Nuclear weapons option to go back on the table?
Australian report canvasses nuclear weapons option World Socialist Website By Mike Head 30 December 2009 An Australian government-funded military policy think tank issued a report this month advocating a policy shift to re-open the option of building a nuclear arsenal Continue reading
What about the radiation risks of airport scanning?
“I’ve read nothing about the accumulated radiation risk. Will pregnant women be forced to submit? What about women who aren’t certain that they’re pregnant?
Getting X-Rayed at the Airport: Radiation Risk Anyone? Huffington Post Carol Felsenthal December 30, 2009 I read in both Chicago dailies and the New York Times and Wall Street Journal much about the full-body scanners that seem destined for airports around the world– in hopes that they might prevent another near miss like the Christmas Day attempt by the young Nigerian to blow a hole in the side of the Amsterdam to Detroit airplane. Continue reading
Doubts about the future of uranium mining
“Right now, there’s a lot of speculation, but exactly how large demand will grow, no one knows.”
Canada: Two companies push Uranium mining in region By GARY HARMON/The Grand Junction Daily Sentinel December 27, 2009 Two major international suppliers of uranium, meanwhile, are out of commission temporarily and possibly permanently. The Cigar Lake Mine in Canada flooded, and the Olympic Dam Mine in Australia is out of production because of a shaft accident..………………. Continue reading
USA Nuclear lobby demands $100 billion in EXTRA funding from govt
The nuclear trade group has called for $100 billion in additional loan guarantees for low carbon energy sources to help support replacing aging reactors
U.S. Loans to Boost Nuclear Industry Seen Soon abc News By Ayesha Rascoe December 28, 2009
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The Obama administration is poised to announce loan guarantees to help kick-start the country’s nuclear power industry, which hasn’t built a new plant in more than three decades. Continue reading
India’s nuclear program hampered by lack of insurance
All property insurance covers exclude losses due to nuclear reaction, nuclear radiation or radioactive contamination.
Irda sounds out insurers on nuclear accident cover The Economic Times 29 Dec 2009, Hema Ramakrishnan & Mayur Shetty, ET Bureau NEW DELHI|MUMBAI: A year after private nuclear plants became a possibility in India following the Indo-US nuclear deal, the insurance regulator is deliberating with companies to cover liabilities arising out of deliberating with companies to cover liabilities arising out of nuclear accidents, which is essential for such plants…
…Currently, nuclear risks are not covered by any policy, as insurers do not have the wherewithal to estimate liabilities. All property insurance covers exclude losses due to nuclear reaction, nuclear radiation or radioactive contamination.
In most countries, operators of nuclear plants buy insurance cover as they are liable to pay compensation for any damage. Normally, the liability is limited by both international conventions and national legislation. The state has the responsibility to accept any liability more than insured.
The absence of such covers here may make it difficult to fund relief, if an accident occurs.
The US, for instance, is not bound by any international nuclear liability convention. The liability from a nuclear accident is addressed by the Price Anderson Act of 1956, which provides $10 billion in cover without cost to the government. It covers power reactors, research reactors and all other nuclear facilities.
Irda sounds out insurers on nuclear accident cover- Insurance news-Insurance-Personal Finance-The Economic Times
Radiation scan urged, for air travel safety
It’s unclear how much radiation this would subject people to..
Full Body Scans Only Way To Stop Flight 253-Type Attempts: Expert Huliq News by Michael Santo 29 Dec 09 As the world continues to reel in the aftermath of the flight 253 incident, in which Nigerian national Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, 23, attempted to set off PETN explosive on a Northwest Airlines flight (Delta Airlines is NWA’s parent company), a security expert says there is an answer. The backscatter machine, which provides a full body scan, could have prevented the incident, but at the cost of privacy for many……………It’s unclear how much radiation this would subject people to, however, and the potential for harm from that, for frequent travelers. There is still a loophole, however, as the backscatter machine would not detect anything hidden in a body cavity. Unfortunately, a full body X-ray would subject passengers to too much radiation, and cost millions more to implement (a backscatter machine would only cost $200,000, Laird said).
