January
4, 2002
Santa helps nab moonshiners
A cop in northern Norway
got an early Christmas present when he received a written tip that helped him
nab two moonshiners red-handed.
Sheriff Bjorn Johansen
received a letter from "Santa Claus" that directed him to two names
and addresses. There, the news site Vesterelen Online reports, Johansen found
equipment for hjemmebrent - illegally distilled alcohol - and arrested two men.
The sheriff later said
the arrests may have changed the suspects' opinion about whether or not Santa
really exists.
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January
4, 2002
Xmas far, far from home
It was sunny and warm when
federal inmates from Alaska celebrated Christmas. About 800 Alaskan inmates
are in jail in Arizona, a U.S. state located thousands of kilometers from Alaska.
Since 1994, Alaskan natives
who are sentenced to federal penitentiary terms have serve their time at the
Florence prison, which is run by the Corrections Corporation of America.
At their Christmas supper
aboriginal dancers provided entertainment. Then, inmates and their guests sat
down to a traditional dinner of salmon, moose stew, fish stew, rice and berries.
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January
4, 2002
Unease over radioactivity
in Arctic waters
Norwegian researchers say
radioactivity from the Sellafield nuclear plant in northwestern England is reaching
the Arctic Ocean near northern Norway.
Tests show the presence
of technetium, a radioactive byproduct that's released when used uranium is
upgraded for new uses.
Sellafield is also a nuclear reprocessing facility.
Although researchers say
the amount of radioactivity measured is not hazardous, these technetium emissions
are raising concern among buyers of Norwegian fish and the Embassy of Japan,
a major customer for Norwegian seafood, has asked local officials for more information
on the traces of radioactivity.
On the other side of the
circumpolar world, in the Alaska's Aleutian Island chain, scientists and natives
are worried that radiation from the largest underground nuclear weapons blast
ever is leaking into the surrounding marine environment.
At 11 a.m. Nov. 6, 1971,
the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission exploded a five-megaton bomb inside a deep
shaft under Amchitka Island.
The thermonuclear blast
was almost 400 times more powerful than the weapon that levelled Hiroshima,
Japan in 1945. Code-named Cannikin, the blast was felt throughout Alaska and
registered as a magnitude seven earthquake on seismographs around the world.
At last month's American
Geophysical Union, scientists said tectonic forces moving deep beneath the seabed
have been splitting Amchitka apart and creating new underground fissures in
the island's coast.
Recent geophysical evidence
shows the Aleutian Island chain is moving apart at a rate of about two centimeters
a year.
New seismic faults and
new fissures in Amchitka's rocks have opened up around the Cannikin blast site,
allowing hazardous radioactive elements to escape into the water around the
island.
No U.S. agency has monitored
Amchitka or its nearby waters.
But five years ago Greenpeace
tested the waters around the island. Its experts found dangerous plutonium,
as well as americium, a nuclear fission byproduct.
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