DECEMBER 2007

GUARDIAN (London, UK)
Wednesday November 21, 2007

COMMENT

It's hard to imagine a worse outcome for the Balkans

The prospect of another war and more savage ethnic cleansing shows just what a fine mess we created eight years ago


This one we can see coming. On December 10 the second round of so far abortive talks on Kosovan independence will expire, bringing to a crisis the unfinished last chapter of the west's 1990s "Balkanisation of the Balkans". In Brussels this week European ministers will make a final effort to forestall the decision of the newly elected Kosovan government to declare unilateral independence of Serbia. Since Serbia is equally determined not to grant it, irresistible force has met immovable object.

This is not a clash of tinpot dictators but one of democratic outcomes. Kosovo's independence is the clear wish of its electors, just as it is not the wish of Serbia's. The latter have long regarded Kosovo as part of their emotional and historic integrity. The auguries presage a return to conflict.
The instinct of British politicians and media is to declare that something must be done. It is usually then to do nothing and then something messy, and finally to say that something should have been done earlier as it would not have been so messy. This is what happened successively in Croatia, Bosnia and Kosovo in the 1990s. In each case militant separatists were encouraged, with varying degrees of enthusiasm, to seek independence from whatever regime ruled in Belgrade, which they duly obtained with considerable shedding of blood.

Faced not just with the break up of Tito's wider Yugoslavia but with the defection of the core provinces of Bosnia, Montenegro and Kosovo, Serbs under Milosevic tried to hold them by force. They treated the Kosovans so cruelly that the outside world was moved to intervene. While most countries, including America, tut-tutted and for three months dropped bombs, probably hastening the carnage in Kosovo, Tony Blair rightly divined that only a ground invasion could reverse a humanitarian outrage. In this he was successful.

But what did he expect to happen next? As in Afghanistan and Iraq, Britain is, like the US, inclined to shoot first and plan afterwards. In Kosovo the outcome was to reward "terrorist" separatists with a country of their own, albeit smaller than Wales. Men who, were they Serbs, would be hauled before a war crimes tribunal are now hailed in the west as heroes.

For eight years Kosovo has enjoyed de facto autonomy under the protection of 17,000 Nato troops. These have allowed the regime to "reverse-cleanse" the province of half its Serbs, including virtually all the 40,000 who once lived in the capital, Pristina. There are barely 200,000 left, just 10% of the population. Although the new prime minister, the former guerrilla Hashim Thaci, declares that "Kosovo is ready for independence", he cannot mean it. Kosovo is a Nato protectorate under UN administration, with more aid per head than any state in Asia or Africa. What Thaci wants is not independence but the luxuriant post-intervention dependency enjoyed by Bosnia, Sierra Leone and the embattled regimes in Baghdad and Kabul.

To this the Serbs remain implacably opposed. Even moderate opponents of Milosevic's reign regard the enforced dismemberment of their nation as excessive punishment for the barbarities committed by the Serb army in 1998. Nor will they let it rest. Like the Basque country for Spain and the Falklands for Argentina, Kosovo will always be a cause celebre for Serbia.

Independence for Kosovo clearly accords with current realpolitik, but realpolitik is seldom the end of the matter in the Balkans. Russia says it would veto Kosovo's acceptance into the UN, and to that extent Kosovo would be an illegitimate state.

Nor is Russia's attitude purely due to Slav solidarity. Moscow is understandably averse to western troops coming to the aid of separatist movements wherever there is insurrection or cries of genocide, least of all within bombing distance of the Caucasus. Russia is supported in this view by Spain, Greece and Cyprus, each with separatist problems. And what does Britain, so keen on Balkan partition, say to the Pashtuns or the Kurds when they demand independence?

These are not diplomatic niceties. Already guerrillas of the shadowy Albanian National Army are reportedly roaming the Serbia/Kosovo border, partly financed by a massive heroin trade. Already Serbian militias are arming against them, preparing to defend their compatriots under siege inside Kosovo.

