Japanese prosecutors delay decision on charging 3 former TEPCO executives, about Fukushima nuclear disaster
3/11 charges for Tepco execs delayed by three months, Japan Times, REUTERS, KYODO OCT 25, 2014
Residents protest as nuclear dump site prepared in Miyagi
Work begins on nuclear dump sites in Miyagi as residents protest, Japan Times, KYODO OCT 25, 2014 SENDAI/SAPPORO – As nuclear workers on Friday geared up to take soil samples at two locations selected to store radioactive waste, ignoring residents standing by in protest, work at a third site was stalled by demonstrations……….http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2014/10/25/national/work-begins-on-nuclear-dump-sites-in-miyagi-as-residents-protest/#.VExlBCLF8nk
Japan’s new Trade and Energy minister holds shares in TEPCO
Suga downplays conflict involving new trade chief’s Tepco stake, Japan Times, BY REIJI YOSHIDA, 25 OCT 14 STAFF WRITER
Australia’s environmental law under threat, as Abbott govt ready to seal Trans Pacific Partnership agreement
“The agreement poses a very real risk to the environment,” says Professor Jane Kelsey, an expert on globalisation and economic regulation from the University of Auckland in New Zealand. “If Australia signs an agreement with these mechanisms in place it will make it harder for the government to put new regulations in place.”
That includes any subsidies we might put on renewable energy, or protection we might put in place to save an endangered species.”
Kelsey. “The Abbott government is basically be binding the hands of all future governments on environmental issues.”
So what is the likelihood of Australia ending up signing the agreement as it stands? Prime Minister Tony Abbott has indicated he’s extremely supportive of signing the deal, and Andrew Robb, has stated that negotiations are in the final stages and the treaty is“ready to be sealed”.
TPP: the free-trade threat to Australia’s environment, ABC 24 Oct 14 FIONA MACDONALD Australia is preparing to sign an agreement that would give international corporations the power to go over the government’s head on environmental issues. Here’s what you need to know about the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement.
STRETCHING WIDE, blue and deep, the St Lawrence River in Canada drains America’s Great Lakes to the sea. Along its shores, painted weatherboard cottages cradled by vibrant autumnal trees take in the view of the vast body of water.
This peaceful scene belies the legal battle for what lies underground along this river basin. The Canadian state of Quebec is being sued for CAD$250 million of taxpayers’ money after putting a pause on fracking.
To be clear, Quebec hasn’t decided to ban fracking, it’s simply asked for time to conduct environmental studies to find out whether the process is safe — but mining company Lone Pine Resources has taken the government to an international court, claiming it’s lost millions of dollars in profits as a result of the snap decision.
And if previous trials are anything to go by, there’s a good chance Lone Pine will win, even if it turns out fracking is dangerous to the environment and public health.
It sounds crazy, but it’s legal. And under an agreement Australia is set to sign within 12 months, companies operating in Australia will be able to sue the Government if it makes decisions that hurt their profits — for example, putting in new policies to protect the environment.
The Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPP) is being negotiated between 12 countries — Australia, Brunei, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, Peru, Singapore New Zealand, the US, Vietnam and Canada — with the aim of freeing up and regulating trade between the signatories.
The agreement contains ‘Investor State Dispute Settlement’ (ISDS) clauses. These give big companies who are invested in Australia permission to sue the government in international tribunals if it puts in place new regulations that hurt their profits. These are the same clauses that allowed Philip Morris International to sue the Australian Government for installing plain-packaging tobacco legislation. Continue reading
Planning for Nuclear Security Summit (NSS) in 2016
Stopping a Nuclear Nightmare: How We Can Secure Loose Nuclear Materials “Since the collapse of communism, there have been 664 reported incidents involving the theft or loss of nuclear and other radioactive materials…”
The National Interest, Kenneth N. Luongo
October 24, 2014 “……..The United States will host the fourth and likely final Nuclear Security Summit (NSS) in 2016, and later this month, representatives from over fifty nations will start planning the agenda. They need to overcome the prevailing complacency about the strength of the current security system and its ability to prevent a nuclear nightmare. The current system suffers from three fundamental weaknesses. It mostly relies on voluntary obligations that nations can take or leave. There are no mandatory international standards that would allow for effective evaluation of security consistency and competency across borders. And, there is no requirement for peer review or even communication among countries about their security strategy and practices. The result is an opaque global patchwork, with the weakest links offering tempting targets for increasingly emboldened terrorists………
Patrick Moore, fossil fuel and nuclear mercenary, tours Australia, courtesy of front group Galileo Movement
Moore’s trip to Australia has been financed through the climate science denial organisation the Galileo Movement.
