Gulf Times – Qatar’s top-selling English daily newspaper – Europe/World
‘Nuclear incident would make 9/11 insignificant’SYDNEY: The world is on the brink of an avalanche in the spread of devastating weaponry, a new global non-proliferation group warned yesterday, saying that a nuclear incident would dwarf the September 11 attacks.The Middle East, particularly Iran, is a potential tipping point, according to Gareth Evans, co-chair of the newly formed International Commission on Nuclear Non-proliferation and Disarmament.Evans, a former Australia foreign minister, said the world had been “sleepwalking” on the issue of atomic weapons for a decade.“The devastation that could be wreaked by one major nuclear weapons incident alone puts 9/11 and almost everything else (in) to the category of the insignificant,” he said, referring to the attacks inflicted on the US in 2001.Evans was speaking as the commission, which was first proposed by Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd after a visit to the Japanese city of Hiroshima in June, entered the second and final day of its inaugural meeting in Sydney…………………………International affairs analyst Michael McKinley said there was an urgent need to rekindle debate about nuclear proliferation, but he doubted the new commission would make much headway.
“The nuclear weapons establishments are so well entrenched now that I’m concerned only a disaster will make them reconsider,” said McKinley, from the Australian National University.
Gulf Times – Qatar’s top-selling English daily newspaper – Europe/World
Tags: nuclear, antinuclear, radioactive, uranium
UK nuclear tests left ‘disease timebomb’ – politics.co.uk
UK nuclear tests left ‘disease timebomb’
politics.co.uk 23, Oct 2008 12:01
UK nuclear tests conducted in the 1950s have left veterans and their children with a variety of congenital diseases, according to a backbench Tory MP.
John Baron conducted an adjournment debate in the Commons yesterday afternoon, where he voiced concerns the government was “backsliding” on its commitment to investigate the issue.
A recent report conducted by Dr Chris Busby for the British Nuclear Tests Veterans Association (BNTVA) found higher levels of miscarriage, still birth and infant mortality among the families of those who helped conduct the tests……………………………….
The government carried out several nuclear tests in the Pacific Ocean and at Maralinga, Australia between 1952 and 1967, involving over 20,000 servicemen.
Among these were the ‘Grapple Y’ and Grapple Z’ detonations on Christmas island, involving weapons far more powerful than those used to on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Of 2,500 men surveyed in 1999, 30 per cent had died, mostly in their 50s. More than 100 veterans children reported reproductive difficulties.
Many children and grandchildren of servicemen have experienced a range of problems including holes in the heart, deafness, reproductive difficulties, missing or excess teeth, deformity and early death.
UK nuclear tests left ‘disease timebomb’ – politics.co.uk
Tags: nuclear, antinuclear, radioactive, uranium
Don’t let crisis slow carbon preparations, leaders told | theage.com.au
Don’t let crisis slow carbon preparations, leaders told
The AgeTom Arup October 23, 2008 BUSINESS leaders have been warned to speed up preparation for the incoming emissions trading scheme despite the credit crisis.
Speaking on a panel at an Australian Institute of Company Directors function yesterday, Adam Kirkman, director of risk consulting group Protiviti, urged businesses to look beyond the current financial troubles and to push on with plans to cut carbon emissions.
“There is no indication that the Rudd Government is looking to push back the start of the emissions trading scheme (despite the credit crisis),” Mr Kirkman said.
“And it’s interesting that in the same week the UK Government was nationalising banks left, right and centre, they were going to change their emissions reduction emission to 80%.”
Mr Kirkman said the benefit of the incoming ETS was that it echoed a wider shift in the community for an increasingly regulated market in the face of collapsing investor confidence.
“An ETS is essentially a regulated market — the Government will have a lot of control over it,” he said……………………..However, speaking to BusinessDay, another panelist, Dr Ziggy Switkowski, chairman of the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation, said the credit crisis was a dangerous time to be framing an emissions trading scheme.
Don’t let crisis slow carbon preparations, leaders told | theage.com.au
Tags: g;obalwarming
KRDO.com Colorado Springs, Pueblo – Weather, News, Sports – Health Concerns At Uranium Mill
Health Concerns At Uranium Mill
krdo News Channel 13 By Sean Hauser Oct 21, 2008
CANON CITY – Twenty-four years ago it was closed because of radioactive contamination. Now, a study is looking into renewed concerns at the Cotter Uranium Mill in Canon City……………………
It’s no secret that the uranium mill in Canon City has had its problems in the past.
