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"A federal appeals court has upheld the convictions of two former nuclear plant workers in Ohio who were found guilty of helping to cover up the worst corrosion ever found at a U.S. reactor. The U.S. Court of Appeals in Cincinnati found no reason to overturn the convictions of Andrew Siemaszko and David Geisen. Both were sentenced to probation and fined for misleading regulators in 2001 to delay a safety inspection at the Davis-Besse plant along Lake Erie. Inspectors later found an acid leak that nearly ate through the reactor's 6-inch-thick steel cap. The plant operated by FirstEnergy Corp. was shut down from early 2002 until 2004."

Three anti-nuclear protestors who were previously convicted of trespassing at Lake Anna Power Station's visitor center won an appeal in Louisa Circuit Court this morning and were resentenced on new charges. Three anti-nuclear protestors who were previously convicted of trespassing at Lake Anna Power Station's visitor center won an appeal in Louisa Circuit Court this morning and were resentenced on new charges. John "Jack" Maus, who represented all three protesters, appealed a lower court's conviction and sentence on grounds that the charges alleged a violation of county code, when in fact they should have been based on a violation of state law because the plant sits on private property.

"Russian scientist Igor Sutyagin, who was serving 15 years following a wrongful conviction on espionage charges, was Friday delivered together with three other convicted spies to Vienna and exchanged, in what appears to be the biggest US-Russian "spy swap" since the Cold War, for ten Russian individuals who have admitted earlier in New York to have been acting as agents of the Russian Federation. Maria Kaminskaya, 09/07-2010 Information that Sutyagin, an innocent man who was imprisoned at the height of what became known as "spymania" in Russia, will be part of an exchange by which Russia will repatriate ten US-based agents has earlier been confirmed by his lawyer Anna Stavitskaya. His release became joyful news for Bellona, which is all too familiar with the dismal situation with human rights and the workings of the justice system in Russia, though the fact that Sutyagin was forced to sign a confession of guilt in order to walk free was another testimony that little has changed for the better."

A New York judge has ruled against releasing secret testimony from the spy trial of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg. The couple were convicted of passing nuclear secrets to the Soviet Union and executed by electric chair in 1953. Campaigners have sought to challenge the evidence used to convict Ethel Rosenberg after a key witness admitted he fabricated details.

Three anti-nuclear protesters were fined yesterday after pleading guilty to trespassing at the Lake Anna Power Station's visitor center. The case was on appeal from an earlier conviction in Louisa General District Court. That conviction was nullified after defense attorney John Maus argued that they should have been charged under state law rather than a county trespassing code. Louisa Commonwealth's Attorney Thomas Garrett agreed to drop the county code charges, but the protesters, Darci Rodenhi, Rebecca Mann and Glenn Carroll Boatenreiter, were charged instead under state law.

Three more anti-nuclear protesters were convicted yesterday for trespassing last month at the North Anna Power Station visitor center. Paxus Calta, an activist, described in Louisa County General District Court as the "ringleader," was sentenced yesterday to two weeks in jail. He's appealing the conviction. The two other protesters, Spot Etal and Sue Frankel-Streit, were fined $250 each. Instead of jail time, they will be allowed to complete 40 hours of community service. All three were banned from entering property of the plant's owner, Dominion power, for two years. About 20 supporters gathered with signs outside the Louisa courthouse.

Former Davis-Besse engineer Andrew Siemaszko was sentenced Friday to three years probation and ordered to pay $4,500 in fines for his role in the Ottawa County nuclear plant's massive cover-up in the fall of 2001 that government prosecutors have called one of the most significant in the nation's nuclear history. Siemaszko was one of only two individuals convicted. Both could have received five years in prison and been fined $250,000 for each of the three felony deception charges they were convicted on 10 months apart in 2008 and 2007. Ultimately, neither got prison time.

A jury has convicted a 76-year-old Roman Catholic priest from St. Louis of damaging and trespassing on a nuclear missile silo facility in northeastern Colorado last August. After the verdict Tuesday, Carl Kabat was immediately sentenced to 137 days in jail, which he has already served since his arrest Aug. 6. He is now free. Since 1980, Kabat has been protesting nuclear weapons on the anniversary of the U.S. bombing of Hiroshima in 1945. Authorities say that last summer he went to a Weld County missile silo site, hung banners for his cause, cut a hole in the fence, waited inside and prayed until he was arrested by authorities from Warren Air Force Base in Cheyenne, Wyo. Kabat acknowledged entering the property and cutting the fence.

A jury has convicted a 76-year-old Roman Catholic priest from St. Louis of damaging and trespassing on a nuclear missile silo facility in northeastern Colorado last August. After the verdict Tuesday, Carl Kabat was immediately sentenced to 137 days in jail, which he has already served since his arrest Aug. 6. He is now free. Since 1980, Kabat has been protesting nuclear weapons on the anniversary of the U.S. bombing of Hiroshima in 1945. Authorities say that last summer he went to a Weld County missile silo site, hung banners for his cause, cut a hole in the fence, waited inside and prayed until he was arrested by authorities from Warren Air Force Base in Cheyenne, Wyo. Kabat acknowledged entering the property and cutting the fence.

Judge David Katz of U.S. District Court has upheld the guilty verdicts against Andrew Siemaszko, paving the way for the last of three men to be tried for the Davis-Besse cover-up to be sentenced Feb. 6. The judge acknowledged that Siemaszko's conviction was "a close case," but said he found "sufficient circumstantial evidence upon which a reasonable jury could have based a finding of knowledge and intent."

