Russian lawmakers Thursday prepared to vote on the government's controversial plans to earn billions of dollars by treating the world's nuclear waste.
The Russian authorities want to amend a 1991 environmental protection law that prohibits importing nuclear waste either for reprocessing or disposal.
They say this would permit Russia to sign contracts with China, Germany, Japan, Spain, Switzerland and Taiwan, earning 21 billion dollars over the next 10 years.
"This will give the country the opportunity to develop a real sector of the economy...as opposed to speculating in shares or absolutely worthless financial instruments, which is what happened during the last nine years," Russian Atomic Energy Minister Yevgeny Adamov said Thursday.
The minister, who last week criticized Kiev for closing the infamous Chernobyl nuclear power station insisting it was perfectly safe, denied that taking in other countries' nuclear waste posed an ecological risk.
"The development of a strong energy sector in Russia will not lead to the stockpiling of nuclear waste," said Adamov in an interview with Kommersant daily.
He revealed that most of the reprocessing would take place in the northern region of Murmansk, the Russian Far East, Yakutia and Altai in Siberia, and the Urals region of Kirov.
The atomic energy ministry argues that the funds generated by treating overseas nuclear waste would allow it to upgrade it own nuclear waste storage facilities, clean up contaminated land and expand a reprocessing plant in the Urals.
But fierce debate raged in the State Duma lower house of parliament, which was due later Thursday to vote on the first reading of the amendment.
Anatoly Greshnyevikov, deputy head of the Duma's ecology committee, from the centrist Russia Regions, complained: "The country will not be able to carry through this project safely and Russia will become a nuclear dumping ground for the entire world."
The Russian branch of Greenpeace, which has spearheaded a campaign against the importation of nuclear waste, told AFP that many deputies in the 450-member chamber had said they would not back the measure.
These included the liberal Yabloko and Union of Rightist Forces parties, the left-wing Agrarian party and half of the members of the Communist party, the largest bloc in the Duma.
Greenpeace distributed to lawmakers letters from two children, one aged eight and the other 16, born deformed because of nuclear leaks at the Mayak reprocessing plant in Chelyabinsk in the southern Urals.
Outside the parliament building in central Moscow, Russian nuclear workers staged a noisy picket proclaiming their support for the government's plans -- MOSCOW (AFP)
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