**MegaStarkan**
27-09-08, 18:58
Anti-nuclear coalition to protest power plant tender
A coalition composed of several civil society organizations, artists and writers will protest a tender taking place today for the construction of the first nuclear power plant in the Akkuyu district of Mersin province on the Mediterranean coast.
While the tender is being held, the coalition, which is led by the Electric Engineers Chamber (EMO) will meet in the Kızılay district of Ankara and will march to the Energy and Natural Resources Ministry building, where the tender will take place. One of the coordinators of the group, Mehmet Atay, said they are expecting people who are part of the coalition to demonstrate outside of Ankara, too.
The alliance is supported by many organizations, such as the Chamber of Environmental Engineers, the Chamber of Geology Engineers, the Global Action Group, the Turkish Doctors’ Union (TTB), the Collective of Ecology, the Freedom and Solidarity Party (ÖDP), Doctors for the Environment, the Confederation of Public Sector Trade Unions (KESK), Greenpeace and the Green Party (YP).
Some artists and authors are also participating in the demonstration, including writers Pınar Kür, İpek Çalışlar and Aslı Erdoğan, musicians Orhan Gencebay, Tarkan, Cahit Berkay and Nejat Yavaşoğuları and actors Müjde Ar, Hale Soygazi, Mehmet Ali Alabora and Pelin Batu.
The coalition highlights that Turkey has clean and cheap resources with which to produce energy, including the sun and the wind, and that the decision to construct a nuclear power plant is only based on political reasons.
“We are against the establishment of nuclear power plants, which create waste. We are against becoming a nuclear waste dump and thus have come together to voice our objection to this process,” the coalition stated in its call to demonstrate.
Necati İpek, another member of the coalition and also the energy coordinator of the EMO, said there are several reasons for them to be against nuclear power, noting that it is both expensive and dangerous. He added Turkey has abundant renewable energy sources.
“Turkey’s potential for wind energy is 48,000 megawatts; we have developed only 250 megawatts. If we start to use energy from the sun we will be able to produce 5,000 times more electricity than we do now. The potential of hydropower is 130 billion kilowatts but we are using only one-third of this. So we really don’t need dirty nuclear power,” İpek stated.
In another protest, 37 Greenpeace activists were detained yesterday while demonstrating in front of the Ministry of Energy and Natural Resources against the construction of Turkey’s first nuclear power plant. The protesters were dressed in black and posed as dead bodies on the ground to highlight the dangers of nuclear power plants.
24 September 2008, Wednesday
TODAY'S ZAMAN (http://www.todayszaman.com/tz-web/detaylar.do?load=detay&link=154130)
A coalition composed of several civil society organizations, artists and writers will protest a tender taking place today for the construction of the first nuclear power plant in the Akkuyu district of Mersin province on the Mediterranean coast.
While the tender is being held, the coalition, which is led by the Electric Engineers Chamber (EMO) will meet in the Kızılay district of Ankara and will march to the Energy and Natural Resources Ministry building, where the tender will take place. One of the coordinators of the group, Mehmet Atay, said they are expecting people who are part of the coalition to demonstrate outside of Ankara, too.
The alliance is supported by many organizations, such as the Chamber of Environmental Engineers, the Chamber of Geology Engineers, the Global Action Group, the Turkish Doctors’ Union (TTB), the Collective of Ecology, the Freedom and Solidarity Party (ÖDP), Doctors for the Environment, the Confederation of Public Sector Trade Unions (KESK), Greenpeace and the Green Party (YP).
Some artists and authors are also participating in the demonstration, including writers Pınar Kür, İpek Çalışlar and Aslı Erdoğan, musicians Orhan Gencebay, Tarkan, Cahit Berkay and Nejat Yavaşoğuları and actors Müjde Ar, Hale Soygazi, Mehmet Ali Alabora and Pelin Batu.
The coalition highlights that Turkey has clean and cheap resources with which to produce energy, including the sun and the wind, and that the decision to construct a nuclear power plant is only based on political reasons.
“We are against the establishment of nuclear power plants, which create waste. We are against becoming a nuclear waste dump and thus have come together to voice our objection to this process,” the coalition stated in its call to demonstrate.
Necati İpek, another member of the coalition and also the energy coordinator of the EMO, said there are several reasons for them to be against nuclear power, noting that it is both expensive and dangerous. He added Turkey has abundant renewable energy sources.
“Turkey’s potential for wind energy is 48,000 megawatts; we have developed only 250 megawatts. If we start to use energy from the sun we will be able to produce 5,000 times more electricity than we do now. The potential of hydropower is 130 billion kilowatts but we are using only one-third of this. So we really don’t need dirty nuclear power,” İpek stated.
In another protest, 37 Greenpeace activists were detained yesterday while demonstrating in front of the Ministry of Energy and Natural Resources against the construction of Turkey’s first nuclear power plant. The protesters were dressed in black and posed as dead bodies on the ground to highlight the dangers of nuclear power plants.
24 September 2008, Wednesday
TODAY'S ZAMAN (http://www.todayszaman.com/tz-web/detaylar.do?load=detay&link=154130)