Trident
THE Foreign Secretary, Margaret Beckett, yesterday called for a national debate on the future of Britain’s independent nuclear deterrent.
Scotsman 30th Oct 2006
Daily Mail 30th Oct 2006
Times 30th Oct 2006
Nuclear Waste
Environment Secretary David Miliband has moved to quell fears that a nuclear waste dump could be built in the Warwickshire countryside.
Birmingham Post 30th Oct 2006
Letter from David Nowell, Fellow of the Geological Society. What is the point of asking local authorities to bid for consideration as a possible site for burying nuclear waste (report, October 25) when no geological template has been drawn up to see if these areas are suitable in the first place? While the Committee on Radioactive Waste Management, set up by the Government with no geologist or civil engineer on it, wasted three years reaching the obvious conclusion that deep burial was the only option, organisations such as the British Geological Survey have been sidelined from the decision-making process, for fear of jumping the gun. Now, with no expert geological opinion, as no broad specification has been agreed, local councils are asked to draw up what in many cases will be unsuitable bids.
Telegraph 30th Oct 2006
North Korea
The Deputy Prime Minister, a surprise choice to represent the Government in a region that is facing a nuclear showdown with North Korea, has become averse to any publicity. Since he arrived in Japan on Sunday on a four-nation tour he has pointedly declined to speak to reporters about the diplomatic crisis that he is supposed to be helping to resolve.
Times 30th Oct 2006
Climate
Britons face the prospect of a welter of new green taxes to tackle climate change, as the most authoritative report on global warming warns it will cost the world up to £3.68 trillion unless it is tackled within a decade. The review by Sir Nicholas Stern, commissioned by the Chancellor of the Exchequer and published tomorrow, marks a crucial point in the debate by underlining how failure to act would trigger a catastrophic global recession. Unchecked climate change would turn 200 million people into refugees, the largest migration in modern history, as their homes succumbed to drought or flood.
Observer 29th Oct 2006
Times 30th Oct 2006
Independent 30th Oct 2006
Britain is to send the author of today’s landmark review on global warming to try to win American hearts and minds to the urgent cause of cutting carbon emissions – as it emerged yesterday that the government has already signed up former US vice-president Al Gore to advise on the environment.
Guardian 30th Oct 2006
FT 30th Oct 2006
Israel
The United Nations Environment Programme is investigating allegations, first published in The Independent, that Israel may have used uranium-based weapons during this summer’s war in Lebanon. Twenty UN experts, working with Lebanese environmentalists, have spent two weeks assessing various samples. They are planning to report their findings in December.
Independent 30th Oct 2006
