Blogpost by jmckeati
- May 17, 2010 at 2:15 PM Add comment Turkey
announces deal on Iran nuclear dispute
‘ANKARA - Iran has agreed to send its uranium
to Turkey for enrichment to resolve the
international row over its nuclear programme,
the Anatolia news agency reported Monday,
citing diplomatic sources. The deal was
struck after 18 hours of talks in Tehran
between the foreign ministers of Brazil,
Iran and Turkey, said the report. The text
that was agreed during the meeting will
be put to Turkish Prime Minster Recep Tayyip
Erdogan, the agency reported. He flew into
Tehran on an unscheduled visit late Sunday.
Erdogan was invited by Iran to join Brazilian
President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and
Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad for
talks on the issue on Monday. The three
leaders would go over the final, detailed
version of the agreement at that meeting,
the agency added. Brazil's Lula held talks
on the issue with the Iranian leadership
on Sunday.’
Protests stall public
hearing on Jaitapur nuclear project
‘MADBAN (Ratnagiri district): Angry protests
stalled a public hearing of the Jaitapur
Nuclear Power Project (JNPP) at Madban village
in Maharashtra on Sunday. Only after officials
acknowledged their mistake of not providing
copies of the environmental impact assessment
(EIA) to the affected villages, it was allowed
to go on under protest. Copies of the EIA
summary in English were given only to the
Madban gram panchayat on April 29 and a
full copy in Marathi was given four days
before the public hearing. The other three
villages from where land was acquired for
the project - Karel, Niveli and Mithgavhane
- did not receive the EIA report. Pravin
Gavhankar of Madban village told the panel,
chaired by the Collector, that when a majority
of the people did not get the EIA report,
the public hearing was a sham and must be
scrapped. The project has met with strong
protests from people whose lands were acquired
under protest. About 2300 people lost land
to the project for which 938.026 ha. was
acquired. Most of them have not accepted
the compensation cheques. People waved black
flags and shouted slogans while marching
to the venue of the hearing at the project
site. Shiv Sena MLA Rajan Salvi said according
to law, EIA reports should have been submitted
a month in advance.’
Areva South Africa pitches
to build Dar nuclear power plant
‘Tanzania will soon have the first nuclear
power plant in East Africa following a move
by South Areva South Africa, a member of
the French multinational Areva group, to
bid for its construction. Currently, the
country, which depends on hydropower plants
to produce electricity, suffers from frequent
power shortages. Mohamed Madhi, chairman
of Areva South Africa, told The EastAfrican
in Dar es Salaam that the firm is seeking
opportunities in East Africa to invest in
nuclear power production. Mr Madhi said
Areva will produce clean energy in Tanzania
through the construction of a nuclear power
plant pending the conclusion of negotiations
with the government. ‘Areva is one of the
companies that will be bidding for contracts
to build nuclear energy capability in Tanzania,’
he said.
Turkey says open to
offers for another nuclear power plant
‘In March, Turkey and South Korea signed
a cooperation protocol to establish a nuclear
energy power plant in Sinop. The Turkish
energy minister said on Sunday that Turkey
was working on construction of a nuclear
power plant in the northern province of
Sinop. Turkey's Energy & Natural Resources
Minister Taner Yildiz said Turkey reached
a fruitful stage in its initiatives to construct
a nuclear power plant in Sinop. "Working
groups will try to develop the agreement
regarding Sinop soon," Yildiz told
AA correspondent. Yildiz said Turkey could
sign an agreement with South Korea if conditions
prevailed.’
Berlin eyes back door
for passing nuclear power extension
‘Losses in state elections left Germany's
coalition without a majority in the upper
house of parliament and cast doubt on plans
to extend operation of nuclear plants. Now,
they hope to bypass the upper house entirely.
