mox fuel

Greenpeace's application to stop a dangerous cargo of faulty plutonium fuel from leaving Japan is to be heard at the High Court tomorrow morning (4th July 2002).

Hearing Time: 10.30am
Judge: Mr Justice Baker
Court number 10, High Court, The Strand.

Greenpeace received eleventh hour assurances last night from British Nuclear Fuels Ltd that made it unnecessary for the group to seek an injunction in the English High Court. Greenpeace wants to prevent BNFL from taking irreversible steps that might prevent important safeguards, designed to protect the public, applying to the loading of faulty plutonium - MOX fuel onto a ship bound for the UK from Japan.

Despite international opposition two armed British Nuclear Fuels (BNFL) ships set sail from Barrow-in-Furness in Cumbria this morning, on the anniversary of the Chernobyl disaster (1). The two vessels are bound for Japan to collect nuclear material containing enough plutonium to build 50 nuclear bombs. The dangerous cargo is to be delivered to the controversial Sellafield nuclear plant, which is currently the focus of a major campaign by Irish celebrities calling for its shutdown.

Greenpeace has condemned the Government and British Nuclear Fuels for the introduction of plutonium into the controversial Sellafield MOX Plant (SMP) earlier today. The decision to proceed with loading of the lethal nuclear material will increase environmental pollution from the Sellafield site and increase international security risks, including nuclear terrorism and proliferation of nuclear weapons. Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth have mounted a range of legal challenges in an effort to prevent the plant from opening. The Irish Government currently has two international legal cases on-going against the UK government.

Friends of the Earth and Greenpeace have overturned an important part of last month's controversial High Court ruling that the Government had lawfully given the Sellafield Mixed Oxide (MOX) plant the green light. (1) But the MOX plant can still open, despite the fact that it will never recover its costs and that it represents a serious threat to public safety.

The United Nations International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea issued a significant ruling on the case brought by the Irish government against the UK Government over the controversial Sellafield nuclear complex. The Tribunal, made up of 21 judges, issued a unanimous ruling that puts pressure on the UK to stop the operation a new plutonium fuel manufacturing facility, the Sellafield MOX Plant (SMP).

Friends of the Earth and Greenpeace go to Court of Appeal

Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth will now take their battle to stop the MOX plant at Sellafield to the Court of Appeal. The move follows last week's ruling by Mr Justice Collins that the Government hadn't acted unlawfully in giving the highly controversial plutonium fuel plant the green light. The Appeal will be heard on 27 and 28 November.

Terrorism Bill threatens to prevent people throughout the world from knowing about British nuclear shipments along their coasts