International Atomic Energy Agency News

AUKUS defense ministers have reaffirmed their resolve to bolster security and stability and ensure that the Indo-Pacific remains a region free from coercion and aggression.A statement was released after Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III hosted Richard Marles MP, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Defence, Australia, and Grant Shapps, Secretary of State for Defence, United Kingdom, at the Defense Innovation Unit Headquarters in California on December 1.AUKUS is a trilateral security partnership for the Indo-Pacific region between Australia…

A group of partners in South Korea has set out to develop, demonstrate and commercialize vessels powered by small modular reactors (SMR).Nuclear power for ships has been gaining interest amid stricter greenhouse gas emissions regulations in the international shipping sector.Nine participating institutions, including KAERI, Gyeongsangbuk-do, Gyeongju-si, Korea Research Institute of Ships and Ocean Engineering (KRISO), Korean Register (KR), H-Line Shipping Co., Ltd., HMM Co., Ltd., Wooyang Shipping Co., Ltd., Sinokor Merchant Marine Co., Ltd.

Iran said on Wednesday the United States had agreed to remove all sanctions on Iran's oil and shipping but Washington said "nothing is agreed until everything is agreed" in talks to revive the 2015 Iran nuclear deal.The remarks by outgoing President Hassan Rouhani's chief of staff Mahmoud Vaezi echoed previous assertions by officials in Rouhani's pragmatist camp that Washington is ready to make major concessions at the nuclear talks in Vienna that began in April.The indirect talks adjourned on Sunday for consultations in capitals…

Japan will release more than 1 million tonnes of contaminated water from the destroyed Fukushima nuclear station into the sea, the government said on Tuesday, a move opposed by neighbors including China, which called it "extremely irresponsible."The first release of water will take place in about two years, giving plant operator Tokyo Electric Power time to begin filtering the water to remove harmful isotopes, build infrastructure and acquire regulatory approval.Japan has argued…

Nearly a decade after the Fukushima nuclear disaster, Japan's government has decided to release over one million tonnes of contaminated water into the sea, media reports said on Friday, with a formal announcement expected to be made later this month.The decision is expected to rankle neighboring countries like South Korea, which has already stepped up radiation tests of food from Japan, and further devastate the fishing industry in Fukushima that has battled against such a move…

Iran has fired a diplomatic warning shot at Washington by raising the prospect of building nuclear reactors for ships while staying within the limits set by its atomic deal with major powers, a U.N. nuclear watchdog report showed on Thursday. U.S. President Donald Trump has long railed against the 2015 nuclear deal for reasons including its limited duration and the fact it does not cover Iran's ballistic missile programme. He has threatened to pull out unless European allies help "fix" the agreement with a follow-up accord.

Damen Oskarshamnsvarvet Sweden has been awarded the contract to manufacture high-precision special steel tanks together with their integrated cassettes for OKG; operator of three nuclear reactors on Sweden’s Simpevarp peninsula. With two reactors due to be decommissioned and dismantled, the tanks will be used to store radioactive reactor parts as part of the disposal process. While Damen Oskarshamnsvarvet Sweden is best known as one of the ship repair and conversion yards in the Baltic Sea, it has over many years built up a reputation as a niche fabricator of high quality steel structures of all kinds. Its certifications include ISO 3834-2…

Governments at the recent meeting of Parties which regulate the dumping of wastes at sea have called for more action to address marine litter in the oceans, particularly plastics and microplastics, which present a severe and long lasting threat to the marine environment. Parties to the London Convention and Protocol, meeting for their 38th/11th session, expressed concern around the issue of litter and plastics in the marine environment, but also acknowledged that there has been…

The media in Tehran said on Saturday that Japan plans to extend a contract to purchase crude oil from Iran. Shana news agency – affiliated to Iran’s Ministry of Petroleum – has reported that Japan’s contract will be extended until April 2017. It added that the volume of oil that the country will purchase from Iran will also increase from the current level of 110,000 barrels per day. No figure was nevertheless provided on how much this will increase. Japan is one of Iran's biggest oil buyers but its crude imports have nearly halved from 2011 levels before sanctions. Japan has chose to lift its sanctions on Iran after the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) confirmed the country had implemented measures promised under the newly-reached deal on its nuclear programme…

Two huge explosions tore through an industrial area where toxic chemicals and gas were stored in the northeast Chinese port city of Tianjin, killing at least 50 people, including at least a dozen fire fighters, officials and state media said on Thursday. At least 700 people were injured, more than 71 seriously, the Tianjin government said on its Weibo microblog, and the official Xinhua news agency said two fires were still burning. Wednesday night's blasts, so large that they were seen by satellites in space, sent shockwaves through apartment blocks kilometres away in the port city of 15 million people. Internet videos showed fireballs shooting into the sky and the U.S. Geological Survey registered the blasts as seismic events.

