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Online films recall New Zealand’s Anti Nuclear Battle

Today (Saturday 10 July) is the 15th anniversary of the Greenpeace ship the Rainbow Warrior bombing by French agents. To mark the date, New Zealand On Screen has launched four titles exploring anti-nuclear protest and the politics of New Zealand’s ‘no nukes’ stand.

The movies can be watched online, for free.

When a Warrior Dies – a documentary on the aftermath of the bombing and the efforts by Greenpeace and sculptor Chris Booth to create a remembrance monument.

http://www.nzonscreen.com/title/when-a-warrior-dies-1991

Fallout – excerpts from award-winning Tom Scott and Greg McGee-scripted mini series dramatising events leading to NZ’s 80s ‘No Nukes’ stand

http://www.nzonscreen.com/title/fallout-1994/series

Mururoa 1973 – a landmark Alister Barry doco about protest flotilla who risked their lives travelling to French nuclear testing zone at Mururoa.

http://www.nzonscreen.com/title/mururoa-1973

A Nuclear Free Pacific – documentary on the long struggle for a treaty to declare the South Pacific free of nuclear arms.
http://www.nzonscreen.com/title/a-nuclear-free-pacific–niuklia-fri-pasifik-1988

July 10, 2010 Posted by | New Zealand, politics international | , , , | Leave a comment

The planet’s hottest year – 2010

2010 on track to be hottest year , ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation), Sarah Clarke 10 July 2010 By , Last year was the second warmest on record, and this year could be the planet’s hottest, according to a forecast from the Bureau of Meteorology, which says uncharacteristically warm conditions are being felt across the northern hemisphere.The northern hemisphere is experiencing record high temperatures.

China has now issued a fresh heatwave alert after a week of soaring temperatures.

Parts of Northern Africa, the United States and the Middle East are also experiencing scorching heat, with some regions recording above 50 degrees celsius….. 2010 on track to be hottest year – ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

July 10, 2010 Posted by | 2 WORLD, climate change | , | Leave a comment

Nevada to export solar energy, not import nuclear wastes

“Nevadans are well positioned to use their world-class natural resources and talented workforce to be an exporter of clean solar energy rather than an importer of hazardous nuclear waste and polluting fossil fuels,”

Nevada Nuclear Test Site to Host Solar Demonstration Zone, Environment News Service, LAS VEGAS, Nevada, July 9, 2010 (ENS) – Advanced utility-scale solar energy technologies soon will be tested at a sprawling federal site in the Nevada desert where nuclear weapons were tested 60 years ago. Continue reading →

July 10, 2010 Posted by | renewable, USA | , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

AREVA’s financial problems with new nuclear reactors

Finnish delays headache for French nuclear firm PARIS (AFP)  28 June 2010, – Standard & Poor’s said on Monday it had lowered its rating on French nuclear group Areva by two notches because of delays to the construction of a reactor in Finland.The agency downgraded Areva to BBB+/A-2 from A/A-1, citing the company’s announcement of an additional provision of 400 million euros (493 million dollars) for the Finnish European Pressurised Reactor project…… Continue reading →

July 10, 2010 Posted by | business and costs, France | , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

AREVA’s untested nuclear reactors not likely to go ahead in Canada

.…they do not believe the Areva-New Brunswick project will see the light of day.New Brunswick is too small for such an expensive nuclear reactor and does not need the power to meet its own power usage, they argued. “The designs Areva is proposing are untested prototypes so I doubt the private sector would ever assume the risks,”….(CAnada) N.B. overhaul attracts skeptics, Nicolas Van Praet, Financial Post ·  , Jul. 8, 2010 Paris-based Areva SA, the world’s biggest builder of nuclear reactors, said it will study the feasibility of building a second nuclear generating station in New Brunswick and of creating a new “clean energy” park on the same site. Continue reading →

July 10, 2010 Posted by | business and costs, Canada | , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Nuclear test veterans die as the law delays

it has been estimated that hundreds of veterans would have passed away and the legal costs will have risen to more than £30 million.

(UK) Test vets may be forced to wait another four years, Burton News , by ROB SMYTH, 9 July 2010,   NUCLEAR test veterans may have to wait more than four years for their case to be heard, even if an appeal by the Ministry of Defence (MoD) fails……….. Continue reading →

July 10, 2010 Posted by | Legal, UK | , , , , | 1 Comment

New Colorado clean-up law could put the brakes on uranium industry

The new Colorado law requires Cotter to restore polluted groundwater to safe levels before restarting operations. ….Ripple effects of the Colorado law could reach beyond state lines.

Mopping up uranium’s mess, High Country News, States push to clean up mine and mill sites, July 09, 2010 by Nathan Rice When Sharyn Cunningham moved to Cañon City, Colorado in 1994, no one told her the groundwater was contaminated – not her real estate agent, not the county health department, not state regulators. Continue reading →

July 10, 2010 Posted by | USA, water | , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Ever more radioactive – they don’t know what to do with Depleted Uranium

Depleted uranium, unlike other forms of nuclear waste, grows more dangerous as it ages, making storage difficult.

DOE seeks home for depleted uranium, SALT LAKE CITY, July 9 (UPI) — The U.S. government is looking for even a temporary storage site for 10,000 drums of depleted uranium from a South Carolina nuclear plant, Utah officials said.The waste was supposed to have been stored permanently in Utah by EnergySolutions Inc. But the state intervened as the first shipment arrived, seeking more information from the Salt Lake City company and a review of the site………

Depleted uranium, unlike other forms of nuclear waste, grows more dangerous as it ages, making storage difficult.

