Litvinenko murder case- a trail of radiation across London
Litvinenko killers left radiation trail across London, inquiry told Guardian, Luke Harding 12 Feb 15 Two men accused of poisoning Russian were noticeable because of their jewellery and ‘comical’ dress sense, says London hotel manager. The two Russians who allegedly poisoned Alexander Litvinenko left a massive trail of radiation in “multiple locations” across London, and were immediately noticeable because of their “excessive” jewellery and “comical” dress sense, the inquiry into his murder has heard.Andrei Lugovoi and Dmitry Kovtun flew from Moscow to London on 16 October 2006. They checked into the Best Western hotel on Shaftesbury Avenue, the inquiry heard. They are accused of trying to poison Litvinenko for the first time later that day – and of succeeding two weeks later when they slipped radioactive polonium into his tea.
Giving evidence, the hotel’s manager, Goran Krgo, said he spotted Lugovoi and Kovtun the moment they arrived. “I remember these guests quite vividly,” he told the inquiry on Wednesday. Asked to elaborate, he said: “We found them to be quite comical on account of how they were dressed and the excessive jewellery they were wearing.”……
Det Insp Craig Mascall of the Metropolitan police said forensic experts later found large quantities of polonium in both Lugovoi and Kovtun’s hotel rooms. In Lugovoi’s room, 107, the highest reading came from the bathroom plughole, leading to the suspicion he may have thrown the polonium away. Polonium was found on a chair and coat-hanger in Kovtun’s room, 308, on a chair and coat-hanger.
The inquiry was told that there was no indication Litvinenko had been contaminated before his meeting with Lugovoi and Kovtun. The three men went for a meal at the Itsu sushi bar in Piccadilly, where polonium was also detected. Litvinenko vomited once that evening but survived this first botched assassination attempt, the inquiry heard.
More polonium was found in Pescatori, an Italian restaurant where Lugovoi and Kovtun ate that evening, clocking up a bill of £214.20. They had dinner with Alexander Shadrin, a Russian emigre……..
The following morning, Lugovoi and Kovtun left their hotel a day early and checked into the Parkes Hotel in Knightsbridge. Polonium was found in their new rooms.
The inquiry also heard that the Russian authorities deliberately blocked an attempt by British experts to examine the two aircraft used by Lugovoi and Kovtun to fly to and from London on 16 and 18 October 2006. ………http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/feb/11/litvinenko-killers-radiation-trail-london-inquiry
Radiation poisoning of Litvinenko may have affected others, too

Litvinenko inquiry: Russians’ associate ‘had mystery illness’ BBC News 12 Feb 15 A retired British army officer had a “mystery illness” after meeting with two men suspected of poisoning ex-FSB officer Alexander Litvinenko with polonium-210, an inquiry has heard.
Tim Reilly, a director at security firm Erinys, suffered migraines and vomiting after meeting Russians Andrei Lugovoi and Dmitri Kovtun with Mr Litvinenko.
He said Mr Lugovoi called him after Mr Litvinenko’s death to deny involvement.
“Heaving” radiation levels were later found in the London firm’s boardroom.
Mr Litvinenko, a former Russian security service officer who became a vocal critic of the Kremlin and fled to Britain, died of radiation poisoning after drinking tea laced with polonium at a Mayfair hotel in November 2006.
The barrister representing Mr Litvinenko’s family claims he was murdered for trying to “expose the corruption” at the heart of Vladimir Putin’s “mafia state”.
The public inquiry into his death has heard that Mr Litvinenko have been poisoned twice – with one occasion around the time of the security company meeting in October of 2006.