At best, resumed hostilities would mean further savage ethnic cleansing and a repartition of Kosovo. At worst, it would mean a long-running border war, with western troops sucked into defending Kosovan irregulars and Russia into defending Serbia's sovereignty. It is hard to imagine a worse outcome to Britain's glorious "mission accomplished".

Any visitor to the Balkans soon learns that what in Westminster seems a landscape of black and white, goodies and baddies, is in truth all grey. Britain has been party to the military partition of a sovereign European state at the instigation of its separatists, albeit with justice and local majority opinion on their side. Such self-determinations are never straightforward, as the English know in their dealings with Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

The prospect of war has commentators screaming that "something must be done". I have not read one sensible answer to the question: what? Had Nato negotiated some sort of delegated sovereignty for Kosovo with the post-Milosevic government in Belgrade, Pristina hardliners might have been faced down and Serbia's notional integrity preserved.

That day has passed. It is easy to "hope" that Thaci and the Serbian prime minister, Vojislav Kostunica, might see the virtue of compromise and agree to go their separate ways under some sort of UN "sovereignty umbrella" (once proposed for the Falklands). But with Russia behind the Serbs, and Europe and America behind the Kosovans, why should leaders in either Belgrade or Pristina risk the wrath of their electorates by compromising? Once steeped in such dependency, no one feels any pressure to back down.

Kosovo is a western protectorate. There is no pressing need for de facto autonomy to become de jure independence. Pristina has as much autonomy as it can use and should be ordered to tone down its senseless confrontation and leave Serbia a shred of pride - on pain of a genuine independence it would certainly not like. In any resumed war, Kosovo would not be a winner.

Simon Jenkins

simon.jenkins@guardian.co.uk

letters@guardian.co.uk

4 Letters to The Handstand:
1st Letter :

Women's Organization for Political Prisoners (WOFPP)

www.wofpp.org

info@wofpp.org

P. O. Box 31811, Tel Aviv

Urgent appeal

 Amneh Muna went on a hunger strike!

She is demanding her right to basic human conditions! Her health situation is deteriorating from day to day!

Amneh Muna, 30 years old, from Jerusalem, has been held in separation detention for more than 14 months. She was held in Neve Tirza Prison (Ramle) 23 hours a day in a very small cell (2m x 2.5m),  infested with a large number of cockroaches and other vermin. She is forbidden to meet any other prisoner.  She is being held in the section of the criminal prisoners, who threaten her.

In the middle of October 2007, due to renovation works in the wing where she is being held, Amneh was transferred temporarily to another Ramle prison where conditions were slightly better. But on 25 October, the prison authorities transferred her back to the same terrible cell in Neve Tirza Prison. On 28 October, Amneh went on a hunger strike demanding to have her conditions improved. The prison authorities reacted by punishing her: they took all her belongings except some clothes, imposed on her fine of 250 NIS (about 60 $) and deprived her of family visits and recreation time in the courtyard.

On 8 November 2007, the prison authorities transferred Amneh to Kishon Detention Center (Jalameh near Haifa). Amneh stopped the hunger strike for two days but the conditions in Kishon Detention Center were even worse than in Neve Tirza Prison; therefore, on 10 November, she went again on a hunger strike. On 13 November 2007, WOFPP's lawyer, Taghreed Jahshan, came to visit her, but the prison authorities told Taghreed that Amneh did not want to meet her. On 15 November 2007 Amneh's family came to visit her and was told the same. The truth was that the prison authorities did not tell Amneh about the lawyer's visit. They told her about the family visit, but did not allow to meet them, unless she stopped the hunger strike.

Amneh's health deteriorated from day to day. In the night of 18 November she had to be brought by ambulance to Ramle prison hospital, because of the failure of giving her infusions.

They intend to transfer her back to her cell in Neve Tirza prison but Amneh will go on fighting this decision by continuing the hunger strike. On 21 November, WOFPP's lawyer visited Amneh; she couldn't walk and was brought in a wheelchair.

