Nuclear train route to Sellafield runs into opposition from local councils
August 26, 2011 No Comment
Trains transporting radioactive uranium and plutonium could become target for terrorists, authorities warn A plan to transport 44 tonnes of radioactive uranium and plutonium by train has run into opposition from councils worried about accidents and terrorist attacks. The government’s Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA) plans to make about 50 rail shipments over the next five years from the Dounreay nuclear site in Caithness to the Sellafield reprocessing complex in Cumbria . It wants to process material left over from Britain’s long-abandoned fast breeder reactor programme – a class of reactors that aim to produce more fuel as they operate – to extract plutonium and uranium for re-use or disposal. But councils say this is dangerous and risks theft of nuclear material by terrorists en route, arguing the material should be treated as waste and “immobilised” at Dounreay. A consultation on the plan is due to end on 31 August, and, if agreed, shipments will begin next year. The NDA argues there is a “clear and compelling strategic case” for moving the material 500km (310 miles) south. The safety record for transporting nuclear flasks is “well proven” and the environmental impact of the shipments will be “minimal”, the NDA says. Sending the material to Sellafield will cost about £60m, compared with an estimated cost of £65m for keeping it at Dounreay. But ” Nuclear-Free Local Authorities ” a local government group, which describes itself as the “local government voice on nuclear issues” has condemned the plan for breaching important environmental principles. There are seven member councils, all in Scotland, through which the nuclear material could travel by rail, depending on the route it takes. They are Perth & Kinross, Fife, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Renfrewshire, West Dumbartonshire and Dundee. The group says the plan fails to ensure that radioactive waste is managed as close as possible to the site where it was produced. It would also lead to increased radioactive discharges into the environment from Sellafield during reprocessing, the councils argue. The risk of terrorists stealing the material in transit to make it into a dirty bomb, or even crude nuclear weapons, meant that it would have to be protected by armed guards, they claim. “I am very worried about the movement of such sensitive materials across Scotland to Sellafield,” said George Regan , the chair of the nuclear-free local authorities and a Labour councillor in Dundee. “The NDA’s proposals clearly breach key environmental principles and I ask them to think again,” he added. “As they stand, they set some very worrying precedents for the future.” A spokesman for the NDA accepted that discharges from Sellafield could increase, but insisted this would amount to less than 1% a year and be well within agreed environmental limits. He denied that armed guards would be needed for the shipment of such “lightly irradiated” material. “The transportation of nuclear materials such as spent fuel happens on a daily basis across the UK and has done so for more than half a century without incident,” he said. “The movement of materials is highly regulated by international standards and procedures. The material at Dounreay is not waste, it is a nuclear material from the fast breeder reactor programme that requires appropriate management.” The NDA spokesman added: “The NDA has discussed this study with local stakeholders in both Caithness and Cumbria and welcomes comments in advance of a decision on the appropriate way forward later this year.” Dounreay was the UK centre for developing fast breeder reactors, which aimed to create new fuel as they consumed it, until the programme was cancelled in 1988. The site is now being decommissioned at a cost of £2.6bn, with aim of finishing by 2032. Nuclear power Nuclear waste Energy Waste UK security and terrorism Rail transport Local politics Rob Edwards guardian.co.uk
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James Clappison seeks assurances from Dominic Grieve that normal standards of justice should apply to alleged riot offenders The attorney general, Dominic Grieve, has been asked to intervene in the row over the secret strategy adopted by the Metropolitan police during the riots to remand in custody everyone who was charged, which lawyers have claimed amounted to a blanket policy of imprisonment. James Clappison, the Conservative MP for Hertsmere, barrister and member of the home affairs committee, has written to Grieve asking for assurances that the normal standards of justice should apply to alleged riot offenders. “We cannot risk the appearance of two systems of justice,” the letter says. The prison population in England and Wales reached a record high for the third week running yesterday as the courts continued to jail hundreds of people involved