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Ireland says no Down's syndrome link to Sellafield
Index:
Ireland says no Down's syndrome link to Sellafield
Nuke Fuel Shipment Draws Protests
German nuclear activists disrupt train to France
IAEA Only few queries left on Iraqi nuke program
Some Answers to Our Energy Problems
EU raps Russia on nuclear cleanup, frets about NTV
Novoste chief says Beta-Cath study not total failure
===================================
Ireland says no Down's syndrome link to Sellafield
DUBLIN, April 10 (Reuters) - Ireland's nuclear protection body said
on Tuesday it accepted a report that concluded a cluster of Down's
syndrome births in the republic in the 1960s and 1970s were not
linked to Britain's Sellafield reactor.
The Radiological Protection Institute of Ireland said there was no
link between the cluster and a fire at Sellafield, then called
Windscale, in 1957, but added it still had serious worries about the
plant on Britain's northwest coast.
"Ireland's objections to Sellafield are solidly based on the
continuing radioactive contamination of the Irish Sea, and most of
all on the risk to this country of serious consequences from a major
accident at the plant," said RPII chief Tom O'Flaherty.
"These objections are not undermined because the suggestion of a link
with the Down's syndrome cluster has been disproved."
A long-held theory suggested the births of Down's syndrome babies to
six women who attended the same school in Dundalk, across the Irish
Sea on the northeast coast of Ireland, was linked to radioactive
contamination from the 1957 fire.
However the RPII said a new study had revealed three of the women had
left the school, and the Dundalk area, some months before the fire,
thus disproving a Sellafield connection.
Ireland has campaigned long and hard for the closure of the
Sellafield plant.
-------------
Nuke Fuel Shipment Draws Protests
FRANKFURT, Germany (AP) - A disputed shipment of spent nuclear fuel
bound for reprocessing in France got under way early Tuesday as small
groups of protesters demonstrated against the transport.
A container of waste left the Grafenrheinfeld nuclear plant, in the
southern state of Bavaria, and was taken to nearby Gochsheim to be
loaded onto a train, officials at the power station said. Some 200
people gathered at Gochsheim to protest the shipment, a local anti-
nuclear group said.
Waste containers also were expected to leave two other power plants
Tuesday - from Philippsburg in Baden-Wuerttemberg state and Biblis in
Hessen.
Nine demonstrators were detained in Philippsburg, where protests had
been banned, police said. In addition, seven Greenpeace activists
were arrested on charges of failing to comply with authorities,
police said. There were no immediate reports of trouble in Biblis.
The trains, carrying a total of five containers of spent nuclear
fuel, were to be coupled together at Woerth, on Germany's border with
France. From there, they were to continue across France to the
reprocessing plant at La Hague in Normandy.
Protesters had threatened a repeat of last month's massive
demonstrations over the return of reprocessed waste from France to
the Gorleben dump in northern Germany, the traditional focus of anti-
nuclear protests.
That transport was delayed 18 hours by protesters who defied a huge
police operation and attached themselves to the track using an
elaborate system of pipes and chains. Police had to clear many more
from sit-down protests.
The German government ``knows perfectly well that reprocessing in
France is systematically contaminating the environment,'' complained
Veit Buerger, a Greenpeace spokesman.
This time, Baden-Wuerttemberg state police banned sit-in protests on
the tracks, saying anyone caught trying to disrupt the convoy would
be fined $70, plus a ``carry-away fee'' between $29 and $57 -
depending on whether it takes one or two officers to haul them off.
On Monday night, 13 activists from environmentalist group Greenpeace
were arrested after they occupied a wagon due to carry the waste near
the southern town of Wuerzburg. Another 15 people occupied a bridge
near the town of Schweinfurt, Greenpeace said.
Germany sends spent nuclear fuel from its power plants to France for
reprocessing under contracts that oblige it to take back the waste.
Three years ago, the transports between France and Germany were
halted after high levels of radiation were found to be leaking from
the trains.
Protesters say the shipments are still unsafe and want Germany's
nuclear plants shut down quickly. They aim to make the transports so
expensive that the government will be forced to halt them.
The police presence to protect Tuesday's transport was costing the
state of Baden-Wuerttemberg $917,000, the state interior ministry
said.
The government last year struck a deal to scrap the country's 19
nuclear plants, though the shutdown could still take well over 20
years to complete.
-------------
German nuclear activists disrupt train to France
SENNFELD, Germany, April 10 (Reuters) - German anti-nuclear activists
disrupted a shipment of spent nuclear fuel to France on Tuesday by
chaining themselves to the rails near a nuclear power plant in the
southern state of Bavaria.
Police said four Greenpeace activists who chained themselves to the
tracks near Sennfeld and four others hanging from ropes from a
pedestrian bridge were delaying the transport of the first waste
Germany was sending to France for reprocessing in four years.
