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"Canadians have watched in horror as BP's Gulf of Mexico oil spill has mushroomed week by week into the worst environmental disaster in U.S. history. The damage to the Gulf's ecosystem is unknown. Oceanographers report seeing massive columns of oil well below the surface. This is a phenomenon not seen before. Likewise, the chemical dispersants used so far may prove to be a "cure" that rivals the oil itself for toxicity. Economically, the costs are already staggering. BP has spent nearly $1 billion on cleanup and appears to have barely made a dent. Fishing and oceanside tourism anywhere in the Gulf states are crippled. Huge areas of precious wetland may have to be burnt. Here in Canada we can draw some conclusions already about the consequences of this spill, which is now at least twice as serious as theExxon Valdezdisaster in 1989. "

"Against the backdrop of the UN asking it to sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, India on Sunday made it clear that it can't be a party to an agreement that it regards as "discriminatory". "Our position on NPT has been clearly articulated before. India's credentials in non-proliferation are well-known," said a government source here. "We have made it clear that we want complete, verifiable and universal disarmament," the source added. India will not be party to any agreement that it regards as discriminatory, government sources stressed, while reiterating India's oft-repeated position. At the end of the nearly month-long NPT review conference Friday, the UN has asked India, Pakistan and Israel to join the NPT and the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) without further delay and pre-conditions. "

"People in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the two Japanese cities attacked with atomic bombs by the United States during World War II, expressed disappointment Saturday at the content of a final document adopted at the latest nuclear nonproliferation conference, saying the text has been watered down due to nuclear powers' resistance to taking significant disarmament steps. Sakue Shimohira, 75, who survived the bombing of Nagasaki, said, "I regret that the discussions lost (initial) momentum, but I won't allow myself to be discouraged by this.""

"Israel called "deeply flawed" and "hypocritical" a United Nations resolution ratified by 181 countries that calls for a 2012 conference on a nuclear-free Mideast, and said it would not take part in the talks. "Israel is not obligated by the decisions of this conference, which has no authority over Israel," a statement from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office distributed to press travelling with him in Toronto said. "It singles out Israel, the Middle East's only true democracy and the only country threatened with annihilation," the statement said. "It ignores the realities of the Middle East and the real threats facing the region and the entire world." "

"The road to a nuclear weapons-free world is apparently paved with good intentions - but littered with plenty of platitudes and empty promises. A month-long nuclear non-proliferation review conference concluded late Friday "with more of a whimper than a bang", said John Burroughs, executive director of the Lawyers' Committee on Nuclear Policy. "The result was disappointing without being surprising," he said. However, said Burroughs, one concrete achievement was on a make-or-break issue: a nuclear weapons-free zone in the Middle East. The final document, he pointed out, calls for a conference on this controversial subject in 2012, and the appointment of a facilitator to make it happen. The next nuclear review conference is due three years later, in 2015. "The road ahead is not easy," said Ambassador Maged Abdelaziz of Egypt, speaking on behalf of the 118-nation Non-Aligned Movement (NAM), "but it's the only way forward." He singled out the reaffirmation by the conference of the importance of Israel's accession to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), and the placement of all its nuclear facilities under the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in Vienna. "

"The 189 member nations of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty on Friday adopted a detailed plan of small steps down a long road toward nuclear disarmament, including a sharply debated proposal to move toward banning doomsday arms from the Middle East. The 28-page final declaration was approved by consensus on the last day of the monthlong conference, convened every five years to review and advance the objectives of the 40-year-old NPT. Under its action plan, the five recognized nuclear-weapon states - the United States, Russia, Britain, France and China - commit to speed up arms reductions, take other steps to diminish the importance of atomic weapons, and report back on progress by 2014."

BankTrack, in cooperation with a number of working partners, today launches www.nuclearbanks.org, a new website mapping the involvement of 45 leading commercial banks in funding nuclear power projects and companies active in the nuclear sector. [1] BankTrack considers nuclear energy a grave danger for people and planet. The renewed interest in nuclear energy also poses a severe obstacle to achieving a sustainable solution to the climate crisis.[2] The website provides information on 867 transactions, involving a total of 124 banks providing finance to over 70 nuclear companies. Between 2000 and 2009, these banks…read more"

"Soil excavated from an area outside the nuclear reactor building at the Vermont Yankee plant in Vernon over the last month likely contain much of the radioactive material that has leaked from underground pipes in recent years, but the state Health Department said independent testing is expected to continue indefinitely to be sure no more remains. Officials said they have removed 180 cubic feet of dirt from the site this month, material now bagged and awaiting shipment to a nuclear waste facility."

"Fifteen area residents filed federal lawsuits on Friday on their behalf or an estate, claiming that the operations of two former nuclear fuel plants in the Parks Township-Apollo area caused illness and death. The defendants, Babcock & Wilcox Power Generation Group and Atlantic Richfield, operated a uranium fuel-processing plant in Apollo and a plutonium plant in Parks from 1957-86. The lawsuits add to similar suits first filed Jan. 26 in the same federal court. They were filed by the same attorneys from the Providence, R.I., law firm Motley Rice, specialists in environmental law cases, and a Pittsburgh law firm, Goldberg, Persky and White. "

"The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is holding the public meeting to get comments regarding any environmental issues the agency should consider as the addition to Duke Energy's site plan is reviewed. The public will have a chance on June 17 to express concerns over plans to build a pond and dam to provide a back-up water source in case of prolonged drought at the proposed Lee nuclear facility near Gaffney. Duke applied in late 2007 to build and operate two AP1000 reactors at the site and updated the application last September with plans to create an additional water source called Make-Up Pond C, to support the proposed reactors. The NRC is seeking comments specifically regarding the environmental issues associated with creating the pond, said Roger Hannah, an NRC spokesman."

