Doctors urged to use diagnostic alternatives to reactor-produced isotopes
Doctors urged to use diagnostic alternatives to reactor-produced isotopesLaura Eggertson CMAJ Laura Eggertson 26 May 09 The Canadian affiliate of International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War is urging doctors to use diagnostic alternatives to procedures that require reactor-based ionizing radiation, because of links between the way medical isotopes are produced and the nuclear weapons industry…………………….. Edwards, a professor at Vanier College in Montréal, Quebec, and consultant on nuclear issues, says that makes the uranium a potential target for terrorists in search of material to build a nuclear bomb. “Now I know that most doctors don’t think there’s a connection between medical isotopes and bombs, but unfortunately there is,” Edwards, who is also president of the Canadian Coalition for Nuclear Responsibility, told CMAJ. The connection is that molybdenum-99 is broken down into technetium-99m, that is used in about 1.5 million nuclear medicine procedures in Canada annually, Edwards earlier said to about 40 physicians at St. Paul’s University in Ottawa, Ont.
Arab nuclear ambitions embolden spurs nuclear renaissance
Arab nuclear ambitions spur nuclear renaissdance
The Huffington Post Ahmed Shihab Eldin 25 May
The nuclear deal with the UAE would allow joint ventures with US firms to assist the UAE in building several civilian nuclear power plants and has been signed despite the UAE’s record as a transshipment port for weapons-related materials to Iran.The “123 agreement”, as it is known, includes an “exchange of scientific and technical information and documentation…an exchange and training of personnel…technical assistance and the transfer of material, equipment and components.”……………..
………………..Israel is the only country in the Middle East that currently has nuclear weapons, estimated at between 100-200 warheads. Unlike its Arab neighbours, Israel has yet to sign the NPT………………. The Middle East is filled with various elements of unresolved conflict. Israel possesses formidable nuclear weapons capabilities and Iran has latent potential and appears to be set on advancing its enrichment capabilities.
The Arab world sits anxiously between the two foes, making plans for its own nuclear ambitions and energy programmes inextricably linked to the reality of being wedged between Iran and Israel.
Ahmed Shihab-Eldin: Arab nuclear ambitions embolden spurs nuclear renaissance
No to progress or peril? Revisiting the case for or against nuclear energy
what’s the case against nuclear power? Business Mirror 25 May 09 “……………………It boils down to two things: safety and economics, according to Prof. Roland Simbulan of the University of the Philippines, National Chairman of the Nuclear-Free Philippines Coalition (NFPC). “The major issue is safety considering that we do not have an effective disaster management culture especially to handle nuclear technology,” Simbulan told the BusinessMirror.
“Even industrialized countries have difficulty confronting this problem.” Simbulan adds that the safety issue concerning storage of nuclear waste will hound the country considering the Philippines is an agricultural country dependent on a fishing industry.
He also argued that the BNPP was constructed under a “conspiracy of corruption” as it is an overpriced, unsafe plant and one that has left the Filipinos with $2.2 billion of debt. Simbulan suggests that the best alternative to nuclear power is safe, clean and less expensive renewable energy such as solar, wind, wave, tidal, geothermal energy, among others.
“We have an eternal abundance of these renewables. Also, energy conservation and efficient technologies that require less energy to generate can be considered such as light bulbs that consume less energy for more light. We also have to simplify lifestyles,” he explained. Simbulan adds that renewables are easier to utiilize compared to nuclear energy. “In the long run, they are cheaper…………………..
……………. “It is a known fact that nuclear power is an expensive technology that is risky to operate and creates deadly radioactive waste. Congress must realize that every Filipino citizen aspires for a safe and secure future. This will not be achieved through nuclear power technology,” said Greenpeace Southeast Asia campaigner Francis de la Cruz.
Greenpeace argued that the history of nuclear power in the world shows us that aside from being costly and risky, it discourages energy efficiency and impedes the development of renewable energy sources that are cleaner, sustainable and safe.
No to progress or peril? Revisiting the case for or against nuclear energy
Native rights declaration challenges ‘settler’ nations
Native rights declaration challenges ‘settler’ nations
By Haider Rizvi May 25, 2009 – UNITED NATIONS, May 6 (IPS) – The United States is considering whether to endorse a major U.N. General Assembly resolution calling for the recognition of the rights of the world’s 370 million indigenous peoples over their lands and resources………………………….
Approved by a vast majority of the U.N. member states in September 2007, the General Assembly resolution on the declaration was rejected by the George W. Bush administration over indigenous leaders’ argument that no economic or political power has the right to exploit their resources without seeking their “informed consent.”
