Home
Energy Net's Library tagged → View Popular
Residents around plant get locked in - dnaindia.com
The mischief at India's most modern nuclear power plant in Kaiga, 35 km south of Karwar (Karnataka), that left 55 employees ill has struck fear among the residents of nearby Mallapuram. Almost a week after the incident, the township where the affected were taken for medical care, wears a deserted look, with most people keeping indoors.
Though the authorities have signaled 'no danger', employees of the plant and other residents alike are not venturing out even for daily needs. The entire area has been cordoned off and the road to Kaiga from Mallapuram blocked by investigators.
"We are living in constant fear since the incident took place," Suguna (name changed), a teacher who lives with her husband in one of the Type-B quarters, said.She is angry at the restrictions that have been put in place after radioactive material found its way into drinking water at the plant.
Radiation leakage in India nuclear power plant act of sabotage: official _English_Xinhua
The radiation leakage in a state-run nuclear power plant in southern India is an "act of sabotage" possibly by a disgruntled employees at the plant, India's Atomic Energy Commission chief Anil Kakodkar said on Sunday.
Some 50 employees of highly protected Kaiga Atomic Power Plant in the southern Indian state of Karnataka, southern India, fell ill for being exposed to the radiation leakage, after they drank water from a cooler in the operating area on Nov. 24.
"Somebody deliberately put the tritiated water vials into a drinking water cooler. Therefore, we are investigating who is behind the malevolent act. People involved will be punished under the Atomic Energy and other acts after investigation," Kakodkar told the media.
"The investigations are being carried out from two angles. First to ascertain as to who contaminated the water cooler with tritiated heavy water, and the second from radiation protection angle," said Kakodkar.
Radiation Leak at India Nuclear Plant Sickens Workers (Update1) - Bloomberg.com
Workers at a nuclear plant in India took ill after radioactive heavy water contaminated their drinking water and the state-run Nuclear Power Corp. suspects “mischief” may have been the cause.
An unspecified number of workers at the Kaiga plant, in southern Karnataka state, were advised to visit doctors for “routine medical consultation” and are back on normal work schedules, the company said in a statement on its Web site late yesterday. At least 45 workers were hospitalized on Nov. 25 after they received higher levels of radiation than permissible, the Times of India newspaper reported, without citing anyone.
The Hindu: 55 workers at Kaiga receive excessive radiation
CHENNAI: About 55 workers of the Kaiga Atomic Power Station in Uttara Kannada, Karnataka, had to undergo medical treatment after they were exposed to an excessive radiation dosage when they drank water that had been mixed with tritium, a highly radioactive substance.
Top officials of the Nuclear Power Corporation of India Limited blamed the incident on “an insider’s mischief.” They alleged that “an insider had mixed tritium in drinking water in a cooler kept in the operating island of the first unit” at Kaiga. The incident took place on November 25, when the first unit (220 MWe) was under shutdown for maintenance.
Asked specifically whether security was so lax at the plant that a worker could access a bottle containing tritium, an authoritative official said there were sampling points in the reactor building from where workers took vials containing radioactive substances to the chemical laboratories for analysis.
“There are standard protocols for handling and managing the transportation and depositing of such radioactive substances. Some insider has played the mischief,” the official said. The incident was detected when the workers’ urine samples showed an excess of tritium.
Nuclear power plants safe: Atomic Energy Council - The China Post
Responding to the fears expressed by residents and lawmakers of the risk posed by nuclear power plants built on earthquake zones, government officials reemphasized the safety of the facilities with a press release this week.
The safety of the two reactors near Taipei Basin is guaranteed and the earthquake-resistant design is solid, said the Cabinet-level Atomic Energy Council (AEC) in the release.
In response to local media reports and legislators' concerns that the first and second nuclear power plants in north Taiwan threaten the region, the council reaffirmed that the earthquake-resistant designs can withstand nearly eight times the strength of the 7.3-magnitude earthquake that struck Taiwan a decade ago on Sept. 21, claiming more than 2,400 lives.
JAPAN – UNITED STATES Secret nuclear deals between Tokyo and Washington | Spero News
For decades, the authorities have denied that nuclear weapons were present in Japan; yet it allowed United States to stockpile and transport them on Japanese soil. The credibility of the Liberal Democratic Party, now in the opposition, sinks further.
Tokyo – The people of Japan was deceived for decades, this according to declassified documents that are only now coming to light about secret deals between Washington and Tokyo with regards to the presence of nuclear weapons on Japanese soil. Since 1960, the government led by the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) has repeatedly denied that nuclear weapons were ever present in Japan or that any agreement existed to that effect.
