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Britain's nuclear strategy threatens destruction of Kalahari | Environment | The Observer
Namibian environmentalists warn expansion of uranium mining could devastate spectacular natural landscape
The hidden cost of Britain's new generation of nuclear power could be the destruction of the Kalahari desert in Namibia and millions of tonnes of extra greenhouse gas emissions a year, the Observer has discovered.
The desert, with its towering sand dunes and spectacular lunar-like landscapes, is at the centre of an international uranium rush led by Rössing Uranium, a subsidiary of the British mining giant Rio Tinto, and the French state-owned company, Areva, which part-manages the nuclear complex at Sellafield and wants to build others in Britain.
Cape Times: Truck with radioactive material crashes
A bakkie carrying radioactive material rolled on the N1 near Bellville, shutting down traffic in both directions for more than two hours yesterday.
Two men in the bakkie were taken to Louis Leipoldt Medi-Clinic for treatment after the accident at about 11.30am between Durban and Old Oak roads.
The bakkie allegedly swerved to avoid another car and rolled on to the centre island, said Tristan Wadeley, a spokesman for ER24. He said the driver told paramedics who were first on the scene that the bakkie was transporting hazardous material.
"It is radioactive, but the container was not broken and it did not spill," said Anzelle Smit, spokeswoman for the Western Cape Health Department EMS.
Gaddafi highlights nuclear 'double standards' - Africa, World - The Independent
Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi today said that the Palestinians should be allowed to have nuclear weapons if the world does not act to disarm Israel of its arsenal.
Colonel Gaddafi accused the international community of "double standards" because Israel is allowed to maintain a barely-hidden nuclear capability while Iran comes under massive pressure not to develop its own.
iafrica.com | science Toxic waste protested
Around 1000 people joined a protest march on Saturday to demand government action on toxic waste sunk by the mafia in boats off the southern Italian coast, media reports said.
"The state must consider this task a priority by allocating funding and supporting the magistrates' inquiry, and monitoring polluted sites and cleaning them up," said the president of the environmental organisation Legambiente, Vittorio Cogliati Dezza, quoted by Italian media.
The demonstrators marched through the town of Amantea holding banners reading "No to the Calabria dustbin."
Africa choking on West’s waste - The National Newspaper
It started with a story about nothing. Last week, Britain’s Guardian newspaper posted a short, vague article on its website about a question being asked in Parliament. But that was about it: the newspaper said it couldn’t reveal “who has asked the question, what the question is, which minister might answer it, or where the question is to be found”. Worse, the paper couldn’t say why not, only that “legal obstacles, which cannot be identified, involve proceedings, which cannot be mentioned, on behalf of a client who must remain secret”.
A baffling story but one that, in the internet age, was soon fleshed out by intrepid bloggers. They uncovered so much of the hidden story that, by the next morning, the parties involved backed down before their court appearance with the newspaper.
New Vision Online : Uganda halts nuclear power project
UGANDA is not rushing to build a nuclear power plant, it has been announced.
Sources privy to the matter said the country will wait until its human resource capacity, legal and regulatory framework as well as the financial obligations are strengthened.
“There is no competence in the country to handle nuclear power project and we cannot build this overnight,” the sources added.
The announcement comes at a time when IBI, a junior mining company from Canada, is pushing for the signing of a memorandum of understanding with the Government for a nuclear power development in Uganda.
BBC NEWS | 'Toxic waste' report gag lifted
Lawyers for the oil trading company Trafigura have ended attempts to keep secret a scientific report about toxic waste dumping in the Ivory Coast.
The legal firm Carter-Ruck has written to the Guardian saying the paper should regard itself as "released forthwith" from any reporting restrictions.
Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger welcomed the move.
Trafigura said neither they nor Carter-Ruck had "improperly sought to stifle or restrict" debate and reporting.
An MP revealed the report's existence to parliament earlier this week after the Guardian was served with a "super-injunction" banning all mention of it.
Churches back nuclear-free Africa | Ekklesia
Following recent action by Africa, a majority of the world's countries have now banned nuclear weapons from their national territory for the first time. The change happened when an all-Africa treaty entered into force in July. International civil society organizations including the World Council of Churches (WCC) played a catalytic role.