“We do have some contamination extending off to the North and West of our property that’s a subject of a notice of violation between Cotter and the state that has been identified out there for a number of years,”…………………….state documents show a new plume of uranium-contaminated groundwater is spreading from the mill under a nearby golf course.
KRDO.com Colorado Springs, Pueblo – Weather, News, Sports – Health Concerns At Uranium Mill
Tags: nuclear, antinuclear, radioactive, uranium
Green Left – Garnaut final report met with protest
Garnaut final report met with protest
Green Left Kamala Emanuel10 October 2008Professor Ross Garnaut delivered his final report on impacts of — and responses to — climate change to Australian federal and state governments on September 30.In the previous week, a series of protest actions was held around the country to highlight the need for emergency action on climate change………………………………… The report explains that failure to act could be catastrophic — but recommends soft targets………………………….. The report explains that failure to act could be catastrophic — but recommends soft targets.
Doctor sounds alarm on risks of nuclear energy – Press-Telegram
Doctor sounds alarm on risks of nuclear energy Press-Telegram
10/08/2008“……………………..In 1971, she played a major role in opposing French atmospheric nuclear testing in the Pacific. A decade later, she left Harvard University, where she had been an instructor in pediatrics, to work full time on the prevention of nuclear horror, whether by war or accident.Co-founder of Physicians for Social Responsibility and the recipient of 19 honorary degrees, Dr. Caldicott was named by the Smithsonian Institution as one of the most influential women of the 20th century.In an appearance sponsored by more than 20 Southern California groups, Dr. Caldicott will deliver a lecture, “The Presidential Campaign and the Fate of the Earth,” from 2 to 4 p.m. Sunday at the First Congregational Church, 241 Cedar Ave., in downtown Long Beach.
The free event is open to the public…………………
Q. You have said the United States is the most dangerous country in the world in terms of nuclear policy. How did you arrive at that conclusion?
A. Because the U.S. processes more hydrogen bombs than any other country and because it has an official policy to fight and “win” a nuclear war against Russia. Its weapons are on hair-trigger alert and presidents (George) Bush and (Vladimir) Putin (now prime minister) have only a three-minute decision time to launch.
Of the 30,000 nuclear weapons in the world, the U.S. and Russia own 97 percent………………
Nuclear power is a grave public health danger, far worse than tobacco. Over time, it will induce epidemics of cancer, leukemia and genetic disease in all future generations from the massive quantities of radioactive waste currently being generated.
Therefore, it is dangerous in any country that possesses it. Reactors also manufacture 500 pounds of plutonium per year, fuel for potentially 100 nuclear weapons. Any country possessing a reactor owns a bomb factory. Plutonium remains radioactive for 500,000 years………….
Nuclear power is not emission free. This is a mendacious statement. The nuclear fuel chain from uranium mining, reparation of land, fuel enrichment and fabrication, reactor construction and decommissioning, and transport and storage of massive amounts of radioactive fuel over 500,000 years involves much fossil fuel.
With one or two decades, as the available uranium ore declines in usable concentrations, a nuclear reactor will collectively, therefore, produce as much CO2 as a similar sized natural gas electricity generator. Also, reactors continually emit radioactive gases and elements into the air and water as they operate.
Hence, it is medically dangerous to live near a nuclear power plant because you or your children are at risk of inhaling or ingesting radioactive elements which are carcinogenic. Locally grown fruit and vegetables also bio-concentrate these elements…………………………
Q. Why do some European countries seem unafraid to use nuclear power.
A. Because they are governed by scientifically and medically ignorant politicians who are manipulated by the powerful nuclear industry. They forget Chernobyl even though 40 percent of European land mass is still radioactive and will remain so for 600 years. Hence, some European food is radioactive…………………………………
Under the Non-Proliferation Treaty, Iran is entitled to enrich uranium for nuclear power. In fact, it is encouraged to do so by the world nuclear establishment. Israel has 200 to 400 nuclear weapons and as such is setting a very dangerous example for the Middle East.
Only if the major nuclear nations move rapidly towards bilateral, multilateral nuclear disarmament will they, by example, have the moral authority to discipline and cajole other small countries not to build nuclear weapons.