Mr Reilly told the hearing he became “very ill” around the time of the meeting…….Atomic weapons experts later found “heaving” levels of radioactive contamination in the boardroom at Erinys, leading to the offices being closed for four months, the court heard………http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-31444820
2,837 Iitate villagers petition Nuclear Damage Compensation Dispute Resolution Center (NDCDRC)
Residents of Fukushima’s Iitate Village file petition for nuclear damage compensation to restore home village http://www.cnic.jp/english/newsletter/nit164/nit164articles/03_iitate.html Kaori Yoshioka, CNIC Nearly half of the entire population of Iitate Village, Fukushima Prefecture, filed a petition with the Nuclear Damage Compensation Dispute Resolution Center (NDCDRC) on November 14, 2014, demanding measures to restore the lives of the nuclear disaster victims. The petitioners are 2,837 villagers from 737 households and the petition is addressed to Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) President and CEO, Naomi Hirose.
Main points of the petition seeking NDCDRC arbitration for an out-of-court settlement
The petitioners call on TEPCO to
- admit legal responsibility for causing serious radioactive contamination in the village and inflicting massive damage on the villagers, and to sincerely apologize to the villagers for this,
- pay 3 million yen to each villager to compensate for mental anguish regarding their health and other psychological stress caused by radiation exposure that could have been prevented,
- raise the amount of compensation for the period of evacuation from 100,000 yen per person per month to 350,000 yen,
- pay 20 million yen to each of the petitioners as compensation for destroying their livelihoods and causing psychological distress,
- pay the maximum amount of compensation (that for the “difficult-to-return zone”) to the residents who need to secure their houses, but without categorizing the locations into “difficult-to-return zone,” “restricted habitation zone,” and “evacuation directive lift preparation zone,” and without forcing them to take complicated procedures for filing applications, and
- pay lawyers’ fees for this class action suit.
Purpose of the class action suit
This class action suit was launched by the Iitate residents for the purpose of extracting an apology from TEPCO for forcing all the villagers to evacuate after the utility’s accident at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station in 2011, to seek just compensation for the damage they have suffered in order to regain their pride as Iitate villagers and to restore their home village.
India’s Nuclear Liability Law is a major deterrent to USA Nuclear companies
The law has stalled the implementation of deals for new reactors that India signed with the U.S., Russia, and France in 2008, when the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) allowed India to import nuclear fuel technology without being a member of the multinational body concerned with reducing nuclear proliferation. India said the breakthrough deal with Russia reached this April after four years of negotiations takes into account the liability law when pricing four more Russian reactors meant for India’s Kundankulam plant in Tamil Nadu (each of which is valued at $2.5 billion) as well as four or six other VVER-1200 units planned for Haripur, West Bengal. The deal essentially calls for India’s public sector General Insurance Co. to evaluate each component of the Russian reactors and prescribe a 20-year insurance premium it will charge to cover Russia’s liability for an accident.
Russia’s state-owned nuclear firm Rosatom reportedly has indemnity from any liability arising from an accident at the VVER-1000s at Kundankulam Unit 1 (Figure 2), which attained criticality in July 2013 and is expected to come online later this year, and Unit 2, expected to be operational in October 2014. Observers note that contracts for those plants were signed in 1998, before India’s domestic liability legislation had even been contemplated.
Before Indian legislation on civil nuclear liability—The Civil Liability for Nuclear Damage Bill—finally passed both houses of parliament in August 2010, exempting suppliers from all liability had been India’s typical practice, starting in 1962, when India signed its first nuclear cooperation agreement with the U.S. to allow General Electric to supply two 200-MW reactors to India’s Tarapur site. The practice of liability exemption was modeled on America’s own 1957-passed nuclear liability law, the Price Anderson Act, and went on to extend indemnity protection to Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd. for two reactors in Rajasthan in 1965, and later to Russia. Continue reading
How the USA govt dismissed Nuclear Zero Lawsuit

Bush-Appointed Judge Dismisses Nuclear Zero Lawsuit; Marshall Islands to Appeal http://www.truth-out.org/opinion/item/28997-bush-appointed-judge-dismisses-nuclear-zero-lawsuit-marshall-islands-to-appeal# Monday, 09 February 2015 By David Krieger, Truthout
The Republic of the Marshall Islands (RMI), a Pacific Islands country of 70,000, took bold action on April 24, 2014, on nuclear disarmament. It brought lawsuits at the International Court of Justice (ICJ), the world’s highest court, against the nine nuclear-armed countries, accusing them of violating their obligations under international law to negotiate in good faith to end the nuclear arms race and for total nuclear disarmament.
