Sweden
An observer has called last week’s mishap in Sweden the worst incident to befall a nuclear power plant since the accident at Chernobyl. Nobody was injured, but for 22 minutes, workers had no idea what was happening in the reactor’s core. Swedish officials have taken half the country’s nuclear power plants offline until it can ensure their safe operation.
Speigel Online 4th August 2006
Nuclear Weapons
More than 20 campaigners congregated in silence around the war memorial in Victoria Square at the weekend in memory of those killed by nuclear bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan at the end of the Second World War.
Bolton Evening News 8th August 2006
Decommissioning
STUDENTS studying for Britain’s first foundation degree in nuclear decommissioning will be given a 90 per cent subsidy by the Government body charged with winding down nuclear plants across the UK. The Nuclear Decommissioning Authority has offered £50,000 for students at Lakes College West Cumbria, Lillyhall.
Cumbrian Times and Star 8th August 2006
Nuclear Waste
A GERMAN astrophysicist is claiming a new way to make nuclear waste harmless within a few decades, instead of thousands of years.
Berwickshire News 8th August 2006
South Asia
The warming-up of relations between the two nuclear-armed neighbours in the past two and a half years has been indisputable good news. The US has contributed to this deterioration, albeit with good intentions. It has chosen to court India with poorly thought-out concessions on its nuclear programme, and Pakistan with a package of treats, including arms sales. America’s engagement should be welcomed, but these are favours the region could have done without, while Washington has ducked any attempt to help the rivals to settle the border dispute.
Times 9th August 2006
India and Pakistan would do well to heed at least one of the lessons from the violence in Lebanon and Israel: with a little ill will on either side, an apparently insignificant crisis can quickly become a war.
FT 9th August 2006
Wind Power
Eco Soundings is concerned about a turbine at Oldside, near Workington, Cumbria. The blade of a turbine fell to the ground after being struck by lightning. Interestingly, it didn’t seem to fly through the air several hundred yards and crash into a nuclear power station. The nuclear industry has used this excuse to oppose windfarms in Somerset.
Guardian 9th August 2006