Vice President Dick Cheney told the FBI he had no idea who leaked to the news media that Valerie Plame, wife of a Bush administration critic, worked for the CIA. An FBI summary of Cheney's interview from 2004 reflects that the vice president had deep concern about Plame's husband, Joseph Wilson, a former U.S. ambassador in Africa who said the administration had twisted prewar intelligence on Iraq. Cheney's chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, was convicted of perjury, obstruction and lying to the FBI in the probe of who leaked Plame's identity to the news media. At the end of Libby's trial, prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald said that "there is a cloud over the vice president" in the leaking of Plame's identity.

Vice President Dick Cheney told the FBI he had no idea who leaked to the news media that Valerie Plame, wife of a Bush administration critic, worked for the CIA. An FBI summary of Cheney's interview from 2004 reflects that the vice president had deep concern about Plame's husband, Joseph Wilson, a former U.S. ambassador in Africa who said the administration had twisted prewar intelligence on Iraq. Cheney's chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, was convicted of perjury, obstruction and lying to the FBI in the probe of who leaked Plame's identity to the news media. At the end of Libby's trial, prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald said that "there is a cloud over the vice president" in the leaking of Plame's identity.

"The Dept. of Energy announced late today that it had issued a series of safety and security violations against Bechtel Jacobs Co., DOE's cleanup manager in Oak Ridge since 1998. The security violations pertain to a 2007 incident in which Roy Lynn Oakley was arrested and later convicted of stealing and attempting to sell classified equipment from the uranium-enrichment operation at K-25. BJC was fined $562,500 for the security violations associated with those events. Even though DOE said it was unlikely any sensitive information or materials ended up in foreign hands, the agency said it was levying the fine "to help prevent future breaches of security.""

Balkan states are gambling on the nuclear option as the best way to reduce the energy shortage but whether the risks pay off remains to be seen. The three guards stand at the gate in the 40°C afternoon heat, ignoring the bustle around them. Grim-looking barbed wire coils round the top of the tall fence, as if designed to stop convicts escaping from prison.

Attorneys for Andrew Siemaszko Thursday sought an acquittal for their client on the grounds that the one-time Davis-Besse employee was oblivious to errors in key documents that went to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission weeks before the plant's old reactor head nearly blew apart in 2002. A former systems engineer who FirstEnergy put in charge of the reactor head despite inadequate training for that job, Siemaszko was convicted in August by a U.S. District Court jury in Toledo on three of five felony charges of withholding vital information from a government agency. Now a resident of Spring, Texas, Siemaszko faces up to five years in prison and $250,000 in fines. He is to be sentenced Feb. 6 unless Judge David Katz overturns the verdicts.

Information unveiled this week raises troubling questions about a 2006 act of vandalism at Florida Power & Light Co.'s Turkey Point nuclear power plant - vandalism that has already cost utility customers $6.2 million. A sheet metal worker suspected of drilling a tiny hole in a pressurized pipe was authorized to work there despite a history of scrapes with the law, including a DUI conviction, and, according to FBI documents, failing FPL's standard psychological screening test. The man worked at the plant in 2006, when someone drilled a one-eighth-inch hole in the pipe, according to testimony this week before the Florida Public Service Commission in Tallahassee.

Jurors on Tuesday convicted a former nuclear plant engineer of hiding information from government regulators about the worst corrosion ever found at a U.S. reactor. Prosecutors said Andrew Siemaszko and two other workers lied in 2001 so the Davis-Besse plant along Lake Erie could delay a shutdown for a safety inspection. Months later, inspectors found an acid leak that nearly ate through the reactor's 6-inch-thick steel cap.

Former FirstEnergy Corp. engineer Andrew Siemaszko was convicted yesterday on three of five counts of intentionally misleading federal regulators about the danger at the Davis-Besse nuclear plant in Ottawa County in 2001. The verdicts were the final ones in a seven-year saga that has had national implications for the nuclear industry as it plans for a rebirth to help meet America's rising energy needs.

In 1986, a young Israeli man called Mordechai Vanunu followed his conscience and told the world that Israel had a nuclear weapons programme. He was convicted of espionage and treason and sentenced to 18 years in prison. After serving this (12 years of which were in solitary confinement), Vanunu was released. In April 2004, about 80 people from around the world went to welcome him out of prison. Unbelievably, upon his release Vanunu was made subject to severe restrictions, which forbade him many basic civil liberties (including his right to leave Israel, to speak to foreigners and foreign media) and restricted his travel within Israel.

A firm which ran a nuclear power station is to be sentenced after being convicted of allowing radioactive waste to seep from a decontamination unit for 14 years in Essex. Waste leaked into the ground from a sump at Bradwell nuclear power station near Maldon between 1990 and 2004, Chelmsford Crown Court heard.

But the TwinFalls podiatrist will be able to erase them after that if he behaves, 4th District Magistrate Judge David Epis decided Friday morning, awarding him withheld judgments for both convictions. Rickards, arrested last June at a public information meeting at the privately owned Glenns Ferry Opera House, was found guilty of the misdemeanor charges after a jury trial in early December. The owner argued that Rickards was asked to leave after passing out leaflets criticizing a nuclear power plant proposed by Alternate Energy Holdings Inc. Rickards was also accused of shoving Doug McConaughey, who AEHI officials say was a part-time consultant who no longer works for the company.

FEARS that radioactive material taken from France's old uranium mines has been used in construction have been raised by a TV documentary. According to investigators for the programme Pièces à Conviction (Incriminating evidence), there are many sites where radioactive material is a potential health risk including schools, playgrounds, buildings and car parks. Very little uranium is now mined in Europe, but France carried out mining from 1945 - 2001 at 210 sites which have now been revealed by IRSN, the Institute of Radioprotection and Nuclear Safety on its website - click here.