Because of the importance of the United States as a nuclear power and the fact that it does not accept the compulsory jurisdiction of the ICJ, the Marshall Islands at the same time brought a similar lawsuit against the United States in US federal district court in Northern California.
In the United States, rather than engaging in the case in good faith, the government responded by filing a motion to dismiss the case on jurisdictional grounds. Continue reading
AUDIO: Marshall Islands loses nuclear lawsuit against USA
| AUDIO: Marshall Islands loses nuclear lawsuit against USA http://www.radioaustralia.net.au/international/radio/program/pacific-beat/marshall-islands-loses-nuclear-lawsuit-against-usa/1413323 |
The United States has dismissed a nuclear disarmament lawsuit brought about by Marshall Islands. Last month, the case was tentatively dismissed, but a decision last week has ruled the case had no grounds and any action by the courts would violate the “separation of powers” doctrine.
Meanwhile, the court battle to get a naturalised Marshall Islands citizen onto the ballot for the US elections in November will make its way to the High Court next week.
Editor of the Marshall Islands Journal Giff Johnson says the fight for nuclear disarmament may not be over in the US just yet.
Presenter: Richard Ewart
Speaker: Giff Johnson, Editor, Marshall Islands Journal
Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership would alloww corporations to sue governments
Energy market madness is the death spasm of the oil age – renewables now! Ecologist Nafeez Ahmed 4th February 2015 “……..the widely criticized TTIP proposal – the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership – as being a positive force for economies and the renewable energy sector.
The fundamental problem with TTIP, a so-called free trade agreement being negotiated in secret by US and European governments, is that by aiming to reduce regulatory barriers to trade for big business, the agreement aims to fundamentally erode the power of elected governments to enact legislation on food safety, environmental protection, banking and finance, that would in some way undermine corporations from rampaging across the US and EU without concern for people or planet.
One of the most obvious counter-democratic components of TTIP is its aim to introduceInvestor-State Dispute Settlements (ISDS), which would effectively allow corporations to sue governments if their policies cause a loss of profits.http://www.theecologist.org/News/news_analysis/2741146/energy_market_madness_is_the_death_spasm_of_the_oil_age_renewables_now.html
Entergy Corp cannot stop hearings on summer closing of Indian Point nuclear facility – judge rules
Judge allows hearings on summer closings of New York nuclear plant Planet Ark 05-Feb-15 USA Scott DiSavino A judge in New York has ruled Entergy Corp cannot stop hearings on the state’s plan to shut the company’s Indian Point nuclear power plant for part of the summer to protect fish in the Hudson River.
In a ruling late Tuesday, an administrative law judge at the state Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) rejected Entergy’s latest attempt to stop the state from shutting the plant, at least for part of the summer.
The ruling was the latest salvo in an eight-year battle between Entergy, which wants to run Indian Point for another 20 years, and the state, which wants the plant shut……….
The judge, Maria Villa, made the ruling on Entergy’s attempt to quash the DEC’s 2013 proposal that Indian Point shut for at least 42 days each year, between May 10 and Aug. 10, during prime fish migrations……
The hearings are expected to continue through 2015.
Indian Point withdraws up to 2.5 billion gallons of water a day from the Hudson to cool equipment, and then discharges it back into the river a little warmer than before.
