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The video Nestlé don't want you to see. Want to put your own copy of our video on your favourite video sharing site? Download the file now and be our guest! The more copies out there, the more interesting it will be for Nestle. Dear Nestle's PR department, Hey! How are you doing? I know that when we highlight the damaging effect your business is having on the Indonesian rainforests, it must be a bit annoying. I hope you understand that we're only trying to get your attention because using unsustainable palm oil in your products is such a...
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It was announced yesterday that leading UK steel company Sheffield Forgemasters International Ltd (SFIL) are to be loaned £80 million by the British government to ‘install the country's first 15,000 tonne forging press to make ultra-large nuclear components’ We could ask why SFIL is borrowing from the government and not a commercial lender, but if we start looking at the nuclear industry’s inability to exist without cheap cash from it government sugar daddies we’ll be here all day. Instead we’ll focus on SFIL’s excitement at the deal. That’s a lot of money we’re talking about and will, apparently, put the company ‘in pole-position to capitalise on huge international demand for safety critical forgings’. There...
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 Today's big stories from the nuclear industry:
Nuclear Power Plants Vulnerable to Attack, Former CIA Officer Says
‘The United States is woefully unprepared to protect its nuclear power plants from a terrorist attack, a former CIA officer divulged on CNN.com yesterday. Charles S. Faddis, the former head of the CIA's unit on terrorism and weapons of mass destruction, writes that he investigated security measures at many U.S. nuclear power plants during research for a book on the state of U.S homeland security. He found them wanting. His call to secure these sites comes after President Barack Obama guaranteed $8 billion in government loans to a...
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Rice farmers from the Yunnan Province Despite that the Chinese government has not yet approved the commercial cultivation of GM rice, a Greenpeace study released on Monday found genetically modified rice in supermarkets in China, such as US retail giant Wal- Mart (watch video here). The study was conducted last October and November in the supermarkets of eight Chinese cities and revealed the existence of transgenic rice in Chinese supermarkets under the brands of Maoya and Xueyou. "The DNA transgenic fragments were found in rice sold at both supermarkets. The Maoya sample is, as tests showed, a pest-resistant BT variety," Wang Weikang, spokesperson of Greenpeace's food and agriculture programme said...
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Olly Knowles is an oceans campaigner with Greenpeace. He is currently in Doha, Qatar, following the CITES meeting that could save or fail Atlantic Bluefin Tuna. CITES COP 15 is now properly up and running and it’s a veritable quagmire of lobby and counter-lobby, I can tell you. The big issue on the table is of course bluefin tuna – and not just for Greenpeace. It’s a key item for the CITES secretariat as well which means it's very high profile. Most of the other NGOs here are also working very hard on the issue – all of this combined is making bluefin a big media story, not least in the national Qatari press, which is useful because delegates...
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Olkiluoto in Finland has the eyes of the world on it. That’s where French nuclear corporation AREVA is building the world’s first European Pressurised Reactor (EPR). With its state of the art third generation design, the EPR is the reactor that is going to kick off the nuclear ‘renaissance’ in style, with countries around the world queuing up to buy the design. Apparently. AREVA took careful steps to make sure they marketed their ground-breaking technology properly. The OL3 EPR reactor at Olkiluoto is three years late and 2.75 billion euros over budget. The project has been inundated with thousands of construction defects and safety concerns, and has single-handedly hammered AREVA’s profits. How’s that for salesmanship? What...
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Illegal Hotel in National Park Action in Spain
Concerns over censorship and freedom of speech in Spain as the coasts collapse There is an ongoing debate in Spain after the Spanish government yesterday decided to censure 2 min footage of a TV series that exposed severe coastal damage in Spain. The story was published in Spanish national newspaper El Pais (after being picked up by newswire EFE). Today the Ministry of Environment has apparently given the go ahead to the series after causing a stir in Spain, raising concerns over censorship and freedom of speech. What is not clear is whether the polemic footage will appear untouched. The...
