Radiation from 1960s nuclear tests are still hurting my family – Times Online
Radiation from 1960s nuclear tests are still hurting my family THE TIMES April 27 2009 The Government is to hold an inquiry that may finally lead to compensation for British servicemen exposed to radiation during nuclear testing in the 1950s and 60s. ……………………………………………………
Within a few years many of the men had developed cancers and the rate of miscarriages among their partners grew to alarming levels. Evidence is now growing of damage having been caused to their DNA, damage which may have resulted in gene mutations that caused illnesses and congenital deformities among their children.
In research conducted by the independent environmental consultants Green Audit in 2007, the rate of congenital deformities among nuclear test veterans’ children was almost ten times higher than that of an average control group. Among veterans’ partners, the rate of miscarriage was three times the average……………………
“These men have been treated extremely shabbily,” says Gibson. “Successive governments have been dodging their responsibilities while families have been suffering. The MoD’s denial of a link between nuclear tests and ill health looks increasingly shaky now that children and grandchildren of veterans are experiencing congenital disease and early death.” Gibson and Baron’s efforts led to last week’s announcement of Government-backed research.
Only a small number of people have seen the mushroom cloud from an atomic explosion close up. Most of them are dead. Those who survive endure not only their own awful ailments but must, in many cases, wince and weep while their children and now grandchildren suffer before their eyes.
Radiation from 1960s nuclear tests are still hurting my family – Times Online
TheBull.com.au
The Bull 27 April 09 By Joshua Terlich | 27.04.2009Stock: Energy Resources of Australia LimitedCode: ERAMarket Cap: $4.0bnRecommendation: None “……. the debate surrounding the use of nuclear energy has long existed and opponents aren’t in short supply. Negative sentiment towards uranium was seemingly justified when the tragic events of Chernobyl (Ukraine) in 1986 took place. The effects of that disaster are still being felt by the community years later. Leakage of radiation from the reactor has impacted many thousands of people, livestock and agriculture over a large geographical area. In the case of Chernobyl nuclear fall-out reached as far as areas of the United Kingdom. Supposedly poor reactor design at Chernobyl allowed the emission of radioactivity but this has not been repeated. Nevertheless, one accident is too many.…………..Like astrology, palm reading, and tea leaves, charting stock prices is a ‘black art’. It is but one of the trinkets we carry in our tool belt when it comes to making investment decisions. Technical analysis has its uses, but relying on it solely can be dangerous. So while the price charts suggest ERA could be in for a higher move, investors should seek additional evidence. Are the company’s fundamentals strong enough to support the upside which the charts are suggesting? Or is the stock being driven solely by rumours and hot air?
Radioactive Waste Leaks At Faslane Base Revealed (from The Herald )
Radioactive waste leaks at Faslane base revealed The Ferald, by Martin Williams, 27 April 09
Faslane nuclear submarine base has come under scrutiny by environment watchdogs after being hit by a series of safety breaches including leaks of radioactive waste, it emerged last night.
In a confidential report released under the Freedom of Information Act, the Ministry of Defence (MoD) described safety failings at Faslane, on the Gare Loch near Glasgow, as a “recurring theme”.
The Scottish Environmental Protection Agency (Sepa) confirmed last night that the repeated safety breaches were so serious it could consider issuing a prohibition notice to “close down an activity” while investigations are carried out.
It said last night it had previously issued enforcement notices over safety issues at the base.
The worst breaches include three leaks of radioactive coolant from nuclear submarines in 2004, 2007 and 2008 into the Firth of Clyde.
Radioactive Waste Leaks At Faslane Base Revealed (from The Herald )
Riot policemen against participants of “Chernobyl Way” in Minsk (Photo, video) – Charter’97 :: News from Belarus – Belarusian News – Republic of Belarus – Minsk
Riot policemen against participants of “Chernobyl Way” in Minsk
Charter 97 27 April 09 The spot near the Academy of Sciences was a sanctioned assembly point for participants. At the noon about a thousand and a half protesters gathered there. Protesters raised white-red-white flags, unfurled streamers “We oppose nuclear power station construction in Belarus”, “No to new Chernobyl”, “Return us our welfare benefits”, “No to chemical Chernobyl”, “No to toxic chemicals plant near Minsk”, “We are against nuclear reactor”. Dozens of white-red-white flags and flags of the European Union were fluttering………………..