Environmental groups and the DEC have long argued Indian Point’s water intake system kills about a billion fish, fish eggs and larvae each year, and that the plant should install cooling towers to reduce the use of river water by recycling it……..http://planetark.org/enviro-news/item/72785
Top legal adviser backs German government levy on nuclear fuel

RWE, EON Fall as Court Aide Backs German Nuclear-Fuel Tax by Stephanie Bodoni Stefan Nicola
February 3, 2015 (Bloomberg) — EON SE fell the most in a month and RWE AG had its steepest plunge since mid-December after an adviser to the European Union’s top court backed a German levy on nuclear fuel that the country’s biggest utilities have been fighting as illegal.
EON declined 3.92 percent, to 13.375 euros a share at the close in Frankfurt, and RWE fell 4.55 percent to 23.905 euros a share after Advocate General Maciej Szpunar of the EU Court of Justice said in a non-binding opinion that the German nuclear-fuel tax doesn’t violate EU rules. The Luxembourg-based court follows such advice in most cases.
German’s unprecedented switch to renewables has forced traditional utilities to close nuclear reactors and seen power prices slide for a fourth year. Essen-based RWE hasn’t ruled out following EON’s lead in breaking itself up.
Germany’s so-called energy shift has forced utilities to close nuclear reactors and undermined power prices. The nuclear fuel tax also contributed to harming the companies’ profitability from 2011. EON’s plan to break itself up is the most radical response yet to the changes.
Nuclear exit is at the core of other pending litigation in Germany and the country’s top court is reviewing the constitutionality of the nuclear-exit laws and the fuel tax. http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-02-03/german-nuclear-fuel-tax-in-line-with-eu-law-aide-says
Legal case on the radioactive murder of Alexander Litvinenko – claim of nuclear terrorism
Poisoning of ex-KGB spy ‘nuclear terrorism,’ U.K. inquiry told The Star.com 27 Jan 15 Evidence suggested Litvinenko had ingested the highly radioactive isotope polonium-210 in mid-October 2006 and again two weeks later. By: Jill Lawless Associated Press, Published on Tue Jan 27 2015
LONDON — Former Russian agent Alexander Litvinenko was poisoned with radioactive polonium not once but twice, a British judge was told Tuesday, as an inquiry opened into the slaying one lawyer called an act of nuclear terrorism ordered by Moscow.
Ben Emmerson, attorney for Litvinenko’s widow, said the KGB spy turned Kremlin critic was the victim of an “assassination by agents of the Russian state.”
He said the 2006 killing “was an act of nuclear terrorism on the streets of a major city which put the lives of numerous other members of the public at risk.” Litvinenko, who had become a Britain-based critic of the Kremlin, fell violently ill on Nov. 1, 2006 after drinking tea with two Russian men at a London hotel. He died three weeks later, aged 43, of “acute radiation syndrome.”
Litvinenko’s extraordinary killing — and his deathbed statement that he was poisoned on orders from President Vladimir Putin — soured Russian-British relations for years. Judge Robert Owen, who is overseeing the inquiry, said the issues raised by the death “are of the utmost gravity.”
No one has ever stood trial for Litvinenko’s killing. Britain and the dead man’s family have accused Russia of involvement. Moscow denies the claim, and has refused to extradite the two men identified by Britain as the prime suspects………http://www.thestar.com/news/world/2015/01/27/former-russian-spy-alexander-litvinenko-poisoned-twice-inquiry-told.html
Germany’s Constitutional Court will hear nuclear utilities’ complaints about early nuclear shutdowns
German court to decide on nuclear exit complaints this year Tuesday, January 27, 2015 CSTDUESSELDORF/FRANKFURT (Reuters) – Germany’s highest court aims to decide this year on complaints filed by the country’s biggest utilities against a decision to shut down its nuclear plants earlier than initially planned, a court spokesman said on Tuesday.
E.ON , RWE and Vattenfall [VATN.UL] filed complaints with the Constitutional Court after the government imposed a stricter closure timetable in 2011 as a result of the Fukushima nuclear disaster in Japan……..
The court will not decide on individual damages claims – estimated to total at least 15 billion euros ($17 billion) – but its decision could provide the legal basis for such motions should it rule the government’s decision is illegal.