Police said they were using special welding equipment to free the
demonstrators.
"It will probably take a while for us to clear the tracks," a
spokesman said. Six demonstrators have been taken into custody,
police said.
Protesters were trying to stop a container carrying nuclear waste
from a power plant in Bavaria that began its journey to a waste
reprocessing centre in France. The container was first transported by
truck and accompanied by a police escort from the Grafenrheinfeld
power plant to a rail station in Gochsheim.
Several hundred anti-nuclear activists stood by at the train station
where the container was transferred to the rails amid a police
presence of hundreds of German police. But they were unable to stop
the demonstrators in the nearby town of Sennfeld.
Three further containers carrying spent nuclear fuel from the
Philipsburg power plant in Baden-Wuerttemberg and another container
from the Biblis plant in Hesse were due to join the rail transport in
Woerth in the state of Rhineland-Palatinate before it heads for the
French reprocessing plant in La Hague.
Authorities said the Philipsburg and Biblis plants had nearly
exhausted their temporary storage capacity and would be forced to
shut down soon if the waste was not removed.
Anti-nuclear demonstrators had clashed with police two weeks ago when
Germany took back the first cargo of reprocessed waste from France
since the German government banned the shipments in 1998 over
concerns about radioactive leaks and huge anti-nuclear protests.
Authorities employed 20,000 police costing the state around $50
million to protect the shipment on its way from France back to a
storage facility in the northern German town of Gorleben. Protesters
briefly halted the train by chaining themselves to the tracks.
German anti-nuclear activists have announced they will try to block
the train coming from Philippsburg in southwestern Germany before it
crosses into France on Tuesday evening.
The train carrying nuclear waste from Germany to a reprocessing plant
in northern France this week will pass through the suburbs of Paris,
French anti-nuclear groups said.
The train, due to traverse France in the early hours of Wednesday,
will pass through Bobigny, a suburb so close to the capital that it
is on the Paris metro network, they said.
--------------
IAEA Only few queries left on Iraqi nuke program
UNITED NATIONS, April 10 (Reuters) - The U.N. nuclear watchdog agency
said it had only a few remaining questions about Iraq's clandestine
atomic programs and these might be clarified if inspectors were
permitted back into the country.
In a report to the U.N. Security Council on Monday, the International
Atomic Energy Agency, however, said inspectors first needed to verify
no new programs had emerged since they were last in Iraq in late
1998.
Iraq has barred U.N. scrutiny of its weapons of mass destruction
programs since U.N. arms experts left on the eve of a December 1998
U.S.-British bombing raid, conducted to punish Baghdad for not
cooperating with the inspectors.
If inspectors were permitted to return, the IAEA would be able "to
investigate the few remaining questions and concerns that relate to
Iraq's past clandestine nuclear program, along with any other aspect
of this program that may come to its knowledge," IAEA Director-
General Mohamed ElBaradei wrote.
"As long as such verification activities are not reinstated, the
agency will remain unable to provide any measure of assurance with
regard to Iraq's compliance with its obligations," ElBaradei said in
his six-month report.
The Vienna-based IAEA is responsible for keeping track of Iraq's
nuclear materials, while the new U.N. Monitoring, Verification and
Inspection Commission, known as UNMOVIC, is in charge of monitoring
its chemical, biological and ballistic weapons programs.
"The agency remains prepared to resume its verification activities in
Iraq under the relevant Security Council resolutions at short
notice," ElBaradei said.
IRAQ UNDER GULF WAR SANCTIONS
In April 1999, the IAEA came close to giving Iraq a clean bill of
health after years of criticism that the agency had failed to detect
Iraq's clandestine nuclear weapons projects.
Baghdad launched a crash program to test its first nuclear bomb using
highly enriched uranium after it invaded Kuwait in 1990. The target
date was April 1991 but U.S. planes during the Gulf War earlier that
year bombed many facilities.
Iraq has been under Security Council sanctions since the August 1990
invasion of Kuwait. Inspections to verify it no longer has weapons of
mass destruction programs are a key demand before the embargoes can
be suspended.
Baghdad has repeatedly rejected a December 1999 council resolution
that links an easing of sanctions to allowing the inspectors to
return. Iraq says it has complied with council demands and that the
1999 resolution offered little relief in lifting the sanctions.
Iraq, however, did allow IAEA experts to visit in January and check
on whether enriched, natural or depleted uranium and other materials
in its atomic power reactors were being diverted for weapons
purposes. Such visits are required by the Nuclear Nonproliferation
Treaty, which Iraq signed in 1968.
ElBaradei said the inspectors were able to ascertain that nuclear
material remaining in Iraq "is subject to safeguards." But he said
that annual visits could not substitute for the verification required
by the Security Council.