………….an associate of the Academy of Sciences Ivan Nikitchanka called upon the regime not to hush up the aftermaths of the Chernobyl catastrophe at the state level, to return welfare benefits to people affected by the disaster and cleanup veterans, and not to construct the atomic power station in Belarus…………….
…………Viktar Ivashkevich called upon demonstrators remain unprovoked by secret services: “You see that authorities have sent riot policemen against a peaceful rally,” he addressed the participants. “I call upon you not to be drawn and walk along the official route Surhanau- Khmelnitski- Karastayanava- the Chernobyl Chapel.”
Nuclear issues can’t be ignored
Nuclear issues can’t be ignored
Times Argus Robert Lincoln April 26, 2009 A recent opinion perpetuated the myth about nuclear waste reprocessing. Few countries in Europe and Asia have such programs because these have been financially and environmentally catastrophic.
The Bush administration began the new push for a Global Nuclear Energy Partnership. In 1979, a United States naval nuclear engineer and future President Jimmy Carter ended this dangerous program.
Reprocessing spent nuclear fuel was supposed to be one alternative to lots and lots of mining forever and forever. The biggest experiment in reprocessing was at Sellafield in Britain. In 2005, after decades of contamination and leaks and general spewing of horrible matter into the ocean, air, and land around the reprocessing plant, Sellafield was shut down because a bigger-than-usual leak of fuel dissolved in nitric acid — some tens of thousands of gallons-was discovered. It contained enough plutonium to make about 20 nuclear bombs.
A nuclear dump site just six miles from the famous Champagne vineyards in France is leaking radioactive waste into the groundwater. According to the French nuclear safety authority, the “wall of a storage cell fissured” while concrete was being added to a recent layer of nuclear waste. It showed levels of radioactivity leaking from another dump site run by the same company in Normandy — at up to 90 times above European safety limits. That waste has seeped into underground water used by farmers, with contamination spreading into the countryside and threatening dairy production. The Champagne site will receive a total of 4,000 terabequerels of tritium — more than three times the amount of tritium waste as the dumpsite in Normandy………..………….Reprocessing will not solve our country’s nuclear waste problem because it will make more waste streams that must be managed and cannot eliminate the need for a geologic repository. The United States has not cleaned up the mess from past reprocessing. The only private commercial reprocessing facility in the United States, West Valley in New York, resulted in radioactive waste that is still threatening the Great Lakes watershed more than 30 years later and will cost $5.2 billion to clean up.
U.S. taxpayers are also on the hook for more than $100 billion to clean up the reprocessing waste at the U.S. nuclear weapons sites that reprocessed to get plutonium for nuclear weapons, as well as reprocessed naval fuel. Let’s all think about our children for once.
Rutland
Chernobyl fallout continues | The Courier-Mail
Chernobyl fallout continues
April 26, 2009 12:00am
THE charity flights arrive at London’s Gatwick Airport twice a week. On board are sick, disadvantaged or dying children from areas affected by the Chernobyl disaster.
More than two decades after the world’s worst nuclear accident, thousands of youngsters are still being brought to the UK each year.
Born up to 15 years after the event, they spend a month recuperating with volunteer families from the Chernobyl Children Life Line………………
………….for charity founder Victor Mizzi, who personally greets almost every flight, there is no question that Chernobyl is an ongoing tragedy.
“The situation is just as bad now with cancer and leukemia as it was in 1986,” claims Mizzi, who has brought more than 46,000 children from affected areas to Britain…………………………
More than 340,000 people were evacuated from the surrounding area over the following years, never to return to their contaminated homes.
Today, the area around Chernobyl remains a wasteland, with habitation banned in a 30km “zone of alienation”.
