Le Nouvel Observateur “has it.”:http://globe.blogs.nouvelobs.com/media/00/02/cb7c0be018109bea88567d7c7839309b.pdf At first glance, I didn’t see anything terribly interesting. But maybe I’m missing something.

[via “Laura Rozen.”:http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/007721.html ]

For the sake of self-promotion (not really), here is a “tiny piece on nuclear energy in Belarus”:http://www.thebulletin.org/web-edition/features/belarus-takes-a-second-look-nuclear-energy that the folks at the _Bulletin_ kindly edited and put up. I attempted to write about how Belarus’ president Aleksandr Lukashenko is trying to promote a nuclear power plant project to an audience quite “allergic” to nuclear energy after the Chernobyl accident.

I won’t deny that David Marples in his great “Jamestown columns”:http://www.jamestown.org/authors_details.php?author_id=189has has covered this issue in depth already (so has Alexei Breus of _NuclearFuel_, for that matter). In his writings, Marples uses polling data from the “beleaguered independent pollster NISEPI”:http://www.jamestown.org/edm/article.php?article_id=2369688 to show low public support for the NPP project in Belarus (“only *32.5%* in 2006”:http://www.jamestown.org/edm/article.php?article_id=2371710).

Yet, I am fascinated by some polling data that seems to be coming from the Belarusian government, which *admits even lower public support for the nuclear power plant project* — *28.3%* in 2005. The source for the data is an obscure paper by Alexander Mikhalevich of the Belarusian National Academy of Sciences (NAS) titled “_Technical and Scientific Support of Nuclear Power Development in Belarus_”:http://www-pub.iaea.org/mtcd/meetings/PDFplus/2007/cn142/cn142Papers/38_A_Mikhalevich.doc presented at “this 2007 IAEA Conference”:http://www-pub.iaea.org/MTCD/meetings/cn142papers.asp.

Further, perhaps I am reading too much into how official Minsk has used this (and similar) data when I note in the _Bulletin_ piece that in its public relations campaign

bq. “the [Lukashenko] government *has repeatedly stressed* (like “here”:http://naviny.by/rubrics/inter/2008/05/08/ic_news_259_290276/ and “here”:http://www.belisa.org.by/en/news/stnews/manufacture/af2560a4b75f8890.html) *IAEA support for the [NPP] project* [because its] polling indicates that the Belarusian public trusts the information provided by the agency.”

You can get a sense of what I mean from one of the charts in the NAS paper, which I posted below. There you have it. Individuals close to the Lukashenko government admit that the public *trusts the IAEA (44%) much more than the Belarusian government (3%)*.

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Once again, “here is the NAS paper”:http://www-pub.iaea.org/mtcd/meetings/PDFplus/2007/cn142/cn142Papers/38_A_Mikhalevich.doc. And while we are on the topic, you should check out the videos at the “IAEA In Focus:Chernobyl”:http://www.iaea.org/NewsCenter/Focus/Chernobyl/ section.

FoKerr Pete Painful sent this to me…one of the greatest gifts ever.

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Sunday afternoon, so we need some Helios Creed. I once drove 3+ hours each way one night to see him.

At June’s “Atomcon”:http://www.totalwonkerr.net/1638/why-arent-you-at-atomcon-2008, Rosatom unveiled a website, intended to allow the Russian public to -control their iodine intake- check radiation background info on nuclear power facilities all over the country with a click and a zoom. I guess this was Rosatom’s way of dealing with hackers, whose attacks on NPP websites helped spread panic over a “non-existent radiation leak at a nuclear plant in St. Petersburg”:http://en.rian.ru/russia/20080523/108202288.html in May.

The website is basically a map of the country – “check it out”:http://www.russianatom.ru/ – and you can flip between map and google-powered satellite view. Sadly, I can’t zoom to see close-ups of my birthplace – the “beautiful Magadan”:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magadan.

Anyway, my senior colleague “Cristina Hansell”:http://cns.miis.edu/cns/staff/hansell_cristina.htm discovered today that the website also allows easy access to and close-up view of amazing things like the “Rybachiy Submarine Base”:http://www.nti.org/db/nisprofs/russia/naval/nucflt/pacflt/rybachiy.htm on the Kamchatka Peninsula, where the Russian Navy bases several SSBNs (see “Podvig”:http://russianforces.org/navy/ and “NTI”:http://www.nti.org/db/submarines/russia/). A sample pic is posted below and you can “download a larger version here”:http://www.totalwonkerr.net/file_download/14. Kinda funny, don’t you think?

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Big nuclear medicine news out of Canada today… Radiopharmaceutical giant MDS Nordion “filed a lawsuit”:http://www.world-nuclear-news.org/C-AECL_sued_over_reactor_cancellation-1007087.html against the Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd (AECL) for halting the “MAPLE project”:http://www.aecl.ca/Commercial/DIF/MAPLE/DIF-MAPLE.htm.

Just to back up… As you may or may not know, Nordion, which produces critical medical isotopes using _highly enriched uranium_ – for explanation of proliferation risks see “*NTI’s Civilian Uses of HEU: HEU Use for Radioisotope Production*”:http://www.nti.org/db/heu/civilian.html – currently holds a monopoly on the U.S. radioisotope market (see “AECL video on nuclear medicine”:http://www.videos.aecl.ca/NuclearMed3.wmv). The MAPLEs were supposed to put an end to Canada’s reliance on the five-decade-old National Research Universal (NRU) reactor for isotope production. The NRU, a “poster child for unsafe operating practices”:http://www.thestar.com/comment/article/308320, is also “dependent on U.S. exports of HEU”:http://cns.miis.edu/pubs/week/050804.htm.

In May, “without consulting Nordion”:http://www.mds.nordion.com/documents/news-releases/2008/MDS_Response_to_AECL_Government.pdf, AECL decided to discontinue the MAPLEs due to “costs of further development, as well as the time frame and risks involved”:http://www.aecl.ca/NewsRoom/News/Press-2008/080516.htm. AECL maintained that the “NRU”:http://www.nrureactor.ca/ would continue isotope production until its license expired in 2011, and, in the meantime, AECL would work with Nordion to figure out what to do to maintain isotope supply post-NRU.

Today, Nordion said that it is “disappointed that AECL and the Government decided to abandon the MAPLE project without establishing a clear plan for the long-term [radioisotope] supply”:http://www.mds.nordion.com/documents/news-releases/2008/AECL_Arbitration_FINAL.pdf. News of the lawsuit appear to mean that Nordion is no closer to figuring out what it will do after 2011 in order to supply the U.S. with critical medical isotopes than it was in May.

To make sense of what this means for elimination of HEU use in the civilian sphere, you should *come to _The Nonproliferation Review_ luncheon briefing*, which will take place “July 21st in DC”:http://cns.miis.edu/cns/activity/080721_nprbriefing/index.htm. Yes, the “notorious -402-page-long- July issue of the NPR”:http://www.armscontrolwonk.com/1923/hibbs-reviews-books-on-pak-bomb has a special section on civil HEU elimination. “Check it out!”:http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/title~content=g794017031~db=all

*UPDATE*: _My short attention span is getting me into trouble (sorry, Stephen and Cat!). The issue of the Review is a mere 287 pages long. I just glanced at the last page of the issue. My bad._

Behold….”ACA”:http://www.armscontrol.org/pdf/20080709_India_safeguards.pdf and “ISIS”:http://www.isis-online.org/publications/southasia/India_IAEA_safeguards.pdf both have it. _ACW_ has a “post”:http://www.armscontrolwonk.com/1947/india-safeguards-agreement-stinks up about it.