HANS BLIX CHAIRS UAE'S ADVISORY BOARD ON NUCLEAR PROGRAMME

DUBAI, Feb 23 (Bernama) -- The United Arab Emirates (UAE) has established
an international advisory board (IAB) to support its peaceful nuclear energy
programme.

The nine-member IAB is chaired by Dr Hans Blix, who served as
director-general of the International Atomic Energy Agency for four terms from
1981 to 1997, UAE's Ministry of Presidential Affairs announced in a statement.

"The IAB will provide the UAE nuclear programme with the benefit of the
expertise and knowledge of a highly select group of internationally recognised
experts in the fields of peaceful nuclear energy," it said.

Members of the groupwere chosen among the world's most recognised experts in
nuclear science, non-proliferation, regulatory affairs, energy generation and
distribution, reactor operations, waste management, human resource development
and related fields.

Additional members of the board comprise Jacques Bouchard, special advisor
to the chairman of the French Commissariat L'Energie Atomique; Dr Kun Mo
Chung, who served twice as South Korea's science and technology minister; and
Thomas Graham, executive chairman of the board of Lightbridge Corporation, a
company which holds patents on a new type of nuclear power fuel based on
thorium.

Other members of the IAB are Takuya Hattori, president of Japan Atomic
Industrial Forum Inc; Lady Barbara Judge who chairs the United Kingdom (UK)
Atomic Energy Authority; Dr Mujid Kazimi, a nuclear and mechanical engineering
professor at Massachusetts Institute of Technology; Jukka Laaksonen, Finland's
Radiation and Nuclear Safety Authority director-general; and Sir John Rose,
chief executive of Rolls-Royce Plc., a major nuclear component and service
provider in the UK.

The statement said the UAE government would make reports issued by the board
available to the public as part of its commitment to transparency.

This would allow domestic and international stakeholders to monitor the
programme's performance against the highest international standards, it added.
-- BERNAMA