Sweden's radwaste at Sellafield. Sweden is considering bringing back nuclear waste it shipped to Britain 15 years ago back home so that it cannot be enriched into weapons-grade materials. The Environment Ministry said in a statement it had appointed a senior civil servant to investigate the possibility of bringing the 140 tonnes of waste back from the Sellafield reprocessing plant run by British Nuclear Fuels. Sweden shipped the 140 tonnes of waste to Britain in five separate shipments between 1975 and 1981 as part of a private contract between Swedish power concern Oskarshamns Kraftgrupp and British Nuclear Fuels. The ministry said Sweden would investigate to see if there was an alternative to enriching the nuclear waste and would try to persuade the two companies to reach an agreement on the waste.
Reuter, 22 Febr. 1996
FBI: nuclear attack on New York. Shortly after the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, the FBI investigated a group of Iranians whom it suspected of plotting a nuclear attack against New York. New York's Daily News quoted on Feb. 18 a former FBI informant as saying the agency investigated whether terrorists were planning to smuggle in radioactive material that could be distributed around Manhattan. The terrorists practiced at a training camp located only thirty miles from the nuclear reactors at Three-Mile Island. The FBI knew of this camp and did not alert the Nuclear Regulatory Commission or Three-Mile Island. A vehicle intrusion at the TMI nuclear plant exposed vulnerabilities just three weeks before the World Trade Center bombing.
UPI 18 Feb. 1996.
UK privatisation. The European Union is investigating whether illegal state aid has been paid in the 2.5 billion-pound sale to privatise nuclear reactors. Karel van Miert, European competition commissioner, has written to the United Kingdom Department of Trade and Industry demanding assurances that state aid will not be used to smooth privatisation and boost the Government's proceeds from the sale. Action groups such as Friends of the Earth, COLA and the Science Policy Research Unit at Sussex University alleged that Nuclear Electric has accelerated payments on its huge nuclear clean-up bills ahead of privatisation to ensure stations will pass into private hands with their liabilities cut by 650 million pounds. FoE and COLA also suggest that the Government could try to off-load more that 3 billion pounds of the clean-up bill for the stations being privatised.
The Guardian (UK), 15 Febr. 1996
S.Africa-France MLIS agreement. South Africa and France signed agreements opening the way for French investment in a South African laser-based uranium enrichment programme, Mineral and Energy Affairs Minister Pik Botha said. In terms of the agreements (signed on Feb. 29), France would invest some 83 million rand ($21.5 million) in developing South Africa's Molecular Laser Isotope Separation (MLIS) enrichment technology.
Reuter, 29 Feb. 1996
Storage foreign fuel. France has denied that it plans to store German nuclear waste. Greenpeace said that it had learned from a "document and information leaked from internal sources" that Cogema was close to signing a storage agreement with German reactor operators. French Environment minister Corinne Lepage said that contracts between the two countries on storage and treatment of nuclear waste would respect French law. A 1991 law provides for any foreign waste treated in France to be returned to its country of origin.
Reuter, 13 Feb. 1996
IAEA office in Bratislava. In March, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) will open a regional office in Slovakia to help former communist countries with their nuclear programmes. The office in Bratislava will be one of four regional offices the Vienna-based agency has around the world, an official of the Slovak Nuclear Supervision Bureau (NSB) said.
Reuter, 16 Feb. 1996
ACTION ALERT!
It is urgent to send faxes of protest to Bulgarian decision-makers. Bulgaria's energy strategy will be on the parliament's agenda at the end of March. The strategy has as its priority the completion of the construction of the country's second nuclear power plant the Belene NPP. Please demand: That "Belene" be cancelled for good from Bulgaria's energy plan. That measures for energy-saving and energy efficiency and the use of renewable technologies be incorporated in the energy strategy of the country.
Send your faxes to: Chairman of Parliament Mr. Blagovest Sendov; +359-2-803340 or 393335 Minister of the Environment Mr. G. Georgiev: +359-2-521632 or 810509 Please let us know if you have sent faxes!
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