Sarkozy – nuclear salesman off to Pakistan?

Sarkozy may visit Pakistan in autumn: official

ABU DHABI (AFP) 27 May 09 — French President Nicolas Sarkozy hopes to visit Pakistan this autumn……………………….Sarkozy’s visit would also be an opportunity to outline cooperation in civil nuclear energy that Sarkozy proposed to Zardari during his recent visit to Paris, the official said.

“France must invest diplomatically, politically and economically in Pakistan,” he stressed…………………….

http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5jg2IU2J1lpF6y639I_bg8BSbt0VQ

May 28, 2009 Posted by Christina Macpherson | business and costs, France | antinuclear, AREVA, nuclear, radioactive, uranium | Leave a comment

France, Pakistan seek nuclear cooperation deal

ABU DHABI (Reuters) – France and Pakistan are negotiating a partnership including nuclear cooperation and French President Nicolas Sarkozy could travel to Pakistan in the autumn to sign a deal, a source close to Sarkozy said on Monday.

The source said talks were ongoing on a wide variety of issues including nuclear security, an extremely sensitive question since a Pakistani scientist was at the centre of the world’s biggest nuclear proliferation scandal in 2004…………….Sarkozy met Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari in Paris on May 15 and was reported by the Pakistani foreign minister as saying that France wanted Islamabad to obtain a wide-ranging deal to buy nuclear equipment like the one granted to India……………..Pakistan, which has also not signed the NPT, has dismissed concerns about the safety of its nuclear arsenal and its proliferation history.

Scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan, revered by many Pakistanis as the father of the country’s nuclear bomb, confessed to selling nuclear secrets to Iran, North Korea and Libya in 2004.

http://in.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idINIndia-39876720090525?pageNumber=2&virtualBrandChannel=0

May 28, 2009 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Pakistan, politics | antinuclear, AREVA, nuclear, nuclear weapons, radioactive | Leave a comment

Pakistan’s n-assets may fall into terrorist hands: US report

Thaindian News By Arun Kumar 28 May 09
Washington, May 28 (IANS) Chronic political instability in Pakistan and the current offensive against the Taliban has raised fears that Islamabad’s strategic nuclear assets could be obtained by terrorists or used by elements in the Pakistani government, US lawmakers have been told.

While US and Pakistani officials have expressed confidence in controls over Pakistan’s nuclear weapons, continued instability in the country could impact these safeguards, according to a new US Congressional Research Report on “Pakistan’s Nuclear Weapons: Proliferation and Security Issues.”

pakistans-n-assets-may-fall-into-terrorist-hands-us-report_100197720.html

May 28, 2009 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Pakistan, safety | antinuclear, nuclear, nuclear weapons | Leave a comment

Tribes press government to clean up nuclear waste

Tribes press government to clean up nuclear waste

KDBC News Associated Press – May 26, FLAGSTAFF, Ariz. (AP) – Two American Indian tribes are pressing the federal government to clean up an area where they say medical, uranium and other radioactive waste was dumped and has been contaminating the land and groundwater.

The Navajo and Hopi tribes say their pleas to have the waste materials from two sites near Tuba City, Ariz., taken off tribal land have been ignored.

The Hopi Tribe filed a notice of intent to sue the federal government last week over the cleanup.

On Tuesday, the Navajo Nation filed a motion to intervene in a 2007 lawsuit the owner of the mill brought against the federal government……………..

http://www.kdbc.com/Global/story.asp?S=10425108&nav=menu608_2_3

May 28, 2009 Posted by Christina Macpherson | indigenous issues, USA | antinuclear, indigenous, nuclear, nuclear costs, nuclear wastes, radioactive | Leave a comment

France to pay (well, a bit) for nuclear health problems

France to pay for nuclear health problems

Euro News 28 May 09 People who have suffered health problems arising from France’s past nuclear tests are in line for compensation. It is the first time the government will vote on such a measure after decades of campaigning by pressure groups. France’s Defence Minister Herve Morin said the compensation system would reflect similar ones in Britain and the United States

Paris is setting aside some 10 million euros initially but victims groups say the money needs to be offered to more people exposed to radiation.

Patrice Bouveret, from support group, Truth and Justice, said: “the government is talking about a few hundred victims, whereas several thousand people have health problems which can’t be explained by genetics or smoking but by their presence during France’s atomic tests.”