Three other “settler nations” of European descent, namely Canada, New Zealand and Australia, also voted against the declaration, which states that indigenous peoples have the right to maintain their cultures and remain on their land…………………However, last month, the new left-leaning government in Canberra reversed its position, announcing support for the declaration.
Government Urged To Step Up Anti-nuke Campaign
Government Urged To Step Up Anti-nuke Campaign Voxy.co.nz 26 May, 2009 – 15:14
The Government should take the advice of former Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser and launch a new anti-nuclear campaign, says Labour’s disarmament spokesperson Phil Twyford.
Mr Fraser met the Prime Minister yesterday and is advocating New Zealand and Australia form a ginger group of countries to push for the abolition of nuclear weapons in light of US President Obama’s strong support for the cause.
“After meeting Mr Fraser, Mr Key told Radio New Zealand he would consider ‘whether we may maybe take a bolder and… larger step forward’,” Phil Twyford said.
“Because of our anti-nuclear legislation and longstanding commitment to disarmament New Zealand is well placed to champion the cause of ridding the world of nuclear weapons.
US nuclear accord with a Persian Gulf state raises concerns about proliferation
By Howard LaFranchi | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor
US nuclear accord with a Persian Gulf state raises concerns about proliferationBackers says the agreement with the United Arab Emirates is a model for other countries in the region. But critics worry about the UAE’s ties with Iran.
from the May 23, 2009 edition
Washington – The Obama administration, anxious to demonstrate America’s willingness to deepen relations with reliable partners in the Muslim world before the president’s much-heralded speech to that community early next month, has signed a controversial nuclear cooperation agreement with the United Arab Emirates.
The nuclear accord, negotiated by the Bush administration but left for President Obama’s sign-off, is touted by the new administration – as it was by the former – as a model for future civilian nuclear cooperation with Arab countries……………………..opponents of the accord blast it as a short-sighted plan designed to secure lucrative contracts for US corporations that build nuclear reactors, yet one which may result in a string of plants producing nuclear fuel across a very volatile region.
“The US does not have a strategy to deal with this very real issue of proliferation, all they have is a sale,” says Joseph Cirincione, president of the Ploughshares Fund, an organization that promotes a nuclear-weapons-free world. “We shouldn’t be sprinkling the Middle East with nuclear power reactors until we figure out how to stop them from turning out nuclear bombs.”……………………………………Ploughshares’ Mr. Cirincione says….”What got these countries scrambling for nuclear technology was the summer of 2006, the war in Lebanon and Iran’s support for Hizbullah in that conflict.
US nuclear accord with a Persian Gulf state raises concerns about proliferation | csmonitor.com
Tribes protest nuclear waste plan
Tribes protest nuclear waste plan By Loa Iok-sin
STAFF REPORTER
TAIPEI TIMES May 24, 2009 Led by a royal descendant of an ancient line of Aboriginal Paiwan kings, residents and environmentalists yesterday staged a parade in Daren Township (達仁), Taitung County, to protest Taiwan Power Co’s (Taipower) plan to build a storage facility for nuclear waste there………………Opposed to the plan, more than 100 Paiwan and Puyuma Aborigines and environmentalists rallied outside a local elementary school yesterday morning, where they were blessed by Paiwan elders in a traditional ritual before they departed. The demonstrators then carried a cross on a two-hour march to the site selected for the facility.After arriving at the site, the demonstrators erected the cross and made a smoke signal to inform their ancestral spirits of their determination to defend their ancestral homeland………………………..“This region has long been a traditional domain of the Tacupul Kingdom, and it’s the job of all descendants of Tacupul to defend it,” said Sauljaljuy Ruvaniyaw, a member of the Ruvaniyaw family — the royal family of the Tacupul Kingdom that ruled in Daren and its neighboring areas hundreds of years ago………………….The rally and the march are only the beginning of the mobilization against the nuclear waste dumping ground, Ruvaniyaw said.
Asse nuclear waste workers getting radiation scans
Asse nuclear waste workers getting radiation scans The Local : 22 May 09 12:31 CETOnline: http://www.thelocal.de/national/20090522-19443.htmlThe Federal Office for Radiation Protection (BfS) announced Friday they will take on a large operation to test radiation-exposure levels of both current and former workers at the atomic waste depot Asse near the town of Wolfenbüttel in Lower Saxony. With this health monitoring programme, we want to find out if the cases of cancer and leukaemia of former Asse workers had anything to do with the radiation exposure of their work,” BfS spokesman Werner Nording said in a statement on the authority’s website…………………….Officials are now trying to determine what to do about dangerous nuclear waste which has been stored at the increasingly unstable site since 1978.