Amneh Muna is continuing the hunger strike, demanding her right to basic human conditions.22 November 2007

Please write protest letter to:

Beni Kanian

 The head of the Israeli prison service

Fax number: +972-8-9193800

P.B. 81

Ramle, 72100Israel

The International Committee of the Red Cross in Tel Aviv:

Tel.: (+972) 35 24 52 86

Fax: (+972) 35 27 03 70

tel_aviv.tel@icrc.org

ICRC delegation

185, Hayarkon Street

TEL AVIV 63453Israel

The International Committee of the Red Cross in Jerusalem

Tel.: (+972 2) 582 88 45 / 25 828 441

Fax: (+972 2) 581 13 75

jerusalem.jer@icrc.org

ICRC mission

Nabi Shu'eib st. 8

Sheikh Jarrah district

PO Box 20253

JERUSALEM 91202Israel

2nd Letter
Dear All,

“Over a decade after the Israeli right in effect abandoned the vision of a Greater Israel, the radical left in both Israel and Britain has come to favor the idea ­with a few essential changes.” [Opening statement below]

--------------------------

The above statement is highly inaccurate  on two counts.

(1) Neither the Israeli right nor any Israeli government till now have “abandoned the vision of a Greater Israel,” as acts and events in the OPT clearly demonstrate.  Expansion continues full speed ahead, as do restrictions on Palestinians—more checkpoints, more of these transformed from temporary structures to terminals that have an eye to permanency, the gates that the IOF controls on entrances to villages, tall towers that can be used as well to snipe from as to watch from, and so on and so forth. 

(2) The radical left does not favor a “greater Israel.”   A single state with equal rights for all citizens, be they Muslim, Christian, Jewish, or other, is quite a different animal from that of a greater Israel, that favors Jews only.

The 2-State option is no solution.  Israel’s leaders have used every period of discussions about the 2 states to expand further, to establish more ‘facts’ on the ground.  There is no reason whatsoever to suspect that the present so-called negotiations are different.  There is no reason to suspect this, because the facts on the ground, the acts and events show that nothing has changed.  If anything, the situation has grown worse and continues daily to worsen in terms of Israel’s occupation of Palestinians and their lands.  Israel controls the electricity, water, and products in grocery stores in the OPT.  Israel kidnaps more and more Palestinians daily (Israel’s presently prisons hold some 11-12,000 Palestinian political prisoners; this is neither moral nor effective).  And Israel steals more and more land. 

But what is this conduct likely to bring? More wars, more violence, more lives lost on both sides. 

Rather than fight over land, the time has come to look towards the future, to save lives rather than to toss them off as though they were expendable, superfluous.  Israel has seen 10 wars (one of which lasted 22 years) in less than 60 years.  Not a great track record.  And with the growing fear among Israel’s leaders of the demographic ‘threat,’ it’s not likely that the next 60 will see fewer wars and violence. 

The time has arrived to come to terms with the fact that Israel is the least safe place in the western world for Jews to live in.  The time has come to realize that Israel as a haven for threatened Jews the world over is purely a myth.  Israel cannot even protect it’s own citizens.  The time has come to acknowledge that the idea of a Jewish state just isn’t workable, even if one is willing forever to live and die by the sword. 

I, for one, am not willing to subject the future generations to so vile a future.  We owe it to the future generations to give them something much better than the past 60 years have seen.  It is time for change.

3rd. Letter:
Below is a report from the Guardian in today’s Occupation Magazine. It clearly reveals that Israel’s government and military plan to hang on to the West Bank rather than to make ‘peace’ (whatever that word means to Israel’s leaders).  Israel continues to sink money not only into more settlements, walls, and settler roads, but also into checkpoint structures in the WB to make Palestinian life yet more unbearable than at present.  I recommend that you read this report, and also open the links included in the report to the 3 additional articles. 

Before that, I also have my own personal experience to relate.  It might interest you.  

