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At least 20 people were killed and 22 injured on a Russian nuclear-powered submarine when the ship's fire safety system was accidentally set off on board, a Russian naval spokesman said Sunday, Nov. 9. The submarine's atomic reactor remained undamaged and radiations levels aboard the vessel were normal, the naval spokesman said.

A federal agency has taken the first step toward possibly fast-tracking compensation for sick workers at a defunct Jefferson County nuclear fuel rod plant. Former workers at United Nuclear Corp.'s plant in Hematite recently were notified that the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health has certified a petition they filed this summer. The federal agency now will begin evaluating the petition seeking a special designation that, if granted, would allow compensation claims to be approved without forcing Hematite workers to prove how they were exposed to radiation.

The Air Force's already-battered nuclear corps just suffered another blow, Danger Room has learned. An internal inspection has found flaws in the way the 341st Missile Wing at Malmstrom Air Force Base, Montana handles and protects its nuclear weapons. The Air Force's nuclear mission has come under increasing scrutiny, after a series of embarrassing mishaps, damining reports, and fired officers. Last fall, the Air Force's 5th Bomb Wing lost track of six nuclear warheads.

The UK Government has announced the lifting of a ban on exporting sensitive nuclear technology to India. Firms had up until last month been banned from supplying equipment and material on the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) "trigger list" to India. But the government says that items intended for civilian nuclear projects can now be exported.

The crash of a B-52 aircraft, armed with nuclear warheads, in north-west Greenland back in 1968 has left a lasting legacy, according to those involved in the clear-up and those who live in the region now. There are claims of long-term damage to the environment and to the health of individuals, allegations disputed by the governments involved. Following the fire aboard the aircraft, the high explosives surrounding the nuclear weapons exploded but without setting off the actual nuclear devices, which were not armed.

Thousands of protesters held up a truck convoy carrying nuclear waste in Germany Monday, repeatedly invading a 20-kilometre road leading to a secure storage warehouse. Police said the protests, the biggest since 2001 during the waste transport operations, which take place every few months, were also more violent than usual. Protesters had tried to undermine a railway, seize a truck and shot signalling flares at a police helicopter. Federal police commander Thomas Osterroth said, "A few of them are willing to be very violent." The 10,000 police at the scene were ordered to clear the road before the trucks departed from a railway freight yard carrying the 11 containers. They were bound for the storage site at Gorleben where tons of similar waste are already guarded round the clock.

Mt. Pleasant native George Kittrell graduated from Hay Long High School in 1948 and was in college at MTSU when he signed up for a three-year Army hitch on Sept. 11, 1950. "I knew my country was in trouble so I signed up to go to Korea," Kittrell said. But Kittrell did not go to Korea. He was 21 years old and a soldier at Ft. Campbell when in November 1951 he was re-assigned to Camp Desert Rock, Nevada.

J-Power, Japan's biggest electricity wholesaler, said it has delayed the start of its first atomic power plant by 2½ years after carrying out additional work to make the station resistant to a strong earthquake. The plant, located in Oma in Japan's northern prefecture of Aomori, will start in November 2014, Electric Power Development Co., J-Power's official name, said in a statement to the Tokyo Stock Exchange. It was originally slated to start in March 2012.

Hundreds of litres of potentially radioactive liquid leaked into a river after an incident involving a nuclear submarine, it emerged today. The Royal Navy, which quarantined the area, admitted that 280 litres of possibly toxic coolant water escaped from a burst hose after being pumped from HMS Trafalgar. The liquid, which cools a nuclear reactor, is likely to have been contaminated by tritium, an unstable form of hydrogen that glows in the dark and is used to create the luminous glow on watch dials.

The 10,000 police at the scene were ordered to clear the road before the trucks departed from a railway freight yard carrying the 11 containers. They were bound for the storage site at Gorleben where tons of similar waste are already guarded round the clock.

In the course of summer, Russia removed another 46 strontium-fuelled lighthouses from the coast of the White Sea and the Barents and Kara Seas. With Norwegian project support, Russia has now removed 180 radioactive lighthouses between Murmansk and the Novaya Zemlya and replaced them with solar cell installations. Strontium-fuelled lighthouse (Fylkesmannen.no)The 46 lighthouses were all sent to the VNIITFA institute in Moscow, Rosbaltnord.ru reports with reference to RIA Novosti. Another 11 lighthouses will be brought from the island of Vaigach to Moscow next summer.

The Environment Agency (EA) has admitted it should have told local people earlier about a leak from a nuclear submarine at a UK base. Hundreds of litres of coolant spilled into the River Tamar from HMS Trafalgar while it was being worked on at Devonport on 7 November. But Plymouth City Council, which is responsible for emergency planning, was only told on 11 November.

A BBC investigation uncovered evidence of a fourth undiscovered nuclear bomb from the Thule crash in 1968, Greenland has known about it for a decade The Thule workers' association already knew about the fourth nuclear bomb back in 1999, said Jens Zinglersen, the chairman of the group of workers affected by the radiation.

German riot police confronted activists along the route of the nuclear waste transport.

On 7th November hundreds of protesters took to the streets of the town of Lüchow, Germany today to protest the transport of nuclear waste into the Wendland region. Their march was also in memorial of Sebastian Briaut, the French man who died while protesting the Castor transport in 2004. After the hour-long march, tensions rose as the crowd approached the road leading to the local police barracks. As student organizers encouraged those attending the 'official demonstration' to return to it, around 150 people left the official march, which organizers had planned to have turn back at the roundabout at the Saaßer Chaussee towards the center of Lüchow. This 150 instead decided to continue on, walking down Salzwedeler Landstraße, toward the police barracks.

The Department of Health should rewrite a 1977 radiological health rule it uses to monitor radiation releases from the Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant and make sure the public has an opportunity to comment, a legislative oversight committee concluded Wednesday. Critics of the nuclear plant have said the Health Department had re-interpreted the emission measurement rule over the years, allowing radiation at the edge of the plant's property to violate state standards. Health Department officials have countered there's science behind their measurement practices.

A fire broke out at a nuclear power plant in northern Japan on Thursday, injuring one worker but causing no radiation leak, the operator said. Firefighters put out the fire about an hour after white smoke was spotted coming out of the reactor, which was already shut for a regular check-up, Tohoku Electric Power said. "One worker sustained minor burns but was not exposed to radiation," a company spokesman said, adding there was no leak to the outside environment either.

Talks on nuclear arms getting under way in Geneva should indicate how relations will develop between the US and Russia under President Barack Obama. Over the next few months it should become clearer as to whether the two countries will agree on further reductions in their nuclear arsenals - and whether they will solve the problem of the American anti-missile system due to be installed in Poland and the Czech Republic.

A WORLD without nuclear weapons is a vision as old as the nuclear age. The makers of the bombs that exploded over Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945 fretted a lot about the ultimate consequences for mankind of their devilish ingenuity. Now anti-nuclear campaigners are hoping that "Yes, we can!" will do more for their cause than older slogans like "Ban the bomb!" ever did. For on the stump, Barack Obama, America's president-elect, promised to make the goal of eliminating nuclear weapons worldwide a "central element" of America's nuclear policy.

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