"South Carolina's largest investor-owned utility plans to increase electric rates 2.73 percent to help pay financing costs for two nuclear reactors it plans to build. South Carolina Electric & Gas Co., a subsidiary of Scana Corp., said in a news release Friday that the rate increase, set to take effect in October, will add about $3.33 to the monthly bill of a customer using 1,000 kilowatt hours of electricity each month. The increase must be approved by state utility regulators."

"Prairie Island Nuclear plant operators knew of the potential for flooding in the plant's Unit 1 and Unit 2 turbine buildings, but failed to understand the implications on important safety-related equipment, according to a preliminary finding submitted to the plant Thursday by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission. The failure to identify and correct the potential safety issues in a timely manner is a significant human performance issue and cause for further review by the agency, according to NRC inspectors. Plant officials have 10 days to respond to the findings before the NRC decides whether to take enforcement action. "We're waiting now for their response," said NRC spokesperson Viktoria Mitlyng."

"Two S.C. congressmen insert directives into House defense bill WASHINGTON -- The House passed a defense bill on Friday that calls for studies on what it would take to restart the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository and what the impact would be if the project is closed for good. The studies were inserted into a 600-page bill report by two congressmen from South Carolina who have been protesting the Obama administration's decision to terminate the Yucca project. Most Popular Stories 1. Paris Hilton says she likes single life 2. Motorcyclist dies, passenger injured in North Las Vegas accident 3. 20-year-old motorcyclist killed in collision near Lamb and Owens 4. GOP Senate hopeful Christensen curries favor in Mormon church 5. Tourists draw ACE while locals go bused 6. Embattled governor has piloted state during its deepest recession 7. Case backlog postponing deportations 8. Drone crew from Creech Air Force Base blamed for Afghan civilian deaths 9. Predator drone crew criticized 10. Nurse shares life-or-death moments There was little discussion of the issue during the two days the House debated its annual defense authorization bill. While the administration's moves to shut down the project have been criticized in Congress, it still might be too soon to tell whether efforts to revive the program are isolated to a few dozen angry lawmakers or whether a broader uprising is brewing. Aides to Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., the Senate majority leader and the chief shot blocker against Yucca Mountain bills, said the studies will be dropped when the defense bill is debated in the Senate."

"An association based in Switzerland is helping its European neighbours in their search for a good place to dump nuclear waste. Ten nations have enlisted the aid of Baden-based Arius, or Association for Regional and International Underground Storage. They hope to consolidate their radioactive waste within a single location. The countries in question include Austria, Ireland, Italy and seven others - but not Switzerland. In 2006, the federal government enacted a ten-year moratorium on the export of nuclear waste - the storage of which is the producers' responsibility."

"The French nuclear group Areva said Friday it would halt shipments of depleted uranium to Russia in July in response to a commercial dispute. Areva each year sends several tonnes of depleted uranium to Russia to be re-enriched in facilities operated by the Russian nuclear agency Rosatom. A contract between Areva and its Russian partner Tenex, a Rosatom subsidiary, was to run until 2014, with a possibility that conditions could be re-negotiated for the period 2011-2014. "We have agreed on ending the contract in 2010 because of a disagreement over commercial conditions," an Areva spokeswoman told AFP, adding that shipments would stop in July."

"An investigation has been launched following a fire at the Dounreay nuclear plant in Caithness. Fire alarms alerted the site's firefighters to the blaze at the Prototype Fast Reactor (PFR) at about 0040 BST on Friday. The fire involved sodium which had earlier been removed from pipe work and stored in a small tented enclosure. Dounreay Site Restoration Limited (DSRL) said the fire was extinguished. The company, which is l"

"Then U.S. president Bill Clinton had offered Pakistan a $5 billion package to refrain from conducting tit-for-tat nuclear tests in response to India's in 1998 but the offer was rejected at the cost of sanctions, Nawaz Sharif, who was the prime minister at the time, said on Friday. "I told him (Clinton) that we are not among those people who are sold for a few dollars, not now and in future too. Thus we successfully carried out our nuclear tests," Online news agency quoted Mr. Sharif as telling party activists on the 12th anniversary of the May 28, 1998 nuclear tests. "

"Nearly 200 nations, signatories of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), have agreed to work towards a nuclear-weapons-free zone in the Middle East. The members, meeting at the UN in New York, called for a conference in 2012 attended by Middle Eastern states - including Iran - to establish the zone. The unanimously agreed document also said that Israel should sign the NPT. "

"The 189 member nations of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty on Friday adopted a detailed plan of small steps down a long road toward nuclear disarmament, including a sharply debated proposal to move toward banning the doomsday arms from the Middle East. The 28-page Final Declaration was approved by consensus on the last day of the monthlong conference, convened every five years to review and advance the objectives of the 40-year-old NPT. Under its action plan, the five recognized nuclear-weapon states - the United States, Russia, Britain, France and China - commit to speed up arms reductions, take other steps to diminish the importance of atomic weapons, and report back on progress by 2014."

"Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Thursday the United States must take an integrated approach to its national security. Clinton, in a speech at The Brookings Institute in Washington, said the United States needs to exercise "smart power" to deal with "new and complicated threats" -- terrorism, nuclear proliferation, climate change, cyber-security and energy security to name a few."