Around 150,000 people were on site for the hundreds of nuclear tests France carried out in the South Pacific and the Sahara until 1996.

http://www.euronews.net/2009/05/27/france-to-pay-for-nuclear-health-problems/

May 28, 2009 Posted by Christina Macpherson | environment, France | antinuclear, nuclear, radiation, radioactive | Leave a comment

‘Major’ problem plagues reactor

Former watchdog warns of looming crisis

Edmonton Sun PETER.ZIMONJIC 27th May 2009, – “…………………..Linda Keen, the former head of Canada’s nuclear watchdog. …..’We are in a situation that’s worse than in December 2007……’………………When she was president of the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission, Keen forced Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd. to extend a shutdown of the reactor at Chalk River until it could meet federal safety standards…………………….At the time, the federal government called an emergency sitting of parliament where all parties voted to unanimously to overrule Keen and restart the reactor regardless of whether AECL, the Crown corporation that owns and operates the reactor, had complied with safety regulations.

Then in January 2008 Keen was fired as president of the CNSC the night before she was to appear before the natural resources committee to give evidence about the crisis. Since then Keen has remained out of the public eye but this latest shutdown has prompted her to speak out.

HEAVY WATER LEAK

The reactor went down again May 14 and AECL said it wouldn’t be back up until mid-June at the earliest. Others have suggested it could take up to eight months to make the repairs if they’re even possible.

AECL is now trying to find and fix a heavy water leak in the reactor.

Keen called it a “major” problem because the container holding the heavy water is the main fail-safe device in case of a meltdown.

http://www.edmontonsun.com/news/canada/2009/05/27/9582931-sun.html

May 28, 2009 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Canada, safety | antinuclear, nuclear, radioactive | Leave a comment

Unlimited funding for nuclear power in the “Clean Energy Bank”?

The nuclear-power lobby
San Antonio Current by Greg Harman 27 May 09 “………………………

……………….Although the would-be Nuclear Renaissance is a key element of more than a few lawmakers’ agendas, the federal government has failed to address the disposal of the plants’ high-level radioactive waste. The price tag on new nuclear plants has been rising by 15 percent a year — and the projects are already fantastically expensive.

Then you have upstarts like Jon Wellinghoff, head of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, who suggests the world doesn’t need any more nuclear power plants; that renewable energy and efficiency measures alone can provide for the future.

“There’s 500 to 700 gigawatts of developable wind throughout the Midwest,” Wellinghoff said last month, and “enough solar in the Southwest, as we all know, to power the entire country.”

It all boils down to terrible PR for the nuclear industry.

In addition to those immediate troubles, virtually all of the nation’s 104 nuclear plants are set to age themselves out of production by mid-century.

…………………..said Michael Marriott, director of the anti-nuke organization Nuclear Information Resource Service. “One hundred reactors at today’s prices is about a trillion dollars. Is that the best way to spend a trillion dollars, especially when the private sector has made it very clear they’re not going to put up the money?”

Still, nuclear has its boosters. And they’re stealthily creating the legislation now that will provide nuclear power with a raft of new federal subsidies.

………………As it turned out, the nuclear Trojan Horse was already in the bill.

It’s known as a “clean energy bank,” and it creates a new bureaucracy — the Clean Energy Deployment Administration — tasked with doling out federal energy dollars in the form of loans, loan guarantees, and letters of credit.

……………..So far, both the House and Senate Clean Energy Bank versions include nuclear power and “clean” coal — both extractive energy sources that rely on finite materials — among their list of truly renewable power sources like wind and solar. Thanks to a 30-percent cap on the amount any one of these technologies could receive, the House’s Clean Energy Bank language in ACES could allow up to 60 percent of the clean-energy spending to be made on coal and nuclear.

The Senate’s version currently doesn’t include limits on the funds any single power source could receive through the bank…………”

*Not on your irradiated life.

http://sacurrent.com/news/story.asp?id=70184

May 28, 2009 Posted by Christina Macpherson | business and costs, USA | antinuclear, nuclear, nuclear costs, radioactive, uranium | Leave a comment

A first: Navajo’s recent court win over uranium miners

Imperial nuclear power

Examiner.com Ann Garrison 27 May 09 Corporations mined uranium all over the Navajo Nation’s famously scenic mountains, mesas and canyons after World War II,
as the U.S. built its nuclear power, weapons, and war machine.

In “Uranium mining and weapons poisoning, on the Navajo Nation,” I told the story of eight Navajo veterans who died of uranium weapons poisoning within two years of returning from the Gulf War, and, of the toxic legacy of uranium mining on the Navajo Reservation. These histories inspired me, over the past five years, to study the uranium mining industry, most of all in indigenous country in the United States, Canada, Australia, and Africa.

Earlier this month the Navajo Nation won a victory in a U.S. federal appeals court, which supported the Diné Natural Resources and Protection Act of 2005, a ban on uranium mining, and, the only indigenous assertion of sovereignty over natural resources of its kind.

