nuclear-news

To 20th April – nuclear news this week

Donald Trump says he’s ready to pull the plug on the summit meeting with Kim Jong Un, if he feels it’s “not going to be fruitful.”   It took years of careful multi-national negotiations to develop a nuclear deal with Iran. Trump apparently expects Kim Jong Un to quickly agree to “complete, verifiable, irreversible dismantlement of the North Korean program”.  That can’t be done quickly, even if Kim agreed. And what would Kim want, in return?

Remembering that Donald Trump’s main aim is to be the centre of attention – what better centre-stage position, than walking out of the summit, and bringing us all to the nuclear brink again?

Dr Helen Caldicott – forthright and clear – on Donald Trump, and the nuclear war danger.

JAPAN. Japan ‘covering up’ Fukushima nuclear danger-zone radiation levels. Soil contamination data of East Japan.  Interest on TEPCO loans to cost taxpayers 218 billion yen.    Contractors siphoned 1.6 million yen off pay of Vietnamese trainees sent to Fukushima.  Fukushima export ban maintained by Hong Kong.

FRANCE. A quiet French village has become a centre of anti-nuclear protest. France’s EDF faces handicap to exporting nuclear reactors, with flaws found in European Pressurized Reactors (EPRs)

AUSTRALIA. Climate change – unseasonably hot weather made bushfires near Lucas Heights nuclear reactor become “apocalyptic” blazes. Government and media silence on the bushfire danger to Lucas Heights nuclear reactor.

USA.

• Plutonium contamination forces shutdown of demolition process for Hanford nuclear site.
• Tragic future for space colonists – cancers, blindness and brain damage from radiation. At tax-payers’ expense, NASA will produce nuclear KILL-o-Power in space.
• U.S. Supreme Court considers forcing changes to reduce Savannah nuclear sites leaking into the river.
•  America’s Nuclear Posture Reviews (NPR) – inconsistencies, limitations, and questions unanswered.
• Communities that hosted nuclear reactors now stuck with stranded radioactive trash.
•  “No New Nuclear Plants To Be Built in the U.S” – says top Exelon official.
•  Workers allege fraud in the clean-up operations on radioactive shipyard contamination.
• USA government keen to promote Westinghouse sales of nuclear power projects to India.

NORTH KOREA. North Korea just promised a huge concession on its nuclear weapons. It’s done that before.

EUROPE. European lawmakers urge USA to stick with the Iran nuclear deal. International experts unsure on origin of last year’s radioactive cloud over Europe.

BELARUS. Unsafe development of Belarus nuclear power plant.

IRAN. Magnitude-5.5 quake strikes near Iran’s Bushehr nuclear power plant .

UKRAINE. Ukraine fears ‘second Chernobyl’ if militants flood nuclear bomb mine. HBO miniseries will examine the 1986 nuclear disaster in Ukraine.

UK. 30 UK civil society organisations call on Britain to sign UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW).  UK government will need to lift the bribes for communities to accept nuclear wastes. West Cumbria plea against Lake District being targetted for nuclear waste.

SYRIA. First Western journalist to reach and report on Douma site – Concludes “They Were Not Gassed”

RUSSIA. Scared ex-Soviet general warns nuclear war is “inevitable”

SOUTH AFRICA. South Africa’s Director General of Energy says there’s no new nuclear build programme.

April 20, 2018 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | Christina's notes