Asse nuclear waste workers getting radiation scans – The Local
Peaceful nuclear hazards are bad enough
Peaceful nuclear hazards are bad enoughBy Citizen News Service • on May 24, 2009
Peaceful nuclear hazards are bad enough
By SHOBHA SHUKLA
CITIZEN NEWS SERVICE …………………Proponents of nuclear power plants not withstanding, it is impossible to have 100 percent safe nuclear power plants, even with the strictest of safety measures.
Radiation exposure can have very long-term effects and are often difficult to quantify. In the no-nonsense words of Gofman (the “father of the antinuclear movement”): “There cannot be a safe dose of radiation. There is no safe threshold. If this is known, then any permitted radiation is a permit to commit murder.”
In 1996, Gofman estimated that most cancer cases in the United States were caused by medical radiation. Although his claims were refuted by the U.S. government, one must remember that, since the Three Mile Island disaster in 1979, not a single power plant has been built in that country.
Will the Nuclear Power “Renaissance” Ever Reach Critical Mass?: Scientific American
Will the Nuclear Power “Renaissance” Ever Reach Critical Mass?
Scientific American May 21, 2009 Despite an abundance of plans and applications, new nuclear reactors outside of Asia are few and far between, which puts nuclear’s contribution to fighting greenhouse gas emissions at risk This month, Finland’s Olkiluoto 3 nuclear reactor was supposed to begin generating power, a tangible sign of the revival of the nuclear industry outside of Asia after nearly 30 years of no new construction because of accidents, cost-overruns and other issues. Instead, the reactor won’t be completed for more than three more years, its price is nearly 60 percent more than anticipated, and it is mired in costly legal squabbles between the builder, Areva, and the Finnish utility, Pohjolan Voima.In the U.S., since 2003, 17 applications for 26 new reactors have been filed with the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, but not one is yet under construction.
Despite dozens of new nuclear plants ordered or built in Asia in recent years, “increased deployment of nuclear power has been slow both in the United States and globally,” wrote the authors of a new Massachusetts Institute of Technology review of the state of nuclear power.Those figures, say the authors of the report, an update on a similar report in 2003, mean that “even if all the announced plans for new nuclear power plant construction are realized, the total will be well behind that needed for reaching a thousand gigawatts of new capacity worldwide by 2050.”
One thousand gigawatts is the number the M.I.T. professors estimated would be needed to ensure that nuclear power provided 20 percent of global electricity needs as well as cut emissions of greenhouse gases from power plants. …………………..(There are, of course, significant greenhouse gas emissions associated with building and fueling nuclear facilities).
But the price of new nuclear power has “escalated dramatically,” according to the report, jumping by 15 percent a year to reach as much as $4,000 per kilowatt compared with $2,300 for coal-fired generation and just $850 for natural gas. And the industry is asking for at least $100 billion in federal tax subsidies and loan guarantees for the 26 reactors currently planned.
The situation is no better in Europe, according to Steven Thomas, a professor of energy studies at the University of Greenwich in London: Finland cannot complete its new reactor; the U.K. has yet to get started on any projects; and a new nuclear reactor in France, after 18 months of construction, is 20 percent overbudget and requires complete subsidy by the French government………………….. Nor has there been a solution to the issue of nuclear waste……………………….. Adds Thomas: “It seems to me highly unlikely that [investing in nuclear power] is the most cost-effective way to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Put that money in other sources, such as energy efficiency and renewables, and get a much better return on your money.”
Will the Nuclear Power “Renaissance” Ever Reach Critical Mass?: Scientific American
French Court Turns Away Veterans Plea for Compensation
French Court Turns Away Veterans Plea for Compensation The Chosun Ilbo 23 May 09 A French appeals court has rejected demands by military veterans for millions of dollars in compensation for illnesses allegedly contracted during 30 years of nuclear testing in Algeria and French Polynesia. Still, the French government is preparing draft legislation to compensate some nuclear testing victims.
The court case is just one in a series of long-running complaints that French nuclear testing between the 1960s and the 1990s sickened many people. The latest case involves a dozen French veterans who claim the cancers they subsequently fell ill to are linked to radiation exposure from the testing. France conducted 210 nuclear tests in Algeria and French Polynesia over the three decades.But a Paris appeals court rejected their compensation demands, claiming they pertained to events before 1977 — when a law on compensation took effect………………………….Separately, another court in French Polynesia began to hear this year complaints from former workers at France’s nuclear test sites there.
‘Green’ benefits of nuclear power touted, rejected
‘Green’ benefits of nuclear power touted, rejected The Star Phoenix By Jeremy Warren,The fourth instalment of a five-part series on nuclear energy, leading into public consultations on energy options the provincial government will be conducting during the next two months………………………………while a reactor itself is zero-emission, the entire life-cycle of a reactor — from mining, fuel refining, reactor construction, operation, decommissioning and waste storage — contributes much more pollution than equivalent energy sources.
