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THE federal government has frowned at illegal trans-shipment of nuclear materials in and out of the country, just as it unveiled plans to checkmate the menace by installing radiation monitoring facilities across national boarders. The Presidential Adviser on Petroleum Matters, Emmanuel Egbogah, who disclosed this at the official commissioning of the first Radiation Portal Monitor in Nigeria, at the export wing of Muritala Mohammed International Airport, Lagos, over the weekend, said, although Nigeria has a nascent nuclear power programme, it has a matured, robust and rapidly growing peaceful nuclear non-power application. Egbogah however noted the federal government would no longer tolerate illegal and mishandle of radioactive materials in the country, as serious sanctions await defaulters.

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."

Demonstrators cut through fences and drove farm tractors into a compound they claim is an illegally built nuclear waste dump at the village of Gorleben in northern Germany. The local resistance group, Bürgerinitiative Umweltschutz Lüchow-Dannenberg (BI), reported more than 1,000 demonstrators and 30 tractors, a posting on IMC Germany had 1,000, a user of the site quoted local radio with 350, national radio 500, adding that pictures certainly didn't suggest 1,000. But adding, too: "The number's not important, it's super that a demo involving direct action followed so fast on the new revelations about the salt deposit. That generates hope! We don't need to boast about numbers - we have the better arguments, many years of resistance and have always been good for surprises like today's. Thanks to all!" The IMC post says at around noon fences were cut and people went into the waste storage compound with shovels, hammers and wheelbarrows to flatten the installations.

Former head of Israel's Atomic Energy Commission says the Israeli nuclear whistleblower has served the regime because his revelations helped Tel Aviv intimidate others. Yet Uzi Eilam, a retired army brigadier-general who ran the commission between 1976 and 1986, says the whistleblower Mordechai Vanunu did a service by alerting foes to the country's military might. Vanunu was sentenced to 18 years as a traitor in a secret trial in 1986. He was abducted at that time from Italy after revealing information about an illegal nuclear program at Israel's Dimona reactor to Britain's Sunday Times newspaper.

Former head of Israel's Atomic Energy Commission says the Israeli nuclear whistleblower has served the regime because his revelations helped Tel Aviv intimidate others. Yet Uzi Eilam, a retired army brigadier-general who ran the commission between 1976 and 1986, says the whistleblower Mordechai Vanunu did a service by alerting foes to the country's military might. Vanunu was sentenced to 18 years as a traitor in a secret trial in 1986. He was abducted at that time from Italy after revealing information about an illegal nuclear program at Israel's Dimona reactor to Britain's Sunday Times newspaper.

An internal U.S. Dept. of Energy (DOE) study details how managers at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) shifted costs to understate total spending on the controversial National Ignition Facility (NIF) mega-laser. The previously secret document, released today by the nuclear watchdog group Tri-Valley CAREs, pegs the current hidden costs of NIF at $80 million annually. "Livermore Lab is systematically disguising the true costs of the NIF," charged Tri-Valley CAREs' executive director, Marylia Kelley. "When calculated over the life of the project, these hidden costs total more than $2 billion." Kelley continued, "This illegal scheme circumvents the United States Congress, which sets NIF's budget each year, and violates our nation's most basic federal contracting laws." According to the report by the DOE National Nuclear Security Administration Office of Field Financial Management (OFFM), Livermore Lab's practice of assigning NIF overhead expenses to other Lab programs violates Public Law 100-679 Cost Accounting Standards (CAS). This law is an integral part of the structure set up to regulate government contracts. Some of the NIF fee reductions date back to 2001. The OFFM investigators noted that the misleading cost accounting, "materially misstates the actual costs by LLNL for the NIF/National Ignition Campaign... and may result in an undercapitalization of the NIF/NIC's total project costs."

An internal U.S. Dept. of Energy (DOE) study details how managers at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) shifted costs to understate total spending on the controversial National Ignition Facility (NIF) mega-laser. The previously secret document, released today by the nuclear watchdog group Tri-Valley CAREs, pegs the current hidden costs of NIF at $80 million annually. "Livermore Lab is systematically disguising the true costs of the NIF," charged Tri-Valley CAREs' executive director, Marylia Kelley. "When calculated over the life of the project, these hidden costs total more than $2 billion." Kelley continued, "This illegal scheme circumvents the United States Congress, which sets NIF's budget each year, and violates our nation's most basic federal contracting laws." According to the report by the DOE National Nuclear Security Administration Office of Field Financial Management (OFFM), Livermore Lab's practice of assigning NIF overhead expenses to other Lab programs violates Public Law 100-679 Cost Accounting Standards (CAS). This law is an integral part of the structure set up to regulate government contracts. Some of the NIF fee reductions date back to 2001. The OFFM investigators noted that the misleading cost accounting, "materially misstates the actual costs by LLNL for the NIF/National Ignition Campaign... and may result in an undercapitalization of the NIF/NIC's total project costs."