Anyone who might be persuaded by the argument that nuclear power is a clean, green “solution” to global warming , including California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, and San Francisco Mayor and gubernatorial candidate Gavin Newsom, should consider the devastating impact of uranium mining, the first step in the nuclear process, on indigenous peoples and environments all over the world.

http://www.examiner.com/x-8257-SF-Energy-Policy-Examiner~y2009m5d27-Imperial-nuclear-power?#comments

May 28, 2009 Posted by Christina Macpherson | indigenous issues, USA | antinuclear, indigenous, nuclear, radioactive, uranium | Leave a comment

French Naval Base Opens Today

Sarkozy-sales

French Naval Base Opens Today

Khaleej Times T. Ramavarman26 May 2009 “……………….The base to be manned by about 500 personnel, drawn mainly from the French Navy, will be inaugurated by French President Nicolas Sarkozy……………………….The minister said the UAE is pursuing a transparent and peaceful nuclear power programmes, and has emerged as a model to many other countries in this regard…………………….

US nuclear reactor builders GE and Westinghouse Electric Co, a subsidiary of Toshiba Corp, are also trying to get a big share of the expected $40 billion market.

French firms plan to compete for the business. France’s Total, Suez and state nuclear reactor maker Areva said last year they planned to develop two third-generation nuclear reactors in the UAE.

Khaleej Times Online – French Naval Base Opens Today

May 27, 2009 Posted by Christina Macpherson | business and costs, MIDDLE EAST | antinuclear, AREVA, nuclear, nuclear costs, nuclear weapons, radioactive | Leave a comment

President Sarkozy in UAE

Sarkozy-sales

The French president has touched down in Abu Dhabi for a state visit Time Out Dubai 27 may 09 “…………….The UAE and France are due to sign a memorandum of understanding that provides for appointing Emirati diplomats at French missions in countries in which the UAE has no diplomatic missions………………………….Under the agreement, the UAE and France set up a high-level joint committee to supervise cooperation in the areas of nuclear power generation, water desalination,

President Sarkozy in UAE – The Knowledge News – TimeOutDubai.com

May 27, 2009 Posted by Christina Macpherson | MIDDLE EAST, politics | antinuclear, AREVA, nuclear, nuclear costs, nuclear weapons, radioactive | Leave a comment

Justification of new nuclear power in the UK

Justification of new nuclear power in the UK By: Paul Dorfman 26 May 09 “……………………………………There are real problems – for example, information on how radiation-waste and radiation spent fuel from any new nuclear build could possibly be managed, or the health impact of radiation-discharges will not be fully assessed until after the “Justification” decision is taken.

“Justification” of new-build nuclear power will be decided even before the new reactor design is assessed.Also there are significant data gaps in the Nuclear Industry Association (NIA) Application on which “Justification” is built.

There is simply not enough information presented by the NIA in their application to make a rational decision about whether new nuclear build is warranted or not.

For such a significant process, the Justification timeline is short, and decisions will take place in closed session – far from public scrutiny.

The Nuclear Consultation Group believe that it is unfair that that the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change is to be the Justifying Authority – the person who makes the final decision – this is because he has already expressed clear support for new nuclear reactors.Given that Justification, once finalised, may foreclose on any future discussion on issues crucial to nuclear power, it is vital that this process is opened up in order to allow for meaningful and realistic examination of evidence a public forum…………………………..

The Great Debate (UK) » Debate Archive » Justification of new nuclear power in the UK | The Great Debate |

May 27, 2009 Posted by Christina Macpherson | secrets,lies and civil liberties, UK | antinuclear, nuclear, nuclear costs, radioactive | Leave a comment

Uranium mining and weapons poisoning, on the Navajo Nation

Uranium mining and weapons poisoning, on the Navajo Nation – Examiner.com Ann Garrison 27 May 09 “………………

He had almost gone to Flagstaff to enlist just before the Gulf War, in 1991, but had gotten a job making better wages on the reservation instead. Eight of his friends had gone, and all eight had returned alive, but then, all eight had died of cancer, within two years. All eight had believed that uranium weapons poisoning caused their cancers; all eight had been on the deck of an aircraft carrier when a black cloud of munitions blowback descended upon them.

The Veterans Administration denied that their cancers had anything to do with uranium weapons, or, any sort of other toxic exposure in the Gulf,……………. I’m not going to name my friend, or the friends he lost, because the recruiting pressure in Native America is like nothing I’ve ever seen outside New Orleans.

I also learned about the horrific, ongoing post-World War II legacy of uranium mining contamination in Navajoland, which had killed many Navajo people and left many others suffering birth defects and illnesses, including cancer in numbers far disproportionate to the general population.

The uranium in the weapons that the Navajo vets had believed to be the reason they were dying might well have been mined, in their own poisoned homeland, as the U.S. built its post World War II nuclear power, weapons, and war machine.

SF Energy Policy Examiner: Uranium mining and weapons poisoning, on the Navajo Nation

May 27, 2009 Posted by Christina Macpherson | indigenous issues, USA | antinuclear, indigenous, nuclear, radioactive, uranium | Leave a comment

Nuclear waste reprocessing plan melting down?