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Today's big stories from the nuclear industry: India's government withdraws nuclear power legislation
'The Indian government's bid to cap liability for nuclear plants, seen by U.S. reactor-builders and operators as a prerequisite for entering the Indian market, was dealt a blow Monday when the ruling coalition withdrew legislation in the face of mounting opposition. The measure would limit to about $65 million the compensation that foreign nuclear operators would be liable for in the event of a nuclear accident. It would also cap the government's liability at about $385 million and mandate that all claims be presented within 10 years. The government has argued that...
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Greenpeace supporters and local farmers are harvesting the black rice variety of organic rice in Ratchaburi. © Greenpeace / Athit Perawongmetha
Last week was a tough one for companies pedaling GE crops across the world. Monsanto admitted their GE cotton is creating resistance in bollworms to the toxins engineered into the cotton, and entered a meeting on agriculture and competition with farmers complaining about their expensive seed. As if admitting your technology is not working isn’t enough, on Monday the third verdict against Bayer for their contamination of US rice supplies was reached in Arkansas, and the jury awarded the farmer over US $ 1 million. Link Email item
PricewaterhouseCoopers have released a report, Resurgence of nuclear power, which talks about how the ‘utilities around the world are realizing the great promise of new nuclear power plants and making investments today’ and offers ‘key considerations as the nuclear option is re-introduced’. It paints an extraordinarily glowing picture of the upcoming nuclear ‘renaissance’. It doesn’t mention nuclear waste once. The safety concerns around nuclear power have been ‘refuted’. Oh, really? The global movement against nuclear power refutes that refutation. The daily news is littered with stories that give lie to the statement that the safety concerns around nuclear power have gone away. How about this advice from the report on how to successfully build a nuclear...
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New Greenpeace International Executive Director Dr Kumi Naidoo (centre)
Greenpeace's head Kumi Naidoo took centre stage this Sunday to address the issue of climate change skepticism in an interview with Andrew Maar in the BBC. He said that errors in the IPCC (International Panel for Climate Change) report on the consequences of climate change had been taken out of proportion whilst other facts, which are key to understanding the very basis of climate change, could have been downplayed. He said that this gave him a sense of 'deja vu' as scientists in South Africa (Kumi's homeland) actually denied the HIV Aids link." As a result we lost and continue...
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Today's big stories from the nuclear industry: Uranium Major Niger Urged to Review Contracts
NIAMEY (Reuters) - The new junta ruling in Niger, one of the world's biggest uranium producers, should review and possibly renegotiate dozens of resource exploitation contracts, civil rights groups said on Saturday. The West African state, which produces 7.5 percent of the world's uranium, has a longstanding partnership with French nuclear group Areva as well as more recent ones with Canadian, Chinese, South Korean and other groups. "Given the opacity surrounding the granting of mining and oil permits in recent years, we urge the immediate creation of a commission of inquiry...
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CITES, the Convention of International Trade of Endangered Species, is meeting this week in Doha, Qatar. The star of this meeting is Atlantic Bluefin Tuna - and the big question is whether or not CITES will be able to give this species the protection that regional fisheries management organisations (RFMO) have not been able to give.
Some major fishing nations, like Japan (who also happens to be the main consumer of the species) have been saying that CITES should not be managing fish stocks, that this is a job for RFMOs. They're right. CITES isn't going to be managing the stock, it's going to try to save it.
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Allison is an assistant who has been in Aomori this week - supporting our "Tokyo Two" team. She's been blogging throughout the week - during Junichi and Toru's trial. Here's some extracts from her blog posts as a summary of this week's trial proceedings - along with drawings from the courtroom - by Jules, another one of our campaign assistants (her drawing on the left is of the lead Tokyo Two defence counsel, Yuichi Kaido, in court.)
March 8th, Witnesses and Tall Tales It began with a testimony given today by former crew member (Mr. X) of the Nisshin Maru. He is entangled in...
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 Myrto, one of our agriculture campaigners, tells us what's wrong with genetically engineered (GE) crops - and what you can do to stop them.
The other night I had some friends for dinner and I decided to prepare for a starter - my Mum’s favorite recipe: eggplant dip. It is so easy and yummy. You grill the whole eggplant till it burns, you remove the skin, you blend it with olive oil, lemon, salt and pepper and serve it with fresh bread. Delicious!! I was explaining to my friends that all ingredients were organic and another reason I chose to cook this recipe was that I was so happy
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