Bangladesh To Set Up Nuclear Plant

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has provided Bangladesh the assurance to assist in establishing nuclear power station in Rooppur. Recently, IAEA Director General Eukia Amano assured the issue in a meeting with Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina. It is to mention that the proposal of building nuclear power station in Rooppur was approved in the national parliament on 9 December 2010. Meanwhile during Sheikh Hasina's tour to Russia, a mutual agreement was signed between two countries regarding establishment of nuclear power plant in Bangladesh. According to the source, the proposed power station in Rooppur is expected to produce 1,000 MW of power per year at a cost of 100 billion takas (Tk). It is to be mentioned here that the preliminary estimate of establishing nuclear plants in different countries ends up in few times higher than the projected cost. However, a power station producing 250 MW power costs Tk 12 billion. That means, with Tk 100 billion, eight power stations of this sort can be developed where in aggregate 2,000 MW of power can be generated.
Expensive and Risky Venture
In addition, from the estimate that International Energy Agency (IEA) has given on establishment cost of power stations based on coal, gas, and nuclear materials, it can be assumed that the construction cost of nuclear power stations is much higher. As per the estimates provided by IEA, a 250 MW coal based power station costs Tk 17.75 billion. That means, with Tk 100 billion, six power stations of this sort can be developed where in aggregate 1,400 MW of power can be generated. In addition, as per the IEA's estimates, a 250 MW gas based power station costs Tk 10.65 billion.
So, with the said fund, nine power stations generating 250 MW of power can be established. Besides, the establishment cost for solar and wind based power stations are lesser. Moreover, it has been found in different researches that the management cost of nuclear power station is few times higher than that of the power stations based on oil, coal, gas, water, wind, or solar energy. There is no risk of health hazards. Then why is Bangladesh moving toward this expensive and risky venture?
Matter of Honor for Country
The energy adviser to the prime minister, Tawfiq-E-Elahi Chowdhury said that it was a matter of honor for the nation to build a nuclear power station. In the same week, Yafes Osman state minister for science, information and communication technology, said that although Bangladesh is in earthquake risk zone, the nuclear power station in Rooppur will be built with the capability to persist earthquake measuring up to 10 in Richter Scale. He could not inform anything on whether any research has been conducted regarding the issue or on what scientific basis he provided the information. Normally, question has arisen on the suitability of such project costing Tk 100 billion. Extensive debate on nuclear wastages, and financial and health risk was going on prior to the current debate. Debate was going on over different aspects of profit and loss, excessive operating costs, disposal of nuclear wastages, and health risks associated with this nuclear power plant costing four times higher than the other means of power generation. However, the Bangladesh Government is ignoring the opinions of the specialists and the general people; this is a serious risk not only to the current generation but also to the future generation. The critical picture we find from the history and the present phenomenon tends that one such project is sufficient to destroy Bangladesh.
Dr Mahbub Ullah, professor at Development Studies Department in Dhaka University, said that the burning issue was whether it would be appropriate to carry on the agreement with Russia regarding establishment of nuclear power plant. Bangladesh is a very densely populated country. In such a country, if any explosion happens because of human error or natural calamity, it would be impossible to save people from the radiation that will be generated. In one side, many people will die instantly; on the other hand the curse of radiation is to be carried out for generations. Because of this curse, birth of retarded children and the severity of incurable diseases like cancer will grow to such an extent that it will be impossible for Bangladesh to bear. We must have to be careful after the incidents occurred in Japan and Chernobyl.
Fear of Devastation
Another source says that, taking the issues like Uranium mining, building nuclear reactor, cooling the towers, transportation of nuclear wastages under consideration, there is no doubt among the scientists that nuclear power plant endangers the atmosphere, environment and the animals. Nuclear power plants were excluded from Clean Development Mechanism and Joint Implementation mechanism of the Kyoto Protocol in 1997. Through a research in 2004, John William and Phillip Smith have shown that a nuclear power plant emits one third Green House Gas than a modern natural gas-based power station. In addition to few thousand times harmful Chlorofluorocarbon (CFC) is released from the Carbon-Dioxide of nuclear power stations. Alleged for environment pollution, CFC was proscribed internationally in "Montreal Protocol." Although every year the nuclear reactors emit around a trillion Curie (unit of radiation) radio-active isotopes in the atmosphere. Neutral gases such as Krypton, Xenon, and Argon are in the list of those isotopes. These isotopes are dissolvable in the fats and can be transferred into the fatty tissues of the body including the genital organs through inhalation of the people residing in the adjacent areas of a reactor. Moreover, Gamma ray that radiates from the radioactive atoms can create sudden impacts on ovary and the sperm that may cause genetic diseases. There is a hydrogen isotope named Tritium that creates radioactive water after reaction with oxygen. This water may go into the DNA molecules of human body through skins, lungs, and digestive system that may end into disaster.