Nuclear waste reprocessing plan melting down? Examiner.com Robyn Monaghan May 25,

The Obama administration may be melting down a program that would have shipped deadly radioactive wastes from around the world to a reprocessing facility eyed for Chicago’s Southwest suburbs.

“The program has been terminated,” Department of Energy spokesman Brian Quirke told Chicago Page One Examiner last week about the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership.

That happened in late March, when GNEP was chopped from the new budget, he said.

The controversial Global Nuclear Energy Partnership [GNEP] was a pet project of the DOE during the Bush years. It called for transporting radioactive waste from the nation’s 104 nuclear reactors and from 25 foreign countries signed on as “GNEP Partners.”…………………..
……………………Slicing GNEP from the budget doesn’t mean the DOE is completely abandoning the idea of nuclear waste re-processing. The budget funnels $145 million for the Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative, for conducting research on “proliferation-resistant” recycling and nuclear waste reduction technologies. The 2009 budget also includes $143 million for “defense nuclear waste disposal” activities, which some sources say means to developing Yucca Mountain………………………….

It may technically correct to say GNEP is terminated, said David Kraft, with the Chicago-based Nuclear Energy and information Service. In fact, the new administration has simply renamed and re-budgeted it.

‘You can dress up a pig in silk and marry it and call it your wife, but it’s still going to be a pig,” Kraft said.
Opponents say nuclear reprocessing nuclear waste has devastated local and regional environments wherever it’s done – in the UK, France, and Russia. They say France’s decision to reprocess reactor fuel has contaminated seas as far as the Arctic Circle and point to studies that radioactive discharges from La Hague in France contributed to elevated rates of leukemia among young people close to the site…………………………..Obama’s Energy Secretary Steven Chu is Nuclear is promoting nuclear as “clean” in global warming terms, despite “huge issues associated with the waste, in its transport, reprocessing emissions, and storage,” Headington said.

Chicago Page One Examiner: Nuclear waste reprocessing plan melting down? CHICAGO; MORRIS; NAPERVILLE; AURORA

May 26, 2009 Posted by Christina Macpherson | secrets,lies and civil liberties, USA | antinuclear, nuclear, radioactive, uranium | Leave a comment

Doctors urged to use diagnostic alternatives to reactor-produced isotopes

Doctors urged to use diagnostic alternatives to reactor-produced isotopesLaura Eggertson CMAJ Laura Eggertson 26 May 09 The Canadian affiliate of International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War is urging doctors to use diagnostic alternatives to procedures that require reactor-based ionizing radiation, because of links between the way medical isotopes are produced and the nuclear weapons industry…………………….. Edwards, a professor at Vanier Collegein Montréal, Quebec, and consultant on nuclear issues,says that makes the uranium a potential target for terroristsin search of material to build a nuclear bomb. “Now I know thatmost doctors don’t think there’s a connection betweenmedical isotopes and bombs, but unfortunately there is,” Edwards,who is also president of the Canadian Coalition for NuclearResponsibility, told CMAJ. The connection is that molybdenum-99 is broken down into technetium-99m,that is used in about 1.5 million nuclear medicine proceduresin Canada annually, Edwards earlier said to about 40 physiciansat St. Paul’s University in Ottawa, Ont.

Doctors urged to use diagnostic alternatives to reactor-produced isotopes — Eggertson 180 (11): 1102 — Canadian Medical Association Journal

May 26, 2009 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Canada, environment | antinuclear, nuclear, radiation, radioactive | Leave a comment

Arab nuclear ambitions embolden spurs nuclear renaissance

Arab nuclear ambitions spur nuclear renaissdance

The Huffington Post Ahmed Shihab Eldin 25 May

The nuclear deal with the UAE would allow joint ventures with US firms to assist the UAE in building several civilian nuclear power plants and has been signed despite the UAE’s record as a transshipment port for weapons-related materials to Iran.The “123 agreement”, as it is known, includes an “exchange of scientific and technical information and documentation…an exchange and training of personnel…technical assistance and the transfer of material, equipment and components.”……………..

………………..Israel is the only country in the Middle East that currently has nuclear weapons, estimated at between 100-200 warheads. Unlike its Arab neighbours, Israel has yet to sign the NPT………………. The Middle East is filled with various elements of unresolved conflict. Israel possesses formidable nuclear weapons capabilities and Iran has latent potential and appears to be set on advancing its enrichment capabilities.

The Arab world sits anxiously between the two foes, making plans for its own nuclear ambitions and energy programmes inextricably linked to the reality of being wedged between Iran and Israel.

Ahmed Shihab-Eldin: Arab nuclear ambitions embolden spurs nuclear renaissance

May 26, 2009 Posted by Christina Macpherson | MIDDLE EAST, weapons and war | antinuclear, nuclear, nuclear weapons, radioactive | Leave a comment