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Scottish Ministers Reject New Nuclear Power Stations

Details: Published on Tuesday, 16 October 2007 14:53

Scottish Ministers have rejected new nuclear power stations as dangerous and unnecessary.

Energy Minister Jim Mather instead wants the billions of pounds that could be spent on nuclear power reallocated to make Scotland and the UK a world leader in clean, renewable technologies.

Crown Abandons Remaining Prestwick Cases

Details: Published on Tuesday, 16 October 2007 14:46

Three peace activists who entered Prestwick Airport as weapons inspectors during the August 2006 war in Lebanon have learned that the Ayr Procurator Fiscal has decided to withdraw the charges, after "further consideration of the evidence".

Sylvia Boyes from Yorkshire, Roz Bullen from Edinburgh and Kate Holcombe from Worcestershire were due to face trial at the end of the month accused of breaching the Civil Aviation Act. Acting on knowledge that the airport was being used in the transport of weapons for use in the invasion of Lebanon, they were inside Prestwick Airport for over 2 hours. They found the military area, monitored the flights and got up to a cargo plane they suspected was involved in carrying munitions, before they were arrested. Their action was the first of three consecutive nights of organised citizens' inspections at the airport. Out of the 17 people originally charged the Crown have been able to obtain only two convictions.

Nuclear Education Centre To Close

Details: Published on Tuesday, 16 October 2007 14:37

A Â£2.2 million UK nuclear education centre created in 2004 to capitalise on decommissioning spin-offs is to close its doors due to lack of interest. The Decommissioning and Environmental Remediation Centre (DERC), located near the Dounreay nuclear plant in northern Scotland, was set up as a major education, training and research centre to pioneer nuclear decommissioning education in the UK

Former Lord Advocate Queries Trident's Legality

Details: Published on Tuesday, 09 October 2007 14:44

The former Lord Advocate, Lord Murray, is seeking advice from the current holder of the office, Eilish Angiolini, on the legality of Trident nuclear missiles.

Lord Murray was one of a delegation of campaigners who made a submission to the Lord Advocate, calling on her to examine evidence that the nuclear deterrent, housed at Faslane naval base on the Clyde, may be illegal under international law

1957 Accident Released Twice As Much Radioactivity

Details: Published on Tuesday, 09 October 2007 14:21

Britain's worst nuclear accident, the 1957 Windscale fire in Cumbria, released twice as much radioactive debris as was previously thought.

'We have had to double our estimates of amounts that were released,' said former UK Atomic Energy Authority researcher John Garland. As a result of this re-evaluation, scientists say the fire - which sent a plume of caesium, iodine and polonium across Britain and northern Europe - may have caused several dozen more cases of cancer than had been estimated previously.

Obama Calls for Elimination of all Nuclear Weapons

Details: Published on Tuesday, 02 October 2007 15:28

Senator Barack Obama has proposed setting a goal of eliminating all nuclear weapons in the world, saying the United States should greatly reduce its stockpiles to lower the threat of nuclear terrorism.

In a speech at De Paul University in Chicago, Mr. Obama added his voice to a plan endorsed earlier this year by a bipartisan group of former government officials from the cold war era who say the United States must begin building a global consensus to reverse a reliance on nuclear weapons that have become Â“increasingly hazardous and decreasingly effective.Â”

171 Arrests at Faslane

Details: Published on Tuesday, 02 October 2007 15:03

At least 171 people were arrested on the last day of the year long Faslane 365 protest for taking non-violent direct action at the home of BritainÂ’s Trident nuclear weapons submarines. .

Around 600 protestors from across the UK and Europe non-violently shut down road access to the base on the Clyde from around dawn. Some used tubes with their arms locked on to one another to make their removal more difficult, whilst others superglued themselves together. Both gates to the base were blocked as was the road to the nearby Royal Naval Armaments Depot at Coulport, where the Trident nuclear missiles are stored.

UK's Plutonium Stockpile

Details: Published on Tuesday, 02 October 2007 14:41

Britain has stockpiled 100 tonnes of plutonium - enough to make 17,000 nuclear bombs, according to a report by the Royal Society. They warn that the material could be used to make "a crude nuclear bomb", and are calling for its disposal.

Report chairman Professor Geoffrey Boulton said: "The stockpile has grown whilst international nuclear proliferation and terrorist threats have increased. Just over 6kg of plutonium was used in the bomb which devastated Nagasaki and the UK has many thousands of times that amount. We must take measures to ensure that this very dangerous material does not fall into the wrong hands."

Safety of nuclear bomb assembly plant

Details: Published on Thursday, 20 September 2007 09:02

The Ministry of Defence has ignored warnings from nuclear safety inspectors and has
continued to assemble Trident nuclear weapons in facilities which the Health and Safety
Executive says do not meet modern safety standards.

MOD Projects Over Budget

Details: Published on Tuesday, 11 September 2007 15:19

The Ministry of Defence's 20 biggest weapon projects are Â£2.6 billion over budget and 36 years behind schedule according to the Commons Public Accounts Committee.

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