SEP 05 '86 13:45 TIBCOOU) HK GOVT
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Sing Tao Jih Pao quoted Umelco member Allen Lee as saying that the booklet was a good publication as it was written in language that was understood by non-experts.
Sing Tao and Wen Wei Po reported that a team of Kwun Tong DB members, led by Legco Unofficial Poon Chi-fai, would visit the Daya Bay site tomorrow and would hold seminars with a number of experts.
In the English press, the South China Morning Post gave banner headlines to news that top HK Government officials were trying to reassure the public about the safety of the Daya Bay plant while privately expressing serious doubts.
The paper said secret documents now in its hands, revealed the extent of concern at the lack of evidence to support statements such as those made by the former Financial Secretary, Sir John Bremridge, in his major policy statement to Legco about the nuclear power plant in May.
It said the documents also showed how the Government became highly sensitive to public opinion after the Chernobyl disaster in the Soviet Union and felt that they did not have enough information available to
counter the anti-nuclear lobby.
Some of the documents were obtained by the Observer newspaper last month, but the Post said it now had a complete set of papers which clearly indicated the extent of Government disquiet over holes in the safety report compiled by the UK Atomic Energy Authority consultants at Harwell.
The paper said that in a memorandum, the Director of Electrical and Mechanical Services, Graham Osborne, said: "We have........made a lot of reassuring statements but as far as I am aware, nobody in Government has seen in writing the facts upon which these statements were based."
In the same note, Mr Osborne also complained about the lack of preliminary safety studies undertaken before work started on the $26 billion Daya Bay project.
The Post reproduced excerpts, executive summary and graphs from the Harwell report in its inside pages.
Editorially, Ta Kung Pao hit out at those who it said had quoted a world famous physicist out of context and criticised him for saying that people should not be emotive in their anti-nuclear campaign. The paper said that although views expressed by scientists were not always comprehensive, they should not be rejected without being examined.
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