.Moore has been given favourable coverage in popular rural newspaper The Land and the Rupert Murdoch-owned The Australian.
Moore is almost always described as a co-founder of Greenpeace, despite Greenpeace itself contesting that he wasn’t a co-founder.
An archive of Moore’s CV shows his work for corporations and organisations in logging, pulp and paper and mining. He has also been an advocate for the nuclear energy industry.
Climate Science Denialist Patrick Moore Tours Australia After Comparing Students to the Taliban http://www.desmogblog.com/2014/10/23/climate-science-denialist-patrick-moore-tours-australia-after-comparing-students-taliban#disqus_thread Canadian climate science denialist Patrick Moore is at the beginning of a tour around Australia speaking to audiences across the country.
But here’s a warning.
If you do find yourself in the audience and don’t want to be compared to the “Taliban” then don’t even think about walking out in protest.
Less than two weeks before flying to Australia, Moore spoke on the campus of Amherst Collegein Massachusetts.
When members of the college’s environmental group decided they had heard enough and walked, Moore said they had a “Taliban mindset”.
When he was later asked to apologise, a report in the Amherst College student newspaper says Moore instead chose to double-down on his remark.
“Fifty people walk out, and I say that’s a pretty Taliban thing to do,” Moore is reported to have said, characterizing the behavior of the young students to that of the fundamentalist regime that massacred thousands and committed brutal repression of women.
Who is Patrick Moore?
Moore has no scientific credibility on climate change and has never published a scientific paper on the issue.
Yet Moore claims there is “no scientific proof” that humans are causing global warming and that “throwing bones on the ground” would have a better predictive ability than most climate models.
His opinion on the science runs against all the major national science academies in the world and about 97 per cent of all the peer reviewed studies on climate change carried out since the early 1990s. Continue reading
How America and Britain crushed the government of Australia
THE FORGOTTEN COUP Little Darwin, John Pilger 24 Oct 14 – How America and Britain crushed the government of Australia Across the political and media elite in Australia, a silence has descended on the memory of the great, reforming prime minister Gough Whitlam, who has died. His achievements are recognised, if grudgingly, his mistakes noted in false sorrow. But a critical reason for his extraordinary political demise will, they hope, be buried with him.
Australia briefly became an independent state during the Whitlam years, 1972-75. An American commentator wrote that no country had “reversed its posture in international affairs so totally without going through a domestic revolution”. Whitlam ended his nation’s colonial servility. He abolished Royal patronage, moved Australia towards the Non-Aligned Movement, supported “zones of peace” and opposed nuclear weapons testing.
Although not regarded as on the left of the Labor Party, Whitlam was a maverick social democrat of principle, pride and propriety. He believed that a foreign power should not control his country’s resources and dictate its economic and foreign policies. He proposed to “buy back the farm”. In drafting the first Aboriginal lands rights legislation, his government raised the ghost of the greatest land grab in human history, Britain’s colonisation of Australia, and the question of who owned the island-continent’s vast natural wealth. …………………….
US diplomatic cables published last year by WikiLeaks disclose the names of leading figures in both main parties, including a future prime minister and foreign minister, as Washington’s informants during the Whitlam years……….Whitlam demanded to know if and why the CIA was running a spy base at Pine Gap near Alice Springs, a giant vacuum cleaner which, as Edward Snowden revealed recently, allows the US to spy on everyone. “Try to screw us or bounce us,” the prime minister warned the US ambassador, “[and Pine Gap] will become a matter of contention”.
Victor Marchetti, the CIA officer who had helped set up Pine Gap, later told me, “This threat to close Pine Gap caused apoplexy in the White House… a kind of Chile [coup] was set in motion.”
Pine Gap’s top-secret messages were de-coded by a CIA contractor, TRW. One of the de-coders was Christopher Boyce, a young man troubled by the “deception and betrayal of an ally”. Boyce revealed that the CIA had infiltrated the Australian political and trade union elite and referred to the Governor-General of Australia, Sir John Kerr, as “our man Kerr”…………………..