Let me begin with a question.  How do you think that you would feel if your government had put up a checkpoint at the single entrance/exit to your community?  Of course for those of you who have not experienced checkpoints, this is not an easy question to answer.  Let me explain, then.  Checkpoints are never pleasant and can be downright nasty when they are manned/womanned by soldiers who insist on doing a ‘thorough’ check, and can hold you there for as long as they wish.   

Then your going home from work or wherever else you have been, as well as your going to work or the doctor or to visit family or friends, etc. can be delayed by an hour or by hours.  Checkpoints also often shut down—meaning that people can neither enter nor exit.  Often this appears to be done arbitrarily, or maybe not so arbitrarily.  Who knows if there isn’t a standing order to shut down a given checkpoint a different day every week, so that no one can anticipate it—just to make life impossible. 

Now, imagine a contraption like that at the entrance to the community in which you live-- and if more than one entrance/exits to it, that there is a checkpoint at each of these, so that you can’t avoid one unless you take a circuitous, long, and dangerous way around the checkpoint.  Imagine being stuck in a line of a hundred or more cars, just sitting there, waiting till your turn to be checked comes up.  Imagine this happening daily.   

Whatever your personal reaction to the situation (depending on your personality), all will doubtless find it a exasperating.  A person can’t make plans or appointments with any certainty of being able to meet them.  And if the soldiers happen to be nasty, that makes the situation yet less pleasant.  

This kind of thing has existed in the WB city of Qalqilya for the past several months, day in day out.  I want to be clear. The checkpoint is on the road that leads in and out of the city.   

Why did the military or government powers decide to establish a permanent checkpoint at the entrance to this particular city.  I don’t know for certain, but can venture a likely conjecture: there has been a decision to strangle Qalqilya economically.  Let me explain. 

Prior to erection of the ‘separation’ wall the city was the bread basket of the WB, thanks to being situated on a main aquifer and having fertile soil.  Moreover, Qalqilya is also situated in the vicinity of several Israeli Arab villages.  At one time Jews used to come to Qalqilya to shop.  But their numbers dwindled after the outbreaks of the intimates, whereas Israeli Arabs continued to frequent Qalqilya’s produce stalls, even after the apartheid wall cut the city off from it’s natural surroundings.   

When the wall cut Qalqilya’s farmers off from their lands and from the ability to support their families, about 40% of the city’s population left.  One way to encourage more of the city’s residents to leave would be by strangling the city economically.  The economic situation is not good.  By making it yet more difficult to enter and exit the city, Israel might well hope to discourage Israeli Arabs from near-by communities from shopping in Qalqilya, thus making it yet more difficult to survive. 

Yesterday at 7:00 AM there were long long lines of cars in both directions—entering  and exiting the city when, and a yet longer line trying to enter when I returned at 5:00 PM.  So one would really have to be a die-hard to continue going to Qalqilya just to shop.  Moreover, there are surprises almost every time I go to Qalqilya, which just a few months ago I could have entered in my car without going through any checkpoint. 

I had come to the city to collect a young boy and his 22 year old brother who accompanies him.  We were headed for Rambam hospital in Haifa, where the child (13 years old, but due to his illness looking younger) had an appointment.  He goes regularly for post transplant-treatment.  

I’d arrived a bit earlier than the time we’d agreed on, and headed for the unpaved lot on the right-hand side of the checkpoint, where I usually wait for the boys.  But one of the soldiers at the checkpoint  informed me that I could not park in it.  It had become a ‘closed military zone,’ and the public was no longer allowed to park there.  He pointed in the direction of a private parking lot at the entrance to Qalqilya.  I explained that I was waiting for someone and needed to be near the checkpoint.  The soldier told me that I could park for a few minutes on the other side of the road (the side exiting the city).   

The soldiers were curious, wanting to know why I was taking passengers from the city.  I explained that the child had been ill, and had to go to Rambam hospital in Haifa, that his brother accompanied him, and that some of us drive Palestinians to Israeli hospitals because Palestinians are not allowed to drive their cars on settler roads much less in Israel.  They are therefore dependent on Israelis to get them to the hospitals.   

