nuclear-news

This week’s nuclear and climate news

Christina Macpherson’s websites & blogs

Media freedom now under grave threat, as USA aims to gaol Julian Assange for life.  Gross injustice! Ecuador to hand over Assange’s entire legal defense to the United States .

Journalism should awaken the world to the looming climate catastrophe.  Link between global warming and war.  Despite misogyny, women continue to fight the reckless spending on nuclear weapons.  Carbon dioxide soars to record-breaking levels not seen in 800,000 years.  Climate crisis – the Impact of Ocean Acidification?      A fight for the future as climate change school strikes grow for fourth month running. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oCVQdr9QFwY

AUSTRALIA.  US charges Julian Assange with 17 counts under Espionage Act. (He’s an Australian citizen. Does the government or anyone care?)  Torres Strait lodges case at UN against Australia on human rights as climate change issue.  Australia can be a global leader on combating climate change, and rejecting nuclear.

CANADA. Vancouver’s international ‘Clean Energy Summit’ – Clean Energy Ministerial in the grip of the nuclear lobby.

MARSHALL ISLANDS. USA’s radioactive dump in the Marshall Islands is leaking.

FRANCE. France forced Polynesians to accept nuclear tests – they finally admit this!

USA.

• Wide swathe of USA affected by major tornadoes -to the alarm of climate scientists.
• Trump violates US and International Law by threats to attack Iran. Trump may use ’emergency’ powers to bypass Congress, to sell missiles to Saudi Arabia. Washington now a great place for warmongers.  Donald Trumpisn’t fit to have control of the nation’s nuclear codes or state secrets.  Nothing to stop angry, entitled Donald Trump, from making a nuclear attack.  USA’s planned nuclear weapons spending at a cost of $1.2 trillion.  USA held a nuclear explosion test in February
• Corporate welfare, as Ohio House Republicans turn ‘clean energy’ Bill into a nuclear bailout.   Ohio House committee’s Bill to damage renewable energy industries, prop up nuclear and coal.
• Funding for Yucca nuclear waste dump rejected in U.S. Congress House committee.  Continuing USA debate on nuclear waste- Yucca Mt is central to the issue.  Yucca Mountain nuclear waste plan, and the flawed science of the ‘Total System Performance Assessment’. A ‘doomsday button’ for Native Americans if Yucca Mountain were to be poisoned by nuclear trash.  Companies like Holtec planning to make $billions by a quick fix for nuclear wastes.
• ‘New Nuclear Is off the Table” as far as action on climate change is concerned.  USA govt pouring money into dodgy new nuclear projects.
• New research into plutonium workers’ internal radiation exposure.  Radiation in UW building: 200 employees being moved, cleanup could take at least six more weeks. Feds say   Pike County residents protest nuclear facilityafter Uranium detected at school.
• San Onofre nuclear fuel transfers can resume.
• Fukushima radiation present in Bering Sea, researchers say — but no cause for concern (at present).

NORTH KOREA. North Korea warns that nuclear talks “will never be resumed” if USA continues ‘hostile acts’

UK.  Academics advise Labour that there’s no viable place for nuclear in renewable energy plans.   In UK Councillors to get briefing from nuclear panel – anyone can offer their land for nuclear waste dump!  EDF planning to restarttroubled Hunterston and Dungeness B nuclear reactors/

PAKISTAN. Pakistan Tests Nuclear-Capable Ballistic Missile .

IRAN. President Rouhani says that Iran might hold a referendum on its nuclear programme.

SWITZERLAND. Swiss authorities intervene to halt exports of nuclear weapons material.  Court orders Swiss authorities to publish arms export data.  A nuclear accident in one of Switzerland’s old reactors would be devastating to the health of other European countries.

ISRAEL. Wildfires rage in Israel during heatwave.

RUSSIA. Russia Launched New Nuclear Power Icebreaker While Other Countries Pay To Clean up Russian Nuclear Waste Ship.  A high risk operation removing spent nuclear fuel from Russian ship “Lepse”.  Design problems delay development of Russia’s High-Tech Nuclear Submarine.

UKRAINE. Misleading and dangerous – the downplaying of Chernobyl’s radiation risks. Another Chernobyl could happen, by accident, or by sabotage.  Comparing the radioactive pollution from Fukushima and Chernobyl nuclear accidents.  Chernobyl’s spent nuclear fuel to be stored (Holtec’s in on this one, too).

KENYA. In Kenya, 87% of the electricity is from renewal sources.

SOUTH AFRICA. The tiny plant that helped save a desert from uranium mining.  Nuclear power seen as obsoletein South Africa, but they must ramp up renewables, get out of coal.

JAPAN.    Danger in foreign workers at Fukushima nuclear clean-up – Tepco abandons plans for them. At June G20 meeting, Japan to push for international conference on nuclear waste disposal (but no talk on stopping making radioactive trash).  240 shrines within 20 K of Fukushima reactor 1, so a move to build a new shrine.

JORDAN. Renewable energy, replacing nuclear plans with solar, is the obvious way forward for Jordan.

SOUTH KOREA. Risky incident at South Korean nuclear reactor.

May 29, 2019 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Christina's notes | 3 Comments