In mid-October, the National Security Archives in Washington released declassified telegrams, background papers and top-secret minutes regarding US nuclear weapons policy in Okinawa and, more broadly, Japan between the 1950s and 1972. Information about secret deals comes from this source, but it is neither the only nor the main one.
The ‘secret’ US-Japan pact with loaded content — William Choong
Most visitors to Japan, this writer included, are usually impressed by the politeness of the Japanese. Taxi drivers are not gruff, department store staff bow, hotel porters try their best to help.
In this light, the country's former Foreign Minister Sunao Sonoda was rather un-Japanese when he denounced Dr Edwin Reischauer, America's envoy to Tokyo in the 1960s, a figure who was widely respected in Japan.
In 1981, Reischauer had spoken of a secret pact between the United States and Japan, whereby nuclear-armed US ships were allowed into Japan. This defied Japan's cherished “three 'no's” — that it shall not produce, possess or introduce nuclear arms.
“I have never met Dr Reischauer,” Sonoda told the Japanese Diet. “But he is an uncalled-for meddler who pokes his nose into matters that are absolutely none of his business.”
Nearly 30 years later, the issue of the secret pact has popped up again.
South Asia Mail: Say no to nuclear plant, Mahasweta tells tribals
Railing against a proposed nuclear power plant in West Bengal's Haripur, celebrated writer Mahasweta Devi has urged tribals to send five post cards each to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh saying no to the plant.
"The proposed nuclear power plants in the country are the brainchild of the prime minister. So you have to take the protests to his doorstep," Mahasweta Devi said while addressing a convention of tribal people here Tuesday.
The Magsaysay award winner called upon tribals to carry out an intense but peaceful and democratic agitation against the proposed Haripur power plant in East Midnapur district.
"Each of you should send five postcards to the prime minister. On each postcard it should be written 'Say no to Haripur nuclear power plant in West Bengal'," she said, giving the audience the addresses of the prime minister's residence and office in the national capital.
Japan says it will soon release details of nuclear pact with U.S. - washingtonpost.com
Japan's new government, already bickering with the United States about the location of a Marine air station on Okinawa, appears intent on revealing evidence of a decades-old secret pact between Tokyo and Washington that allowed U.S. ships and aircraft to carry nuclear weapons on stopovers in Japan.
Foreign Minister Katsuya Okada said that the investigation is in its final stages and that its findings will be announced in January. "We'll be unburdening ourselves of the insistence of past governments that a secret agreement did not exist," Okada said in a speech last weekend.
The pact violates a Japanese law that prohibits nuclear weapons from being made, possessed or stored on its territory. But disclosure of the 1960s-era agreement is hardly new. In general outline, its existence has been known for years because of declassified U.S. government documents.
Japan plans to expose secret U.S. pact - UPI.com
The details of a secret agreement with the United States allowing nuclear weapons in Japan will be released in January, Foreign Minister Katsuya Okada says.
Okada said the government's investigation of the pact is almost complete, The Washington Post reported.
"We'll be unburdening ourselves of the insistence of past governments that a secret agreement did not exist," Okada said in a speech Saturday.
Japan Finds Documents Indicating Secret Nuclear Pact, NHK Says - Bloomberg.com
Japan’s government has discovered documents indicating the existence of a secret agreement allowing the U.S. to transport nuclear weapons through its territory, public broadcaster NHK reported on its Web site.
The government will set up a panel of experts to examine the documents and will announce the findings early next year, Foreign Minister Katsuya Okada said yesterday, according to NHK.
To contact the reporters on this story: Chris Cooper in Tokyo at ccooper1@bloomberg.net
Asia Times Online: Nuclear fallout rocks Pakistan
Sharp differences between Pakistani leaders over safeguarding the country's nuclear arsenal are placing increasing pressure on the embattled administration of President Asif Ali Zardari.
Zardari is already seriously at odds with the military establishment over dealing with the Taliban-led insurgency and there is a strong likelihood that his government will face a make-or-break test within weeks in the form of mass street protests.
Pakistan has reacted strongly to an article in The New Yorker by investigative reporter Seymour Hersh on November 16, "Defending the arsenal", in which he claimed that Pakistan was discussing "understandings" with the US that could even see specialists take sophisticated nuclear triggers out of the country to prevent them
AFP: Smoke rises from Japan nuclear plant
Smoke rose on Thursday from the world's largest nuclear power plant in Japan, which was shut down by an earthquake two years ago, but the operator said no-one was injured and there was no radiation leak.
The smoke was caused by friction from the brake of a crane in a reactor's turbine room, operator Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO) said in a statement.
"We reported immediately to the fire station and used fire extinguishers and now the smoke has stopped," the statement said.
"There were no injuries nor any radiation leak" in the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa nuclear plant in Niigata prefecture, 200 kilometres (125 miles) north of Tokyo, it said. The company said it would thoroughly investigate.
