Tokyo (AFP) Aug 9, 2007 - A Japanese nuclear plant was hit Thursday by the latest in a series of suspicious small-scale fires, the operator said, amid rising public concern about the country's nuclear industry.
Kashiwazaki, Japan (AFP) Aug 07, 2007 - Staring at the few carefree teenagers frolicking about in the water, beach worker Hitoshi Arakawa was full of resentment over a leak at a nearby nuclear plant. They say the exposure level won't harm people's health, but the very fact that there was radiation leakage kills businesses like ours, Arakawa said furiously, with unsold stocks of corn piled up under his table. Arakawa, 42, is one of the seasonal workers who set up food and drink booths during the summer on Kujiranami beach, only 10 kilometres (six miles) down the seashore from the world's largest nuclear power plant.
Moscow (RIA Novosti) Aug 07, 2007 - A group of inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency arrived in Iran to visit a heavy-water reactor being built near Arak, in the center of the country. This time, the Iranians are ready to give the IAEA exhaustive answers to questions about their experiments with plutonium and their uranium-enrichment program. This is a real breakthrough in Tehran's long-running dispute with the nuclear watchdog. In the middle of July, Iran announced its readiness to resume contacts with the IAEA. Foreign Ministry spokesman Muhammad Ali Hosseini explained, Our dialogue with the West on this problem has become more realistic and rational.
New Delhi (AFP) Aug 07, 2007 - Key communist allies of India's coalition government rejected a civilian nuclear deal with the United States on Tuesday, warning Prime Minister Manmohan Singh against pushing ahead. A group of communist parties that support the Congress party-led coalition asked Singh not to go ahead with the complex deal known as the 123 agreement because it requires several steps in tandem by both nations before coming into force.
Tokyo (AFP) Aug 03, 2007 - The head of a board inspecting a Japanese nuclear plant that leaked radiation in an earthquake resigned Friday after calling the incident an invaluable experiment. The Kashiwazaki-Kariwa plant in Niigata prefecture, some 250 kilometres (155 miles) northwest of Tokyo, leaked a small amount of radioactive water after a 6.8 Richter-scale earthquake on July 16. The plant's operator said the amount of radiation from the nuclear plant, which is the largest in the world, was far too little to cause health concerns. But it came under criticism for initially under reporting the level.
Berlin (UPI) Aug 03, 2007 - In most of Europe, nuclear energy is seen as a vital tool to guarantee energy security; in the continent's largest economy, however, things are a bit different. One of the fiercest opponents of nuclear energy is a German federal minister. Environment Minister Sigmar Gabriel of the center-left Social Democratic Party is one of the architects of the German plan to phase out nuclear energy by 2021. Earlier this week he increased the pressure on the German nuclear energy industry after security deficits surfaced at two plants run by Vattenfall Europe.
Tokyo (AFP) Aug 02, 2007 - The UN's nuclear watchdog is expected to send experts to Japan next week to examine a nuclear power plant damaged during a deadly earthquake, officials said Thursday. We've heard the IAEA's inspectors will examine the nuclear plant from Monday through Thursday and on Friday exchange information with Japanese officials in Tokyo, an official at Japan's Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency said.
Tokyo (AFP) Aug 01, 2007 - Japanese high-tech and energy giant Hitachi said Tuesday that it had reduced its first-quarter net loss by almost half, helped by higher sales of nuclear power equipment. Operating profit nearly doubled as lower earnings in IT systems and digital consumer products were offset by increases in the power and industrial systems division, the company said in a statement. Net losses narrowed to 13.62 billion yen (114 million dollars) in the three months to June from 22.04 billion yen a year earlier, a company statement said.
Moscow (RIA Novosti) Jul 31, 2007 - Politicians in Kiev are busy looking for an alternative to Russia as a builder of nuclear power plants. At any rate, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Arseny Yatsenyuk hastened to announce after a meeting last week with his Canadian counterpart, Peter Gordon MacKay, that Ukraine was resuming talks with Canadian companies on the construction of CANDU (Canada Deuterium Uranium) nuclear reactors in Ukraine. One of the main aims, he said, was to ensure Ukraine's uranium independence. Ukraine has its own uranium raw materials, but it is forced to enrich them abroad. CANDU reactors use natural uranium.
Irkutsk, Russia (RIA Novosti) Jul 31, 2007 - Police in Siberia have detained another three suspects in an attack on an anti-nuclear protest camp that left one person dead and 21 injured July 21, the first assistant prosecutor in Irkutsk said Tuesday. Alexander Semyonov said the detention brings the total number of detainees to 16 after masked assailants carrying baseball bats and metal rods attacked the camp in Angarsk, near Lake Baikal, which was protesting against nuclear waste imports into Russia.
Tehran (AFP) Jul 30, 2007 - A group of UN atomic inspectors on Monday visited a heavy water reactor in Iran that is one of the key Western concerns over the Islamic republic's nuclear programme, officials said. The visit, agreed in talks between Iran and the UN atomic agency, was the first inspection since Iran in April blocked access to the plutonium-producing research reactor, which lies outside the central town of Arak. International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) experts on Monday inspected the 40 megawatt research reactor in Arak, the state-run IRNA agency quoted an unnamed informed source as saying.
Seoul (AFP) Jul 30, 2007 - A South Korea delegation has left for Indonesia and Thailand as part of efforts to export civilian nuclear reactors and technology, officials said Monday. The Ministry of Science and Technology said the eight-member delegation of government officials and civilian experts would visit Jakarta Monday and Tuesday before making a three-day trip to Bangkok. The visit is aimed at expanding nuclear energy cooperation with Southeast Asian countries, a ministry spokesman told AFP.
Manila (AFP) Jul 30, 2007 - Southeast Asian nations will look at toughening security rules for atomic energy when they meet next week to review a treaty on keeping nuclear weapons out of the region, diplomats said Saturday. With several countries looking at nuclear power to meet their energy needs, the 10-member ASEAN bloc wants to ensure atomic material and technology does not get used for non-peaceful ends, they said.
Berlin (AFP) Jul 30, 2007 - German opposition mounted Saturday to French President Nicolas Sarkozy's new venture on the world stage in agreeing to build a nuclear reactor in Libya, despite efforts by Paris to reassure Berlin. The French government on Friday had sought to allay German fears of recklessness by assuring Berlin that all guarantees had been taken with regard to nuclear non-proliferation. The French-Libyan accord, which envisions building a nuclear reactor for a water desalination plant, is a bitter pill for the EU, said Ruprecht Polenz, conservative head of the foreign affairs committee in the lower house of the German parliament, the Bundestag, in the newspaper Tagesspiegel am Sonntag.
Berlin (AFP) Jul 30, 2007 - The German environment ministry warned German engineering giant Siemens Monday against participating in a French deal to build a nuclear reactor in Libya. Siemens holds a 34-percent stake in the Franco-German nuclear engineering joint venture Areva NP, which is to supply the nuclear technology to Libya in a deal that has drawn criticism from throughout the European Union. We must know what Siemens will say about this immoral deal, the parliamentary state secretary at the ministry, Michael Mueller, told the Handelsblatt business daily.
Washington DC (UPI) July 30, 2007 - The sudden flurry of controversy that erupted over France's new deal to supply a nuclear power station to Libya may have missed the point. It was a striking coup by France's new President Nicolas Sarkozy to make the sale as part of the agreement he helped engineer to release the Bulgarian nurses from their long and unjust detention in Libya. It was also a characteristic piece of French presidential practice that likes to mix diplomacy with pourboires, the French word for a waiter's tip.
