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2003:

Seven activists win top environmental prize (Michael Kahn, Reuters, 15 Apr. 2003)

• Coalminer’s Daughter in West Virginia, Australian Aboriginal Grandmothers Among Winners of 2003 Goldman Environmental Prize - World’s Largest Award for Grassroots Environmentalists Honors Seven Fighting for Clean Energy, Water and against Government Corruption (Goldman Environmental Prize, 14 Apr. 2003)

• {···español} Hija de minero del carbón en Virginia Occidental y abuelas aborígenes de Australia entre los ganadores del Premio Medioambiental Goldman de 2003 - Mayor premio del mundo para ecologistas de base honra a siete que luchan por la energía limpia y el agua sana, y en contra de la corrupción gubernamental (Premio Medioambiental Goldman, 14 abril 2003)

• Goldman Prize honors environmental crusaders -...The Goldman prize honors grassroots environmental "heroes" from six geographic areas on the planet. (Wyatt Buchanan, San Francisco Chronicle, 14 Apr. 2003)

• 2003 Recipient Backgrounders - 2003 Goldman Environmental Prize Recipients - A coal miner’s daughter and native West Virginian, Julia Bonds has won the Goldman Environmental Prize for leading campaigns to stop mountaintop removal mining...Forest protection activist Odigha Odigha of Cross River State, Nigeria, has won the Goldman Environmental Prize for winning unprecedented protections for Nigeria’s last remaining rainforests. Odigha was instrumental in creating a statewide logging moratorium...Von Hernandez has won the Goldman Environmental Prize for organizing campaigns against waste incinerators in the Philippines...Physicist and economics professor Pedro Arrojo-Agudo has won the Goldman Environmental Prize for leading the campaign to stop Spain’s National Hydrological Plan from damming and re-routing the country’s last remaining free-flowing rivers...Peruvian community organizer Maria Elena Foronda Farro has won the Goldman Environmental Prize for her campaign to clean up Peru’s fishmeal industry, which dumps untreated industrial waste into streams and out of smokestacks, causing cholera outbreaks, fungal skin diseases and the worst pollution problems in Peru’s coastal cities...Aboriginal elders Eileen Kampakuta Brown and Eileen Wani Wingfield have won the Goldman Environmental Prize for their leadership in the campaign to block construction of a nuclear waste dump in their South Australian desert homeland. (Goldman Environmental Prize, 14 Apr. 2003)

Uranium plant workers exposed to harmful metal [USA] - Forty-four workers at the Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant have tested positive for exposure to a metal that can cause long-term lung problems...The U.S. Enrichment Corp. leases the plant from the Energy Department to separate beneficial uranium and process it into fuel for commercial nuclear power plants. (Louisville Courier-Journal, 9 Mar. 2003)

2002:

Japan orders nuclear reactor closed for false data - Japan's Trade Ministry will order a one-year suspension of a nuclear reactor operated by the nation's largest power utility, Tokyo Electric Power Co Inc (TEPCO) (9501.T), last week to punish it for falsifying data. (Reuters, 2 Dec. 2002)

TOXIC SUBSTANCES: Countries Discuss More Public Access To Information - European, Central Asian and North American negotiators began weeklong talks in Geneva Monday to finalize an international pact on the public's right to information about chemical waste and toxic pollutants in the environment, Reuters reports. (UN Wire, 27 Nov. 2002)

• Countries seek tougher 'right to know' on toxics -...the week-long talks...come amid complaints by environmental groups that some toxic substances — radioactive waste and cancer-causing chemicals — risk being dropped from the draft deal under pressure from industry lobbyists.  Friends of the Earth and other activists warn that some countries are pressing for known carcinogenic substances — such as beryllium, a metal used in some electronic appliances, and chromium VI, employed in pigments and dyes, leather tanning, and wood preserving — to be removed from the list. Another area of concern is styrene — a possible carcinogen used widely in rubber, plastics, insulation, fiberglass, and autoparts — which is also in line to be omitted. (Stephanie Nebehay, Reuters, 26 Nov. 2002)

Public right-to-know undermined in new pollution treaty - Negotiations on a new international treaty to increase the public’s right-to-know on sources of pollution enter the final stages with a United Nations meeting in Geneva next week. But environmentalists are warning that key chemicals and radioactive waste are likely to be excluded from the treaty, following lobbying from industry and the conservative positions taken by governments. (Friends of the Earth, 21 Nov. 2002)

Exelon settles worker discrimination case with NRC [USA] - The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission said last week it reached a settlement agreement with Exelon Nuclear Generation Co. in a discrimination case involving a former employee who raised concerns about safety at a nuclear power plant in Illinois. An NRC investigation found that an Exelon manager deliberately discriminated against the employee on Aug. 25, 2000, by not picking him for a new job. (Reuters, 7 Oct. 2002)

Japan aims to improve nuclear plant safety rules - A Japanese government agency drafted a set of measures yesterday aimed at preventing a recurrence of the falsification of nuclear power plant safety data that has deepened public distrust of the nuclear industry (Reuters, 27 Sep. 2002) 

TEPCO acted improperly in 8 more reactor data cases [Japan] - Tokyo Electric Power Co Inc said it had acted improperly in another eight cases regarding the keeping of nuclear power plant safety records. (Reuters, 23 Sep. 2002)

TEPCO says acted improperly in 16 reactor data cases [Japan] - Tokyo Electric Power Co Inc said yesterday it had acted improperly in 16 cases regarding the keeping of nuclear power plant safety records. (Reuters, 18 Sep. 2002) 

