press releases

Research published today by Greenpeace exposes the Bush Administration's use of the famine in southern Africa as a marketing tool to push GM food in the continent. The document details how the offer of GM food aid by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) is the latest move in a ten-year marketing campaign designed to facilitate the introduction of US-developed GM crops into Africa. In addition, the US food aid programme effectively channels a huge covert subsidy to American GM farmers through the Bill Emerson Humanitarian Trust.

Responding to the announcement that a loan to British Energy has been extended and increased, Greenpeace spokesperson Emma Gibson said:

"Tony Blair has ducked an opportunity to finally deal with Britain's nuclear headache. It's time he faced up to the obvious fact that nuclear power simply does not work. He should stop pouring taxpayers cash into this black hole and start backing energy efficiency programmes and renewable technologies. That way we can have clean locally produced electricity while at the same time combating climate change.

Yet more problems surfaced for troubled generator British Energy today as the Government's nuclear safety inspectors revealed that huge gas circulator fans at the company's Torness plant were 'severely damaged and in pieces of various sizes' when the station was closed for safety reasons. The revelations have led to urgent calls for other reactors with identical components to also be closed. Campaigners accuse the company of 'putting cash before safety.'

Two illegal logging barges carrying over two hundred logs have been impounded and the owner fined almost 200,000 Brazilian reals - nearly US$ 60,000, after a three-day river blockade mounted by Greenpeace activists and local community members in the Amazon to protest against forest destruction and demand the reation of an Extractive Reserve (1). 

The Heysham 2 nuclear power station - owned by troubled generator British Energy - was shut down last night. It is believed that the closure is due to an electrical fault in the plant's nuclear reactor. BE were unable to state how long the plant will be closed. With their Torness plant already closed, and scheduled outages of other reactors, at least one third of BE's nuclear generating capacity is now currently down.

European Commission did not approve loan to nuclear generator

Greenpeace and renewable energy provider Ecotricity have written to Patricia Hewitt, Secretary of State for Trade and Industry, challenging the legality of her recent decision to loan £10 million to stricken nuclear generator British Energy [1]. Greenpeace and Ecotricity have discovered that the cash bailout was made without European Commission approval - a flagrant breach of the law governing state aid - and are demanding that the money be repaid to the taxpayer immediately.

For the second time in as many days, yachts from the Nuclear Free Irish Sea Flotilla have protested the transport of nuclear materials through the Irish Sea. This morning at 8.30 am six of the flotilla boats protested the arrival of the Pacific Pintail and Pacific Teal into Barrow docks near Sellafield at the end of the ships' infamous 18,000 mile journey from Japan to the UK. 

The Nuclear Free Irish Sea Flotilla has encountered and protested against the two nuclear freighters entering the Irish Sea today, 28 miles off the coast of Ireland, 20 miles off the coast of the UK.

Greenpeace today reacted with anger to revelations in the Norwegian press that the Sellafield nuclear plant plans to discharge large amounts of a notorious radioactive substance into the Irish Sea this week (1).

Discharges of Technetium 99 have been hugely controversial, particularly in Norway and Ireland, with contamination from the radioactive chemical found on the coasts of both countries. Lobsters are regularly found off Sellafield with levels of Technetium 99 which breach the levels set by the European Community for intervention following a nuclear accident [2]. It will take between two to three years for this week's releases to reach the Norwegian coast.