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Russia

Russia's Nuke Plants: A Disaster Waiting To Happen?

A new report by Russian atomic power agency Rosatam paints a grim picture of the country's aging nuclear power plants, which are ill-prepared for earthquakes and other natural phenomena.

Russia is hoping its nuke plants don't go the way of Chernobyl (above) disaster
Russia is hoping its nuke plants don't go the way of Chernobyl (above) disaster

Worldcrunch NEWS BITES

Understaffed, poorly designed and in disrepair, Russia's nuclear power plants may well be ticking time bombs, a report acquired this week by Switzerland's Le Temps suggests.

The report, authored by the Russian nuclear agency, Rosatam, says the country's nuclear facilities suffer from 31 serious security flaws. Among other things, Russia's atomic energy plants are ill-prepared for the type of natural disasters that recently affected the Fukushima plant in Japan. Designers did not take into account the risk of earthquakes when planning the facilities in Russia, according to the Rosatam report.

What is even more worrying is that some of Russia's nuclear facilities were modeled on the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, which exploded in April 1986 releasing large quantities of radioactive contamination into the atmosphere. In addition, most of the nuclear plants don't have automatic shutdown mechanisms, which are supposed to function whenever a natural catastrophe takes place. The cooling systems in several plants have many weaknesses, and overall, Russian nuclear plants lack safety inspectors and qualified maintenance and repair staff, the Rostama report revealed.

Le Temps received the scathing Rostama study fromBellona, a Norwegian environmental organization. The report has been sent to Russian President Dmitri Medvedev. In commissioning the report, says Ole Harbitz, head of the crisis commission for the Norwegian Radiation Protection Authority (Statens strålevern), President Medvedev demonstrated that he is taking the risk of natural disasters more seriously following the Fukushima accident.

Read the full article in French by Antoine Jacob.

Photo - Timm Suess

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Society

Do We Need Our Parents When We Grow Up? Doubts Of A Young Father

As his son grows older, Argentine journalist Ignacio Pereyra wonders when a father is no longer necessary.

Do We Need Our Parents When We Grow Up? Doubts Of A Young Father

"Is it true that when I am older I won’t need a papá?," asked the author's son.

Ignacio Pereyra

It’s 2am, on a Wednesday. I am trying to write about anything but Lorenzo (my eldest son), who at four years old is one of the exclusive protagonists of this newsletter.

You see, I have a whole folder full of drafts — all written and ready to go, but not yet published. There’s 30 of them, alternatively titled: “Women who take on tasks because they think they can do them better than men”; “As a father, you’ll always be doing something wrong”; “Friendship between men”; “Impressing everyone”; “Wanderlust, or the crisis of monogamy”, “We do it like this because daddy say so”.

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