Closure of Dutch nuclear plant postponed - paper

["Sandy Perle" <sandyfl@EARTHLINK.NET>]

Index:



Closure of Dutch nuclear plant postponed - paper

IAEA passes resolution on protecting nuclear resources

Russia says finally ready to raise the Kursk

Mobile phones may do harm by speeding up brain

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Closure of Dutch nuclear plant postponed - paper

  

AMSTERDAM, Sept 21 (Reuters) - Closure of the Netherlands' only 

operating nuclear power plant has been postponed for the time being 

pending the outcome of court hearings, a Dutch newspaper reported on 

Friday. 



Evening newspaper NRC Handelsblad said that electricity generator 

EPZ, which owns the 450 megawatt power station in Borssele, is 

contesting that it reached an agreement in 1994 with the Dutch 

government to close the plant. 



Under the contested deal the plant was to be closed in January 2004, 

but EPZ says it has permission to keep the plant open for an 

indefinite period. 



The government now has to prove to the court in hearings starting 

November 9 that an agreement was reached for closing the plant, the 

Netherlands' sole operating nuclear plant. 



Environmental activist group Greenpeace was quoted by the newspaper 

as saying it was unlikely the plant will be closed in January 2004 

due to the risk of protracted legal wrangling. 



EPZ is owned by Dutch utilities Essent and Nutsbedrijven. 



The Dutch government was not immediately available to comment. 

-------------------



IAEA passes resolution on protecting nuclear resources



VIENNA, Sept. 21 (Kyodo) - The International Atomic Energy Agency 

(IAEA) passed a resolution Friday to safeguard plutonium and other 

nuclear materials, as well as nuclear production sites, in the wake 

of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks in the United States. 



''The tragic terrorist attacks on the United States were a wake-up 

call to us all. We cannot be complacent,'' said IAEA Director General 

Mohamed ElBaradei in a press release issued on the final day of the 

five-day IAEA General Conference. 



''We have to and will increase our efforts on all fronts -- from 

combating illicit trafficking to ensuring the protection of nuclear 

materials -- from nuclear installation design to withstand attacks to 

improving how we respond to nuclear emergencies,'' ElBaradei said. 



The conference received a message from U.S. President George W. Bush 

on its opening day Monday, urging that the agency fight the threat 

posed by nuclear proliferation. 



Before winding down its business on Friday, the IAEA also adopted a 

resolution urging North Korea allow an IAEA team to inspect its 

nuclear facilities. 

-----------------



Russia says finally ready to raise the Kursk



MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia will try next week to raise the wreck of 

the nuclear submarine Kursk from the Arctic seabed -- the culmination 

of efforts to soothe the pain caused by the country's worst post-

Soviet disaster. 



Navy Cmdr. Vladimir Kuroyedov was due to fly to the site, 60 miles 

from the northern port of Murmansk, to oversee the operation 

involving a Dutch salvage company, his aide said Friday. 



"This is the first time in world history that a combat vessel of such 

displacement is being raised," Igor Dygalo told the strana.ru Web 

site, which generally reflects Kremlin views. 



The Kursk sank to the bottom of the Barents Sea in August 2000 after 

a series of mysterious explosions ripped open its torpedo bay. All 

118 men on board were killed. 



Investigating the cause of the blasts is one of the reasons why 

Moscow says it wants to lift the 500-foot-long vessel. Officials also 

say Russia has a duty to recover the Kursk's two nuclear reactors 

from international fishing grounds. 



Russian media suggest the main force driving the $130 million 

operation is an emotional pledge by President Vladimir Putin to the 

crew's relatives in the aftermath of the disaster to give their loved 

ones a proper burial. 



Putin's failure to break off a Black Sea vacation during the crisis 

generated the most stinging criticism he has faced in more than 18 

months in office. 



Experts inside and outside Russia have said the money devoted to 

lifting the Kursk could be better used to improve safety in Russia's 

decrepit and cash-strapped navy. 



