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Tag: uranium

  • Nun Sentenced to 35 Months in Prison for Anti-Nuclear Protest

    A Federal District Judge sentenced an 84-year-old Roman Catholic nun to 35 months in prison Tuesday for breaking into a nuclear facility on July 28, 2012.

    Sister Megan Rice was found guilty of damaging more than $1,000 worth of U.S. government property at the Y-12 National Security Complex in Oak Ridge, Tenn.

    Protesters Greg Boertje-Obed, 57, and 63-year-old Michael Walli were also sentenced to five years for breaking into one of the nation’s most secured uranium facilities.

    In an attempt to protest against nuclear weapons, the trio cut through four fences and snuck past armed guards before finally making their way onto the premises.

    The vandalization went on for more than two hours. The activists used banners, spray paint, and blood to recite Biblical slogans of peace.

    One of the last properties they destroyed was a storage building that housed $548 million worth of uranium. It was in that moment that a security guard caught Sister Rice and her partners-in-crime.

    “The protesters put themselves at a high risk of losing their life in performing this act,” a National Nuclear Security Administration said, according to The Christian Science Monitor.

    However, it appears that the nun has placed herself in similar situations numerous times.

    According to The New York Times, Sister Rice joined a nunnery at the age of 18, and by the 1980s, she was a member of an anti-nuclear demonstration group. One of her most well-known punishments was serving six months in prison for kneeling down in front of a truck, blocking its way into a Nevada nuclear site.

    Evidently, the anti-nuclear activist has always been resilient to law enforcement. According to her, the government’s 70-year industry of criminalization should be of main concern.

    “We spend more on nuclear arms than on the departments of education, health, transportation, disaster relief and a number of other government agencies that I can’t remember,” she told the newspaper.

    In a closing statement to Judge Amul Thapar, Sister Rice appeared to be unapologetic. She requested to receive the maximum prison sentence.

    “Please have no leniency with me,” CS Monitor reported her saying. “To remain in prison for the rest of my life would be the greatest gift you could give me.”

    Here is an interview done by HLN:

    Image via YouTube

  • Benjamin Netanyahu: Iran Agreement Is A “Historic Mistake”

    As Secretary of State John Kerry and President Obama celebrated a series of resolutions on nuclear proliferation that they supposedly reached with Iran, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu took the complete opposite tone.

    In a speech today before Israel’s cabinet, CNN and the Washington Post report Netanyahu reiterating Israel’s desire to completely dismantle Iranian uranium enrichment programs, and halt any nuclear developments by Iran.

    “What was achieved last night in Geneva is not a historic agreement, but a historic mistake… Today the world has become a much more dangerous place because the most dangerous regime in the world has taken a significant step toward attaining the most dangerous weapon in the world,” he told he cabinet.

    Iran, meanwhile, claims that the nuclear program is a peaceful one, that it is simply exercising a right to enrich uranium like other nations, and that only the medical research and energy industries will benefit. Not everyone in the international community agrees with Iran’s assessment, even though the country has yet to officially enrich weapons-grade uranium.

    If Iran makes the effort to start, then Israel appears prepared to preemptively strike. Israel’s intelligence minister Yuval Steinitz, compared Iran to North Korea: “The last-second amendments put into the agreement are far from satisfactory. The current deal, like the 2007 failed deal with North Korea, is more likely to bring Iran closer to having a bomb.”

    Israel’s foreign minister, Avigdor Lieberman, believes the deal “brings us to a nuclear arms race… The world has to understand that this is the biggest diplomatic victory Iran has had in recent years. There’s no doubt the agreement recognizes Iran’s right to enrich uranium.”

    White House descriptions of the deal seem a bit tamer than Israel’s. A fact sheet from D.C. called the deal “the first meaningful limits that Iran has accepted on its nuclear program in close to a decade.” It went on to say that, “With respect to the comprehensive solution, nothing is agreed until everything is agreed…Put simply, this first step expires in six months, and does not represent an acceptable end state to the United States.”

    The White House acknowledged Iran’s official concessions in the agreement: all enrichment of uranium above 5 percent is to be halted; the stockpile of 3.5 percent enriched uranium is to be frozen; any uranium enriched to 20 percent is to be neutralized or diluted; and all activity at the Arak nuclear reactor (which has the potential to produce weapons-grade plutonium) is to be halted.

    Netanyahu had been attempting to convince world leaders that Iran would be producing a “bad deal.” After making his case to French President François Hollande and Russian President Vladimir Putin, relations between the White House and Israel seemed strained.

    Isaac Herzog, the leader of Israel’s opposition Labor party, called out Netanyahu, saying “Netanyahu must do everything in order to fix the damage that was caused from the public clash with the U.S. and return to an intimate relationship with President Obama and other world leaders.”

    The most dramatic quotation came from Israel’s economic minister, Natfatli Bennett, who said “If a nuclear suitcase blows up in New York or Madrid five years from now, it will be because of the deal that was signed this morning… There is still a long campaign ahead of us [and] we will continue to act in every possible way.”

    [Image via Wikimedia Commons]

  • Grand Canyon Mine Halted Due to Financial Restraints

    The Grand Canyon is perhaps best known for its role as an amazing, awe-inspiring sight of nature’s beauty and power, a beautiful American landmark that brings flocks of tourists (and their wallets) to areas that might not otherwise have a chance at much revenue. A lesser-known aspect of the Grand Canyon, however, is the multiple mining projects that go on around the national landmark. Such endeavors are proving to be less profitable than is ideal, however, as one mining company has decided to halt its endeavors in the grand canyon due to financial restraints.

    A uranium mining company, in the midst of sinking a shaft for a mine just south of the Grand Canyon National Park, put its work on hold due to “market conditions and the expense of litigation.” The company, Energy Fuels Resources Inc, stated that the project will be halted until December of 2014, over a year from now, or “until a ruling is issued in a federal case challenging the U.S. Forest Service’s decision to allow development of the Canyon Mine near Tusayan.” The company had previously stated that they planned to extract 83,000 tons of ore to create 1.6 million pounds of processed uranium (“yellow cake”), but the time frame will now need re-evaluating in the face of halted production.

    Financial restraints might not be the only reason the mine has been halted, however. A local Native american tribe and multiple conservation groups have been working to halt the mine’s production for years, saying that the mine posed “potential harm to waters and wildlife of Grand Canyon, as well as cultural resources.” This constant backlash, as well as record-low prices for yellow cake uranium, have finally condemned the mine to a stand-still until some compromises can be met.

    Sandy Bahr of the Sierra Club was quoted as saying, “Obviously this is an indication that it doesn’t look good from an economic perspective. We obviously think that it has never looked good from an environmental perspective. It would be nice if they would also recognize that aspect of it and make the shutdown permanent.” With prices low and the backlash strong, it seems like this mine may soon meet a permanent end.

    [Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.]