June 2009

A new report out today casts doubt on the ability of the nuclear industry to deliver its promised new reactors.

French companies EDF and Areva, who are at the forefront of the new worldwide reactor design and building programme, have been making serious investments in foreign markets where they hope to build new reactors, including here in the UK. As a consequence they are heavily in debt.

May's round up of images from around the Greenpeace world come from as far afield as Australia, where activists shut down a giant digger at the most polluting power station in the developed world; India, where we've been installing solar panels in schools; and Thailand, where volunteers canoed 350km to document the toxic damage being done to the Chao Praya, the country's most iconic river.

Here's the latest in the Deep Green column from Rex Weyler - author, journalist, ecologist and long-time Greenpeace trouble-maker. The opinions here are his own.

Global warming is a symptom of human overshoot: the consumption and waste that exceeds the biophysical capacity of the Earth. If we attempt to reduce the fever, but ignore the disease, we will, at best, extend the suffering.

Greenpeace will soon have a new leader. Kumi Naidoo will take up the role of Executive Director of Greenpeace International on the first of November 2009, when Gerd Leipold steps down after nine years as our activist-in-chief. Kumi was part of the successful struggle against apartheid in his native South Africa. He is an activist and a Rhodes Scholar. For ten years he was the General Secretary of CIVICUS: World Alliance for Citizen Participation. Today he sits on the board of Greenpeace Africa and chairs the Global Campaign for Climate Action (GCCA).

He was one of the founders of Global Call to Action Against Poverty, which has grown since 2005 into a coalition of anti-poverty campaigners from over 100 countries. They apply public pressure on leaders to fulfil promises on aid, trade, debt, climate change and gender equality.