In 2008, the German Government conducted a research on the children residing in the adjacent areas of 16 of their commercial nuclear power plants. The finding of the research was that the closer you go to the nuclear plant, the higher the risk becomes of children getting attacked in cancer, especially leukemia. The research also shows that the risk of children residing within 5-km circumference of the nuclear power station getting attacked in leukemia is almost double than that of the children living elsewhere. It is found in the research that in the localities adjacent to the nuclear reactor, death rate in breast cancer is 26-28 persons per hundred thousand; whereas the average rate of death in breast cancer is 20-22 persons per hundred thousand. This research has been conducted in the United States that produces the maximum amount of nuclear power in the current age. In the research of Energy Department in the United States, it was found that the death rate in breast cancer has grown 37 percent from 1950-54 to 1985-89 in the areas near to the oldest nuclear plants; whereas throughout America, on an average the same rate increased by only 1 percent.
On 26 April 1986, one of the four reactors exploded in a nuclear power plant in the Chernobyl of Kiev city in former Soviet Union. Radioactive molecules spread out in Soviet Union, Eastern Europe, Scandinavia, and many other regions of Eastern Europe. Chernobyl city is abandoned till now. As per the updated information, the overall loss in the Chernobyl accident crossed $100 billion. It took $4 billion only to close down the power plant.
A nuclear accident occurred in Three Mile Island of Pennsylvania in United States on 28 March of 1979. After that accident, the United States has not built any more nuclear power plants till now. Immediately after the Three Mile Island accident demand was raised to ban nuclear power plant in the Sweden Referendum in 1980. After the Chernobyl incident in 1986, everyone thought that the days of nuclear power plants are over. Germany not only stopped making new nuclear power plants but also closing down the expired plants. Belgium, Taiwan, and Japan are also gradually moving away from nuclear power production. Even the people of France that get 77 percent of their power from nuclear power are immensely pressurizing their government to close down their nuclear power stations.
In May 2000, the Aangra-1 nuclear plant of Brazil emitted thousands of gallons of radioactive saline water since their machines frequently used to get out of order and this news has not been published in Brazil. The company in charge of management of the plant did not inform the government. As a result plenty of people were exposed to health risk.
Germany closed down seven of their nuclear plants after the devastation in Japan. However, some other countries including France and the Philippines closed down few nuclear power plants prior to the incident in Japan.
Importing Nuclear Power Plant
When everyone is closing down nuclear plants one after another, the Bangladesh Government is planning to be "honored" by building nuclear power plant. Bangladesh wants to import nuclear power plant of model VVR-1000 from Russia. Russia will only sell reactor and its raw material Uranium. Even if we disregard the overall risk including health and financial aspects, question remains whether Bangladesh has the capability to install, operate, and maintain the nuclear power plant that it is going to purchase from Russia. The source of fuel for producing nuclear power production is Uranium. It is questionable that why Bangladesh is trying to generate nuclear power without having the capability to process the raw material of Uranium.
The one time investment for installing nuclear power plant is huge. Moreover the estimate in the beginning does not remain fixed. The amount of investment increases as the days go by. Bangladesh will have to avail suppliers' credit for the nuclear power plant. Until today, in all countries, including Bangladesh that initiated projects availing suppliers' credit or credits from different banks and donor agencies, the ruler class was benefited; people have become more indebted.
If we see the example of Brazil, the establishment cost of their first nuclear power plant established in Rio de Janeiro in 1970 was $320 million. In 1983, after the installation of the plant, total expenditure stood $2.10 billion. In 1983, the establishment cost of their second nuclear plant was estimated to be $1.60 billion. After 18 years of the stipulated time, its cost became $10 billion. It took $20 billion to finish only 35 percent of the third nuclear plant. Later on, the Brazilian Government adjourned the project.
Possibility of Mass Destruction
It is not possible for a third world country like Bangladesh to check the probable mass destruction arising out of any accidents in the nuclear power plant. A developed country like Japan even fails to avoid the crisis in the nuclear power stations. The bigger accidents like Chernobyl and Three Mile Island took place in the countries standing in the apex in terms of technological advancement. All these countries developed nuclear power plants based on their own skills. It cannot even be imagined that a sophisticated technology like nuclear power plant will run smoothly in a country like Bangladesh where simple power stations based on water, oil, and gas frequently get out of order and remain unfixed for years.
However, not only the nuclear power stations of Bangladesh, it is also necessary to close down the power stations of India and Pakistan. In India, 4,780 MWs of power is generated in six of their power stations utilizing 20 nuclear reactors. Five more power plants are under construction. There are three nuclear power plants in Pakistan from which 2.4 percent of the total power is produced. The concerned people in India have been protesting for long against their nuclear power plants.