The Americans and British worked together. In 1975, Whitlam discovered that Britain’s MI6 was operating against his government. “The Brits were actually decoding secret messages coming into my foreign affairs office,” he said later. One of his ministers, Clyde Cameron, told me, “We knew MI6 was bugging Cabinet meetings for the Americans.” In the 1980s, senior CIA officers revealed that the “Whitlam problem” had been discussed “with urgency” by the CIA’s director, William Colby, and the head of MI6, Sir Maurice Oldfield. A deputy director of the CIA said: “Kerr did what he was told to do.”…………………
On 11 November – the day Whitlam was to inform Parliament about the secret CIA presence in Australia – he was summoned by Kerr. Invoking archaic vice-regal “reserve powers”, Kerr sacked the democratically elected prime minister. The “Whitlam problem” was solved, and Australian politics never recovered, nor the nation its true independence.http://littledarwin.blogspot.com.au/
Lest we forget: what was done to Australia’s greatest Prime Minister, Gough Whitlam
Whitlam, the CIA and Nugan Hand http://nuganhand.wordpress.com/2011/01/23/whitlam-the-cia-and-nugan-hand/ November 11: Coup? What coup? [Green Left Weekly], November 21, 2010 By John Jiggens“………Lest we forget.
Former Australian prime ministers Robert Menzies, Howard Holt, John Gorton, Bob Hawke and John Howard all compliantly sent Australian troops to fight US wars. But in the early 1970s, Whitlam’s government had the courage to bring Australian soldiers home from the US war in Vietnam.
For this audacious action, Labor would never be forgiven by then-US president Richard Nixon, the CIA, Rupert Murdoch, the CIA, and corrupt conservative premiers Bob Askin (NSW) and Joe Bjelke-Petersen (Queensland) — who all hated Whitlam as though he were Che Guevara.
Whitlam’s election in 1972 began a short-lived era in which the stated aims of the new Labor government were to promote equality and involve the people in decision-making processes.
Within two weeks of Whitlam’s election, conscription was abolished and draft resisters released from jail. Voting rights were extended to all Australians over 18, and university fees abolished.
Whitlam’s youth constituency also gained community radio stations, and the Whitlam government intended to decriminalise marijuana. Aborigines were granted land rights in the Northern Territory.
Whitlam was less subservient than his Liberal predecessors to Washington’s foreign policy directions. He took a more critical line in foreign policy, condemning Nixon’s 1972 bombing offensive against North Vietnam and warned he might draw Indonesia and Japan into protests against the bombing.
The People’s Republic of China was recognised and the Whitlam government spoke up in the United Nations for Palestinian rights. The French were condemned for testing nuclear weapons in the South Pacific, and refugees fleeing the CIA-backed coup in Chile were welcomed.
Nixon and the CIA found such independence intolerable. After Whitlam was re-elected in 1974, and Jim Cairns became his deputy, Nixon ordered the CIA to review US policy towards Australia. Although the CIA’s response to Nixon has never been released, it seems it began a covert operation to destabilise the Whitlam government began then.
The puppet masters who led the coup were Ted Shackley and Marshal Green. Nixon appointed Green as US Ambassador to Australia in 1973. Nick-named “the coup-master”, Green had been involved in several countries where the CIA had masterminded coups, such as Indonesia (1965) and Cambodia (1970).
Green’s goals were to maintain US bases in Australia and to protect US economic interests.
Green let it be known that if the Labor government honoured one of its key election pledges to reclaiming ownership of oil refineries and mining industries, the US would respond. Green carefully cultivated the Fairfax, Murdoch and Packer dynasties that controlled the Australian media.
Ted Shackley, known as the “Blond Ghost”, joined the CIA in 1951. Over the next two decades, he emerged as the agency’s “dirty tricks” specialist, directing the CIA’s campaign against Cuba and Fidel Castro’s government in 1962.
In 1966 he became Chief of Station in Laos and directed the US secret war there — earning his other nickname, “the Butcher of Laos”.
In 1971, he became head of the CIA’s Western Division (covering North and South America) where he plotted the overthrow of Allende. In 1974, Shackley became head of the Eastern Division of the CIA, covering Asia and Australia.
Shackley’s speciality was financing black operations through the drug trade and he learned the dark art of running drug armies during the secret war in Laos. One of his foot soldiers in Laos was Michael Hand, co-founder of the Nugan Hand bank.
Michael Hand helped forge documents used by the media to discredit the Whirtlam government, while his partner Frank Nugan was the conduit for CIA money to the Liberal Party. Millions of dollars flowed to the conservative parties via Nugan Hand.
