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China investing in USA’s USEC uranium enrichment comany

Fuel Maker for Reactors Has China as Investor –  NYTimes.com,  24 June 2010, “…….Even a passive Chinese government stake in USEC could draw attention in Washington for its strategic and diplomatic implications. USEC, the parent of the United States Enrichment Corporation, is a cornerstone of America’s nuclear establishment, with classified operations that date back to the initial development of the atomic bomb during the Manhattan Project in World War II……

With $2 billion a year in sales, USEC holds about 30 percent of the worldwide uranium enrichment market for commercial reactors.

And it has been at the center of an Energy Department-administered program to take highly enriched uranium from former Soviet military stockpiles and dilute it for USEC to sell as fuel in civilian nuclear reactors, the so-called megatons-to-megawatts program. It may now do the same for the United States military after President Obama and President Dmitri A. Medvedev of Russia signed an agreement in April calling for deep cuts in nuclear weapons…….

Fuel Maker for Reactors Has China as Investor – DealBook Blog – NYTimes.com

June 24, 2010 Posted by | politics, USA | , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Germany to introduce tax on uranium fuel rods

Merkel rebuffs industry opposition to tax on uranium fuel, Monsters and Critics, Jun 23, 2010, Berlin – Chancellor Angela Merkel on Wednesday rebuffed opposition from German industry to a planned tax on the uranium fuel rods used in nuclear power stations, her spokesman said.  Current legislation requires all the German reactors to cease operation by about 2022……….. Continue reading

June 24, 2010 Posted by | business and costs, Germany | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Uranium One company to be controlled by Russia

Russia’s ARMZ gains control of Canada’s Uranium One, Industrial Fuels and Power, 9 June 2010, Russia’s ARMZ has agreed to acquire a controlling stake in Canada’s Uranium One Inc by buying 356m new shares, effectively raising is current 23 per cent holding to at least 51 per cent. ARMZ will pay the Toronto-based company US$610m cash as well as interests in two Kazakh mines. Uranium One will gain 50 per cent of the Akbastau mine and 49.7 per cent of Zarechnoye in the south of the country.
The acquisition is part of the expansion plans of Rosatom Corp, ARMZ’s parent company and represents the first North American uranium venture for the firm. Russia’s state-owned nuclear company is seeking more uranium sources to supply the nuclear reactors its is building outside Russia. Last month, it revealed plans to invest US$1bn in Namibian uranium deposits. “We’ll use Uranium One as a platform for growth,” Rosatom CEO Sergei Kiriyenko said.

Russia’s ARMZ gains control of Canada’s Uranium One | Industrial Fuels and Power

June 24, 2010 Posted by | business and costs, USA | , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Depleted uranium – a documentary film

DOCUMENTARY Silent genocide – Depleted uranium | qbit.cc An award winning documentary film produced for German television by Freider Wagner and Valentin Thurn. The film exposes the use and impact of radioactive weapons during the current war against Iraq. The story is told by citizens of many nations. It opens with comments by two British veterans, Kenny Duncan and Jenny Moore, describing their exposure to radioactive, so-called depleted uranium (DU), weapons and the congenital abnormalities of their children. Dr. Siegwart-Horst Gunther, a former colleague of Albert Schweitzer, and Tedd Weyman of the Uranium Medical Research Center (UMRC) traveled to Iraq, from Germany and Canada respectively, to assess uranium contamination in Iraq.

Silent genocide – Depleted uranium | qbit.cc

June 24, 2010 Posted by | 2 WORLD, health | , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

A nuclear radioactive mess under London’s Olympic Games site?

Tonnes of radioactive waste casts doubt over London’s Olympic stadium legacy• Presence of waste on site could complicate redevelopment after 2012 Games | UK news | The Guardian, Ian Griffiths 20 June 2010,
The development of the Olympic site in east London after the Games have finished could be in jeopardy because of radioactive waste buried beneath the site, experts have warned. Continue reading

June 23, 2010 Posted by | UK, wastes | , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Australian govt’s welfare measures push Aboriginals off homelands

The NT intervention is clearly racist and is not motivated by concern for Aboriginal children but to enable government control of Aboriginal land.

Many Aboriginal communities have been forced to sign over their land on five-year leases to the federal government — land that contains gold, iron ore, uranium as well as areas that have been slated as potential nuclear waste dumps.

We are all in this together, Green Left Weekly, Ruth Ratcliffe June 20, 2010“…….The Rudd government plans to extend the paternalistic policy of welfare quarantining, which the Howard government initiated in remote Aboriginal communities, to other areas of disadvantage. Instead the government should adequately fund appropriate services and empower communities. Continue reading

June 23, 2010 Posted by | AUSTRALIA, indigenous issues | , , , , | Leave a comment

U.S. defense officials, like Australian unionists, know the dangers of uranium mining

United States defense officials having knowledge of the dangers of uranium are shown in “Censored News,” which publishes human rights reports about indigenous peoples. The photo (  stated that “Navajo uranium miners during the Cold War were sent to their deaths in the mines after the U.S. knew of the dangers of radioactivity.”
Australian Union Bans Workers from Uranium Mines, Nuclear Power Stations – Huntington News Network

Australian Union Bans Workers from Uranium Mines, Nuclear Power Stations By Tony RutherfordHuntingtonnews.net Reporter Huntington, WV (HNN) – Fears of radiation exposure to uranium workers has led to the Electrical Trades Union in Brisbane, Australia, to ban members from working in uranium mines, nuclear power stations, and any part of the nuclear fuel cycle, according to a BBC report. Union leaders believe uranium exposure will replace asbestos as the high profile toxic workplace contaminant.
ETU state secretary, Peter Simpson, stated that uranium is the next asbestos in the workplace.  The report predicts that due to the danger other trade unions will follow and the ban will expand beyond Australia. Continue reading

June 23, 2010 Posted by | 2 WORLD, health | , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Ionising radiation at Niagara Falls – long buried secret of nuclear wastes

The nuclear age is littered with tragedies of unnecessary contamination of unsuspecting populations because of the pretense by government and the nuclear industry that the very real hazard of low levels of internal exposure is no hazard at all.