Since national elections last fall, the
coalition government in Berlin has been
indicating its intention to extend the deadline
to shut down all of Germany's nuclear power
plants. According to a law passed in 2002
by then-chancellor Gerhard Schroeder's government,
all of Germany's nuclear plants should be
switched off by 2022, but the current government
wants to push back this cut-off date, possibly
by decades. After recent regional elections
in North Rhine-Westphalia, the coalition's
plans seemed to hit a snag. Chancellor Angela
Merkel's Christian Democrats and her partners
in the national government, the Free Democrats,
lost their majority in the Bundesrat, the
German government's upper house of parliament
that represents Germany's 16 states. It
was thought that any extension of the lifespan
of Germany's nuclear plants would require
the approval of the Bundesrat, but now,
Ronald Pofalla, Merkel's chief of staff,
has announced Berlin's intention to bypass
the Bundesrat entirely. "At the time,
Chancellor Schroeder also passed the law
limiting the lifespan of the plants without
the Bundesrat," Pofalla said in an
interview with the WAZ media group.’
Areva to announce new
contracts
‘It is unclear how the Areva's T&D division's
proposed sale to Alstom and Schneider will
affect the Gulf and Middle East. (AFP) Areva's
transmission and distribution (T&D)
division expects to announce many new contracts
in the region starting next week, it told
Emirates Business in an exclusive. However,
the details of the division's sale to Alstom
and Schneider for EUR 4.09 billion (Dh18.56bn)
and how it will affect the Gulf and Middle
East remains unclear, according to a company
spokesperson. On January 20, the Alstom
and Schneider Electric Group, through a
consortium, were selected to enter into
exclusive negotiations with Areva Group,
an industrial conglomerate mainly known
for nuclear power. The transaction meant
that the transmission segment, representing
two thirds of Areva T&D, will join Alstom
Group and the distribution segment, representing
one third, will join Schneider Electric
Group. The French government currently owns
about 93 per cent of Areva through direct
and indirect holdings. "The European
Commission has already approved the proposed
acquisition, but the closing of the transaction
remains subject to the approvals of antitrust
authorities and work councils in some remaining
countries. Therefore, we don't know exactly
when the closing date will occur and what
will be the future organisation within Alstom
and Schneider," said the spokesperson.’
Senegal advised against
"extravagant" nuclear energy
‘afrol News, 17 May - Specialists in renewable
energies claim to document that Senegal's
plans to develop nuclear power plants are
an "extravagancy" for the poor
country, where conditions would be perfect
for a quicker and cheaper production of
solar energy. In an analysis made for afrol
News by the Senegal office of the Spanish
company Prosolia, different cost-efficiency
alternatives are calculated to meet Senegal's
desperate and immediate need to expand and
diversify its energy production. The analysis
follows Senegalese government initiatives
to study the feasibility of nuclear power
plants in the country. According to Prosolia,
conditions in sun-rich Senegal are close
to perfect for a cost-effective large-scale
development of solar energy. With prices
for photovoltaic technologies steadily improving
and becoming cheaper, solar energy by now
is among the most competitive alternatives
in Senegal, the analysis concludes.’
+ More
Nuclear power and democracy
don’t mix
Blogpost by jmckeati - May 17, 2010 at 2:23
PM 2 comments Remember last week and the
German election result that threw into doubt
Angel Merkel’s plans to extent the lifetime
of the countries nuclear reactors? Her government
no longer controls the upper house Bundesrat
or Federal Council. So what is a pro-nuclear
government determined to get its way to
do? Simple: just ignore the Federal Council:
It was thought that
any extension of the lifespan of Germany's
nuclear plants would require the approval
of the Bundesrat, but now, Ronald Pofalla,
Merkel's chief of staff, has announced Berlin's
intention to bypass the Bundesrat entirely.
See? Problem solved.
Who needs democratic accountability?
We’re sorry to say that
this isn’t an isolated case. You see it
wherever the nuclear industry and its supporters
aren’t getting what they want. They, to
but it bluntly, cheat.
Look at the UK’s attempts
to launch its nuclear renaissance. The main
features of it so far have been unlawful
(that is, rigged) public consulatations
and highly biased opinion polling.
In Slovakia the industry
put together a plan to avoid public consultation
altogether. In Bulgaria the public consultation
process was stuffed with lies, misinformation
and deception. In Canada the ‘expert’ panel
was full of pro-nuclear people and the online
opinion poll was again biased.