in the riots. The total number of prisoners hit 86,821, higher than last week’s record of 86,654. The Guardian revealed on Monday a leaked “prisoner processing strategy” adopted by the Met at the height of the riots which revealed that a “strategic” decision had been taken “that in all cases an application will be made for remand in custody both at the police station, and later at court”. Lawyers are now seeking a judicial review of at least one case, claiming that the policy meant that not only were the police applying a blanket policy of denying bail but recommending to the courts that they did the same and even refusing to issue cautions to people accused on minor offences with no previous criminal record. The Met disputes that its officers were not giving cautions, saying that of 1,881 arrests, 17 ended in cautions, 125 people were released with no further action and 623 were bailed pending further investigations. The majority of the remainder were charged. The recommendation that those charged were remanded in custody was made “to ensure cases were dealt with quickly and again to protect the public from potential further disorder”, a spokesman said. Clappison asks Grieve for confirmation that the principles of the Bail Act will operate, meaning that in making bail decisions courts should consider both the seriousness of the offence and the defendant’s previous character in an assessment of their risk of reoffending. “Any departure from these principles and any form of blanket policy on bail would, amongst other things, create the risk of persons who are eventually acquitted in effect serving a custodial sentence prior to their acquittal in circumstances where they would not otherwise have done so,” he writes. Senior representatives of the Metropolitan police will appear before the home affairs select committee on 6 September and be questioned about their custody strategy, the committee’s chairman, Keith Vaz, confirmed. Dominic Grieve Conservatives UK riots UK criminal justice Polly Curtis guardian.co.uk
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Private investigator passes names on to Steve Coogan’s lawyers, in accordance with court order Private investigator Glenn Mulcaire has revealed the names of the News of the World staff who instructed him to carry out phone hacking, his solicitor has confirmed. The information was passed in a letter to Steve Coogan’s lawyers in accordance with a court order. Mulcaire had applied for permission to appeal against the order, which was made in February, but this was denied and he was compelled to pass over the details by Friday. His solicitor, Sarah Webb, from Payne Hicks Beach, said she could not reveal who the NoW employees were because of “confidentiality issues”. Schillings, which is representing Coogan, has agreed not to reveal the names yet, to give Payne Hicks Beach a chance to apply for a court order stopping their release. Mulcaire was ordered to reveal who instructed him to access Coogan’s voicemails, as well as those of celebrities including Max Clifford and Elle Macpherson. He was jailed for six months in 2007 for intercepting messages left on royal aides’ phones. A spokeswoman for News International said the firm had no comment. Glenn Mulcaire Phone hacking Steve Coogan Newspapers & magazines News of the World National newspapers News International Newspapers guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …How did Libyan rebels take Tripoli with such apparent ease? It was thanks in part to men like Mahmoud Ben Jumaa, a senior member of Moammar Gadhafi’s personal security force and secret rebel agent, the Wall Street Journal reports. Since February, Ben Jumaa had been tipping resistance leaders in his…
Continue reading …Syria’s most acclaimed political cartoonist was severely beaten yesterday, not long after he published a cartoon that showed Bashar al-Assad hightailing it out of town with Moammar Gadhafi, the New York Times reports. Masked gunmen grabbed Ali Farzat off the streets of Damascus at about 4:30am, activists said. They…
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Schmidt criticises division between science and arts and says UK ‘should look back to glory days of Victorian era’ The chairman of Google has delivered a devastating critique of the UK’s education system and said the country had failed to capitalise on its record of innovation in science and engineering. Delivering the annual MacTaggart lecture in Edinburgh, Eric Schmidt criticised “a drift to the humanities” and attacked the emergence of two educational camps, each of which “denigrate the other. To use what I’m told is the local vernacular, you’re either a luvvy or a boffin,” he said. Schmidt also hit out at Lord Sugar, the Labour peer and star of the hit BBC programme The Apprentice, who recently claimed on the show that “engineers are no good at business”. “Really?” Schmidt said. “I don’t think we’ve done too badly.” Schmidt told the