I asked the soldiers if I was permitted to walk into Qalqilya (Israeli cars are now allowed only with permits).  One of the 2 soldiers responded by asking if I were a Jew!  I countered that it made no difference if I were Jewish or not.  All that counted in this case was that I’m an Israeli citizen.  He responded that Jews were not allowed in, implying that perhaps Muslims were.  We chatted a bit more about the matter.  The soldier who had wanted to know if I were Jewish or not told me that people in Qalqilya didn’t like Jews.  I corrected him, telling him that Palestinians did not like Israelis in military uniforms—that is to say, the objection was to soldiers not to civilians like myself.  He wasn’t convinced. 

By this time my riders had arrived, and I left with a parting request to the soldiers to treat the Palestinians they checked the way they would want their own families to be treated. 

A five minute ride down the main road brought us to the checkpoint leading from the OPT into Israel proper.  That morning the checkpoint was closed to pedestrians.  There must have been about 100 Palestinian men (presumably with permits) trying to get to work or whatever else, held like animals in a cage and prevented from proceeding to their destinations.  The cars also moved slowly.   

When we finally arrived at checkpoint proper, the soldier looked at my ID only (did not so much as glance at my 2 passengers), told me that next time I should go through the left lane (the lane for settlers only) presuming that I was a settler.  It, he said, would be much quicker.  He was right.  The settler lane moved at a fast clip, whereas the other 2 lanes did not, even though all the cars in them had Israeli license plates.  But Israeli Arabs are apparently suspect, and therefore get different treatment from Israeli Jews!  The soldiers did not inspect my car, whereas they did the cars driven by Arabs.  My passenger, the older brother, though,  had a good laugh.  He found it highly amusing that the soldiers checked my ID but not his.  Would make a good story to tell friends. 

Dorothy

====================

http://www.kibush.co.il/show_file.asp?num=23521

4th Letter on nuclear installations and radioactivity:
November 23rd, 2007

Dear Readers,

Our future is being stolen.  Our health is being destroyed daily by nuclear power and nuclear weapons, and a trillion dollar accident -- something that costs more than both Gulf Wars and will kill more people -- could happen in an instant.

In fact, such a catastrophe is INEVITABLE if we don't close the nukes and switch to a green economy.  And, no country with nuclear power can afford to threaten with nuclear weapons.  We have nullified any long-term strategic advantage such weapons ever offered, by building so many "targets."

Each nuclear power plant produces about a ton per week of an incredibly highly-concentrated deadly dust -- a solidified poison gas that can be vaporized in a fire.  Burning does not alter the decay rate of uranium or any other radioactive substance.   It just releases the poison gas into the environment -- into our lungs.

So-called "accidental" releases are INEVITABLE as millions of pounds of spent nuclear fuel are handled throughout the world.  Some releases are much worse than others:  Chernobyl probably vaporized more than a hundred million Curies of uranium and fission products.  Three Mile Island probably vaporized more than ten million Curies.  In both cases, monitoring was poorly done.  For example, when numbers went off-scale for a few hours, improper reconstructions of the events never recognized that the hours off-scale were probably the most brutal time of all, and the scales were off by orders-of-magnitude.

Davis-Besse almost melted down in 2002.  The Nuclear Regulatory Commission let the plant, located in a depressed part of Ohio, re-open anyway after nearly two years of rebuilding.  The power fluctuations when it was going back online are probably what really caused the August 14th, 2003 blackout -- not some tree touching a power line, as the official story goes!   After the fact, the NRC could not say if we were 5 seconds or 5 weeks away from catastrophe, but a football-sized piece of the reactor pressure vessel head had been eaten away by unnoticed corrosion, and the stainless steel liner -- never designed to take pressure without 8 inches of steel on the other side of it -- was all that held back the worst accident in American history -- and the liner -- only 3/16ths of an inch thick -- was already bulging out.  Obligingly, the media never told the public how close we came to disaster, but it was very, very close.