Radiation Alert: Niagara Falls , The Palestine Telegraph, June 21, By Paul Zimmerman and Louis Ricciuti, “………..Witnessing all this sunshine activity around you, you remain innocently oblivious to the underlying reality being played out before your eyes on this summer day, 2010, in downtown Niagara Falls, New York. In truth, the scene is shrouded by a pall, both invisible and macabre. For you see, what is being excavated besides decayed roadway are dirty little secrets long buried. The dirt and dust taking flight upon the wind is laced with radioactive waste!……….. Continue reading

June 22, 2010 Posted by | secrets,lies and civil liberties, USA | , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Push to prevent uranium shipments through New Zealand ports

Trans-shipment of nuclear ore appeared to contravene the principles of the Nuclear Free Zone, Disarmament and Arms Control Act 1987, which bans nuclear weapons and nuclear-powered ships from New Zealand waters.

Moves to stop uranium shipment Herald Sun: AAP * June 21, 2010 NEW Zealand politicians say they are looking for ways to update anti-nuclear legislation in a bid to block uranium shipments from South Australia passing through New Zealand ports. Continue reading

June 22, 2010 Posted by | New Zealand, politics international | , , , | Leave a comment

AREVA supplying parts to attempt to re-start damaged nuclear reactor

FirstEnergy to place lid on Davis-Besse nuclear power plant cleveland.com, June 21, 2010, “………Davis-Besse has been shut down since Feb. 28 for extensive work to repair cracks in the lid that sprouted unexpectedly in critical components. Such cracks can allow radioactive coolant into the reactor’s containment building — or worse.

Federal rules require an immediate shutdown if leaks are detected.The cracks are similar to fissures that opened up in the late 1990s in parts of Davis-Besse’s original lid and led to a pineapple-sized corrosion hole in that lid before it was discovered in 2004 Continue reading

June 22, 2010 Posted by | business and costs, USA | , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Future is a gamble for uranium companies

Companies Bet on Rise in Demand for Uranium, By MATTHEW L. WALD NYTimes.com June 18, 2010 WASHINGTON — Uranium enrichment, the market that the Noble Group has entered with its purchase of USEC stock, is a globalized business fraught with uncertainty.
Besides rapidly changing technology and questions about how many new reactors will be built, the market can be affected by vagaries like future arms control agreements……….. Continue reading

June 22, 2010 Posted by | business and costs, USA | , , , , | Leave a comment

Uranium not such a good investment now

Uranium Investors More Cautious ,   Uranium Investing News Jun 21, 2010 By Dave Brown – Interest in uranium investing has declined, according to a recent survey conducted by Resources Investing News.  The results indicate that fewer investors were placing their bets on uranium companies, down to 12 percent from 16.9 percent at the end of 2009. Surprisingly, uranium spot prices have declined almost 20 percent since October 2009,……Since last year, the number of operating nuclear power facilities increased by 1 …….. the lag between price and production and future uranium price due to the challenges and complexities of the nuclear fuel cycle.

June 22, 2010 Posted by | 2 WORLD, business and costs | , , | Leave a comment

Truth emerging on health ill effects of low levels of ionising radiation

Radiation Alert: Niagara Falls , The Palestine Telegraph, June 21,  – By Paul Zimmerman and Louis Ricciuti, “…….In the last half century, numerous incidents have testified to the hazard to health from low levels of internal emitters, radionuclides absorbed from nuclear pollution in the environment which undergo radioactive decay while sequestered within the human body’s interior. In many cases, injury was incurred from levels of exposure significantly below what the radiation protection agencies consider the threshold for radiation-induced illness. Continue reading

June 22, 2010 Posted by | 2 WORLD, health | , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

U.S. Senators trying to greenwash nuclear power

The nuclear power industry has skillfully and successfully painted itself green — an environmentally benign answer to reducing carbon emissions. The industry and many in Washington want us to believe that a new generation of nuclear reactors will solve the problems of climate change and allow us to live happily ever after. That’s a costly fairy tale.

US climate proposal a nuclear bailout By Richard Clapp  Shanghai Daily, 2010-6-19 THE long-awaited climate proposal crafted by US Senators John Kerry and Joseph Lieberman has finally landed on Capitol Hill. The proposal, though, is a massive nuclear bailout under the guise of an energy overhaul. Continue reading

June 21, 2010 Posted by | climate change, USA | , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Mental retardation in children due to uranium

There’s high-level of uranium in the drinking-water sources..…..Most children are below the age of 13 and all have neurological disabilities.

Uranium in retarded kids’ systems: German lab | Global Sikh News Source: H. Sidhu, 18 Junex 2010, Bathinda, Punjab: Water samples from the region contain a high amount of uranium and other heavy metals. It’s crippling children’s brains. Continue reading

June 21, 2010 Posted by | health, India | , , | Leave a comment