In the abandoned city of Prypiat, once bustling with a population of 50,000, decaying shells of buildings are all that is left…………
………….Greenpeace, for one, has estimated more than 90,000 people will die from cancer and that other illnesses will send the toll soaring into the hundreds of thousands.
85,000 radioactive baby teeth
85,000 radioactive baby teeth. Now that we have your attention…
Forgotten about for 50 years, an odd stash yields clues about above-ground nuclear tests and cancertHE sTAR.COM Apr 26, 2009 “…………………The fallout came from hundreds of above-ground nuclear tests in America and other parts of the world. The radioactive isotope Strontium-90, one of the by-products of the bombs, spread into the atmosphere, fell onto the land, was ingested by dairy cows and passed into the milk supply. Strontium-90, like calcium, was concentrated in children’s teeth in detectable amounts.
In 1958 scientists in St. Louis began a campaign to collect baby teeth to study the link between above-ground testing and human exposure. The undisputed link between the tests and a radioactive element in baby teeth provided much of the impetus for the 1963 Test Ban Treaty, which outlawed above-ground nuclear weapons-testing.
The rediscovery of the 85,000 samples, about a quarter of the total collected, has spurred a new effort to study the link between early childhood exposure and health problems in later life.
There is already evidence that 1950s children in St. Louis grew into adults with a higher-than-average rate of cancer. Now researchers at the Radiation and Public Health Project, based in Brooklyn, are attempting to find more than 6,000 of the teeth donors to track their health problems or, in some cases, their premature deaths.
The link between radioactive fallout and subsequent health problems is an international issue.
Electricity ‘super grid’ could supply 500 million people
Electricity ‘super grid’ could supply 500 million people Belfast Telegraph 25 April 2009 * Print Print * Email EmailSearch Search GoBookmark & Share * Digg It * del.icio.us * Facebook * StumbleuponWhat are these?Change font size: A | A | AAn electricity ‘super grid’ could extend the potential for renewable energy from green sources right across Europe, it was claimed today.Irish Environment Minister and Green Party leader John Gormley said different conditions in different parts of Europe – and even North Africa – could provide energy to a potential market of 500 million people.
A Europe-wide link up could solve the problems of uncertainty of supply from sources such as wind and wave power.
He said: “With imagination, vision, determination – and with Europe’s help – our energy could be made up of solar energy from Seville, tidal power from Rathlin island and Torr Head; geothermal power from Reykjavik; hydro electric electricity from Norway; wind power from Denmark; wave power from the Kerry coast and biomass crops from Germany.”
Taking his inspiration from President Obama’s Jobs and the Green New Deal, he added: “An energy super grid is one element that could advance the Green New Deal – a proposal to create ‘green collar jobs’ for five million Europeans by mobilising 500 million euro of private and public investment over the next five years.”
Earthlife ridicules nuclear power generation plans
Earthlife ridicules nuclear power generation plans
Namibia Economist 24 April 2009 11:34Propagators of the myth that nuclear power being safe, clean and climate friendly are misleading Namibians, according to Bertchen Kohrs of Earthlife Namibia.Few people are properly informed about the real dangers of the nuclear industry, she added.Earthlife Namibia has repeated its concern over the possibility that government might opt for nuclear power generation in Namibia.Kohrs said instead of opting for a nuclear power plant or coal-fired plant, the country could play a leading role in the development of renewable energy in Africa.“This kind of clean energy production would put Namibia on the world map attracting energy experts and tourists alike. Namibia would receive carbon credits when opting for carbon-free power generation. This money could be used to subsidize power from renewable sources,” said Kohrs.
She also pointed out that Namibia does not have specialists who can run a nuclear power plant and that the country will make itself dependent on foreign experts, whereas there are people who are capable of maintaining a solar or wind power plant.
Another disadvantage such a nuclear power plant would pose for Namibia is the high level of waste as there is no solution for safe storage……………….………Earthlife and the Labour Research and Resource Institute (LaRRI) are working together on an ongoing awareness campaign, which aims to inform the public of the dangers of a nuclear power plant.
