nuclear-news

ElBaradei: Iran far from acquiring nuclear weapon
Real News network October 24, 2008 Babak Yektafar: ElBaradei’s statement will not change minds of those who want to confront Iran International Atomic Energy Agency chief Mohamed ElBaradei stated this week that Iran did not have the nuclear material, low enriched uranium, to develop a nuclear weapon. In 2007 The National Intelligence Estimate concluded that Iran is years away from acquiring the technology necessary to produce a nuclear weapon. The UN, the EU and the United States believe Tehran is working towards a nuclear bomb, an assertion Iran denies. Babak Yektafar believes that to properly solve the issue Washington needs to stop treating Tehran with a carrot and stick approach.

Exclusive: Nuclear test veterans & kids win probe into lethal legacy * *By Susie Boniface, sundaymirror.co.uk 26/10/2008 – “……………………..

New Defence Minister Kevan Jones has pledged to set up a study into the legacy of illnesses suffered by the soldiers, sailors and airmen present at the tests.

He will also order officials to look into our demands for an investigation into the welfare of the veterans’ children and grandchildren, who are 10 times more likely to suffer from birth defects……………………..

Around 20,000 servicemen are thought to have seen hundreds of atomic experiments in the US, Australia and the South Pacific between 1952 and 1967 as British scientists created nuclear weapons. The men were lined up on beaches and the decks of ships, ordered to turn their backs when the bombs went off, then turned back to watch the mushroom cloud.

Some were only a few miles from the blast. Most lived near the contaminated areas for a year or more, ingesting deadly fallout particles from the air, water and food……………………Today only 3,000 are believed to have survived and say they are plagued with cancers, ulcers, blood diseases, skin problems and rare medical conditions.

Nation at risk from ‘dirty bomb’
THE AUSTRALIAN Cameron Stewart | October 27, 2008 AUSTRALIA’S proximity to the hotbeds of terrorism in Asia places it at greater risk of a biological terror attack, one of the US’s leading biosecurity experts has warned…………………..

“The biggest gap in preparations by the US and in the rest of the world is in dealing with a so-called dirty bomb (which disperses deadly radioactive material).

“If a dirty bomb were set off near the White House, it would make a five-block radius unlivable for many years. We are not yet ready to deal with something like that.”……………………

Plans have been made to establish deployable mortuary services within Australia capable of managing up to 5000 fatalities in any one event.

Experts say terrorists could construct and detonate a dirty bomb by stealing or buying radioactive material on the global black market.

Nuclear Threat Warning
MOSCOW NEWS SYDNEY, Australia (AP) 24/10/2008 |– The world has not paid enough attention to the spread of nuclear weapons since the Cold War and could face devastation dwarfing the 9/11 attacks if the threat is not quickly curbed, the co-chair of a nuclear commission said Tuesday.Former Australian Foreign Minister Gareth Evans said that while nuclear proliferation took a back seat to climate change and financial crises, countries such as India and Pakistan tested nuclear missiles, leaving the world vulnerable to an “avalanche” of new weapons.

“The last decade or so, the international community has been sleepwalking when it comes to this potentially catastrophic problem,” Evans told reporters during a break from the first meeting of the International Com­mission on Nuclear Non­pro­liferation and Disarmament.

“The scale of the havoc and the devastation that can be wreaked by one major nuclear weapons incident alone puts 9/11 – almost everything else – into the category of the insignificant,” said Evans, who is co-chair of the commission.