MediaGuardian Edinburgh international TV festival: “Over the past century the UK has stopped nurturing its polymaths. You need to bring art and science back together.” The technology veteran, who joined Google a decade ago to help founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin build the company, said Britain should look to the “glory days” of the Victorian era for reminders of how the two disciplines can work together. “It was a time when the same people wrote poetry and built bridges,” he said. “Lewis Carroll didn’t just write one of the classic fairytales of all time. He was also a mathematics tutor at Oxford. James Clerk Maxwell was described by Einstein as among the best physicists since Newton – but was also a published poet.” Schmidt’s comments echoed sentiments expressed by Steve Jobs, the chief executive of Apple, who revealed he was stepping down this week. “The Macintosh turned out so well because the people working on it were musicians, artists, poets and historians – who also happened to be excellent computer scientists,” Jobs once told the New York Times. Schmidt paid tribute to Britain’s record of innovation, saying the UK had “invented computers in both concept and practice” before highlighting that the world’s first office computer “was built in 1951 by the Lyons chain of teashops”. However, he said the UK had failed to build industry-leading positions or successfully transfer ideas from the drawing board to the boardroom. “The UK is the home of so many media-related inventions. You invented photography. You invented TV,” he said. “Yet today, none of the world’s leading exponents in these fields are from UK.” He said British startups tended to sell out to overseas companies once they had reached a certain size, and that this trend needed to be reversed. “The UK does a great job of backing small firms and cottage industries, but there’s little point getting a thousand seeds to sprout if they are then left to wither or transplanted overseas. UK businesses need championing to help them grow into global powerhouses, without having to sell out to foreign-owned companies. If you don’t address this, then the UK will continue to be where inventions are born, but not bred for long-term success.” Schmidt said the country that invented the computer was “throwing away your great computer heritage” by failing to teach programming in schools. “I was flabbergasted to learn that today computer science isn’t even taught as standard in UK schools,” Schmidt said. “Your IT curriculum focuses on teaching how to use software, but gives no insight into how it’s made.” Barack Obama announced in June that the US would train an extra 10,000 engineers a year. “I hope that others will follow suit – the world needs more engineers. I saw the other day that on The Apprentice Alan Sugar said engineers are no good at business,” he said. “If the UK’s creative businesses want to thrive in the digital future, you need people who understand all facets of it integrated from the very beginning. Take a lead from the Victorians and ignore Lord Sugar: bring engineers into your company at all levels, including the top.” Schmidt also announced that Google TV, which allows users to search the internet on their TV sets, would be launched in Europe early next year, with the UK “among the top priorities”. The product is already available in America, although sales have been disappointing. Schmidt said Google TV did not threaten broadcasters and would enable them to experiment with new formats online. He defended the company’s contribution to the TV industry, pointing out that it had invested billions of dollars in IT infrastructure that media companies use. Google also announced it would fund a new course in online production and distribution at the National Film & Television School in London for three years. Eric Schmidt Google Education policy MediaGuardian Edinburgh International TV Festival 2011 MediaGuardian Edinburgh International Television Festival Digital media Television industry Computing James Robinson guardian.co.uk
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• Spanish socialists and People’s party rivals agree deficit limit • Limit to be set at 0.4% of GDP from 2020 Spanish politicians took a dramatic step to try to win back market confidence by agreeing on a reform of the country’s constitution to introduce a cap on future deficits. The socialist party (PSOE) of outgoing prime minister José Luis Zapatero and the conservative opposition People’s party (PP) said the cap would come into effect in 2020. The limit will be set at 0.4% and will effect all levels of Spain’s highly devolved administration, including the regional governments that run health and education. The move came at the end of a month that has seen Spain’s sovereign debt under severe pressure in the markets, amid fears that it might need a bailout similar to those of fellow eurozone nations Portugal, Greece or Ireland. It also