Shackley played a key role in the security crisis of November 1975, which revolved around the US military base at Pine Gap. Whitlam had threatened that if the US tried to “bounce” his government, he would look at the presence of US bases in Australia.
The lease for Pine Gap was due for renewal in December 1975. On 10 November 1975, the day before Whitlam was sacked, Shackley sent an extraordinary cable from the CIA to ASIO’s director general, threatening to remove ASIO from the British-US intelligence agreement because he considered Whitlam a security threat.
The cable was published by the Financial Review in 1977 and has been widely reprinted. It shows Shackley’s involvement in the security crisis.
Shackley was furious that Whitlam had accused the CIA of funding the opposition conservative parties and had claimed CIA money was being used to influence domestic Australian politics. In particular, Whitlam was asking questions about the close relationship between Richard Stallings, who ran the so-called joint facility at Pine Gap, and National Party leader Doug Anthony.
“The CIA has grave concerns as to where this type of public discussion may lead”, Shackley’s cable said.
In his 1977 speech calling for a royal commission into the activities of the CIA in Australia, Whitlam called Shackley’s cable “a clear example of the attempted deception of the Australian Government by the American intelligence community … The message was offensive in tone, deceitful in intent and sinister in its implications.”
For the Australian media, the message of Remembrance Day 2010 was clear: sleeping dogs must be allowed to lie. There could be nothing nobler to aspire to than the service of our imperial overlords, and to remind the Australian people that these imperial overlords had subverted a democratically elected government was well off message.
[John Jiggens has been involved in civil liberties and anti-corruption campaigning for many years. He is the author of a number of books, including the recently released The Killer Cop & the Murder of Donald Mackay, about the drug trade, Nugen Hand Bank and the overthrow of the Whitlam government.]
Release of radioactive particles from Fukushima was in fact greater than from Chernobyl
Gov’t report reveals Fukushima radioactive release much larger than Chernobyl — Japan reactors could have emitted nearly four times as much cesium-137 http://enenews.com/govt-report-reveals-fukushima-radioactive-release-larger-chernobyl-japan-reactors-could-emitted-four-times-cesium-137?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+ENENews+%28Energy+News%29
Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute, funded by the Korean government, July 2014:- The Fukushima accident [led to a] release of huge radioactivity
- It is reported… 4 times more radioactivity was released to the sea than to the atmosphere
- Best-estimate source term of 137Cs… released into the atmosphere, is about 4%
- Best-estimate release fraction of the 137Cs inventory that flowed into the sea…about 16%
- Of the 4% inventory of 137Cs released into the atmosphere, only 0.8% was deposited in the Japanese land and the other 3.2% was transported to the sea or other areas
- The inventory… available for release in the units 1-3… the time of accident [was] 7.6 – 8.2 x 10^17 [760 – 820 quadrillion] Bq for 137Cs
- Because of the geographic location of the nuclear power plant — at the beach of the Pacific Ocean… more than 80% of the radioactivity released from the crippled reactors flowed into the sea
To determine the best estimate of the total 137Cs that was released into the environment from Fukushima, the 137Cs release fraction (4% atmosphere, 16% ocean) is multiplied by the 137Cs inventory for the 3 melted reactor cores (760 to 820 quadrillion Bq):
- Ocean Release of 137Cs from Fukushima: 121.6 to 131.2 quadrillion Bq (16% x 760 to 820 quadrillion Bq)
- Atmospheric Release of 137Cs from Fukushima: 30.4 to 32.8 quadrillion Bq (4% x 760 to 820 quadrillion Bq)
- Total Release of 137Cs into the Environment from Fukushima: 152 to 164 quadrillion Bq
- Total Release of 137Cs into the Environment from Chernobyl: 70 to 85 quadrillion Bq
However, the 137Cs inventory of 760 to 820 quadrillion Bq used by the Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute is significantly lower than the U.S. Department of Energy calculated:
- DOE’s Total 137Cs Inventory in Reactors 1-3: 1.3E+18 Bq (1,300 quadrillion Bq)
- Ocean 137Cs Release from Fukushima: 208 quadrillion Bq (16% x 1,300 quadrillion)
- Atmospheric 137Cs Release from Fukushima: 52 quadrillion Bq (4% x 1,300 quadrillion)
- Total 137Cs Release into the Environment from Fukushima: 260 quadrillion Bq
- Total 137Cs Release into the Environment from Chernobyl: 70 to 85 quadrillion Bq
Disturbing accounts of sickness and death among Fukushima evacuees
“Never heard of so much sickness & death in such a short period” says Fukushima evacuee — Writes about strange diseases in young people, deadly tumors and hemorrhages, pets missing hair, child losing all their fingernails, polydactyl baby — Doctor: My friends are dying of cancer, one after another http://enenews.com/never-heard-sickness-death-short-period-fukushima-evacuee-writes-about-strange-diseases-young-people-deadly-tumors-hemorrhages-pets-missing-hair-child-losing-all-fingernails-polydactyl-baby?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+ENENews+%28Energy+News%29
Excerpts from message by a Fukushima evacuee, translated by World Network for Saving Children from Radiation, Oct. 15, 2014: Mrs. Junko Honda… was a successful beauty salon owner who ran two salons… She recently [compiled the] unusual symptoms that she had heard about over the past three years… whose veracity she has been able to ascertain.
