New nukes
TRADE unionists have been given thousands of pounds by their government company bosses to campaign in favour of Tony Blair’s new nuclear power programme. Funding from state-owned British Nuclear Fuels (BNFL) paid for airfares, hotels, dinners and “refreshments” for union members from nuclear plants to lobby delegates at Labour and TUC conferences in Brighton last autumn.
Sunday Herald 20th August 2006
RobEdwards.com
Nuclear Waste
The Scottish Executive has been condemned for a “perverse” response to a request for information about proposed nuclear waste dumps. The Scottish Information Commissioner, Kevin Dunion, has found the Executive guilty of breaching the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002 by interpreting the request “in the narrowest possible terms”. Instead it should have been more widely interpreted as a request for any information relating to plans for nuclear waste disposal.
Sunday Herald 20th August 2006
MADONNA and her husband Guy Ritchie have been lobbying the government and nuclear industry over a scheme to clean up radioactive waste with a supposedly magic Kabbalah fluid. The couple, both followers of the Jewish spiritual movement, approached Downing Street, Whitehall and British Nuclear Fuels (BNFL) promoting a “mystical” liquid tested in a Ukrainian lake. “It was like a crank call . . . the scientific mechanisms and principles were just bollocks, basically,” one official said.
Sunday Times 20th August 2006
Sellafield
Fears are growing that the Government’s auction of BNG, the nuclear clean-up group, could be delayed by up to a year, because of disagreements between the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA), and BNFL. BNFL and the Treasury want to set a high price tag for BNG. But the NDA does not share their priorities. It could, for example, sell BNG for a token £1 if the company’s new owner promises to make a smaller profit on the Sellafield contract. The alternative, preferred by BNFL, is to allow the new owner to recoup its large up-front outlay in buying BNG by making higher margins on the contract.
Independent on Sunday 20th August 2006
Iran
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Iran’s president, has promised to deliver on Tuesday his response to international demands that Iran stop enriching uranium for nuclear use. He seems in no mood to retreat. “Nuclear power is our right. No one can take this away from us,” he told cheering crowds recently. “Our main task is to develop and build the Iranian nation. No one will stop us.”
Sunday Times 20th August 2006
Sunday Telegraph 20th August 2006