came a week after Germany’s Angela Merkel and France’s Nicolas Sarkozy called for eurozone countries to establish legal limits on their deficits to integrate their economies. So far only Germany has such a cap. Spanish politicians claimed the measure was a step towards eurozone integration. “August has been a month of financial instability. Investors have lost confidence in the eurozone,” said Alfredo Pérez Rubalcaba, the PSOE candidate for prime minister in November’s general election. “We have to win back confidence and show we are solvent.” The PP, led by Mariano Rajoy, had been demanding such a measure for years. “We want to be amongst the countries in the vanguard of European economic policy,” said spokeswoman Soraya Saénz de Santamaría. With more than 90% of deputies between them, the two parties can push through constitutional change before parliament is dissolved on 27 September. Unlike Germany, Spain will not specify the size of the deficit cap in the constitution. According to the draft, the new clause will merely say a cap must be set by either the European Union or, in its absence, the Spanish parliament. The limit could also be broken at times of recession or national crisis. Germany’s constitution imposes a 0.35% cap by 2016. Spain’s 0.4% limit will be set initially by a separate law. Saénz de Santamaría claimed the agreement would force future governments to keep debt below an EU-set limit of 60% of GDP. However, Spain’s debt is expected to hit 65% of GDP this year, below the eurozone average and behind Germany, France, Britain and the US. The IMF recently estimated it would total around 75% of GDP by 2016. While the new measure is meant to calm markets, it will have no impact on Spain’s current deficit. Figures released on Friday show annual GDP growth slipped to 0.7% in the second quarter, making it difficult to reach the government’s predicted 1.3% for 2011. Zapatero surprised many in his party on Tuesday when he announced he and Rajoy had agreed to change the constitution. Opinion polls show the socialists trailing the PP. The socialist regional leader in Andalucia, José Antonio Griñán, called the change “a grave error”. Left-wing critics claimed it would lead to cuts in social spending. Only a rebellion by socialist deputies, however, could stop the measure going through. European debt crisis European banks Spain Europe José Luis Zapatero Giles Tremlett guardian.co.uk
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Opposition activists voice anger over failed attempts to pass a UN security council resolution On the first Friday protests since Libyan rebels reached Tripoli with the assistance of Nato forces, Syrian protesters have called for international intervention in their struggle against the regime of President Bashar al-Assad. Until now, most Syrian protesters have insisted they do not need outside help, but on Friday in the western city of Homs video footage showed protesters carrying signs telling the UN its silence was killing them, as they expressed their anger at failed attempts to pass a security council resolution in the face of Russian and Chinese objections. The lack of a UN resolution has been the target of online activists too, with Twitter users trying to make the term #WakeUpUNSC trend popular. A growing number of opposition activists are now calling for a no-fly zone or an international protection force. This stands in stark contrast to just weeks ago when most Syrians refused any form of international action other than sanctions and the cutting of diplomatic ties with Assad and his supporters. But after almost six months of a brutal state crackdown, during which more than 2,200 people have been killed, the image of Libyan rebels in Tripoli’s Green Square has led some to change their position. At least two more protesters were killed on Friday as security forces shot at demonstrators in areas including Douma, close to Damascus, and the eastern province of Deir Ezzor. Activists called it the “Friday of patience and determination”. Other protesters still vehemently reject calls for international help and western diplomats say there is no appetite for intervening in a situation which could be potentially explosive. “Let’s be clear, France will not intervene without an international mandate,” Nicolas Sarkozy, the French president, said on Wednesday . While Syrian protesters have drawn the sympathy of the international community, it is largely toothless in pressuring the regime. The Turkish foreign minister, Ahmet Davutoglu , said on Thursday that Ankara would side with the Syrian people if it had to make a choice between the government and its citizens. A Damascus-based analyst, who asked to remain anonymous, said: “We should not be calling for outside help but rather working to unite the opposition so there is a credible alternative. Without that we won’t go anywhere.” Nour Ali is the pseudonym of a journalist based in Damascus Syria Arab and Middle East unrest Bashar Al-Assad United Nations France Middle East Nour Ali guardian.co.uk