Causes of Growing Global Terrorism

The United States has never wanted peace in the world. Every country of the world is compelled to obey the United States out of fear. After the disintegration of the Soviet Union, the United States got the title of "sole superpower." International community should make the United States understand that elimination of terrorism is necessary but regretfully Americans do not want to end the causes of terrorism?
Post World War Scenario
The United States appears to be standing behind every war since the World War. More than 2 million Koreans were killed in the Korean war from 1949 to 1953. When the Vietnam war was fought in the next decade, more than 4.1 million Vietnamese were killed from 1959 to 1975. These include the citizens of North Vietnam, South Vietnam, and Cambodia. The confrontation was still on when the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan in December 1979 and 1.3 million Afghans were killed. Then, the flames of Gulf war engulfed the entire region. Thousands of Iraqi children died a helpless death. Thousands of people craved for medicines in hospitals and severe food shortage emerged. The world was still recovering from this shock when the United States landed its troops in Afghanistan. The United States invaded the resource-rich country to hunt Osama Bin Laden. Later, Iraq was also ruined and the United States claimed that Iraq had chemical weapons.
Similarly, Kashmir issue remains unresolved until today in spite of having been recognized at international level. Many other devastations of this nature hit the world over the past eight decades but most of them were related to natural calamities. If matters are closely observed, it would appear that the United States is behind all these devastations and wars in one way or another. The United States launches wars under one pretext or the other and then devastation becomes the fate of the country where it enters. The United States is, at present, the largest arms supplying country. The United States sold weapons worth $800 million in 2007, whereas its own defense budget is over $700 million.
US intellectual Noam Chomsky has been drawing the world attention to this since long. According to him, the United States is assuming the role of an international rascal. On one hand, the United States is raising the attractive slogan of the "war on terror," and on the other, it has assumed the role of the greatest terrorist. Moreover, the United States is pursuing the communist ideology of telling lie and then standing firm in it.
Noam Chomsky considers the United States an international terrorist country in this situation. If we take stock of the international situation after 1990, we will be compelled to believe in what Noam Chomsky says. The way in which the United States made unjust intervention into different countries clearly proves that it is following the policy of imperialism.
US Intervention in Middle East
The greatest responsibility lies on the United States if peace could not be established in the Middle East to date. The United States openly supported the Jewish Israel. The United States supports atrocities being committed against the unarmed Palestinians. If Israel makes the lives of Palestinians miserable in flagrant violation of the UN resolution, the United States recklessly uses its veto in the UN Security Council to support it [Israel]. Thousands of Palestinians have been living in refugee camps in inhuman conditions since 1948. Not only this, Israel massacres innocent Palestinians even in the refugee camps. The killing in the camps of Sabra and Shatila is a clear instance in this regard. Ever since the establishment of Israel, the United States used it like a policeman in the Middle East and did so for the accomplishment of its agenda and to ensure protection of its national interests, particularly the oil supply. Even the United States declared the recent Israeli excesses just that it committed in the form of attack on Lebanon. The United States did not condemn the killing of hundreds of Lebanese citizens and recklessly used its unjust right in the Security Council in support of Israel. As a result, the war continued for approximately 40 days and scores of human lives were lost. The United States set up a puppet regime in Iraq to seize the country's oil reserves. Moreover, the potential threat that Jewish Israel could have faced from a powerful Muslim country [Iraq] has been eliminated. Having tightened Iraq into its clutches, the United States wants to fully focus on Iran, which aspires to acquire nuclear power. It is obvious from the problems that the United States had to face in Iraq regarding Iran, that it will not launch such an attack on Iran.
The US intervention in Afghanistan is approximately 26-year-old and its consequences are before us. Despite all of their drawbacks, the Taliban had succeeded in establishing a stable government in Afghanistan, but the United States made hundreds of Afghan target of its bombing on the basis of suspicion and pushed the country back into the Stone Age and established a puppet regime there. The prevailing situation in Afghanistan is such that innocent people are being killed every other day and the US brutality has crossed all limits.
Antihumanity Measures
When the Islamists set up a stable government in Somalia, which had plunged into civil war and peace started to return to the country, the United States attacked Somalia with the help of Christian Ethiopia. The United States annihilated approximately four Somali villages in the very first attack. The civil war has been going on there ever since.
The man of the contemporary world is fed up of these US antihumanity measures. Smaller and weak countries have started considering it "superpower" to remain safe from its mischief. It is necessary to reign in the US aggression if the terrorism is to be eliminated because it is promoting terrorism.

