nuclear-news

Gulf Times – Qatar’s top-selling English daily newspaper – Europe/World

‘Nuclear incident would make 9/11 insignificant’SYDNEY: The world is on the brink of an avalanche in the spread of devastating weaponry, a new global non-proliferation group warned yesterday, saying that a nuclear incident would dwarf the September 11 attacks.The Middle East, particularly Iran, is a potential tipping point, according to Gareth Evans, co-chair of the newly formed International Commission on Nuclear Non-proliferation and Disarmament.Evans, a former Australia foreign minister, said the world had been “sleepwalking” on the issue of atomic weapons for a decade.“The devastation that could be wreaked by one major nuclear weapons incident alone puts 9/11 and almost everything else (in) to the category of the insignificant,” he said, referring to the attacks inflicted on the US in 2001.Evans was speaking as the commission, which was first proposed by Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd after a visit to the Japanese city of Hiroshima in June, entered the second and final day of its inaugural meeting in Sydney…………………………International affairs analyst Michael McKinley said there was an urgent need to rekindle debate about nuclear proliferation, but he doubted the new commission would make much headway.
“The nuclear weapons establishments are so well entrenched now that I’m concerned only a disaster will make them reconsider,” said McKinley, from the Australian National University.

Gulf Times – Qatar’s top-selling English daily newspaper – Europe/World

Tags: nuclear, antinuclear, radioactive, uranium

October 23, 2008 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | environment