The first shipment from the Savannah River site, 5,400 barrels, is now in an EnergySolutions storage cell in Utah. The rest is still in South Carolina.….DOE seeks home for depleted uranium – UPI.com

July 10, 2010 Posted by | USA, wastes | , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

The movement for a Nuclear Free Pacific

VIDEO NZ On Screen – A Nuclear Free Pacific (Niuklia Fri Pasifik) , 10 July 2010, This documentary travels to nine Pacific nations, including New Zealand, to chronicle the long struggle to create a regional nuclear arms free zone. Interviews with politicians, activists, radiation victims and American and French admirals are counterpointed. When hopes of a treaty are dashed at a South Pacific Forum meet, it is pointed out that the David Lange-trumpeted independence of NZ’s nuclear free policy is evidently “not for export”. Local music scores the doco, including Australia’s Midnight Oil, whose lead singer (future MP Peter Garrett) is interviewed.

July 10, 2010 Posted by | OCEANIA, weapons and war | , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Nuclear injustice to the people of Marshall Islands

And now the US government is washing it hands of the people of the Marshall Islands. Aid, funding and compensation are being cut off and forced returns to the contaminated islands are being contemplated…

Remember the Rainbow Warrior and the Marshall Islands | Greenpeace International, 9 July 2010, Tomorrow is the 25th anniversary of the bombing of the Rainbow Warrior by the French secret service in New Zealand’s Marsden Wharf. Continue reading →

July 10, 2010 Posted by | indigenous issues, OCEANIA | , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

China building nuclear plants in earthquake area

Nuclear power stations in south China not affected by earthquake. English.news.cn 2010-07-10  GUANGZHOU, July 9 (Xinhua) — Two nuclear power stations under construction have not been affected by a mild earthquake that struck south China’s Guangdong Province Friday, company officials said.According to the provincial earthquake monitoring network, an earthquake measuring 3.1 on the Richter Scale Friday hit the junction of Taishan City and Yangjiang City where the two nuclear power stations are located.Nuclear power stations in south China not affected by earthquake

July 10, 2010 Posted by | China, safety | , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Christians against nuclear weapons

most voiced disappointment that his  [Obama’s] administration’s fiscal year 2011 defense budget–even when adjusted for inflation–surpasses any Pentagon budget since World War II………

Nuclear swords to God’s plowshares – On Faith at washingtonpost.com, 9 July 2010, “………radical Christian pacifists want to dismantle bombs, not detonate them. More than 180 peace activists convened last weekend to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the Plowshares movement, an anti-nuclear weapons movement spearheaded by religious pacifists. Continue reading →

July 10, 2010 Posted by | Religion and ethics, USA | , , | Leave a comment

Iran persisting with nuclear programme, despite sanctions

Iran will not give up nuclear programme: Ahmadinejad – Hindustan Times Abuja, July 09, 2010 Iran will, under no circumstances, stop its peaceful nuclear activities, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has said. Addressing a group of scholars in the Nigerian capital, Ahmadinejad said late on Thursday that UN’s anti-Iran resolutions are but a piece of paper and they will not be able to halt Iran’s nuclear activities even if they turn all the paper in the world into resolutions.”The latest anti-Iran sanctions of the UN Security Council (UNSC) will have no effect on Iran’s nuclear programme,” IRNA news agency quoted him as saying.

“There will not be the slightest change in our nuclear programme,” said the president who is in Abuja for summit of the Group of Eight Developing Countries (D8). Iran will not give up nuclear programme: Ahmadinejad – Hindustan Times

July 10, 2010 Posted by | Iran, politics | , , , , | Leave a comment

Arrest of men trying to sell radiation device

(South Africa) Four nabbed with ‘radiation device’, News – Crime & Courts:, 9 July 2010, Four men were arrested on Friday afternoon in Pretoria for allegedly possessing and trying to sell an “industrial radiation device,” police said.The four, all South Africans, were caught in Garsfontein in Pretoria East….trying to sell the device for about R45 million……The four would appear in court soon on charges of theft and possession of a radioactive device, as well as charges relating to violating health legislation for handling such material in public. – Sapa News – Crime & Courts: Four nabbed with ‘radiation device’

July 10, 2010 Posted by | safety, South Africa | , , | Leave a comment

Hanford radioactive waste needs more, not less, safety regulation

A nuclear disaster at a cleanup site like Hanford is to be avoided at all costs. The persistence of radioactivity in the environment for thousands of years makes large areas of land uninhabitable, and wreaks an ongoing and incalculable human health toll. Prevention, rather than reaction, to such tragedies should be driving law and policy.

(USA) Nuclear cleanup regulation could put public at risk, Seattle Times,  July 9, 2010, The weaknesses of federal regulatory agencies have been exposed by recent high-profile accidents.  Tom Carpenter fears the Department of Energy will reduce its oversight of cleanup at the nation’s nuclear waste sites.
Millions of gallons of oil gush continue to rush unabated from BP’s mile-deep well in the Gulf of Mexico, and 11 workers are dead from the massive explosion that caused the biggest oil spill in decades. Weeks before this event, the news was dominated by the preventable explosion that killed 29 West Virginia coal miners……………. Is nuclear next? Continue reading →

July 10, 2010 Posted by | safety, USA | , , , , | Leave a comment