WEEK 3 Jan 8th to 14th 2001

   BUSINESS AS USUAL CONCERNING SELLAFIELD

   The British environmental protection agency has relented on its demand that the nuclear re-processing plant in Sellafield should reduce its spills with 80 percent during 2001. It says in a statement that they were "swayed by the owner's persuasive economic arguments". The "decision" has caused an outcry of disbelief and protests both domestically and internationally. During its 40+ years of operation the plant christened Windscale, later to be re-christened Sellafield, has made the Irish Sea among the most radioactive marine areas in the world, Pigeons to be dubbed "flying radioactive waste" and number of cancers among the human population in the area surrounding the plant to be far higher than average. The Norwegian and Swedish authorities have also traced its easily recognizable radioactive isotopes to Scandinavian coastal areas where even in its diluted form it has affected the marine life. Both the Swedish and Norwegian governments have made several official protests to the British government, concerning among other facts, that the spills have been twenty-doubled only the last seven years.