As part of this campaign, Earthlife produced a booklet “Uranium – Blessing or Curse” informing about general issues regarding the uranium industry, while LARRI published a booklet ‘Uranium Mining in Namibia: The mystery behind ‘low level radiation’, which focuses on the impacts of uranium on mine workers’ health
– Letting in the sun –
24 Apr 2009 3:45 PM Letting in the sun Business Spectator by keith Orchison there is a submission to the Senate select committee on climate change, now reviewing emissions trading policy, that merits a bit more attention. It has been put in by ANU professor Andrew Blakers.Paraphrased, Blakers is telling Senators that nowhere near enough has been done to promote renewable energy in Australia.The Rudd government’s $150 million energy innovation fund, he says, is inadequate to rebuild research in universities and the CSIRO and to assist start-up companies build up to commercialisation. And it expires in 2012. Build it up to $1 billion over seven years, he argues.Also, introduce a new funding mechanism for commercialisation of renewable energy innovation and give it $2 billion to spend over seven years. And expand the $450 million renewable energy development program, which is focussed on large-scale demonstration projects, to $2 billion over seven years.Blakers also wants the renewable energy target – which Rudd proposes to make 20 per cent of national electricity consumption in 2020 – ratcheted up to 40 per cent by 2030……………………………His submission can be found on the Senate Climate Change committee website
Business Spectator – Letting in the sun – Blog – Keith Orchison
Oyster Creek’s safety issues unresolved
Oyster Creek’s safety issues unresolved
APP.com By JANET TAURO • April 24, 2009 Samuel J. Collins, regional director for the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission, is barring the public from attending an upcoming safety meeting between the owners of the Oyster Creek Nuclear Generating Station and federal regulators. He is doing so even though the safety issues would never have been considered had citizens not identified them and intervened in relicensing proceedings.
By barring public participation, Collins further erodes public trust and disregards congressional demands for government transparency. Though the commission recently relicensed Oyster Creek for another 20 years, it did so with recommendations that NRC staff enhance enforcement of safety commitments made by Exelon to monitor corrosion of the reactor’s drywell shell, the steel containment shielding the public from radiation. The commission recommended that NRC staff increase enforcement because “Exelon’s series of errors . . . directly contradicts Exelon’s ability to meet the commitments.”
If Exelon and NRC staff were confident ongoing corrosion is resolved or that minimum safety standards are assured, they would welcome the public with open arms. Instead, Collins’ refusal to involve citizens exacerbates the perception of industry coziness and disdain for the public……………….
Oyster Creek’s safety issues unresolved | APP.com | Asbury Park Press
Families Against Radiation to post beach
FARE to post beach Northumberland Today By Louise BarracloughP 24 April 09
Families Against Radiation Exposure (FARE) plans to release soil test results on Saturday, Apr. 25, showing that a popular Port Hope beach playground is contaminated with uranium.The volunteer environmental organization has decided to hand out brochures to fishermen and residents at noon at the East Beach park at Mill and Madison Streets.
FARE believes the public, which uses the beach area, has a right to know that it is contaminated by uranium more than four times higher than guidelines issued by the Canadian Council of Ministers of the Environment.
What is disturbing is that the testing was done by SENES Consultants for Cameco Corporation and sent in a report to the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission in June, 2008, but nobody told the municipality or the Low-Level Radioactive Waste Management Office (LLRWMO).It was FARE which informed them of the problem on March 20, shortly after receiving them through the federal Access to Information Act from the CNSC.Uranium-in-soil concentrations of more than 98 parts per million were recorded at the park – three times higher than the LLRWMO clean-up criteria.
It is also much higher than the CCME standard of 23 parts per million, which signifies a “no- or low-effect” on human health.The park has been declared safe. Cameco confirmed the soil test results but claims that the uranium contamination has nothing to do with its operations or those of Eldorado Nuclear.FARE believes a public investigation needs to occur to determine what caused the contamination, why the park is not being posted or cleaned up, and why the municipality was not told a year ago.Louise BarracloughInterim president, FAREPort Hope
illicit transfer of nuclear materials
FG to halt illicit transfer of nuclear materials
The Federal Government is making moves to tackle the problem of illicit trans-shipment of nuclear materials in and out of Nigeria,………………..
