Iran
The Russian contractor building Iran’s Bushehr nuclear power station said on Sunday the two sides had signed a protocol outlining what measures should be taken to guarantee payments for the project. Russia is Iran’s closest major power ally and has helped water down international sanctions over its nuclear programme, but the two have clashed over payments for Bushehr. Iran resumed payments last month but some were still outstanding.
Reuters 22nd April 2007
Winfrith
PURBECK councillors have backed plans to decontaminate Winfrith’s nuclear licensed site and turn all the land back into heathland. Members of the district council voted to support the option put forward by the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority, which could see the area designated as a site of scientific interest in the future.
Bournemouth Echo 22nd April 2007
Sellafield
An independent investigation has been ordered by the government into claims that nuclear workers who died in the 1960s and 1970s had parts of their bodies removed for medical examination without the knowledge or permission of their families. The inquiry, to be led by Michael Redfern QC, was announced by trade and industry secretary Alistair Darling in the Commons on 18 April.
TUC Hazards Magazine 22nd April 2007
Chernobyl
Letter from various Chernobyl Charaties: As we near the 21st anniversary of the Chernobyl disaster on April 26, many of the young people who have grown up in its shadow have little cause to celebrate their “coming of age”. The children’s cancer hospital in Minsk is overcrowded with babies and small children diagnosed with leukaemia or other cancers. The children’s hospice is overwhelmed with new patients, the majority of them babies with genetic disorders. And doctors are baffled by the blood diseases, normally associated with old age, that they are seeing in young children, the numbers of children with heart disease, respiratory problems or endocrine disorders, and the rising tide of breast cancer in young women.
Guardian 23rd April 2007
UKAEA
Ministers have been urged to intervene after it emerged that Lady Judge, who is paid £60,000 by the Government for a two-day week as chairman of the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA), has 30 other directorships.
Telegraph 23rd April 2007