Iran, the United States and five other major powers reached an agreement to restrain the Iranian nuclear program in exchange for relief from economic sanctions. Q: Can you outline the timeline from here? "The P5+1 will now work on a UN resolution to endorse the deal; separately, domestic legislatures and other processes will review text, in the U.S, that includes a 60-day review period; 90 days from today the deal goes into implementation mode in which Iran does a number of nuke steps, and the P5+1 establish legal conditions for relief, but it doesn't get activated until the IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) issues a report verifying Iran did what it said it would do, which Secretary (of State John) Kerry put at about 6 months, and which I think is about right, as noted before.

Our oceans need an immediate and substantial reduction of anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions. If that doesn’t happen, we could see far-reaching and largely irreversible impacts on marine ecosystems, which would especially be felt in developing countries. That’s the conclusion of a new review study published today in the journal Science. In the study, the research team from the Ocean 2015 initiative assesses the latest findings on the risks that climate change poses for our oceans, and demonstrates how fundamentally marine ecosystems are likely to change if human beings continue to produce just as much greenhouse gases as before.

France hopes to boost its nuclear industry with a biennial exhibition modeled on the Paris Air Show, although it does not expect reactor orders to pile up as fast as airplane contracts. To be held in the same Le Bourget venue as the airshow, the October 14-16 World Nuclear Exhibition (WNE) expects some 7,000 visitors will visit stands representing nearly 500 French and foreign nuclear industry companies, the organisers said on Thursday. "Obviously, it would be an illusion to expect to sign as many nuclear reactor contracts there as the airline industry does at the airshow," WNE chief Gerard Kottmann told reporters. At the 2013 Paris Air Show…

The accord reached between Iran and the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council (the United States, China, Russia, Great Britain and France) and Germany (the P5+1) in November 2013, becomes effective Jan. 20, 2014, for a six-month interim period. The accord provides limited sanctions relief for Iran in exchange for a halt to Iran's nuclear development program. While some of the details regarding the specific scope of sanctions relief are not yet public, this alert provides initial information about the scope and impact of these measures. On Nov. 24, 2013, the P5+1 reached an interim accord with Iran called the Joint Plan of Action. This accord is intended to provide an interim compromise to give negotiators an opportunity to conclude a more permanent agreement.

A huge building containing equipment for dealing with the whole cycle of radioactive waste management is taking shape on the coast of the Barents Sea. Roofing and façade are finished now, and remaining inner engineering systems are being installed, reports the 'Barents Observer'. The complex in the Saida Bay will deal with all kinds of radioactive scrap from the huge reactor compartments of decommissioned nuclear submarines to contaminated metal parts from both the navy and Russia’s fleet of nuclear powered icebreakers.

International experts have met in London to review the growing problems in the marine environment caused by micro-plastics – tiny pieces of plastic or fibers which may act as a pathway for persistent, bio-accumulating and toxic substances entering the food chain. The experts form a key working group (WG-40) under the Joint Group of Experts on the Scientific Aspects of Marine Environmental Protection (GESAMP), an advisory body that advises the United Nations (UN) system on the scientific aspects of marine environmental protection. The International Maritime Organization (IMO) is the Administrative Secretariat of GESAMP, which has, to date…

Two recent reports have raised alarms about the security of our ports and the cargo that enters them by containers every day. The top North American container ports handle more than 35 million containers per year bringing vital goods to U.S. homes and companies every day. Without this freight, our economy would be at a standstill. But one nuclear device placed into a shipping container could wreak havoc not just at the port it enters, but also with the surrounding population of our busiest ports such as New York/New Jersey, Los Angeles, and Long Beach.

IMO has joined with a host of other United Nations agencies and leading international scientific bodies in developing the first comprehensive real-time tool to assess the state of world's oceans. The Internet-based United Nations Atlas of the Oceans was launched on World Environment Day June 5, 2002 at a meeting of the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission of UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) in Paris, France. More than 2½ years in development after a decade of planning, the Atlas of the Oceans represents the most ambitious global scientific information collaboration ever on-line and an international consensus-building tool expected to assist negotiations of future marine-related agreements.

The U.S. Research and Special Programs Administration (RSPA) issued a Notice stating that the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), International Maritime Organization (IMO), and Universal Postal Union are co-sponsoring an international conference on the safe transport of radioactive materials. The conference will be held in Vienna, Austria on July 7-11, 2003. Source: HK Law