it clear that its terms were in conformity with the Hyde Act.