The court spokesman said he could not be more precise about the timing of the ruling, adding it still needed to be decided whether a hearing would take place.
RWE, Germany’s second-biggest utility, said it expects a ruling in the second half of the year.
The complaints are part of a number of legal steps being pursued by RWE and its peers over Germany’s nuclear policy, including a nuclear fuel tax and the immediate three-month shutdown of all of its nuclear power stations following the Fukushima disaster.
($1 = 0.8787 euros)
(Reporting by Tom Kaeckenhoff and Christoph Steitz; Editing by Maria Sheahan and John Stonestreet) http://kfgo.com/news/articles/2015/jan/27/german-court-to-decide-on-nuclear-exit-complaints-in-2015/
Under France’s nuclear waste dump – a geothermal energy source!
The Inconvenience of a Geothermic Energy Source Under France’s Nuke Waste Dump http://nf2045.blogspot.com.au/2015/01/the-inconvenience-of-geothermic-energy.html
The French weekly newspaper Le Canard enchaîné provides aggressive and biting coverage of the nuclear establishment in a way that mainstream media refrain from doing. Le Canard has been in print since 1915, except for a period during the German occupation when it was forced to close. The journal had a moment of international fame in September 2013 when it ran satirical cartoons about Tokyo being awarded the 2020 Olympics in spite of Japan’s troubles containing its nuclear catastrophe.
Unfortunately for readers who would like easy access to its reporting,Le Canard has stuck to its policy of being print-only……..
Nuclear Waste on the Aquifer by Professor Canardeau translation of Des déchets (nucléaires) sur la nappeLe Canard enchaîné December 2014
A huge pocket of warm water exists beneath what is supposed to be France’s largest nuclear garbage pit, located near the town Bure. This site is destined to store, for at least 100,000 years, the most dangerous high-level waste that has accumulated since France built its first reactor. 125 meters tall, 30 kilometers wide and dozens of kilometers long, this reserve of warm water could sooner or later be used to produce heat or energy. The water is a comfortable 66 degrees, but it is found at a depth of 1,800 meters, while the nuclear waste is to be buried above it at a depth of 500 meters.
On January 5, 2015, the agency for the management of radioactive waste (ANDRA) will find itself on trial in high court in Nanterre for having divulged false information concerning the supposed absence of concern about significant underground water tables at the site in Bure. The citizen groups Sortir du nucléaireand Stop Bure 55, and Mirabel Lorraine Nature Environnement have brought the charges.
Some background: Continue reading
Florida lawmaker wants repeal of laws allowing nuclear power companies to get “advance money” from customers

Lawmaker joins calls for repeal of nuclear advance fee with new bill, Tampa Bay Times, Ivan Penn, 23 Jan 15 State Rep. Larry Ahern, R-Seminole, this week filed legislation to repeal the so-called nuclear advance fee that allowed Duke Energy Florida and Florida Power & Light to collect money from their customers before new plants come online.
Ahern’s legislation is the third bill filed for the 2015 session aimed at ending the fee. The measure largely targets Duke Energy over its troubled nuclear operations detailed in reports by the Tampa Bay Times.
Duke used the advance fee to charge its Florida customers about $1.5 billion for the now-canceled Levy County nuclear project. In addition, the utility spent hundreds of millions of dollars more through the advance fee to increase power at the broken and now shuttered Crystal River nuclear plant. Neither Levy nor Crystal River will ever produce a kilowatt of electricity for the money.
“The consumers are being taken advantage of by utility providers,” Ahern said. “We need to take precautions to ensure that these types of events don’t happen again.”……..
The Murphy and Latvala bill would also require Duke Energy to refund all or most of the money collected from its customers through the advance fee.