A coalition of environmental groups filed a federal lawsuit Monday challenging a Utah company's plans to begin uranium mining operations within 10 miles of Grand Canyon National Park. The Sierra Club, the Center for Biological Diversity and the Grand Canyon Trust claim the Bureau of Land Management is using an old environmental assessment from 1988 in allowing Denison Mines to begin operations at the "Arizona 1" mine. "The Bureau of Land Management's refusal to redo outdated environmental reviews is as illegal as it is unethical," said Taylor McKinnon, public lands campaigns director at the Center for Biological Diversity. "It should be eager to protect the Grand Canyon and its endangered species; instead, it has chosen to shirk environmental review on behalf of the uranium industry."

A coalition of environmental groups filed a federal lawsuit Monday challenging a Utah company's plans to begin uranium mining operations within 10 miles of Grand Canyon National Park. The Sierra Club, the Center for Biological Diversity and the Grand Canyon Trust claim the Bureau of Land Management is using an old environmental assessment from 1988 in allowing Denison Mines to begin operations at the "Arizona 1" mine. "The Bureau of Land Management's refusal to redo outdated environmental reviews is as illegal as it is unethical," said Taylor McKinnon, public lands campaigns director at the Center for Biological Diversity. "It should be eager to protect the Grand Canyon and its endangered species; instead, it has chosen to shirk environmental review on behalf of the uranium industry."

"Radioactive waste buried under the Olympic Park could jeopardise plans to develop the site after the Games, it is claimed. Traces of thorium and radium have been buried in a disposal cell under the site of the main stadium. The Olympic Delivery Authority insists the deposits pose no risk during the Games. But experts say that a reassessment of the site after 2012 may be necessary before any development plans - housing, for instance - are put in place. Independent nuclear analyst John Large said: "There is some doubt about the applicability and validity of the radiological risk analysis undertaken for the future legacy use." The Lower Lea Valley site was industrial land which was used for landfill and where illegal dumping of waste was common in the Fifties and Sixties."

"A controversial radioactive waste plant three blocks from a Williamsburg school will be forced to close under a bill passed by both houses in Albany late last week. Radiac Research and Environmental Sciences, a hazardous waste facility on Kent Avenue since 1969, could finally be compelled to relocate after the state Senate and Assembly made it illegal to operate such a facility within 1,500 feet of a school. Mac Support Store Assemblyman Joe Lentol (D-Williamsburg), who sponsored the legislation, called the bill "a real victory for the North Brooklyn community and the safety of our children," particularly students at PS 84 on Berry Street and S. First Street, just steps from the waste-processing site."

"Members of an environmental coalition who opposed the relicensing of the Oyster Creek Generating Station have accused its owner, Exelon Nuclear, of violating state law. The coalition's attorney Richard Webster, who is the legal director of the Eastern Environmental Law Center, said Tuesday that "Exelon covered up tritium discharges that occurred in July 2007 and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission failed to follow up to ensure a violation that was to be corrected 10 years ago had been." Tritium contamination was found in the ground at the facility in May. Exelon attributed the contamination to a July 17, 2007 tritium release. Tritium is a weak, naturally occurring radioactive form of hydrogen. Webster maintains that a freedom of information request revealed that Exelon illegally failed to report a major discharge of tritium to the ground in 2007. "As the Department of Environmental Protection has noted, Exelon is required to report tritium discharges," he said."

A case initially cast as a potential threat to national security ended Tuesday with a 15-month prison term for a former Palo Verde engineer who took nuclear-plant software to Iran. Mohammad Alavi, 51, was sentenced on charges of illegally accessing a computer and transporting stolen property as part of a plea agreement with federal prosecutors. The U.S. Attorney's Office originally sought to put Alavi behind bars for as long as 10 years for multiple charges, including violating a U.S. trade embargo with Iran.

The Ethics Commission will hold a hearing Wednesday on charges that Nuclear Projects Office Director Bob Loux illegally raised his own salary. The meeting, however, is closed to the public and, under state law, commission director Patty Cafferata can't even confirm that there is a complaint against Loux. The complaint was filed by Assembly Minority Leader Heidi Gansert after Gov. Jim Gibbons issued a letter demanding Loux resign because he had raised his own salary and the salaries of his staff beyond legislatively authorized maximums. The practice had apparently gone on since 2005 and, as of this fiscal year, Loux was paying himself at a rate of $151,542 - $37,454 more than his authorized salary of $114,088. Over that period, he and others in the Nuclear Projects Office had received $195,790 more in salary than they were entitled to.