“Nobody outside the orbit of the nuclear industry is recommending going nuclear,” said Jim Harding, author of Canada’s Dirty Secret: Saskatchewan Uranium and the Global Nuclear System.
“They’re giving people the false notion that nuclear power is a fix for environmental problems. This is not science. It’s a public relations gimmick. It’s called greenwashing.”
Mining the uranium, building the reactor and decommissioning it are all horrible carbon emitters, he added.
Harding advocates energy demand policies such as shifting to LED lights, green engineering and conservation for a real reduction in carbon emissions.
Estimates of future power needs assume people will use power as they have in the past, without a change in mentality about conservation, he said………………………………………….a Bruce Power proposal to build four reactors in Alberta estimated a $10-billion price tag — $2,500 per kilowatt produced — but later had to be revised to $36 billion, tripling the cost per kilowatt, said Harding.
“At that price, wind power is about half the capital costs of nuclear power per kilowatt,” he added.
New reactors too costly, groups tell state
New reactors too costly, groups tell state By Thomas Content of the Journal SentinelMay. 21, 2009 Supporters of nuclear power made a big push earlier this spring to overturn the state’s ban on construction of nuclear reactors.The supporters included a co-founder of Greenpeace who now is working for an energy coalition funded by the Nuclear Energy Institute……………………………..
“Given nuclear power’s high costs and its legacy of nuclear waste, expanding the use of nuclear
power is not a responsible choice for meeting future electricity needs in Wisconsin,” Physicians for Social Responsibility and other groups said in a letter to Gov. Jim Doyle and members of the Legislature. “We urge you to oppose legislation that promotes nuclear power in our state until each of these substantive and cost issues is addressed.”Since 2005, a report from the group WISPIRG says, the cost of new reactors has tripled — outpacing the increases in other types of power generation.
INDIGENOUS GROUPS CALL FOR HALT BY FOREIGN COMPANIES OF LAND USE FOR OIL, MINING, WITHOUT THEIR PRIOR KNOWLEDGE, CONSENT, AS PERMANENT FORUM CONTINUES – 7thSpace Interactive
NDIGENOUS GROUPS CALL FOR HALT BY FOREIGN COMPANIES OF LAND USE FOR OIL, MINING, WITHOUT THEIR PRIOR KNOWLEDGE, CONSENT, AS PERMANENT FORUM CONTINUES As Stewards of Environment, ‘Indigenous People Cannot Be Sacrificed 7th Space 23 May 09
On the Altar of Climate Change’, Forum HearsCATHERINE DAVIS, Indigenous Peoples of the Pacific Caucus, observed that there remained only three Member States opposed to the Declaration. Among them were the United States and New Zealand, while Australia had recently made moves to endorse it. She then described the situation facing five groups of indigenous peoples in the Pacific — the Maori, Hawaii, Tahiti, Alifuru and Papua, and Torres Straits — and made several requests of the Permanent Forum on issues relating to those groups. In New Zealand, she said the Permanent Forum should invite the Government to implement a recommendation recently made by a local commission to give the Maori people three of the 23 seats on the Auckland “Super-City” Council (Auckland was home to the largest urban Maori population in the world). The New Zealand Government was currently ignoring that recommendation……………………………………In French Polynesia, she asked for a visit by the Special Rapporteur, because Polynesian law had been declared inferior to French law. The Permanent Forum should provide funding for a seminar to educate indigenous peoples on their rights.
Atomic Veterans Achieve Recognition
Atomic Veterans Achieve Recognition
Eyewitness News 12 HD var wn_last_ed_date = getLEDate(“May 22, 2009 3:42 PM EST”); document.write(wn_last_ed_date);May 23, 2009 05:
Gary Thornton of Leon and his friend Lawrence Halloran of Mulvane began a grassroots effort to gain national recognition for atomic test veterans in 2004.*130 aging atomic veterans live in Kansas.*Thornton and Halloran started a petition and wrote letters to politicians seeking additional benefits to help atomic veterans deal with illness caused by radiation.*On July 16, 2004, Gov. Kathleen Sebelius recognized their efforts by declaring the day Atomic Veterans Day in Kansas. Other states have since had similar recognition days.*The stretch of U.S. 400 — from U.S. 77 in Augusta east to the Butler County line — received the designation in a bill introduced by Reps. Ed Trimmer of Winfield and Dave Crum of Augusta. It became law last year.*Atomic Vets are now working towards national recognition. They are trying to establish an Atomic Veterans service metal. A bill is waiting for approval from the U.S. senate.
Atomic Veterans Achieve Recognition – KWCH – Kansas News and Weather –
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”
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