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Somali pirates have accused European firms of dumping toxic waste off the Somali coast and are demanding an $8m ransom for the return of a Ukranian ship they captured, saying the money will go towards cleaning up the waste. The ransom demand is a means of "reacting to the toxic waste that has been continually dumped on the shores of our country for nearly 20 years", Januna Ali Jama, a spokesman for the pirates, based in the semi-autonomous region of Puntland, said.

Arjun Makhijani urges utility to seek other sources SCOTTSBORO - An energy analyst whose advice was instrumental in the Tennessee Valley Authority canceling eight reactor projects in the 1970s and '80s said the utility's plan for more nuclear plants now is a mistake. "Why is TVA leading a charge again" toward a nuclear power program that led to an indebtedness of more than $25 billion 20 to 30 years ago, Dr. Arjun Makhijani asked at a news conference Wednesday.

The destruction of a suspected Syrian nuclear reactor last year was the result of an intelligence collaboration that included a "foreign partner" who first identified the facility's purpose, CIA Director Gen. Michael Hayden said on Tuesday. The reactor at the desert outpost of Al-Kibar was flattened in an air strike on September 6, 2007 that senior U.S. intelligence officials have said was carried out by Israel on its own initiative.

Southern Nuclear Operating Company, et al.; Notice of Hearing and Opportunity To Petition for Leave To Intervene and Order Imposing Procedures for Access to Sensitive Unclassified Non-Safeguards Information and Safeguards Information for Contention Preparation on a Combined License for the Vogtle Electric Generating Plant Units 3 and 4

Egypt has refused to allow entry to an Israeli truck carrying 3.5 ton of ceramics after high radiation levels were detected in the shipment. Egyptian officials seized the goods at the Al-Oja border crossing after radiation detection equipment showed a high presence of radioactive material in the cargo, a security official told AFP.

Ever since Al Gore won an Oscar and a Nobel Prize for his fight against expanding climate change, there have been claims that nuclear power plants are the easy solution. They give phenomenal amounts of energy, after all, without much carbon production.

EVER since former Vice President Al Gore won an Oscar and a Nobel Prize for his fight against expanding climate change, there have been claims that nuclear power plants are the easy solution. They give phenomenal amounts of energy, after all, without much carbon production. Some who seek facile solutions say it's about time to dump the safeguards of 1976's Proposition 15, which essentially put a stop to atomic-power facility construction in California after completion of the Diablo Canyon nuclear plant on the central coast.

On January 15, outgoing Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice signed a nuclear cooperation accord with her United Arab Emirates (UAE) counterpart Shaikh Abdullah bin Zayed al-Nahyan. The treaty, which to become law needs to be presented to the U.S. Congress, would help the Persian Gulf state become the first Arab country to develop a nuclear power sector. Along with last year's nuclear agreement with India, this treaty emphasizes a trend away from decades of U.S. policy dominated by the fear of nuclear proliferation. Not since the 1950s Eisenhower-era "Atoms for Peace" program has so much hope been placed in peaceful nuclear cooperation. Background The pact marks an astonishing diplomatic journey for the UAE and Shaikh Abdullah. Ten years ago in 1999, the shaikh, a son of the then ruler and a half-brother of the current UAE president, was an honored guest during a visit to Pakistan's unsafeguarded Kahuta uranium enrichment and missile facility. While there, he saw the prefabricated structures built in Sharjah, a member sheikhdom of the UAE, which were hiding the production line of the nuclear-capable Ghauri missile from U.S. satellites passing overhead. For a quarter century, until 2004, the UAE helped Pakistan elude Western export controls by serving as a vital transit point for Pakistan's purchases of nuclear-weapon-related parts and manufacturing equipment.

The Sudanese government announced today that it signed a framework agreement with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) on developing a nuclear energy program. The Sudanese cabinet session headed by President Omer Hassan Al-Bashir was briefed on the details of the agreement from minister of science and technology, Professor Ibrahim Ahmed Omer. The spokesperson of Sudan's cabinet, Omer Mohammed Saleh said the understanding between the two sides also includes using nuclear technology to improving productivity in agricultural and livestock, enhance infrastructure to treat cancer patients, uncovering drug resistant malaria, new energy sources, a study of groundwater basins and feeding it and the production of medical isotopes.

Intelligence activities across the U.S. government and military cost a total of $75 billion a year, the nation's top intelligence official said on Tuesday, disclosing an overall number long shrouded in secrecy. Dennis Blair, the U.S. director of national intelligence, cited the figure as part of a four-year strategic blueprint for the sprawling, 200,000-person intelligence community. In an unclassified version of the blueprint released by Blair's office, intelligence agencies singled out as threats Iran's nuclear program, North Korea's "erratic behavior," and insurgencies fueled by militant groups, though Blair cited gains against al Qaeda. Blair also cited challenges from China's military modernization and natural resource-driven diplomacy, as well as from efforts by Russia to reassert its power.