No easy money for nuclear-weapons workers' ills [USA] - Families of the deceased or injured must show that they are eligible for compensation....If his children can show he got sick from his job, a new federal program will pay them $150,000. (Tom Avril, Philadelphia Inquirer, 19 Aug. 2002)

Eskom: Corporate Powerhouse or Green Company? -...Eskom, Africa's largest electric company -- also a major coal and nuclear enterprise, will be South Africa's Corporate Environmentalism Exhibit #1 during the Johannesburg World Summit on Sustainable Development...In this article, EarthLife Africa looks at the reality, and finds that the company has behaved in ways that contrast with Global Compact Principles seven (support a precautionary approach to environmental challenges) and nine (encourage the development and diffusion of environmentally friendly technologies.) (Brian Ashe, EarthLife Africa eThekwini, 16 Aug. 2002)

• company website: Eskom - Environment (Eskom)

Revealed: Race hate 'exposed black workers to radiation at BNFL plant' - British Nuclear Fuels is being sued by black workers at an American plant who claim it shares responsibility for deliberately assigning jobs that exposed them to almost twice as much radiation as their white colleagues in an environment of "hostile racism". (Marie Woolf, Andrew Buncombe & Solomon Hughes, Independent [UK], 13 Aug. 2002)

• Unions [UK unions] back US nuclear staff over racism claim - Leaders of six unions representing staff at British Nuclear Fuels' UK plants condemned the "shameful treatment" of workers at a site in America [Westinghouse Savannah River Company in South Carolina] in which the company has a big financial stake. (Marie Woolf, Independent [UK], 14 Aug. 2002)

The tale of two logos - a judge in the French High Court ruled Friday 2nd August that Greenpeace had a right to parody the logo of French nuclear fuel company, Areva, as part of its campaign to expose the company’s dirty nuclear activities...Areva's main subsidiary company, the plutonium reprocessing company COGEMA, has contaminated the seas around France, while Areva's parent body, the French Atomic Energy Commission has polluted Moruroa Atoll, France's former nuclear test site in the South Pacific (Greenpeace, 7 Aug. 2002)

NRC cites Wisconsin Energy for nuclear safety problem - The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission said this week it cited Wisconsin Electric Co.'s twin-reactor Point Beach nuclear power plant in Wisconsin for a potentially dangerous problem. (Reuters, 17 July 2002) 

Exposed: Double standards of dirty energy exports [UK] - Export credit agencies help flog coal, nuclear technologies to developing countries - Export credit agencies (ECAs) are little-known but important accomplices in the cynical practice of exporting dirty and outmoded technology to developing countries. This business exposes citizens of the developing world to health and environmental risks and contributes to the growing burden of climate changing gases in the atmosphere. (Greenpeace, 12 July 2002)

• report: Executive Summary - Exporting pollution: Double standards in UK energy exports - The last ten years have seen substantial financing by export credit agencies of fossil fuel power projects in developing countries – projects that will emit millions of tonnes of climate changing gases into our atmosphere for decades to come. (Greenpeace, 12 July 2002)

Australia's uranium mines come under spotlight - Australia's uranium mining will come under the spotlight of a parliamentary inquiry after a recent series of leaks, spills and reporting failures [refers to mines owned by Rio Tinto; Heathgate Resources Ltd, a subsidiary of U.S.-based General Atomics; WMC Ltd] (Reuters, 21 June 2002)

Sellafield children have increased cancer risk [UK] - study - Children whose fathers worked at the Sellafield nuclear power plant have twice the normal risk of developing leukaemia which may be due in part to the dose of radiation the men received. (Reuters, 20 June 2002)  

US residents can sue for nuke exposure - court - A federal appeals court yesterday ruled thousands of Washington state residents could sue over illnesses blamed on a Cold War plutonium plant, reversing a lower court dismissal of most of the claims...Many of the plaintiffs claimed radiation had caused thyroid cancer, as well as bone, breast and salivary cancer...The defendants include several industrial companies that ran the plant until 1986, including General Electric Co. and DuPont Co. (Reuters, 19 June 2002)

Ten Planet Trashers: Why corporate accountability matters -...Friends of the Earth today publishes details of “Ten Planet Trashers”, companies whose behaviour since Rio shows the need for binding rules on corporate behaviour. [the 10 companies: Exxon Mobil (Esso), AMEC, Premier Oil, ICI, Scotts, Barclays, Associated Octel, Aventis/Bayer, BNFL (British Nuclear Fuels), Associated British Ports] (Friends of the Earth, 1 June 2002)

• company websites:
  • ExxonMobil (Esso)
  • AMEC
  • Premier Oil
  • ICI
  • Scotts
  • Barclays Group
  • Octel Corp.
  • Aventis / Bayer Group
  • BNFL (British Nuclear Fuels)
  • Associated British Ports

Britain needs better nuclear waste storage - report -...In a report for the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA), the society [the Royal Society] said the government and nuclear industry had concentrated on fighting public hostility and neglected developing up-to-date technologies for storing nuclear waste. (Reuters, 6 May 2002)

New SA [South Australia] Uranium Leak Highlights Need for Wider Senate Inquiry - A new leak at the controversial Beverley acid in situ leach uranium mine in northern South Australia is further evidence of the need for an expanded independent Senate Inquiry into the regulation and monitoring of uranium mining according to ACF...The Beverley operation is owned by US nuclear corporation General Atomics (Australian Conservation Foundation, 3 May 2002)