Doctor sounds alarm on risks of nuclear energy – Press-Telegram
Tags: nuclear, antinuclear, radioactive, uranium
We don’t need coal or nuclear power stations to save planet|11Oct08|Socialist Worker
We don’t need coal or nuclear power stations to save planet
Socialist Worker online Sadie Robinson October 2008 Supporters of coal and nuclear power say they are the only energy sources that can tackle climate change, but there are better alternatives, writes …………………………over the longer term there is a need to develop new forms of energy production.A number of nuclear and coal plants are to close down over the next 20 years. This will reduce Britain’s electricity generation by around 30 percent. But there is no reason why nuclear or coal plants should fill the gap.
Greenpeace published a report on Britain’s energy requirements last month. It concluded that “there is no need to build new fossil-fuelled power generation to keep the lights on”.
Efficiency
It argues that if the government meets its targets on improving energy efficiency and developing renewable energy, there will be no need for new electricity generation until after 2020………………….Nuclear is being promoted as clean, cheap and efficient, but it is the opposite of all three.
Carbon dioxide is emitted into the atmosphere in every stage in the production of nuclear power. It has taken massive government subsidies to build nuclear power stations in the past, and new ones will require that again.
Nuclear energy requires the building of large plants far from the places where the energy will be used.
This wastes a massive amount of energy as it is lost in transmission from the plants to towns and cities………………………
Investing in clean energy and making changes to the way society is organised are the real way to meet our energy needs.
Renewable energy could end our dependence on fossil fuels and massively reduce carbon emissions.
We don’t need coal or nuclear power stations to save planet|11Oct08|Socialist Worker
Tags: nuclear, antinuclear, radioactive, uranium
DIY Geiger Counters Help Us Face Our Dismal, Irradiated Futures – Gizmodo Australia
Help us face our dismal irradiated futures
Gizmodo US Edition October 3, 2008
What with the financial crisis and recent nuclear (dis)agreements and the possibility of having an insane (but like-able! Teehee!) person becoming the country’s VP, we could be headed for a The Road by Cormac McCarthy-esque situation in the near future. And when that day comes, I’ll be the person on the block with a DIY Geiger counter
Hack-n-Mod has compiled a list of the three best Geiger counter tutorials on the net. Use this one to learn everything about schematics, PCB and shielding; this one for a nifty USB interface, and–if you’re feeling particularly technical–this one for a much more detailed build. Remember: in the apocalyptic future, friends don’t let friends eat friends without testing them for radiation first. [Hack-n-Mod]
DIY Geiger Counters Help Us Face Our Dismal, Irradiated Futures – Gizmodo Australia
Tags: nuclear, antinuclear, radioactive, uranium
Russia Profile – A Waste of a Land
A Waste of a Land
By Dmitry Babich Russia Profile October 1, 2008The Fate of Former Soviet Nuclear Test Sites in the Far North Is Uncertain
To this day, the Russian state denies that any radiation-related problems plague the Novaya Zemlya archipelago, while research in the area is virtually nonexistent……………….
The king of all bombs
The news came around noon. At 11:32 p.m. the so-called “Tsar Bomb,” whose yield was equivalent to 50 megatons of trotyl, was exploded at a height of 4,000 meters over Novaya Zemlya. This hydrogen bomb, the biggest nuclear weapon in the world, named the Big Ivan by its developers, was eight meters long and 2.1 meters wide–it did not even fit into the biggest Soviet TU-95 bomber that carried it. The bomb stuck out of the plane’s hull until it was dropped on a parachute from a height of 10,500 meters………….The flash of light produced by the Big Ivan was seen at a distance of 1,000 kilometers. The smoke over the explosion’s epicenter grew to a height of 67 kilometers. The log cabins in an abandoned village 400 kilometers away from the explosion site were swept from the face of the Earth. The seismic wave produced by the explosion was reported to have crossed the Earth three times………………………………even though new nuclear tests are no longer conducted on Novaya Zemlya, the old ones are more than enough to complicate matters.
“Even military people acknowledge that traces of contamination can be detected in the southern part of the archipelago,” said Yelena Kvasnikova from the Institute of Global Climate and Ecology. “Tests in the atmosphere were conducted there before the Soviet Union joined the Partial Test Ban Treaty in 1963. This treaty banned all nuclear tests in the atmosphere, underwater and in space.”…………………….. Novaya Zemlya remains closed to radiation specialists…………………..Novaya Zemlya has remained a closed area.
