LONDON | Fri Jan 11, 2013 8:47am EST

LONDON (Reuters) - Britain is deploying a back-up ship navigation system in the English Channel, one of the world's busiest shipping lanes, to tackle the growing risks of disruptions of vessel satellite devices and jamming by criminal gangs.

Mariners increasingly rely on global navigation systems that use satellite signals to find a location or keep exact time. One of the most well known is the Global Positioning System or GPS.

The General Lighthouse Authorities of the United Kingdom and Ireland (GLA) this week launched a radio-based back-up system called eLoran to counter the threats of jamming or signal loss of GPS devices. Ships will need to install receiver equipment.

"When a sat nav goes out, it matters a lot to have something secure to fall back on," David Last, special adviser to the GLA, said. "It (eLoran) is an almost perfect back-up."

If its GPS system ceases to function, a ship risks running aground or colliding with other vessels.

Last said all GPS systems run the risk of signal loss due to solar weather effects. Also cheap jamming devices are widely available in Britain and have been used by criminal gangs to disable tracking systems on high-value stolen cars.

"There have been major incidents in which North Korea has jammed GPS in South Korea. The outcome is that they lost not just ship navigation, but it affected all of their mobile phone networks and their military systems. We do know terrorists have been arrested in the U.S. with GPS jamming equipment," Last said. "So GPS is very vulnerable."

The eLoran system works on earth-based radio systems to provide alternative position and timing signals for navigation, Last said.

It has been deployed in the Dover area, which includes the Dover Strait waterway in the English Channel, through which an average of 500 ships pass daily.

"We are picking up significant modes of jamming in the UK including in the Dover area," Last said.

The Dover installation is the first of up to seven to be rolled-out along Britain's east coast, including the ports of Middlesbrough in England and Grangemouth and Aberdeen in Scotland, the GLA said.

Passenger line P&O Ferries has already installed the equipment on one of its vessels.

"Satellite navigation systems are vulnerable to degradation of signal strength, and our ships have also experienced occasional loss of signal," Simon Richardson, head of safety management at P&O Ferries, said.

"We see eLoran as the most effective solution to countering the problem."

(editing by Jane Baird)

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Japan's new Prime Minister Shinzo Abe attends a news conference at his official residence in Tokyo December 26, 2012.

TOKYO | Thu Dec 27, 2012 10:37pm EST

TOKYO (Reuters) - Japan's new government said on Friday it hoped to stick to a three year deadline to decide whether to restart all nuclear reactors after safety checks, despite the country's newly formed nuclear regulator saying the deadline was impossible to meet.

Economy Minister Toshimitsu Motegi, who is also responsible for energy policy, said reactors would be restarted as units received the all-clear from the atomic regulator.

"We will rely on the NRA (Nuclear Regulation Authority) to judge safety from an expert point of view and will not restart ones as long as safety is not confirmed," Motegi told a news conference.

NRA Chairman Shunichi Tanaka said in an interview in the Asahi newspaper on Friday that completing safety checks within the three-year timeframe set by new Prime Minister Shinzo Abe will be impossible to meet.

All but two of Japan's 50 reactors remain switched off after an earthquake and tsunami caused meltdowns and explosions at the Fukushima Daiichi station in northeastern Japan in March 2011.

Atomic energy supplied about 30 percent of Japan's needs before Fukushima, but since the disaster support for nuclear power has plummeted.

Abe's government, which was installed on Wednesday after a landslide election victory, has said it will take 10 years to decide on the best energy mix for Japan.

"We have not decided on the policy of going zero-nuclear by the 2030s," Motegi said, referring to the previous government's policy.

An order from former Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda to restart the two reactors now operating in western Japan prompted the biggest demonstrations in the country in decades and contributed to his election defeat this month.

The NRA, which still needs to draft new rules on safety, has signaled it will take a tougher stance on nuclear stations situated over possible seismic fault lines and prevent risky plants from restarting.

If a review of a faultline under the operating reactors at the Ohi station shows it is active, the NRA will request a halt for the units, operated by Kansai Electric Power Co, Tanaka said in the interview.

A panel of NRA experts this week confirmed its assessment that there are active faults under the Higashi Dori nuclear plant in northern Japan, which is owned by Tohoku Electric Power Co. The assessment means the NRA is unlikely allow the plant to restart.

(Reporting by Osamu Tsukimori; Editing by Aaron Sheldrick and Michael Perry)

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