--------------
Some Answers to Our Energy Problems
CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--April 9, 2001--"If you think
deregulation of the airline and telecommunications industries was a
big deal, those pale in comparison to deregulation of the energy
industry--and we're right in the middle of it."
So said Dr. Charles W. Pryor, Jr., President and Chief Executive
Officer of the Westinghouse Electric Company, referring to the much
larger global, electricity supply industry. Pryor was visiting the
University of Virginia's Darden Graduate School of Business
Administration to speak to MBA students and to a group of his own top-
level managers at a Darden executive education custom program.
Having worked in the nuclear power industry for most of his career,
Pryor caught the attention of Professor John Colley's corporate
governance class when he addressed the current energy situation:
"There must be a balance between environmental concerns and
maintaining the quality of life Americans have grown to expect. I
don't think they want to give up their quality of life because we
can't get it right in supplying electricity. On a 90-degree day in
July, they won't want to turn off their air conditioning to cut down
on carbon emissions.
"It's a dilemma to be in the most powerful country in the world and
not be able to adequately supply consumers," he said. According to
Pryor, the power we use in the world today would have to double or
triple to accommodate the number of people who will need it over the
next 50 years.
Limiting air pollution and greenhouse gases--a goal of countries
worldwide--without the use of nuclear power would be difficult, he
says. In fact, the U.S. Nuclear Energy Institute estimates that "the
amount of greenhouse gases saved each year by nuclear power plants in
the U.S. equates to taking nearly 100 million cars off the road."
Pryor cited California's emphasis on energy conservation, and
although he supports that philosophy, he does not believe it alone is
feasible, especially with many of California's utility companies near
bankruptcy. He said, "Andy Grove (co-founder and Chairman of Intel)
has said we need to build a nuclear facility, so maybe that will make
a difference out there."
Pryor says that more than 100 nuclear plants supply about 20 percent
of U.S. electricity (Virginia Power is one of the largest users of
nuclear power) and more than 430 plants supply 17 percent of the
world's electric power. The ability of nuclear power to compete in
the marketplace will depend on its ability to be cost-competitive,
and he believes nuclear plants can compete with alternative
generating sources. He added that the biggest impact on the industry
is customers pushing for lower costs.
With short-and-long term economic considerations of the population in
mind, Westinghouse is investing in new nuclear technologies that will
be even safer and more economical than those currently in operation.
Pryor told the students about a newly created position in one energy
company, called the CRO - Chief Risk Officer - who looks out for all
potential risks to a business, such as financial, environmental and
operational. He believes this is a new trend in the industry and is a
brilliant idea that may spread to other businesses as well. When
asked what he thinks is required to supply adequate utilities in the
U.S., he said, "Ten large, base-load power plants would be a good
start, if a little on the light side."
Pryor concluded his remarks with some advice for the group of future
CEO wannabes. "You show me a CEO who hasn't gone in the wrong
direction, and I'll show you a CEO who isn't doing a very good job.
In the U.S., we're learning to tolerate mistakes for the sake of
taking immediate action to beat out a competitor. If you are
constantly analyzing, you can't get ahead in a timely manner.
Americans have grown comfortable with making timely decisions."
Professor Colley said the goal of his course is to change behavior.
"In classes, CEO's of major corporations add reality and an
opportunity for students to measure what the faculty, which are
mostly academics, are telling them," he said. "Charlie Pryor's talk
was especially interesting, given the current crisis in energy supply
and demand," Colley added.
Historically, either Westinghouse or its licensees have provided more
than 40 percent of the world's operating commercial nuclear plants.
With the integration of the ABB nuclear businesses into Westinghouse
(in April 2000), that percentage has grown to approximately 50
percent, clearly giving Westinghouse the world's largest installed
base of operating plants.
--------------
EU raps Russia on nuclear cleanup, frets about NTV
LUXEMBOURG, April 10 (Reuters) - The European Union accused Russia on
Tuesday of dragging its feet over plans to clean up its environment
and said Moscow must work much harder to attract sorely needed
foreign investment.
During talks in Luxembourg with Russian Deputy Prime Minister Viktor
Khristenko, senior EU officials also expressed concerns about press
freedom amid a fierce ownership row over Russia's sole independent TV
channel, NTV.
European Commissioner for External Affairs, Chris Patten, said Moscow
was holding up plans to release European, U.S. and Japanese money to
tackle some of its environmental problems, especially at nuclear
facilities in northern Russia.
"We are profoundly disappointed by the discussions last week (in
Berlin), which actually went backwards," Patten told a news
conference also attended by Khristenko and Swedish Foreign Minister
Anna Lindh.
Patten was referring to the so-called Multilateral Nuclear
Environmental Program in Russia (MNEPR), which aims to tap foreign
capital to tackle problems like rusting hulks of Russian nuclear
submarines in the Barents Sea.