Russia Profile – A Waste of a Land
Tags: nuclear, antinuclear, uranium, radiation
Enviros sue over uranium mining near Grand Canyon | Greenspace | Los Angeles Times
Enviros sue over uranium mining near Grand Canyon
Los Angeles Times September 30, 2008 Environmental groups are suing Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne for allowing uranium mining on about 1 million acres around Grand Canyon National Park, which critics contend could contaminate ground and surface water as far away as Los Angeles.Kempthorne is accused of ignoring a ban proposed June 25 by the House Natural Resources Committee on new uranium exploration around the Grand Canyon. Congress enacted emergency withdrawals of land around the park to preserve the Colorado River watershed.
Rising prices for uranium have driven federal agencies to lease more land for mining, despite documented health problems associated with uranium mining dust, rocks and water
Enviros sue over uranium mining near Grand Canyon | Greenspace | Los Angeles Times
Tags: nuclear, antinuclear, uranium, radioactive
WXOW News 19 La Crosse, WI – News, Weather and Sports |Nuclear Trash
Nuclear Trash
BARNWELL, S.C. (AP) WXOW19 26 Sept 08 – Low-level radioactive waste is piling up at hospitals and research labs around the country, and that’s worrying experts who fear some of it could be stolen by terrorists and turned into dirty bombs.
The items include radioactive seeds the size of a grain of rice used for treating cancer. There are also pencil-thin nuclear tubes used in industrial gauges. And there’s an array of small capsules and pellets with medical and industrial uses.
For years, truckloads of material from 36 states have been shipped to a landfill in rural South Carolina. There, it was all sealed in concrete and buried.
But effective July 1st, the state ended nearly all disposal of radioactive material at the landfill. That’s left it piling up at the labs, universities, hospitals and businesses where it’s used.
State and federal authorities says the waste is monitored, but they acknowledge checks are infrequent. Government documents show that thousands of items have been lost.
WXOW News 19 La Crosse, WI – News, Weather and Sports |Nuclear Trash
Tags: nuclear, antinuclear, radioactive, uranium
Toward Freedom – Toward a Movement for Peace and Climate Justice
Toward a Movement for Peace and Climate Justice
TOWARD FREEDOM
by Brian Tokar Wednesday, 24 September 2008 -“………………………..
Who is affected by global warming?
Since the first Earth Day, way back in 1970, there has been a serious divide between those who view environmental issues as fundamentally social and political, and those who choose to focus entirely on the technical aspects of individual problems and their narrow, status-quo solutions. In 1970, Earth Day was explicitly cast as an alternative to a continuing focus on the human and ecological ravages of the war in Vietnam, and today it’s no longer surprising to anyone that the day is sponsored by some of the very worst corporate polluters.
As social ecologists have argued since the mid-sixties, however, ecological problems both have serious human consequences, and are thoroughly social and political in origin.[1] With respect to global warming, this contrast is becoming central to understanding where we are and where we may be headed. An understanding of the science and politics of global warming is becoming increasingly central to how we understand issues of social justice, or war and peace, and to how such concerns will play out in the coming decades……………………………………..
……Probably the grimmest tale is contained in the [IPCC’s] report’s chapter on health consequences of climate changes:…………….From Bangladesh to Darfur, we are already seeing the ways in which increased climate instability is exacerbating conflict and even bloodshed among people…………………
False solutions
Over the past year or two, we have been inundated with a plethora of seductive, but ultimately false solutions to the threat of catastrophic climate changes. First, we face a well-orchestrated political push, from the highest levels of the US government, for a revival of nuclear power. Not only do we still, after 50 years, have no clue what to do with monstrous quantities of highly radioactive nuclear waste, but if our societies do commit the massive capital resources needed to build a new generation of nuclear power plants—at least tripling the present number according to many estimates—there will be literally no funds left to develop truly green, solar-based alternatives, even in the long run.
Further, a significant expansion of nuclear power would expose countless more communities to the legacy of cancer that critical scientists such as Ernest Sternglass have documented, and additional indigenous communities to the even more severe consequences of uranium mining and milling
Toward Freedom – Toward a Movement for Peace and Climate Justice
Documentary showing highlights effects of war
Documentary showing highlights effects of war
“Friendly Fire” to be shown at school
Sauk Centre Herald 23 Sept 08 The film depicts the effects of Gulf War Syndrome and depleted uranium’s role in long-term health problems for soldiers, their newborns and Iraqi civilians.Friendly Fire, a documentary by Dr. Gary Null, has received critical acclaim for not only bringing to light the long-term physical effects the Persian Gulf War and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, but also the military and government’s attempt to cover it up.