All nuclear power plants are continuously poisoning the people around them with tritium.  Even the lap-dog NRC considers tritium releases excessive if they are greater than approximately one teaspoon per year per plant.  (Tritium is hydrogen, but with two neutrons and one proton instead of the usual single proton with no neutrons.)  A number of communities have realized that their local nuke plant poisoned their wells with tritium, which has a half-life of 12.3 years, and are suing in court because of illnesses they have suffered.  Other communities also suffer, but haven't been able to organize enough to file a lawsuit.   Lawsuits are very difficult.  They are expensive and time-consuming -- especially while you are caring for a child with leukemia!

In addition to tritium and many other radioactive elements that are routinely released, each reactor creates about a ton per week of spent nuclear reactor fuel -- high level nuclear waste.  Spent nuclear fuel contains the most vile stuff on earth:  Radioactive fission products.  There are numerous radioactive decay steps after the original decay of uranium, before it becomes lead or some other stable element, and each radioactive decay step is also dangerous.

Some of the fission products of uranium have a special affinity for various organs of the human body, such as the thyroid, bones, liver, stomach, ovaries, or gonads.  These fission products appear to be useful atoms to your body, which sees them as STABLE building-blocks of life.  In fact they are either radioactive isotopes of useful elements, or they are chemically similar -- and radioactive.

The developing fetus is especially vulnerable -- as much as a thousand times as vulnerable as an adult -- so for that reason alone, you can (and should) say that the poison gases released ROUTINELY from nuclear power plants actually TARGET your fetus!  The rates of miscarriages, childhood leukemias, and many other diseases all go UP around operating nuclear reactors and DOWN when the reactors are shut down.  Reactor operators are baby killers, mass murderers, and terrorists.

While it's true that health-care system improvements can, and do, save millions of people's lives, the fact remains that preventing health problems in the first place is the real key.  The primary goal is to preserve the quality of life for as many people as possible, for as long as possible.

Spent nuclear fuel -- solidified poison gas -- and especially the fission products -- must be carefully kept away from humans.  In addition to tritium, radioactive cesium-137, strontium-90, and iodine-131 are routinely emitted by nuclear power plants, to mention just a few of over 200 different isotopes which are created during the "splitting of the atom" in a nuclear weapon (in a fraction of a millisecond) or a nuclear power plant (more slowly).

Spent nuclear fuel -- a witches' brew of radioactive elements -- can self-ignite if exposed to air, or if it is simply packed too tightly together, since it generates enormous amounts of wasted HEAT for hundreds of thousands of years.

Besides gaseous releases from fire, a "criticality event" is also possible in some cases, if spent reactor fuel is improperly handled.

Nearly a ton per week from each of more than 440 nuclear power reactors around the world (plus military propulsion units) is over 50 tons per day of NEW high level radioactive poison gas (temporarily solidified).  That's the legacy we are leaving our children.  An absolutely unmanageable mess, growing at an utterly alarming rate.

THAT is what we base OUR CHILDREN'S future hopes on -- NOT on their ability to produce clean energy for themselves -- those solutions exist and just have to be implemented -- but on our children's ability to DISCOVER an as-yet-unknown way to keep OUR poison gas -- the nuclear waste WE generated for OUR pleasure -- from poisoning themselves and THEIR CHILDREN!  And in order to work, this "solution" MUST violate the laws of physics!  For 60 years scientists have looked for the "holy grail" of nuclear waste storage -- a container that won't break down -- but it's hard to find good scientists willing to devote their life to the search, because good scientists know it's futile.  When a radioactive element breaks down -- emits radiation -- it has enough power to destroy hundreds or even thousands of chemical bonds in things around it.  Thus, all containers you try to put radioactive substances into are inevitably destroyed by the radiation.

The ability of clean renewable energy to completely replace all our current energy sources is only disputed by spokespeople for the energy sources that poison our environment and cause leukemia, cancer, heart disease, genetic damage, and other insults.  Dirty energy sources that make money by robbing your children of their health, and doing so in your name -- because you allow it.  The poison gas that is created is odorless, colorless, and tasteless, and can take decades to express itself in your body (cause cancer, for example).  AND corporations can make a lot of money if they ignore the risks or downplay the dangers to the public.