Diplomats said the main problems centred on taxation and liability
for the foreign firms involved. The EU had hoped to wrap up the issue
by the time of an EU-Russia summit in Moscow in May but diplomats
said that now looked unlikely.
They said Russia appeared unhappy about some of the conditions donors
had attached to the future investments.
LURING INVESTORS
Patten said Moscow had to do more to persuade all investors that
Russia was a safe and reliable place to do business in.
"If we are to see an increase in EU investment, Russia has to work
harder in the energy sector and others," he said.
Patten added that the EU had been heartened by comments in favour of
market reforms by President Vladimir Putin in his recent state-of-the-
nation address.
The EU wants Russia to liberalise its tax regime for foreign
investors, to simplify customs procedures, enforce contractual rights
and introduce international accounting standards.
Despite the criticisms, Khristenko gave an upbeat assessment of EU-
Russia relations, saying they had "never been so intense."
"This pragmatic spirit should be the basis of our future relations,"
he said.
The Russian side raised some concerns about the EU's plans to take in
new members from ex-communist central and eastern Europe but said
that, handled correctly, enlargement could provide new economic
opportunities for Moscow too.
Khristenko said the EU accounted for 35 percent of all Russian trade
and the 12 candidate countries a further 16 percent, making the
region by far its biggest market.
NTV, CHECHNYA
Lindh, whose country holds the EU's rotating presidency, repeated
European worries about media freedom in Russia and about the human
rights situation in Chechnya.
State-dominated gas giant Gazprom recently ousted the founder of
independent television channel NTV and his key aides in a boardroom
coup branded illegal by the network's staff. Thousands have protested
against the takeover in the biggest street protests of Putin's year-
old presidency.
"On NTV, we have called for pluralist laws of ownership. We fear this
(latest) development will decrease pluralism for owners," Lindh told
Reuters. She also accused Russia of continuing to block humanitarian
aid for civilians in war-devastated Chechnya, where Moscow says it is
fighting radical Islamic separatists.
"We had lots of promising answers (on Chechnya), but we responded
that unfortunately we have heard these promises before and have not
seen any improvement on the ground," she said.
---------------
Novoste chief says Beta-Cath study not total failure
CHICAGO, April 9 (Reuters) - Novoste Corp. <NOVT.O> Chief Executive
William Hawkins told analysts on Monday that his company's Beta-Cath
radiation therapy still holds some promise for expanded use in first-
time stent patients, despite last month's disappointing study
results.
The Norcross, Ga.-based medical device company already markets the
Beta-Cath radiation therapy to prevent reclogging of arteries propped
open with wire-mesh tubes, or stents, a condition known as "instent
restenosis." The company had sought to expand the therapy's use to
patients receiving a stent for the first time, but the technology
failed to meet the study's main objectives.
Investors took the news hard, slicing the company's share price
nearly in half, to $17.06, in March 19 trade on the Nasdaq market.
At the Robinson-Humphrey Institutional conference in Atlanta, Hawkins
told analysts the tube, or train, used in the Beta-Cath study to
deliver radiation was too short, allowing the artery to reclose at
the edges. Had it been longer, he said, the study may have proven
more successful.
In the presentation, which was broadcast over the Internet, Hawkins
said the areas of the artery treated with radiation responded to the
treatment. "We used a too-short source train that is easily
solvable," he said.
Novoste has filed for U.S. Food & Drug Administration approval for
two longer source trains, a 40mm version and a 60mm version. He said
FDA approval for the 40mm version is expected any day, and approval
of the 60mm version expected in the second half of the year.
The company plans to conduct a new study using the longer source
trains later this year, Hawkins said.
Novoste received FDA approval in November to use radiation to treat
instent restenosis, a $500 million market. Adding first-time stent
users would have expanded the market for Novoste's treatment to $1
billion to $2 billion, according to estimates from Banc of America
analyst Kurt Kruger.
In the United States, the company faces competition from Johnson &
Johnson <JNJ.N>, which markets a similar therapy.
"They've learned a lot," Kruger said of the Beta-Cath study, adding
that the data in that study were gathered two to three years ago. "It
might take them two years from now to get approval for that kind of
indication," he said.
Hawkins said the Beta-Cath study also indicated that instent
restenosis is a much larger market than previously expected, with
vessels treated with stents reclogging in some 30 percent to 40
percent of cases, compared with the current 20 percent to 25 percent
industry estimates.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sandy Perle Tel:(714) 545-0100 / (800) 548-5100
Director, Technical Extension 2306
ICN Worldwide Dosimetry Service Fax:(714) 668-3149
ICN Pharmaceuticals, Inc. E-Mail: sandyfl@earthlink.net
ICN Plaza, 3300 Hyland Avenue E-Mail: sperle@icnpharm.com
Costa Mesa, CA 92626
Personal Website: http://sandyfl.nukeworker.net
ICN Worldwide Dosimetry Website: http://www.dosimetry.com
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