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LUXEMBOURG, Luxembourg (AFP) – The impact of surging gas and electricity prices globally threatens the EU’s energy market, but the bloc will not react hastily, officials said on Tuesday. An emergency meeting of EU ministers in Luxembourg to discuss the issue largely backed 11 member countries in rejecting proposals from Spain and France for deep-rooted reforms to the market. The ministers recognised the price hikes “jeopardised the integrity of the European energy market,” the chair of […]
by Julien MIVIELLE Agence France-Presse PARIS, France (AFP) – For its supporters, nuclear energy is the world’s best — perhaps only — hope to avoid catastrophic climate change. Opponents say it is too expensive, too risky and totally unnecessary. Standing between the two camps are those who see atomic power as a necessary evil that will buy the time needed to develop cleaner and safer alternatives. “We don’t have the luxury of choosing one or […]
SEOUL, South (AFP) — The influential sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un on Friday said it was “admirable” of the South to propose a formal end to the Korean War but demanded Seoul first drop its “hostile policies” towards Pyongyang. Kim Yo Jong’s remarks, carried by Pyongyang’s official KCNA news agency, were in response to South Korean President Moon Jae-in’s recent calls for declaring an official end to the 1950-53 conflict that ended […]
SEOUL, South Korea (AFP) — Nuclear-armed North Korea appears to have restarted its plutonium-producing reprocessing reactor in a “deeply troubling” development, the UN atomic agency has said, a possible sign Pyongyang is expanding its banned weapons programme. The development on the 5-megawatt reactor in Yongbyon — North Korea’s main nuclear complex — comes with nuclear talks between Pyongyang and Washington at a standstill. North Korean leader Kim Jong Un offered to dismantle part of the […]
TEHRAN, Iran (AFP) — Iran said Friday it has begun producing uranium at 60 percent purity, in another breach of its commitments to the international community which is concerned about its nuclear programme. The Islamic republic had declared it would sharply ramp up its enrichment of uranium on Tuesday, two days after an attack on its Natanz nuclear facility that it blamed on arch-foe Israel. The incidents cast a shadow over talks in Vienna aimed […]
TOKYO, Japan Japan’s government on Tuesday approved a plan to release more than one million tons of treated water from the stricken Fukushima nuclear plant into the ocean, in a controversial decision that follows years of debate. The release, which is not likely to begin for several years and could take decades to complete, has sparked concern in neighbouring countries and faces fierce opposition from local fishing communities and anti-nuclear activists. Japan’s government argues […]
SEOUL, South Korea (AFP) — North Korea said Thursday it will ignore attempts by the US to contact it, the South’s Yonhap news agency reported, hours before President Joe Biden’s top envoys were to hold talks in Seoul. “No US-DPRK contact nor dialogue can take place until the US withdraws its hostile DPRK policy,” Yonhap cited senior North Korean minister Choe Son Hui as saying in a statement carried by state media. “Therefore, we will […]
MINSK, Belarus (AFP) — Belarus on Tuesday launched its controversial Russia-built nuclear power station despite safety concerns from neighbouring Baltic states three decades after the Chernobyl nuclear disaster. A string of incidents during construction of the nuclear power station has raised questions over its safety among EU countries, particularly neighbouring Lithuania. The launch comes as Belarus strongman leader Alexander Lukashenko faces historic protests over his claim to victory in August presidential polls which Western leaders […]
TOKYO, Japan (AFP) — Japan will release more than a million tonnes of treated radioactive water from the stricken Fukushima nuclear plant into the sea in a decades-long operation, reports said Friday, despite strong opposition from local fishermen. The release of the water, which has been filtered to reduce radioactivity, is likely to start in 2022 at the earliest, said national dailies the Nikkei, the Yomiuri, and other local media. The decision ends years […]
SEOUL, South Korea (AFP) — North Korea is violating international sanctions aimed at curbing its nuclear program by exceeding a cap on petroleum imports and sending its workers overseas, including a former Juventus footballer, the United Nations said. Pyongyang is subject to a range of restrictions imposed since 2017 that limit its oil imports and ban exports of coal, fish and textiles. It has nonetheless continued to develop its nuclear and ballistic missile arsenal, analysts […]
by Philip FONG HIROSHIMA, Japan (AFP) — Japan on Thursday marked 75 years since the world’s first atomic bomb attack, with the coronavirus pandemic forcing a scaling back of ceremonies to remember the victims. Survivors, relatives and a handful of foreign dignitaries attended this year’s main event in Hiroshima to pray for those killed or wounded in the bombing and call for world peace. But the general public was kept away, with the ceremony instead […]
by Kyoko HASEGAWA Agence France Presse TOKYO, Japan (AFP) — As Japan marks 75 years since the devastating attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the last generation of nuclear bomb survivors are working to ensure their message lives on after them. The “hibakusha” — literally “person affected by the bomb” — have for decades been a powerful voice calling for the abolition of nuclear weapons. There are an estimated 136,700 left, many of whom were […]