Full Body Scans Only Way To Stop Flight 253-Type Attempts: Expert | HULIQ
Russia keeping its policy of nuclear first strike
Weak Russian Military Suggestive of Nuclear First Strike Doctrine The Market Oracle by Pravda, 27 Dec 09 In October 2009, Nicolai Patrushev, Russia’s Security Council Secretary, announced that the new military doctrine was on its way. The old one was dated back in 2000 and written even earlier, under Yeltsin. Patrushev named the announcement of Russia’s right for a preventive nuclear strike the key provision of the new doctrine. He kept his word, and this provision does exist in the text of the doctrine approved by the Security Council. Continue reading
Russia still ignoring its nuclear guinea pigs
These people were used as guinea pigs, tested, and then left to die slowly of cancer. The state does not want their tragedy recognized, because it would cost money. Nobody wants to know.
Global changes ruining the world September 25, 2009 Human Nuclear Action Soviet Human Nuclear Experiments Reported According to recently released reports, some 45,000 people, mainly Soviet soldiers, were deliberately exposed in 1954 to radiation from a bomb twice as powerful as the one dropped on Hiroshima just nine years before. Continue reading
Nuclear power declining, not reviving, in USA
Throughout the US, while the corporate media hypes a “renaissance” of new nukes, facts on the ground say the opposite is happening
A Quiet but HUGE No Nukes Triumph By Harvey Wasserman 24 Dec 09
In the wake of Copenhagen, an unheralded but hard-fought No Nukes victory has moved us closer to a green-powered Earth.
It has happened in upstate New York, Continue reading
“Nuclear ‘renaissance'” stalled in Europe, UK, USA
“It turns out that new plants would be not just extremely expensive but spectacularly expensive.”
Nuclear economics just don’t add up Sydney Morning Herald MICHAEL R. JAMES December 24, 2009 -……………………..Contrary to the claims of a nuclear resurgence in Europe and the world, it is far from certain how much of Europe will actually implement their plans. Continue reading
Church group affirms indigenous rights
Quaker Indian Committee disavows Doctrine of Discovery, affirms Declaration Indian Country Today By Gale Courey Toensing Dec 17, 2009 PHILADELPHIA – Inspired by the actions of the Episcopal Church, a Quaker group has disavowed the Christian Doctrine of Discovery and voiced its support for the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. Continue reading
Glowing future for renewable energy
(USA) Surfing a wave of Californian sunshine as America looks for renewable future The Times December 23, 2009 “………….The US Energy Department has calculated that a 62-square-mile (160 sq km) parcel of the Mojave that straddles Nevada, Utah, California and Arizona receives enough sunlight to power the entire country. Continue reading
Look to the positives beyond Copenhagen
Obama Accord a good thing amid Copenhagen fiasco The Age ROSS GARNAUT December 22, 2009 The United Nations meeting on climate change at Copenhagen was a fiasco. The several months of intense discussion among leading economies that culminated in the Obama Accord in Copenhagen last weekend were not. Continue reading
South African protest against nuclear power
Cape residents oppose nuclear power station December 20 2009 IOL o By Melanie Gosling Residents opposed to the building of a nuclear power station at Bantamsklip on the southern Cape coast staged a protest march through Hermanus on Saturday and handed a memorandum to the Overstrand municipality, saying the local authority had failed to represent their interests by supporting the proposed nuclear power plant. Continue reading
Revelations of terrorist plot against nuclear plant
Chicagoan Said to Have Helped Terrorists Target Nuclear Plant abcnews.go.com Authorities Say David Headley Cased, Photographed Facility at Tombroy, India, that Produces Plutonium for Nuke Weapons By RICHARD ESPOSITO and BRIAN ROSSDec. 20, 2009 Continue reading
1 This month
of the week – Disrupting War & Militarism in Oceania. Active solidarity. Radical practice.
Antinuclear 