The film will be shown free of charge this Sunday night at 7 p.m. at the Sauk Centre High School Auditorium. The event is sponsored by the Veterans Village of Minnesota………………….State rep. Bud Heidgerken (R-Freeport) recently cosponsored a bill that has earmarked $500,000 a year for two years for the testing and treatment of depleted uranium.
Documentary showing highlights effects of war
Tags: nuclear, antinuclear, radioactive, uranium
Fallout From Soviet Atomic Bombs Persists in Kazakstan
Fallout From Soviet Atomic Bombs Persists in KazakstanBy
Environment News Service Elmira GabidullinaALMATY, Kazakstan, September 18, 2008 (ENS) – “……………………..The persistence of high background radiation means the legacy of Semipalatinsk lives on. Academic researchers and pressure groups say the incidence of cancer, congenital defects, retarded development and psychiatric disorders in the surrounding area is much higher than in other parts of Kazakstan.
According to the cancer center for East Kazakstan Region, the disease occurs 10 to 15 percent more frequently than the national average, with a high proportion of cases falling within the 50-60 year-old age bracket – people who would have been around when nuclear testing was taking place………………………….. Some 1.7 million people are believed to have health problems caused by exposure to radiation………………..experts warn that low doses and constant exposure can show up as genetic malformations……………………………Kazakstan has a law dating from 1992 which sets out the benefits available to people who suffered as a result of nuclear testing. But strangely, it does not appear to cover soldiers who served in and around the test site.
Fallout From Soviet Atomic Bombs Persists in Kazakstan
Tags: nuclear, antinuclear, uranium, radiation
News – Health: Wonderfontein report rejected
Wonderfontein report rejected
iol September 19 2008 An anti-nuclear pressure group has rejected an official report that radioactive mining waste in the catchment of Gauteng’s Wonderfontein Spruit poses no risk to the public.The Pelindaba Working Group said on Friday independent academic reports indicated that radiotoxic contamination from 120 years of mining activities around the catchment had in fact seeped into underground water systems.
“As such it poses a massive health risk to an extremely wide area, to the Vaal Dam system in the south and the Hartbeespoort Dam system in the north,” it said in a statement.
“Hundreds of thousands of people are reliant upon this water”.
The group said authorities had not acknowledged any of the letters it sent asking that borehole water be tested.
News – Health: Wonderfontein report rejected
Tags: nuclear, antinuclear, uranium, radiation
1 This Month
26 September – International Day for the Total Elimination of Nuclear Weapons
PLEASE OPPOSE HR 8255 AND S.3639 – bills would accelerate satellite deployment, with no environmental review or safeguards – https://ncstd5li.quorum.us/campaign/169331/
To see nuclear-related stories in greater depth and intensity – go to https://nuclearinformation.wordpress.com
-
Archives
- September 2026 (305)
- August 2026 (330)
- July 2026 (355)
- June 2026 (287)
- May 2026 (306)
- April 2026 (356)
- March 2026 (251)
- February 2026 (267)
- January 2026 (308)
- December 2025 (358)
- November 2025 (359)
- October 2025 (375)
-
Categories
- 1
- 1 NUCLEAR ISSUES
- business and costs
- climate change
- culture and arts
- ENERGY
- environment
- health
- history
- indigenous issues
- Legal
- marketing of nuclear
- media
- opposition to nuclear
- PERSONAL STORIES
- politics
- politics international
- Religion and ethics
- safety
- secrets,lies and civil liberties
- spinbuster
- technology
- Uranium
- wastes
- weapons and war
- Women
- 2 WORLD
- ACTION
- AFRICA
- Atrocities
- AUSTRALIA
- Christina's notes
- Christina's themes
- culture and arts
- Events
- Fuk 2022
- Fuk 2023
- Fukushima 2017
- Fukushima 2018
- fukushima 2019
- Fukushima 2020
- Fukushima 2021
- general
- global warming
- Humour (God we need it)
- Nuclear
- RARE EARTHS
- Reference
- resources – print
- Resources -audiovicual
- Weekly Newsletter
- World
- World Nuclear
- YouTube
-
RSS
Entries RSS
Comments RSS