One video recorder set, six tapes, a digital camera and a stone. North Korea laid out its evidence Tuesday against two American journalists sentenced to hard labor for entering the country illegally. The country's official news agency reported that the journalists, Lisa Ling and Euna Lee, documented their journey into communist North Korea, even pocketing a stone to commemorate the illicit trip across the frozen Tumen River from China. "We've just entered a North Korean courtyard without permission," the Korean translation of their videotape narration said, according to Korean Central News Agency. Ling, 32, and Lee, 36, who work for former Vice President Al Gore's California-based Current TV media group, were sentenced last Monday to 12 years of hard labor in a North Korean prison for illegal entry and "hostile acts."

KUWAIT: Fourth constituency Municipal Council candidate Anwar Malallah has called on the government to install radioactivity detection equipment, reminding it of Israel's threats to bomb the Bushehr nuclear reactor in Iran around 300 kilometers away from Kuwait, reported Al-Rai. Malallah urged the government to take all precautionary measures possible to avoid such hazards that would be catastrophic to Kuwait if such a strike took place. He added that he would work on licensing new public and private labs to measure pollution levels using environmental safety measures. He added that the government should also warn the public in case radiation levels exceeded those considered safe. The candidate stressed that chemical pollution levels had spread across Kuwait due to the lack of control on waste emission levels from various factories and refineries and because of the high levels of radiation resulting from depleted uranium all over Kuwaiti deserts. He said that this had led to higher than usual incidences of cancer in the country.

Speculation about storing nuclear waste in the province is premature, said New Brunswick Energy Minister Jack Keir, even as a growing number of experts say the province has geology that may be suited to the task. '[The province] might be suitable and it might be possible to develop a repository'- Tom Al, UNB geologist The Nuclear Waste Management Organization was in New Brunswick this week meeting with people in various communities about its plan to build an underground storage site somewhere in Canada for spent nuclear fuel. The organization, which was formed in 2002 to be responsible for the long-term management of Canada's used nuclear fuel, seemed to catch the provincial government off guard on Thursday when a company official said that any of the four Canadian provinces involved in the nuclear industry - New Brunswick, Ontario, Quebec and Saskatchewan - could be home to this proposed storage facility.

Niger's government and main Tuareg rebel groups have agreed at Libyan-sponsored talks to make peace in the country's uranium-mining north, Libyan state media and a rebel website said on Tuesday. The joint peace declaration late on Monday was the most inclusive yet between Tuareg rebels who launched an uprising two years ago, and the government, which had dismissed them as smugglers and bandits for most of that time. Nomadic Tuaregs launched uprisings in the Sahara in the 1960s and 1990s, and renewed rebellions since early 2007 against the governments of Niger and neighbouring Mali have increased instability in a region where al Qaeda cells also operate.

A dirty bomb attack using chemical, biological or nuclear material is now "more realistic", the Government has warned as it laid out plans for tackling the terror threat against Britain. Thefts of hazardous materials from failed states and the spread of explosives technology around the world mean terrorists are more capable of making such a device, a major new report launched by Home Secretary Jacqui Smith warned. The document, Contest Two, is an official assessment of the danger Britain faces from terrorist groups and how it will change in future. It questions whether al Qaida will survive as a unified group and warns future attacks are more likely to come from smaller groups with access to new technology.

The U.N. atomic watchdog may need to set up its own intelligence unit to combat a growing menace of nuclear terrorism, a former senior CIA official said in an interview Wednesday. "The good news is that no credible information has surfaced that al Qaeda has obtained weapons-usable nuclear materials. The bad news is that (these) are missing in significant quantities," said Rolf Mowatt-Larssen. He said the International Atomic Energy Agency, with its expertise probing shadowy nuclear activity in Iran and the A.Q. Khan nuclear smuggling ring, could be well placed to transcend national barriers to intelligence-sharing on atomic threats.

"Uranium particles found by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in Syria are an indication that a site bombed by Israel in 2007 could indeed have been a nuclear reactor, the organization said in a new report Thursday. The report included clearer language than previously used in IAEA analysis of the bombed site, known as al-Kibar or Dair Alzour, which Syria claims was not built for nuclear purposes. "The presence of such particles points to the possibility of nuclear-related activities at the site and adds questions concerning the nature of the destroyed building," IAEA chief Yukiya Amano wrote in his report to agency member states. "