Taking a shared approach to a safer world, Africa became a nuclear-weapon-free zone when Burundi recently became the 28th state to ratify the Treaty of Pelindaba. A WCC delegation visited the central African country in March 2009 to encourage the step. The addition of 54 countries in Africa means that 116 nations are now within treaty zones banning nuclear weapons.
The WCC Central Committee has saluted Africa's new nuclear-free status in a September 2009 statement and invites further church support for such actions. The committee has also urged Russia and the United States "to join China, Britain and France in ratifying the treaty protocols that give Africa added protection" from nuclear attacks.
Sudan Vision Daily News - Sudan Agrees with IAEA on Nuclear Energy Programme
The Sudanese government announced today that it signed a framework agreement with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) on developing a nuclear energy program.
The Sudanese cabinet session headed by President Omer Hassan Al-Bashir was briefed on the details of the agreement from minister of science and technology, Professor Ibrahim Ahmed Omer.
The spokesperson of Sudan’s cabinet, Omer Mohammed Saleh said the understanding between the two sides also includes using nuclear technology to improving productivity in agricultural and livestock, enhance infrastructure to treat cancer patients, uncovering drug resistant malaria, new energy sources, a study of groundwater basins and feeding it and the production of medical isotopes.
Ethiopian News | Nuclear Egypt poses a real danger to Ethiopia
North Korea keeps shooting its long range missiles now and then. These missiles do not just reach all important targets; they can also deliver a nuclear message. Its leaders, or rather leader, has effectively made the world believe that he is unpredictable, that one day he could really strike American or South Korean targets.
Japan, Russia and China are all concerned, but not as badly as the other two countries. He has the gun; he seems to have the will to use it. The missing element is the excuse. (Of course, the other side of the argument is that he is already using them and reaping the benefits at least from the immediate south.) Now there are many of us who think that we are too far away or too detached to be concerned about this issue.
South Africa: Pebble bed study flawed, claims NGO
A key assessment document for the proposed pebble bed nuclear reactor was fatally flawed, the Public Service Accountability Monitor said on Tuesday.
A decision on whether to go ahead with a PBMR demonstration project involved choices on the use of substantial public resources, the Grahamstown-based NGO said.
It said the socio-economic impact assessment (SEIA) carried out on the project did not give the public the information it needed to participate meaningfully in these decisions.
It said the SEIA was based on a proposal for a 400 megawatt demonstration unit.
However the Pebble Bed Modular Reactor (Pty) Limited (PBMR) website now said the reactor was "designated DPP200".
Africa Renounces Nukes
Treaty's Entry Into Force Makes Entire Southern Hemisphere Free of Nuclear Weapons
Over the last 13 years, all 53 African nations have signed the Treaty of Pelindaba.
A Treaty making Africa into a zone free of nuclear weapons entered into force on 15 July 2009, in turn expanding the nuclear-weapon free territories to cover the entire Southern hemisphere. The Treaty of Pelindaba entered into force when Burundi deposited its instrument of ratification, becoming the 28th nation to do so. Over the last 13 years, all 53 African nations have signed the Treaty of Pelindaba.
The IAEA has issued the following statement:
Bishop advises against nuclear energy
A Christian cleric, Olugbenga Olu, has advised the Federal Government against embracing nuclear energy to solve the nation's energy crisis.
Mr. Olu, the Bishop of the newly created Remo Central Diocese of the Methodist Church of Nigeria in Ogun State, said that the cost implication of such a venture would be too much on the nation, aside from the dearth of nuclear expertise in the country.
He said he feared for nuclear accidents that could lead to serious radiation effects, which the nation was not yet disposed to handle effectively.
According to him, "the harmful effect of radioactive elements on the human, among several other negative tendencies, are better imagined than experienced".