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Tanks, heavy artillery and rocket launchers abandoned by fleeing Gaddafi forces are being assembled for attack Rebel units were massing for an attack on Sirte, Muammar Gaddafi’s birthplace, on Friday after Nato warplanes conducted intensive bombing raids to weaken one of the last major redoubts controlled by the ousted regime. On the road to Sirte from Misrata, tanks, heavy artillery and rocket launchers abandoned by fleeing government forces were being assembled for the attack. Rebels said a British and French special forces team was helping co-ordinate the assault, in which Misrata-based units will push eastwards to meet forces from Benghazi fighting their way westwards. As the National Transitional Council (NTC) attempted to establish itself in Tripoli, setting up offices and holding a press conference, its claims to complete authority were undermined by skirmishes with Gaddafi loyalists and the failure to find the ousted Libyan leader or his sons. The continued resistance of traditional Gaddafi strongholds like Sirte has also prevented the NTC from opening the coastal road – a principal artery of Libyan economic life – and uniting the main population centres, and it has yet to conquer the southern city of Sebha, reportedly home to a vast arsenal of weaponry. NTC attempts to broker a negotiated surrender by Gaddafi forces and loyalist tribes appeared to be failingon Friday, and Nato stepped up its barrage on stockpiled weapons in the town. Nato planes targeted 29 vehicles with mounted weapons, and British Tornado aircraft launched a missile attack on a large underground command bunker. Britain is also seeking approval from the UN security council to release about $1.6bn (£1bn) in Libyan bank notes printed in the UK but impounded in March, Associated Press reported. The money is needed to help the rebel government pay its public sector workers. Rebel fighters are commuting every day to the front line in what is a often family affair. Typically, one brother will join his brigade in Tripoli or outside Sirte while the other will stay on checkpoint duty in Misrata, swapping over the following day. “We keep going,” said Abdullah Maiteeg, a former oil engineer, who was preparing to leave for Tripoli to replace his own brother fighting there. He said the priority was to find Gaddafi. “We have to get the G-dog,” he said. “I don’t stop fighting until I see him.” Misrata-based rebels have also reached the outskirts of Beni Walid, 100 miles south-west, and are attempting to negotiate the surrender its loyalist defenders. They have been involved in some of the bloodiest battles in Tripoli this week, their home-made armoured vehicles much in demand as clashes continue. As one Gaddafi-run town after another has fallen, there has been mounting concern over the fate of their armouries, after the experience in Iraq where Saddam Hussein’s extensive arsenal was used by his supporters to make countless car-bombs to wreak havoc after he fell. Peter Bouckaert, the emergencies director at Human Rights Watch, returned from Libya in the spring reporting the existence of thousands of shoulder-launched anti-aircraft missiles in unguarded ammunition dumps around the country. He said he was contacted by western intelligence officials concerned they might fall into the hands of terrorists. Since then Bouckaert said there had been a substantial western and NTC effort to collect up those missiles, mostly Soviet-made Sam-7s. “My concern is that the western focus on Sam-7s obscures the threat of other munitions, like tank shells and artillery shells which can easily be turned into car bombs,” Bouckaert told the Guardian. “The biggest arsenals are under Sebha and Sirte where there are vast amouries. Gaddafi has been on a shopping spree for weapons since he came to power and he has everything you can imagine, from exotic weapons like napalm and recent anti-tank missiles which scattered magnetic mines over a large area, to old world war two mortars and shells.” The regime also had a stockpile of mustard gas which was being monitored by the west but has disappeared. The gas however, has not been been put into artillery, Bouckaert said. The widespread use of mines has contributed to the casualties among civilians and fighters alike. Misrata’s
Continue reading …New York City orders the evacuation of a quarter million people amid frenzied preprations for Hurricane Irene
August 26, 2011 No CommentMayor Michael Bloomberg of New York City ordered the mandatory evacuation of around 250,000 residents as ordinarily jaded New York City residents threw themselves into a frenzy of preparation for Hurricane Irene. The National Weather Service issued a hurricane watch for the city and much of the surrounding region, and Gov. Andrew Cuomo declared a
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