Humanity must get realistic about this, or it will continue to suffer and die at ever-increasing rates -- more frequent cancers, and cancers occurring in younger people.

The whole idea of green energy accepts that energy is vital to society, and it should therefore be produced in the most benign ways possible.  Conservation can only get you so far -- after that, your source of energy MUST be clean.  So stopping nukes is the most important goal of all energy users on this planet as well as of all realistic environmentalists -- or should be.

If you think Al Gore will help clean up the environment, think again.  Al Gore thinks nukes can be part of the solution to global warming -- but he says he believes they can play "only a small role."  Because he's subtle about his support for nuclear power, many would-be environmental activists are sucked in by his ruse, believing that we can let nuclear power continue to be a part of the mix -- as long as its portion doesn't go up.

The truth is: That's not nearly good enough.  And a meltdown is the ultimate inconvenient truth.

Such appeasement of the current nuclear juggernaut of environmentally-damaging power reactors kills the whole green revolution before it takes its first step, because unless we shut the plants down (and maybe even afterwards, but it's far less likely), there WILL be an accident -- a meltdown.  It's as inevitable as 100-year floods, 500-year earthquakes, thousand-year storms, and thousand-century volcanoes (and a meltdown could be caused by any of these).  The results could be a thousand to a million times WORSE than the triggering event.

Sincerely,

Ace Hoffman
Carlsbad, CA
ADDITIONAL TEXT RECEIVED FROM PETER MYERS:France's Areva seals record 8 bln euro China deal
http://www.guardian.co.uk/feedarticle?id=7103107

BEIJING, Nov 26 (Reuters) - France's Areva on Monday clinched the biggest commercial nuclear power contract on record, agreeing to sell China two reactors and to provide atomic fuel for nearly two decades in a deal worth far more than expected. At 8 billion euro ($11.86 billion) the contract would be more than double the price tag first mooted 10 months ago, when Beijing signalled it would give the French state-owned firm a slice of its ambitious nuclear expansion plan.

Areva said its deal was "unprecedented in the world nuclear market" and marked "the start of a global and sustainable cooperation" with the China Guangdong Nuclear Power Corp (CGNPC), "It reaffirms our global nuclear leadership and reinforces our presence in one of the most promising markets for decades to come," Areva President and Chief Executive Officer Anne Lauvergeon said, according to a company statement. French utility EDF would finance 30 percent of the deal in return for a stake in the plant, Lauvergeon said. The deal also secures Beijing access to uranium by allowing CGNPC to buy 35 percent of the production of UraMin, a subsidiary of Areva focused on uranium mining in Africa. Beijing is growing increasingly anxious about securing the imported
energy and commodity resources necessary to fuel its economic growth, and has tended to favour investors in these sectors who are able to guarantee supplies.

The announcement was part of a raft of deals agreed during Nicolas Sarkozy's first visit to China as president of France.

Areva and the China National Nuclear Corp agreed to study whether to build a spent nuclear fuel reprocessing-recycling plant in China that could be worth 15 billion euros and to create a joint venture in zirconium. The euro denomination will please Paris, which has been expressing growing concern about the weakness of the dollar. The U.S. currency last week fell to a record low against the euro. (Reporting by Tim Hepher and Emmanuel Jarry; Writing by Emma Graham-Harrison; Editing by Ken Wills/Ramthan Hussain) ($1=.6745 Euro)http://users.cyberone.com.au/myers

ON THE SAME SUBJECT NUCLEAR PROPAGANDA OVERCOMING THE EUROPEAN UNION?Brussels makes the case for nuclear energy - 26.11.2007 - 17:39
The case for greater use of nuclear energy in the EU received a
high-profile boost on Monday, as the bloc formally launched its Nuclear
Energy Forum, serving as the first-ever channel for EU-wide dialogue on the
often taboo issue.http://euobserver.com/9/25220/?rk=1