Doctors in Iraq's
war-ravaged enclave of Falluja are dealing with up to 15 times as many
chronic deformities in infants and a spike in early life cancers that
may be linked to toxic materials left over from the fighting.
The
extraordinary rise in birth defects has crystallised over recent months
as specialists working in Falluja's over-stretched health system have
started compiling detailed clinical records of all babies born.
An Eagle-based company wants to build a 1,600-megawatt nuclear power plant in Elmore County.
The U.S. Congress is considering a bill that proposes the nation build 100 new nuclear power reactors over the next 20 years.
Idaho Republican U.S. Rep. Mike Simpson has embraced nuclear power, and like others, promotes it as cheap and clean. They argue also that nuclear energy emits no greenhouse gases. But it is unclear which part of the nuclear energy cycle they're referring to. Nuclear power is neither cheap nor clean.
PRAIRIE VILLAGE, Kan. - Since 1991 the U.S. military has admitted to using depleted uranium in armor and ammunition on a large scale. But since then, a debate has raged about its long-term health effects on soldiers and their families.
Could one of the most effective military tools in their arsenal actually be harming soldiers?
Jerry Wheat is one of the hundreds of thousands of American men and women who have enlisted in the U.S. Armed Forces.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission assured Rep. Jim Matheson and other Congress members it will stay true to its commitment to see that depleted uranium can be disposed of safely in Utah and elsewhere.
But the agency doesn't detail how it reached its decision to stick to its 1981 system, which treats depleted uranium as "Class A" waste, the standard category for the least hazardous low-level waste.
SALT LAKE CITY - The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is rushing to meet an April 2 deadline to turn over stacks of internal documents that could shed light on why it recently decided to classify large quantities of depleted uranium as the least hazardous type of low-level radioactive waste.
The NRC's decision, which still must undergo a rule-making process that could take up to two years, would open the door for federal facilities and companies around the country to dispose of more than 1 million tons of depleted uranium in Utah and Texas.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission's decision classifying depleted uranium as the least hazardous type of radioactive material is "unsupportable," the chairman of the House Environment and Energy Subcommittee said yesterday.