You see the same dirty
tricks all over the world. Time after time,
the nuclear industry fails in being about
to argue for nuclear power on its own merits
or provide a convincing argument. If it
didn’t, it wouldn’t need to rig consultations
and opinion polls or gerrymander and circumvent
the democratic process. Whatever happened
to the strength of the nuclear industry’s
and its supporters’ convictions? It's been
lost along with their senses of fair play
and accountability.
Sweet success for Kit
Kat campaign: you asked, Nestlé has
answered
On this page
Let's celebrate our sweet success!
Watch 'Have a break?'
Images from the campaign
+ More
Read blogs from the
campaign
Feature story - May
17, 2010
A big 'Thank You!' to the hundreds of thousands
of you who supported our two-month Kit Kat
campaign by e-mailing Nestlé, calling
them, or spreading the campaign message
via your Facebook, Twitter and other social
media profiles. This morning, Nestlé
finally announced a break for the orang-utan
- as well as Indonesian rainforests and
peatlands - by committing to stop using
products that come from rainforest destruction.
zoom The orang-utan
finally gets to have a break - thanks to
you.
The new policy commits Nestlé to
identify and exclude companies from its
supply chain that own or manage 'high risk
plantations or farms linked to deforestation'.
This would apply to notorious Sinar Mas,
a palm oil and paper supplier that Greenpeace
has repeatedly caught destroying the rainforest
- if it fails to meet Nestlé's new
criteria - and also have implications for
Cargill, one of Nestlé's palm oil
suppliers which purchases from Sinar Mas.
Nestlé's announcement
sends a strong message to the palm oil and
paper industry that rainforest destruction
is not an acceptable practice in today's
global marketplace - and it wouldn't have
happened without you. From the very beginning,
the strength of our Kit Kat campaign has
been the truly amazing support from the
public - online and offline - both concerned
consumers and social media-savvy activists
alike.
The support from the
online community has been clear since day
one when our 'Have a break?' video's removal
from YouTube sparked online calls of censorship,
several spin-off uploads to YouTube, and
drove hundreds of thousands of views on
the video within hours of it being re-uploaded
to Vimeo - the total number of views on
all versions of the video is now over 1.5
million!
Facebook was another
key online arena for the Kit Kat campaign,
where a steady stream of pressure was applied
to Nestlé via comments you left on
its Facebook Fan page. While many of you
also 'wore your support on your sleeve'
Facebook-style by changing your profile
pictures to images of orang-utans, rainforest,
and our campaign Kit Kat 'killer' logo.
The power of social
media combined dramatically with our direct
actions to deliver the message directly
to Nestlé at events like its Annual
General Meeting on April 15th. Outside the
meeting venue, shareholders were greeted
by protesting orang-utans as they arrived,
while inside our activists hid in the ceiling
in order to drop down over shareholders
heads just as the meeting began to deploy
banners asking Nestlé to give orang-utans
a break. Online our supporters were sending
tweets to shareholders throughout the meeting
via a fake Wi-Fi network we had set up,
which sent shareholders directly to greenpeace.org/kitkat
when they connected.
Online and offline the
message to Nestlé has been strong
and relentless over the past two months
- give rainforests and orang-utans a break.
All of it - from protesting orang-utans
on the streets to Facebook status updates
- has brought us to today's commitment.
Congratulations and thank you to everyone
who helped us get here - now go on and announce
it to the world. Please boast about your
involvement in the success of our Kit Kat
campaign on Facebook and Twitter - or any
of your other social network profiles -
you deserve it!
Our goal remains the
complete protection of Indonesia's rainforests
and carbon-rich peatlands. We will be watching
Nestlé closely to make sure it sticks
to its word and puts them into action fast.
We will also continue to investigate and
expose unscrupulous palm oil and paper companies
that destroy rainforests and to pressure
the Indonesian government to act. In the
meantime, today's new Nestlé 'no
deforestation footprint' policy is something
to celebrate. We hope it will inspire action
by other international companies - like
Carrefour and Wal-mart - to hear our message
that there is no room for forest destruction
in the products we buy.