WPR Article | Global Insights: The Great Nuclear Wall of China
Although nuclear arms control is not likely to be a major agenda item during President Barack Obama's visit to China, it should be. One of the obstacles facing the president as he seeks to realize the ambitious goals endorsed by the Nobel Peace Prize Committee is the need to transform the primarily bilateral strategic arms control relationship inherited from the Cold War into one that places greater emphasis on multilateral frameworks.
Although Moscow and Washington have made progress in negotiating a replacement for the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) that expires this December, other nuclear weapons states must also join this reduction process, which thus far has been almost exclusively a Russian-American affair.
India puts nuclear plants on alert-report | Reuters
India has put its nuclear power plants under alert and tightened security around them after intelligence about possible attacks, a report said on Monday.
The step comes after a man arrested in the United States on charges of plotting attacks in India was found to have travelled to Indian states that have nuclear installations.
The Press Trust of India quoted unnamed sources in the home ministry as saying that state governments had been asked to step up security around their nuclear plants as a "precautionary measure".
"The step is precautionary in nature. The states have been asked to increase the vigil and patrolling to thwart any sabotage attempt aimed at these vital facilities," a home ministry official was quoted as saying.
Indian media often reports security alerts based on unnamed intelligence sources.
AFP: Hitachi plans to raise 4.6 billion dollars
Japanese high-tech giant Hitachi Ltd., reeling from massive losses, said Monday that it planned to raise 415.7 billion yen (4.6 billion dollars) from investors to shore up its shaky finances.
Hitachi, which makes everything from refrigerators to nuclear power systems, aims to drum up the cash by selling convertible bonds and new shares. The sprawling conglomerate has been hit hard by the global economic downturn.
It is restructuring with measures including 7,000 job cuts, after losing 787.3 billion yen in the year to March 2009 -- the biggest ever loss for a Japanese manufacturer.
Other cash-strapped Japanese companies are also going cap in hand to investors to bolster their capital, including electronics giant NEC.
AdelaideNow... Maralinga test site returned to people Maralinga Tjarutja people
LAND in outback South Australia used for nuclear weapons testing in the aftermath of World War II will be handed back to the traditional Aboriginal owners.
Environment and Conservation and Aboriginal Affairs and Reconciliation Minister Jay Weatherill today told Parliament the final section of the Maralinga test site would be returned to the Maralinga Tjarutja people.
"The Maralinga nuclear test occurred during a period in our history when little regard was given to Aboriginal people and their connection with the land," he said.
Land trouble may trip N-power in Gujarat
Vashram Patel, a farmer in the Jasapara village in Gujarat, says it is better to “fight and die” on his land rather than move to another place.
“Most of us are illiterate and we have done nothing except farming for generations now. Where will we go?” Patel asks, signalling the beginning of yet another land acquisition problem in India.
Patel’s angst may spell trouble for Nuclear Power Corporation (NPC) which is planning to set up a 6,000 Mw nuclear power project in the area.
NPC is facing protests from farmers who are refusing to make way for the Rs 50,000 crore project, the first major initiative after the civilian nuclear agreement between India and the US.
Pakistani nuclear scientist's accounts tell of Chinese proliferation - washingtonpost.com
Accounts by controversial scientist assert China gave Pakistan enough enriched uranium in '82 to make 2 bombs
In 1982, a Pakistani military C-130 left the western Chinese city of Urumqi with a highly unusual cargo: enough weapons-grade uranium for two atomic bombs, according to accounts written by the father of Pakistan's nuclear weapons program, Abdul Qadeer Khan, and provided to The Washington Post.
AFP: US, Japan to call for nuke-free world: reports
US President Barack Obama and Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama plan to issue a joint statement calling for a world without nuclear weapons when they hold talks Friday, reports said.
In the statement, tentatively entitled the US-Japan joint initiative for a nuclear-free world, they would welcome rising international momentum toward arms reduction and non-proliferation, the Yomiuri said Thursday.
In their joint effort, the United States would seek to raise the global momentum, while Japan would push the message from its perspective as the only country to have been hit with atomic bombs.
The statement would be based on the UN resolution adopted in September at a Security Council summit hosted by Obama, Jiji Press said.
Selected Tags
Related Tags
Sponsored Links
Top Contributors
Groups interested in asia
-
Asia
Items: 29 | Visits: 47
Created by: sussex cdec
-
asia
Items: 42 | Visits: 57
Created by: Rich Hintz
-
Companies in brief: Week of November 11th
During the week of November...
Items: 36 | Visits: 65
Created by: Lisa Damast
Diigo is about better ways to research, share and collaborate on information. Learn more »
Join Diigo