Contact Ivan Penn at ipenn@tampabay.com or (727) 892-2332. Follow @Consumers_Edge. http://www.tampabay.com/news/business/energy/lawmaker-joins-calls-for-repeal-of-nuclear-advance-fee-with-new-bill/2214873
Case against nuclear powers unfolds at the International Court of Justice in The Hague,
The Marshall Islands’ latest nuclear test – Marshall Islanders are well-acquainted with the horrors of the nuclear arms industry. Belen Fernandez, Aljazeera, 18 Jan 15
The list of accused is as follows: the United States, Russia, Britain, China, France, India, North Korea, Pakistan, and Israel. Israel has made the cut despite fervently denying possession of a nuclear arsenal.
The spectacle is unfolding at the International Court of Justice in The Hague, the main judicial organ of the United Nations. A recent New York Times article on the Marshall Islands’ “near-Quixotic venture” quotes Phon van den Biesen, head of the country’s legal team, on the ultimate aim of the effort: “All the nuclear weapons states are modernising their arsenals instead of negotiating [to disarm], and we want the court to rule on this.”……….
The diminutive nation happens to be the site of no fewer than 67 US nuclear bomb tests in the 1940s and 50s, during an almost 40-year period in which the US administered the Islands under a UN trusteeship. As Greenpeace notes, one of these tests involved a bomb 1,000 times more powerful than the one dropped on Hiroshima in 1945.
Such machinations have predictably resulted in thorough environmental contamination and continuing health complications for the local population, ranging from radiogenic cancers to babies born without bones.
As Marshallese nuclear survivor Lemeyo Abon told the UN Human Rights Council in 2012: “After the [US] testing programme we’ve had to create new words to describe the creatures we give birth to.”
Lexical fallout aside, other US contributions to Marshallese culture include the Ronald Reagan Ballistic Missile Test Site on Kwajalein Atoll, which continues to generate revenue for US corporations.
The widespread territorial displacement necessitated by the previous era of fanatical nuclear testing meanwhile highlights the irony of Marshallese government support for the US-funded entity that displaces and otherwise oppresses Palestinians……….. http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2015/01/marshall-islands-latest-nuclear-201511352947395615.html
Lawsuit against Hinkley Point nuclear power project

Austria prepares lawsuit against Hinkley Point Interfax, By Annemarie Botzki 15 January 2015 Austria is preparing legal action against the European Commission’s decision to allow a price guarantee for EDF’s £34 billion ($51 billion) Hinkley Point C nuclear power plant in the UK, the Austrian Environmental Ministry confirmed this week.
“The Austrian federal government, with the unanimous support of the Austrian Parliament, is preparing an action for annulment to the Court of Justice of the EU,” ministry spokesperson Julia Puchegger told Interfax.
The commission said on 8 October that the UK’s plans to subsidise the construction and operation of the 3.3 GW plant are in line with EU state aid rules.
The lawsuit – targeted against the EU’s state aid approval – will be filed after publication of the commission’s decision on Hinkley in the Official Journal of the EU, which is not yet available.
“Austria strictly rejects any kind of direct or indirect subsidies to nuclear power, arguing for the complete internalisation of all external costs based on the polluter pays principle,” Puchegger said. “Austria also does not consider nuclear power to be eligible for the European Fund for Strategic Investments [EFSI].”
The EFSI is a €315 billion ($372 billion) package promoted by the new commission, led by Jean-Claude Juncker, that also will invest in energy infrastructure projects…….
Chances of success
“I think that there are good chances for success for a lawsuit,” Reinhard Schanda, a partner at the Vienna-based law firm Sattler & Schanda, told Interfax.
The EU’s environmental and energy aid guidelines for 2014-2020, adopted in July 2014, did not include rules for subsidies for nuclear energy – which are assessed on a case-by-case basis by the commission’s Directorate General for Competition.
According to Schanda, the commission is likely to have argued in its decision – so far unpublished – that the Euratom treaty provides the basis for its decision.
“It remains to be seen whether an EU objective of common interest can derive from the Euratom treaty,” Schanda told Interfax………../ http://interfaxenergy.com/gasdaily/article/15008/austria-prepares-lawsuit-against-hinkley-point
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