US Sinking Under Tides of Economic Crisis

Today, the United States is poor, not capable enough to govern and administer the world. The world's richest country has now become the world's most indebted country. The super power, which used to provide loans to others, is itself heavily indebted today. Today, the United States has trillions of debt, which it cannot pay.
What a good proverb that one has to pay for his deeds, or that what you sow so shall you reap. The United States has been impoverished by its recklessness and arrogance.
Causes and Reasons
If we go a little back, we can see that in 2000 Christian era (when Bill Clinton was relinquishing power to George W. Bush), the United States had a surplus amount of $300 dollars in its exchequer. However, when, in the wake of the 9/11 incidents, Bush resorted to huge military and financial spending, this surplus moved to negative, meaning that $300 billion expenditures were incurred in two years. In the subsequent two years, this expenditure doubled, rising to $600 billion. In the following two years, it further grew to $900 billion, and in 2009 it blew up to $1200 billion (meaning $1.2 trillion), and today we see that it has soared to $1700 billion (meaning $1.7 trillion), which has no precedence in the US history. It forced Washington to obtain loans to prop up its falling economy. It obtained heavy loans from Japan, China, Saudi Arabia, and other Gulf countries.
In Bush's first tenure, the debt of the United States was $ 7.6 trillion while in his second tenure, it rose to $10.6 trillion while today it has increased to $14.02 trillion. These figures show that half of this loan has been taken during the past six years (when wars in Afghanistan and Iraq were on their height). If this $14 trillion loan is divided among all the Americans, every American will have a debt of $453,000.
Economic experts say that the United States may spend $1.3 trillion more than the its revenue this year because the budget deficit is adding $ four billion to the national debts every day, and this loss is gradually leading the United States to sinking. This means that Washington borrows 41 cents of every dollar, which it spends. The finance minister had said that such an eventuality had never occurred in the US history.
Impact of War and Fragile Peace
A matter of more shame is the fact that both the parties blame each other for this big crisis, each of them absolving itself of the responsibility. The Congress is under compulsion to do one of the following two things: either it would have to raise the upper limit of procuring loan so the government can obtain more loans, or it would have to make a huge reduction in spending and budgets. Whatever it does would not prove beneficial because debt always grows in war and fragile peace, although not as much as Bush had incurred. He impoverished the state and handed it over to Barack Obama in a bankrupted condition.
Regrettable is the fact that almost equal to half of this $14 trillion, meaning $6 billion, is to be paid as mark-up. Although the actual mark-up is $900 billion but for several reasons, it increases to$6 trillion:
1. As the government cannot pay the debt, it has to pay more markup.
2. The lenders (governments, companies, banks, and individuals) increase the ratio of their mark-up.
3. As the government loses the trust of the lenders, every one avoids paying more loans or imposes conditions of their choice.
4. It maintains its high defense expenditure and budget, therefore, both the wars are continuing on borrowed money.
The Pentagon's budget for 2011 or the present year is $707 billion. An additional $200 billion is being specified for Afghanistan, Iraq, and the so-called war on terror. Why? The Soviet Union has collapsed and WARSAW Pact has also perished. Then why is it ransacking itself and the world? Why did it lost its 6,000 soldiers without any justification and threw $3 trillion into fire? That is the reason that the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq have left three questions unanswered:
1. Would the United States receive so much loss if there had not been these wars?
2. Would the United States be so much indebted if there had not been these wars?
3. Would the United States is such a massive economic crisis if there had not been these wars?
Not Accepting Bitter Reality
Naturally, the answers are in negative. The attacks on Afghanistan and Iraq and the huge military expenses in both the countries tumbled the stock market. The companies were plunged into losses and bankruptcy. A big financial crisis ensued in 2007-2008. It accelerated and intensified the financial and trade deficit, badly affecting the mortgage sector. The economy melted like snow. More loans were obtained. Excessive dollars were printed, which further lowered the dollar rate. It caused inflation and financial deficit grew further. Big companies got closer to closing down until the government provided billions of dollars to save them from collapse. Unemployment ensued, grew, and perpetuated. All these factors formed a chain, which has tied the hands and feet of the United States in such a manner that the latter finds it difficult, rather impossible, to get rid of it.
See, even the Soviet Union once did not accept that the Afghan war impaired it. The same way, today the United States is not accepting this bitter reality. So, the question is: If the base of this big crisis is not the Afghan war, what it is?
How and in how much time would the United States get itself out of the $14.2 trillion loan? The answer is totally obscure. Therefore, we can say that this is a very back-breaking and insurmountable crisis, which is gradually submerging the United States. Cannot we say that this huge tide is rising like those violent waves of the Red Sea, which had submerged Pharaoh?