Environmental groups have filed a federal lawsuit claiming that a program clearing the way for uranium mines in western Colorado is illegal. The lawsuit filed Thursday in U.S. District in Denver says the Department of Energy's environmental analysis of the leasing program on federal land last year was inadequate. The groups want the court to make DOE do a more comprehensive analysis of the impacts of past uranium mining and potential impacts of new mines.

Police in Japan have raided the premises of a company suspected of illegally exporting machinery that could be used to make nuclear weapons. Officers targeted the headquarters of Horkos Corp and several related sites in the southern city of Fukuyama.

Sick nuclear workers and their advocates will hold a rally Wednesday to protest "unfair practices and illegal actions" in the current compensation program and call for legislative reform of the Energy Employees Occupational Illness Compensation Program. Here's a link to the proposed reforms. The Oak Ridge rally will be held from 11:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. at the Jackson Plaza Office Complex, 800 Oak Ridge Turnpike. That's the site of the Department of Labor's Resource Center, which was set up to help sick workers with their claims.

EDF, the French utility, could face a legal challenge over the technology it has decided to use in building Britain's latest generation of power stations. EDF announced last May that it planned to employ Areva, the French nuclear energy group, but its decision, which was made without giving rival reactor manufacturers an opportunity to bid for the contract, could be illegal under European law, according to Ros Kellaway, partner and head of EU competition law in Eversheds

Officials at a Rialto-based public water purveyor are accusing San Bernardino County of illegally demolishing and burying a hazardous waste-disposal facility and likely contributing to water contamination flowing through Rialto. Lawyers for the West Valley Water District say state and federal laws were violated when the facility was demolished, and they say the debris spread across a wide area and was buried. The California Department of Toxic Substances Control, or DTSC, is investigating what happened at the Broco Inc. site, named for the hazardous-waste disposal operation located there from the 1960s to the 1980s. The county purchased the property in 1994 to expand the Mid-Valley Sanitary Landfill.

The Indo-US civil nuclear cooperation allows the South Asian country access to US civil nuclear fuel and technology. The cooperation initiated by President Bush during his visit to New Delhi in July 2005 that formed its concrete shape on October 10, 2008. In the last these three years both New Delhi and Washington had to face some opposition at home as well as obligations by IAEA, Nuclear Supplies Group (NSG) and the congressional approval to overcome these obligations. Some laws were amended that posed a question for global non proliferation efforts. There are certain facts on which it became obvious that the Indo-US agreement undermined the non proliferation regime. The 1974-Indian Pokhran test was a result of diversion from civil facilities to military. India was the first country to convert illegally a civilian nuclear facility which was provided by the US for peaceful purposes. The 1974 test was a challenge to the US non-proliferation policy. The US supplies for nuclear power plant were ceased immediately after that. Even Canada suspended work on Rajasthan Atomic Power Plant and left it half way. Officially the cooperation was stopped and President Jimmy Carter signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Act 1978 restricting nuclear trade with that states that did not agree to safeguards.

Electricité de France (EdF) premises in Paris were raided yesterday as part of an antitrust investigation, the European Commission has announced. "The commission has reason to believe that EdF may have violated EC Treaty antitrust rules that prohibit the abuse of a dominant market position," said a statement which described the swoop as "a preliminary step in investigations." The EC comment included the statement: "Suspected illegal conduct may include actions to raise prices on the French wholesale electricity market."

Last night the Nuclear Regulatory Commission held a meeting in Hilo, Hawaii on the Army's application for a license to deposit unknown amounts of Depleted Uranium(DU)at the Pohakuloa Training Area on Mauna Kea, considered by many native Hawaiians as a sacred temple. Over 50 concerned citizens confronted the NRC on its checkered past in safeguarding health & safety of citizens from the nuclear industry, as well as its rubber-stamping of the Military's mishandling of DU. It was revealed that the NRC had never turned down an application from the U.S. Military. But the bulk of the citizens' anger was focused on the Army's willful non-compliance of Hawaii County Council's resolution to demand a stop to all live fire exercises at PTA until an assessment and cleanup of DU has been completed. Dozens of citizens from the environmental, kanaka maoli, Peace and scientific communities all testified on the U.S. Military's sordid history of stonewalling, disinformation and illegal dumping of toxic wastes on the revered aina of Hawai'i.