………….companies like Halliburton Nigeria Limited, AES Nigeria Limited and Greenik Maritime Nigeria Limited had been tried by the government at different times for involvement in illegal and dangerous movement of radioactive sources in the country. The companies repackaged radioactive sources and declared it as mould for export, only to be discovered in Germany.Such occurrences, according to Egbogah,The Presidential Adviser on Petroleum Matters, Dr. Emmanuel Egbogah, reflected the country‘s inadequate radiation security facility and training of the officials at the sea and air ports.
Mine contractor not talking on trading halt | The Australian
Mine contractor not talking on trading halt
Matt Chambers | April 25, 2009
Article from: The AustralianCONTRACTOR Macmahon Holdings went into a trading halt yesterday, raising concerns it had lost another mining job as producers cut production and workers
Macmahon was silent yesterday and would not provide any information beyond a statement to the stock exchange.
“The trading halt is requested pending an announcement of the company outlook,” Macmahon said.
One analyst said while Macmahon’s construction business was going well, the mining side was under pressure.
“There is a lot of risk on their mining book and there is a good chance there has been a contract cancelled,” he said. “That has been the biggest area of growth with high margins, but it is pulling back.”
One contract he said was at risk was the underground mining work at BHP Billiton’s Olympic Dam copper, gold and uranium mine in South Australia.
A BHP spokesman would not comment late yesterday, saying only that the company did not make statements on individual contracts.
Mine contractor not talking on trading halt | The Australian
New nuclear reactor fizzles out in Missouri
New nuclear reactor fizzles out in MissouriBy Yael T. Abouhalkah, Kansas City Star Editorial P 24 April 09
The attempt to build a second nuclear reactor in Missouri is dead for now, which is good news for ratepayers.AmerenUE suspended its plans in the wake of its inability to get an anti-consumer bill through the General Assembly.The utility wanted to change state law and charge ratepayers as it was building the nuclear reactor………………………..The death of the second reactor is good news for another reason.
After years of delays, the federal government still doesn’t have a way of permanently storing the high-level waste that sits at the Callaway County plant in Missouri and about 100 other plants around the nation.
New nuclear reactor fizzles out in Missouri | Midwest Voices
1 This Month
10 June – Assessing Canada’s Investments in Small Modular Nuclear Reactors – https://zoom.us/meeting/register/IiqHA5feRhaEBycOLNTJlA#/registration
Cuba Is Not a Failed State – It Is a Besieged State
PETITION: “Global Appeal to Endorse Palestinian Right of Return of Refugees”
To see nuclear-related stories in greater depth and intensity – go to https://nuclearinformation.wordpress.com
-
Archives
- June 2026 (84)
- May 2026 (306)
- April 2026 (356)
- March 2026 (251)
- February 2026 (268)
- January 2026 (308)
- December 2025 (358)
- November 2025 (359)
- October 2025 (376)
- September 2025 (257)
- August 2025 (319)
- July 2025 (230)
-
Categories
- 1
- 1 NUCLEAR ISSUES
- business and costs
- climate change
- culture and arts
- ENERGY
- environment
- health
- history
- indigenous issues
- Legal
- marketing of nuclear
- media
- opposition to nuclear
- PERSONAL STORIES
- politics
- politics international
- Religion and ethics
- safety
- secrets,lies and civil liberties
- spinbuster
- technology
- Uranium
- wastes
- weapons and war
- Women
- 2 WORLD
- ACTION
- AFRICA
- Atrocities
- AUSTRALIA
- Christina's notes
- Christina's themes
- culture and arts
- Events
- Fuk 2022
- Fuk 2023
- Fukushima 2017
- Fukushima 2018
- fukushima 2019
- Fukushima 2020
- Fukushima 2021
- general
- global warming
- Humour (God we need it)
- Nuclear
- RARE EARTHS
- Reference
- resources – print
- Resources -audiovicual
- Weekly Newsletter
- World
- World Nuclear
- YouTube
-
RSS
Entries RSS
Comments RSS
nuclear-news 