“I had never heard of so much sickness and death in such a short period of time” -Honda
Babies, Children, Young Adults
Sep ’11: Child… had nosebleeds very often… many others at school who had nose bleeding
Jun ’12: Child had headaches and nausea since the accident
Apr ’13: Friend of an evacuee gave birth to a polydactyl child [birth defect, extra fingers/toes]
Jul ’13: Younger friend of an evacuee… got ill with cancer
Mar ’14: Relative [in] middle school… got ill with rheumatism [and] medicine doesn’t work
Lymph, Thymus, Thyroid Gland Problems
Apr ’11: I felt strange feeling in my lymph nodes… salon staff also felt the same
Sep ’11: My friend’s father died with a tumor in the lymph glands
Sep ’11: Gynecologist mentioned there was an increase of lymph tumors
Jan ’13: Child of an evacuee [had] unsubsidized thyroid exam… thymus gland was swollen
Jan ’13: Several children… from Fukushima [also diagnosed with swollen] thymus gland
Sep ’13: Child of an evacuee had an unsubsidized thyroid examination… they found many cysts
Oct ’13: Friend, an evacuee age 35, developed thyroid cancer
Mar ’14: Friend of an evacuee, in her 30s, had thyroid surgery
Unusual Skin, Hair, Nail Problems
Apr ’11: Hair of our pets [dog & cat] become uneven because of hair loss to an unusual degree
Apr ’11: Reddish eczema on my daughter’s face [which] stayed until we evacuated
Sep ’11: Hairdresser friend and her sister have suffered dermatologic eczema since the accident
Jun ’12: [Child’s mother] experienced hair loss and… had sparser hair
Jun ’12: All the fingernails of a child evacuee from Sugakawa fell off after the accident
Adults Under Retirement Age
Sep ’11: Customer in her 40s got ill with a disease that cannot renew blood
Sep ’11: Woman in her 30s died from cardiac arrest
Aug ’12: My relative died suddenly of subarachnoid hemorrhage… in his 30s
Dec ’12: Resident in his 30s developed a tumor
Dec ’12: Resident in her 40s developed a tumor and died
Jan ’13: Doctor [said] his friends have been dying with cancer one after another
Mar ’13: Man in his 30s died suddenly
Mar ’13: 5 customers… had funerals of close family in very short period… 3 were in their 50s
Oct ’13: Male friend who was doing decontamination work died suddenly
See Video: ‘Hell of Fukushima in the immediate vicinity of the children’ (only in Japanese)
Wind power is beating nuclear power in UK
Wind farms outstrip nuclear power BBC News, By Roger Harrabin, 21 Oct 14 BBC environment analyst The UK’s wind farms generated more power than its nuclear power stations on Tuesday, the National Grid says.
The energy network operator said it was caused by a combination of high winds and faults in nuclear plants………Wind made up 14.2% of all generation and nuclear offered 13.2%.
It follows another milestone on Saturday, when wind generated a record amount of power – 6,372 MW, according to National Grid.
This formed nearly 20% of the the UK’s electricity, albeit at a time at the weekend when demand is relatively low………The government is offering more generous subsidies to nuclear than wind in the long term.
But Jennifer Webber, a spokeswoman for RenewableUK, the trade body, said: “Wind power is often used as a convenient whipping boy by political opponents and vested interests.
