Peaceful Uses of Nuclear Energy Rapped at UN Meet

["Sandy Perle" <sandyfl@earthlink.net>]

Peaceful Uses of Nuclear Energy Rapped at UN Meet

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - The key global Nuclear Nonproliferation 
Treaty is decades behind the times, ignoring  health and 
environmental hazards in its promotion of nuclear energy, expert 
pressure groups said on Wednesday. 

The organizations were addressing a one-month conference on the 1970 
NPT treaty, held every five years, to review compliance and set new 
goals. Most of the discussion has been on reducing nuclear arms, the 
main purpose of the treaty ratified by 187 states. 

But several nongovernmental groups told official delegates they paid 
too little attention to provisions in the treaty that promote nuclear 
power plants and their technology, saying this reflected a 1960s 
concept and ignored research since then. 

Jacqui Katona, an official of the Gundjehmi Aboriginal Corporation in 
Australia's northern territory, blasted Australia's uranium mining 
and its effects on indigenous people, such as the Mirrar. Uranium is 
a key ingredient in nuclear weapons and power plants. 

She proposed the review conference set up formal reporting procedures 
and investigative committees that would force governments to reveal 
the nature of uranium mining and toxic waste storage. 

``While we believe Australia is complicit in perpetuating the nuclear 
fuel cycle, we also believe Australia is not unique in this 
respect,'' she said. ``We believe the NPT process must extend its 
vision to embrace a vehicle for monitoring the production of uranium 
for 'peaceful' use.'' 

Alexei Yablokov of the Social Ecological Union of Russia said 
statistics on radiation-caused illness and protection were 
inadequate. The International Atomic Energy Agency, a key promoter of 
nuclear energy which monitors atomic power plants, excluded from its 
data many side effects, he said. 

Yablokov said data had emerged since the treaty was signed from the 
United States and Russia, showing high incidence of cancer, genetic 
damage, miscarriage and still births connected to radiation from 
power plans. 

``The IAEA massively underestimates the real cost of nuclear 
programs,'' he said. 

Both Yablokov and Alice Slater, a lawyer for U.S. Global Resource 
Action Center for the Environment, denounced a 1959 agreement between 
the IAEA and the World Health Organization. 

Under this pact WHO cannot do research on the dangers of radiation 
without agreement from the IAEA. WHO also has to submit any findings 
to the IAEA before publication. 

Slater called the treaty a ``Faustian bargain'' giving countries the 
right ``to poison the earth with so-called peaceful nuclear 
technology.'' 

For example, she said recent studies in the United States showed that 
 infant mortality rates around five nuclear power reactors declined 
after the plants closed. 

While there may have been some justification for peaceful benefits 
from the atom 30 years ago, this was no longer the case, Slater said.

``Ending nuclear proliferation and eliminating nuclear weapons, the 
two major goals of the NPT. requires the end of nuclear energy,'' she 
said. 

With few new reactors built in the industrial world, rich nations 
were pushing their status-driven equipment to the developing states. 
Turkey, with access to gas fields, had considered constructing a 
reactor in an earthquake zone. 

``Turkey -- and now Indonesia, with its ample reserves of oil -- want 
nuclear reactors. They want to play in the league with the big 
boys,'' Slater said. 

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Sandy Perle					Tel:(714) 545-0100 / (800) 548-5100   				    	
Director, Technical				Extension 2306 				     	
ICN Worldwide Dosimetry Division		Fax:(714) 668-3149 	                   		    
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