AW: UN Wants to End Confusion About Chernobyl

["Franz Schoenhofer" <franz.schoenhofer@CHELLO.AT>]

-----Ursprüngliche Nachricht-----

Von: owner-radsafe@list.vanderbilt.edu

[mailto:owner-radsafe@list.vanderbilt.edu]Im Auftrag von Steven Dapra

Gesendet: Freitag, 30. April 2004 03:06

An: radsafe@list.vanderbilt.edu

Betreff: Re: UN Wants to End Confusion About Chernobyl





April 29



	Under the news story "China casts doubt on import of German nuclear plant"

read this:



	"When [German chancellor] Schroeder unveiled the deal he said the German

government had no legal grounds to ban the sale, since China had guaranteed

the plant would not be used for military purposes."



	Does anyone actually believe this guarantee??



__________________________________________________________



Steven,



The question seems rather to be, whether anybody believes this story.



I might be totally wrong, but I write here, what I recall from memory,

because no such news appeared in Austria in any mass media during the last

days or weeks. The "nuclear plant" mentioned cannot be a nuclear power

plant, because there was never any one constructed in Hanau. It seems to be

a plant for production of fuel rods, this is also what I faintly remember.



Furtheron I remember that there was a heated debate about this topic at

least half a year ago in Germany and what I remember was that the proposed

deal was cancelled. (I might be totally wrong.)



As to the question: I do not doubt that China would be able to build a

fuel-production unit itself - anybody doubting this? So it seems to be a

question of economy, that the German one would without doubt be cheaper to

buy than to construct an own. For Germany it would be advantageous to get

rid of the not usable facility (Germany has officially declared to phase out

nuclear power) and to get even some money for it.



Not being familiar with Germanys legislation I want to point out, that such

legislation is possible, that a country importing "dual purpose" goods may

do so, when guaranteeing in written form, that it will not use it for

military purpose and thus the exporting country is authorized to export it

and there would not be any legal grounds to deny it.



So far about the (hopefully) factual background of the news and the

(possible) legal background.



The ethical background is another question. There are enough countries in

this world, which posess enrichment plants and fuel fabrication plants.

Sometimes I get the feeling that the "concerns" about military use of such

plants is nothing else than an economic fear, that those countries will

become independent on their fuel supply and existing companies will loose

not only a big market, but also influence and of course money. China has

demonstrated frequently that it has nuclear weapons, so they have the

technology and I do not understand, what to bother about - even from the

point of view of the USA.



But before judging this story one should know the facts and not the fiction

of Reuters, which has already distributed fiction about the IAEA and Iraq

recently. I commented on this. Since we have so many nuclear weapons states

already, one might ask what is so terrible or frightening about such a sale

to a nuclear weapons state, even if they would use it for military

purposes??



Best regards,



Franz











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