Putin leaves Kazakhstan without deal to build nuclear plant
A visit last week by Vladimir Putin and a Kremlin entourage to Astana, Kazakhstan sought in part to put Rosatom, Russia’s state nuclear corporation, on good footing with local officials.
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However, it turned out, that we were writing about the activities of whistleblowers. They are people who reveal wrongdoings, fraud, violations of law, safety hazards and often environmental dangers posed by their plants and organizations. If a plants administration doesnt want to notice some evidently unlawful actions, a whistleblower does his best to make journalists, activists of environmental organizations and MPs notice them.
Having heard about the topic of our new issue, some people asked us: Are you going to write about tell-tales? But whistleblowers have nothing common with them. They dont act because of self-interest, anger or vengeance, what they want is to prevent accidents and even catastrophes, such as Chernobyl, explosion at Piper Alfa, wreck of Komsomolets and Kursk submarines. That is why it is so important for us to hear their voice in time. So we may need a law that will defend whistleblowers, like in several western countries.
We think that if such law existed in our country, our editor-in-chief Grigory Pasko would be now preparing this issue with us. But for the time being he writes for us from his prison cell. He got there only because he dared to tell the truth about the events in Chazhma bay, about dumping radioactive waste in the sea, how the money allocated for the decommissioning of laid up nuclear submarines, are melting away
He is accused of being a military journalist. His prosecutors affirm that all his articles would be appropriate if he were a civil person. But we believe that it is not his fault, but his merit. He doesnt shield slipshodness and offences in the armed forces.
Paskos fate is a typical fate of a whistleblower in Russia. Recently he has been transferred from a detention prison in Vladivostok to a labor camp near Ussuriysk. In mid-September the Pasko defense-team filed to Vyacheslav Lebedev, the Chairman of the Supreme Court a request, urging him to bring the case before the Supreme Court Presidium for a supervisory review. We believe the Supreme Court decision on the Pasko case will be reconsidered. We believe Grigory will work on the third issue with us.
The Environment & Rights Editorial Staff,
Rashid Alimov
Victor Tereshkin
Environment & Rights #2, September 2002
A visit last week by Vladimir Putin and a Kremlin entourage to Astana, Kazakhstan sought in part to put Rosatom, Russia’s state nuclear corporation, on good footing with local officials.
Russia is formally withdrawing from a landmark environmental agreement that channeled billions in international funding to secure the Soviet nuclear legacy, leaving undone some of the most radioactively dangerous projects and burning one more bridge of potential cooperation with the West.
While Moscow pushes ahead with major oil, gas and mining projects in the Arctic—bringing more pollution to the fragile region—the spoils of these undertakings are sold to fuel Russia’s war economy, Bellona’s Ksenia Vakhrusheva told a side event at the COP 29, now underway in Baku, Azerbaijan.
A survey of events in the field of nuclear and radiation safety relating to Russia and Ukraine.