They also say that the wreck is unlikely to produce any valuable 

clues for the investigators, especially after the salvagers sawed off 

the submarine's damaged bow where the blasts occurred. Few bodies are 

expected to be found. 



Officials said the mangled bay had to be cut off for fear it might 

still be holding unexploded torpedoes that could go off when the 

18,000-ton vessel is being pulled to the surface. Russia says it will 

raise the bow later without foreign help. 



Deputy Prime Minister Ilya Klebanov, who headed a commission 

investigating the accident, told news agencies he expected the Kursk 

to be raised Tuesday. A spokesman for the Dutch company Mammoet said 

Thursday was more likely. 



The Kursk, lying in 330 feet of frigid waters, is due to be hoisted 

by 26 cranes installed on a specially designed Giant 4 barge. 



Officials say the probability of a new disaster, such as a radiation 

leak or an explosion on board if something goes wrong during the 

operation, is close to zero. 

---------------



Mobile phones may do harm by speeding up brain



LONDON, Sept 21 (Reuters) - Mobile phones may cause damage to health 

by speeding up the brain's response times, a British scientist told a 

conference on Friday. 



As consumer concerns mount that prolonged mobile phone use could lead 

to problems ranging from headaches to tumours, a recent study showing 

an alarming rate of brain cancer in some cellphone users is helping 

swing scientific opinion in Britain. 



Dr Alan Preece, head of Biophysics at Bristol Oncology Centre, is 

among a group of scientists becoming increasingly convinced that 

radiation from cellphones triggers chemical processes in the body 

that may be harmful. 



Six separate studies now indicate that response times speed up when 

people are exposed to radio frequency signals from mobiles phones. 



"Perhaps we now have to accept there is an effect on the brain," 

Preece told a London conference on the health risks of mobile phones. 





"The response time has improved because of stress proteins, which are 

switched on by a gene. This needs further research. The chronic 

exposure to radio frequency signals might well have a detrimental 

(health) effect." 



Stress proteins are produced when body temperature rises, but Preece 

and other scientists said they can also occur purely as a result of 

RF signals, when body temperature is normal. 



Other research from Sweden and Switzerland has indicated that 

radiation from mobile phone calls disturbs sleep. 



INCREASED CANCER RISK 



In a study not yet published in scientific literature, Swedish 

professors Lennart Hardell and Kjell Hansson Mild found that people 

who had used analogue mobile phones for up to 10 years had a 26 

percent higher risk of brain cancer than a control sample. 



The study has unsettled many scientists -- even though it is based 

largely on a previous generation of mobile phones, many of which were 

installed in cars with aerials on the roof, and which emitted signals 

continuously, unlike the latest, digital phones. 



"One can no longer go around saying there is no link (between 

cellphone use and health effects)," Preece said. 



"Without question there is a biological threat," agreed James Lin, 

Professor of Bioengineering and Electrical Engineering at the U.S. 

University of Illinois. "The question is how hazardous mobile phone 

use is." 



But Lin said there were as almost as many studies purporting to show 

a biological impact from mobile phone use as studies that indicated 

the opposite: "Our understanding is still evolving. We need to have a 

much larger database." 



He noted that it takes nearly a decade for most brain cancers to 

develop -- longer than the period of use covered by most studies. 



The World Health Organisation (WHO) said last week that more research 

was needed before damage to health could be ruled out. 



However, Elisabeth Cardis, Chief of Radiation and Cancer at the WHO's 

International Agency for Research in Cancer, told a conference in 

Finland that any possible risk was small. 



Last year, a British government-sponsored scientific inquiry 

concluded that while there was no evidence of a danger to health, it 

would be wise to discourage children from using mobile phones, 

because they were more susceptible to radiation.



------------------------------------------------------------------------

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://www.geocities.com/scperle

ICN Worldwide Dosimetry Website: http://www.dosimetry.com



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