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Somalian pirates and radioactive wastes

safety-symbol1Why We Don’t Condemn Our Pirates
by K’naan  THE HUFFINGTON POST 12 April 09 “………………… in Somalia, the answer is: it’s complicated. The news media these days has been covering piracy in the Somali coast with such
lop-sided journalism, that it’s lucky they’re not on a ship themselves………
….Here is why we Somalis find ourselves slightly shy of condemning our pirates. Somalia has been without any form of a functioning government since 1991………….
…………. a more sinister, a more patronizing practice was being put in motion. A Swiss firm called Achair Parterns, and an Italian waste company called Achair Parterns, made a deal with Ali Mahdi, that they were to dump containers of waste material in Somali waters. These European companies were said to be paying Warlords about $3 a ton, whereas to properly dispose of waste in Europe costs about $1000 a ton.
In 2004, after a tsunami washed ashore several leaking containers, thousand of locals in the Puntland region of Somalia started to complain of severe and previously unreported ailments, such as abdominal bleeding, skin melting off and a lot of immediate cancer-like symptoms. Nick Nuttall, a spokesman for the United Nations Environmental Program, says that the containers had many different kinds of waste, including “Uranium, radioactive waste,……..

….The UN envoy for Somalia, Ahmedou Ould-Abdallah, says that the practice still continues to this day. ……….
……..our pirates were the only deterrent we had from an externally imposed environmental disaster. No one can say for sure that some of the ships they are now holding for ransom were not involved in illegal activity in our waters. The truth is, if you ask any Somali, if getting rid of the pirates only means the continuous rape of our coast by unmonitored Western Vessels, and the producing of a new cancerous generation, we would all fly our pirate flags high……….

………..We do not want the EU and NATO serving as a shield for these nuclear waste-dumping hoodlums. It seems to me that this new modern crisis is truly a question of justice, but also a question of whose justice.

As is apparent these days, one man’s pirate is another man’s coast guard.

April 13, 2009 Posted by | 2 WORLD, politics | , , , | Leave a comment

Yet another $50 billion for rust-bucket nukes?

Yet another $50 billion for rust-bucket nukes? Scoop by Harvey Wasserman 13 April 09 The nuke power industry is back at the public trough for the fourth time in two years demanding $50 billion in loan guarantees to build new reactors.Its rust-bucket poster child is now the ancient clunker at Oyster Creek, whose visible New Jersey rust and advanced radioactive decay are A-OK with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, which just gave it a twenty-year license extension. The industry’s savior may be France, whose taxpayer-funded EdF and Areva Corporations may be poised to build their own reactors on US soil using French and American taxpayer money.

And President Obama’s first big test on nuke power may be how he fills a vacancy—and the chair—at the NRC.

The latest demand for a $50 billion taxpayer handout has been sleazed into the Senate budget bill………………………….This latest bailout incarnation has been widely tagged “nuclear pork” even in the right-wing Washington Times,………

………No independent financiers will take an un-subsidized flier on new reactors. Nuke operators can’t get private insurance on a major melt-down. With the proposed Yucca Mountain dump all but dead, the industry—after fifty years—has no certified place to take its high-level radioactive waste……………

……… green energy groups are organizing a national write-in campaign to begin next week, and a call-in effort for April 27, the day after the anniversary of the 1986 Chernobyl catastrophe. No one doubts the industry will pour on one legislative scam after another in its desperate attempt to get taxpayer money as it is being priced into oblivion by rapid advances in renewables and efficiency……………

……..whomever Obama appoints, it’s painfully clear that the world’s most expensive failed technology is not going away without a long, hard fight. ***

Scoop: Yet another $50 billion for rust-bucket nukes?

April 13, 2009 Posted by | business and costs, USA | , , , , | Leave a comment

Penghu protests against plan to build nuclear waste storage site

Penghu protests against plan to build nuclear waste storage site Kaohsiung, Taiwan News By Elizabeth Hsu April 11 (CNA)

“…………………….protest in Fengshan in Kaohsiung County Saturday, voicing their strong opposition to the government’s plan to establish a nuclear waste storage site on a Penghu islet.

The protesters, headed by Penghu County Magistrate Wang Chien-fa, chanted anti-nuclear slogans at the rally held at a local temple and vowed to use whatever power they had to stop the plan from being carried out.

The Ministry of Economic Affairs (MOEA) announced in mid-March that it has listed Daren Township in Taitung County and Dongjiyu of Penghu County as the two suggested sites to store low-level radioactive waste.

The two counties are required to decide whether or not to accept the proposal by holding a referendum, according to the MOEA…………………………..Dongjiyu covers more than 140 hectares of land, 100 hectares of which have been listed by the Penghu County government as a “nature conservation zone” in an attempt to block the state-run Taiwan Power Company (Taipower) from opening a nuclear storage facility on the islet.

Taipower, however, can still appropriate the other 40 hectares of land, Wang said, and he urged county residents to unite in opposition to the referendum………………………………“Since the government wants to develop tourism in Penghu, it should not act to set up a nuclear waste storage site there, ” he argued, vowing to fight to the death against the facility.

In addition to Wang, Yeh Chung-ju, chief of Wanan Township, and Legislator Wong Chung-Chun of the ruling Kuomintang also joined the protest.

Penghu protests against plan to build nuclear waste storage site – Taiwan News Online

April 13, 2009 Posted by | China, politics | , , , | Leave a comment

Landfills raise radiaoactive concerns

Landfills raise concernsPollution prompts calls for operators to help provide clean water The State 11 April 09  By SAMMY FRETWELL – sfretwell@thestate.com

“…………………….All told, landfills across South Carolina — from nuclear waste dumps to disposal sites on military bases — have polluted the groundwater in 125 places, according to DHEC’s 2008 groundwater contamination inventory.

Landfills raise concerns – Local / Metro – The State

April 13, 2009 Posted by | environment, USA | , , , | Leave a comment

Design Flaws In Nuclear Transport Ships Increase The Risk Of Accidents Claims Report

Design flaws in nuclear transport ships increase the risk of accidents, claims report

Sunday Herald 13 April 09 Consultant says claims of safety ‘lack scientific and technical credibility’By Rob Edwards, Environment Editor

THE GROWING number of nuclear waste shipments being made through the Irish Sea risk accidents that could cause widespread radioactive contamination, according to an expert report out this week.The transport ships have “design flaws” that could make them unsafe while the emergency plans in place for coping with an accident are non- existent or inadequate, the report says.At least 45 movements of nuclear materials have been made north and south through the Irish Sea since 2004.

Cargoes of radioactive waste and fuel are transported from the Sellafield nuclear complex in Cumbria to nuclear plants in Japan, the US and Europe.advertisementThe report was commissioned by a coalition of more than 70 local authorities in the UK and Ireland worried about nuclear power. It was written by the independent marine pollution consultant, Tim Deere-Jones, and is due to be published in a few days.

Design Flaws In Nuclear Transport Ships Increase The Risk Of Accidents Claims Report (from Sunday Herald)

April 13, 2009 Posted by | safety, UK | , , , | Leave a comment