The cleric said the church favoured the option of exploiting wind, coal, gas and hydro resources, as sources of power, adding that they were ``better alternatives to nuclear energy and its attendant risks."
bt - Egypt awards Worley Parsons nuclear deal after talks with Bechtel break down
The cool waters of the Mediterranean swell gently against El-Daba’a’s deserted shoreline. About halfway between Alexandria and Marsa Matruh on the North Coast, the more than 100 kilometer-stretch of white sand and vibrant coral reef would be considered prime property for tourism development, if not for the fact it has been selected as one of five possible sites for Egypt’s first nuclear power plant. The nuclear project could also constitute a first for the region, aside from Israel. Planning for the 1,200-megawatt project, set for completion in 10 years time, is well underway, according to the plant’s official consultant, global engineering firm WorleyParsons.
The Nuclear Power Plants Authority (NPPA), a division of the Ministry of Electricity and Energy, awarded WorleyParsons the LE 900 million consulting contract two months ago. The parties signed the contract June 18, more than 50 years after Egypt’s nuclear program was established.
Business Report - Cost of nuclear demo plant soars to R31bn
The cost of Pebble Bed Modular Reactor's (PBMR's) demonstration plant and pilot fuel plant had almost doubled to R31-billion as a result of inflation and higher materials costs, company chief executive Jaco Kriek said last week.
Kriek said the demonstration reactor, which would generate 200 megawatts of heat and 80MW of electricity, was now expected to be commissioned by 2018 - four years later than previously expected.
The plant has yet to receive environmental clearance.
Why go nuclear when better and cheaper options exist? - Mail & Guardian Online: The smart news source
Eskom's hikes in the electricity price by around a quarter and a third in two years and its need to repeat such price increases for the next three years bring one issue to a head.
Why are Eskom and the departments of energy and public enterprises so grimly determined to generate electricity by the most expensive and complicated of all options -- atomic power stations and their high-level radioactive waste depositaries?
Eskom and other power companies have set up Westcor (Western Corridor Power Company), incorporated in Botswana. This has spent years conducting road shows for the World Bank and others, estimating the Inga3 hydro-electric power project in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) at around R70-billion.
IAEA chief calls on African countries to explore nuclear energy via regional approach_English_Xinhua
African countries can make use of the valuable nuclear technique to ensure better productivity via exploring a regional approach, the visiting UN International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) chief said here on Wednesday.
IAEA Director-General Mohamed ElBaradei made the remarks at a joint press conference with Tanzanian Communication, Science and Technology Minister Peter Msolla in responding to a question from Xinhua about his comments on the increasing efforts of African countries to pursue nuclear energy for peaceful purpose.
"We have many programs in all our member states in the African continent in using nuclear techniques. These are the valuable techniques in increasing food production, extending people's life, making varieties through natural breeding and nutrition to ensure you have better productivity," ElBaradei said.
AFP: British PM says Libya offers nuclear lesson to world
British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said Friday that Libya's renunciation of weapons of mass destruction offered an "important lesson" amid fears over North Korea and Iran's nuclear ambitions.
Brown was speaking to reporters at the G8 summit after his first meeting with Libyan leader Moamer Kadhafi.
He said Libya's announcement in 2003 showed that the world must construct a "bargain or a deal or a compact" in negotiations.
Group of Eight leaders meeting at their summit in Italy agreed to US President Barack Obama's proposal that a nuclear security summit should be held in Washington ahead of the planned review of the Non-Proliferation Treaty.
French nuclear test victims to get compo
The French National Assembly approved a landmark bill on compensating the victims of nuclear tests carried out in French Polynesia and Algeria over more than three decades.
Some 150,000 civilian and military personnel took part in 210 nuclear tests carried out in the Sahara desert and the Pacific between 1960 and 1996. Many of them later developed serious health problems.
AFP: Russian president talks with Namibia on uranium
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev on Thursday called for boosting trade with Namibia, at the start of the first visit by a Kremlin chief to the uranium-rich southern African nation.
"We should have started work with our African partners a long time ago," Medvedev told reporters after talks with his Namibian counterpart Hifikepunye Pohamba.
The talks produced few major announcements, but Medvedev used the visit to highlight Russia's desire to reassert Moscow's influence on a continent where many countries were once under the Soviet sphere of influence.
"Africa is waiting for our support. The civilised part of mankind, as it is accustomed to be called, should pay its debts to Africa," he said.
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