“All the while, it’s been quietly powering millions of homes across the UK and providing a robust response to its vocal detractors.” http://www.bbc.com/news/business-29715796
Allison M. Macfarlane gives up the battle of being head of Nuclear Regulatory Commission
Chief of Nuclear Regulatory Commission Will Leave Job That She Fought to Keep NYT By MATTHEW L. WALDOCT. 21, 2014 The chairwoman of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission announced Tuesday that she would leave the commission and return to academia at the end of the year, a little more than a year after she survived a cliffhanger fight with a California senator to keep her job.
The chairwoman, Allison M. Macfarlane, a geologist with a strong background in nuclear waste issues, said she would become the director of the Center for International Science and Technology Policy at George Washington University………http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/22/us/chief-of-nuclear-regulatory-commission-will-leave-job-that-she-fought-to-keep.html?_r=0
US Dept of Energy warding research grants to universities
Pitt researchers awarded a nearly $1-million grant for nuclear power safety research By Stephanie Ritenbaugh / Pittsburgh Post-GazetteOctober 22, 2014 Researchers at the University of Pittsburgh were awarded a $987,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Nuclear Energy University Programs to develop a fiber optical sensor network to improve safety in nuclear power reactors……..The grant was part of $11 million awarded for 12 research and development projects. http://powersource.post-gazette.com/powersource/companies-powersource/2014/10/22/Pennsylvania-DEP-fines-Regency-Marcellus-Gas-Gathering-more-than-300-000/stories/201410220158
Britain’s secret nuclear weapons deal with USA
Nuclear weapons deal with US renewed in secret, UK confirms Richard Norton-Taylor Tuesday 21 October 2014 theguardian.com• UK tables amendments to Mutual Defence Agreement
They relate to the Mutual Defence Agreement (MDA) first signed in 1958, which, according to the government, enables the UK and the US “nuclear warhead communities to collaborate on all aspects of nuclear deterrence including nuclear warhead design and manufacture”.
One amendment refers to potential threats from “state or non-state actors”. But the amendments are for the most part arcane and their significance cannot be understood in the absence of information which is kept secret.
The MDA does not have to be debated or voted on in parliament, as I have remarked before. Though the agreement is incorporated in US law, it has no legal status in Britain.
Yet the matters covered by the treaty, which is renewed only at 10 year intervals, are hugely important. Successive British governments have made clear a proper debate on the issues involved would not be welcome.
“A debate on the renewal of the MDA would be used by some as an opportunity to raise wider questions concerning the possible renewal of the nuclear deterrent…and our obligations under the nuclear non-proliferation treaty,” notes an internal MoD paper, dated 2004. The paper was released only earlier this year through a freedom of information act request by the independent Nuclear Information Service……….
Kate Hudson, general secretary of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) says the UK-US agreement flew in the face Britain’s commitments as a signatory to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
“It is appalling that David Cameron is signing secretive nuclear deals behind Parliament’s back. In no other area of government would such a sinister sidestepping of democratic process be tolerated.” http://www.theguardian.com/world/defence-and-security-blog/2014/oct/20/nuclear-weapons-uk-us
Pakistan court stops work on nuclear plants, on environmental grounds
Pakistan court stops construction work on nuclear plants http://www.firstpost.com/india/pakistan-court-stops-construction-work-nuclear-plants-1761153.html 19 Oct 14, Islamabad: A court in Pakistan has restrained the government from initiating construction work on two proposed nuclear power plants unless environmental safeguards are adhered to, media reports here said. The two-judge bench at the Sindh High Court restrained the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission (PAEC) yesterday to carry out work at the proposed sites in the southern port city of Karachi without adhering to environmental laws.
The court directive was issued on a petition challenging the environmental impact assessment (EIA) report of the Sindh Environmental Protection Agency which approved the two plants.
The counsel of petitioner said that the reactors would be built by the China National Nuclear Corporation on a design known as ACP-1000 that has not been operational even in China.
“The ACP-1000 reactor so far exists only on paper and in computer programmes and any real life experience, tests and trials … on the ACP-1000 design will be from operating the reactors in Karachi,” the counsel added.
Karachi, one of the world’s most densely populated cities with an estimated population of about 21 million, lacked the infrastructure for mass evacuation of its inhabitants in the wake of a possible nuclear accident, he added.
Pakistan government had finalised plans for starting work on two nuclear power plants of 11,00 MW each – adjacent to the Karachi Nuclear Power Plant – with support from China. Besides, subsequent plans for two more plants – K-4 and K-5 – were also under consideration.
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