Toxic radioactive legacy of rare earths processing plan.
Industrial health expert T Jayabalan told FMT that he lived in Bukit Merah for three years during the 1980s, “collecting data” on the residents there. According to him, Lai Kwan and Cheah were only two of the many people he studied before presenting his findings to Malaysian courts. “Birth defects still exist,” he said, “and the number of miscarriages is incredibly high. Even if a foetus survives, it can still be born with leukemia and brain damage.”
“I’ve seen it happen with my own eyes. I’ve seen the suffering of these people. The only good thing about Lynas is that it hasn’t happened yet.”
(includes VIDEO) Inside the world of a radiation victim, Free Malaysia Today Patrick Lee, November 24, 2011 VIDEO Tan Chui Mui’s short documentary is also about a mother’s undying love. Cheah was born in 1983, a year after Lai Kwan worked as a bricklayer at the Mitsubishi rare earth plant in Bukit Merah, Perak.
Cheah has multiple congenital defects, including a hole in the heart. He is also mentally deficient and virtually blind. And Lai Kwan is beside her son nearly every hour of her life, as portrayed in a short film entitled “Lai Kwan’s Love”…..
she tells the camera that she had no idea that the rare earth plant where she worked was handling toxic materials.
“We were working at the factory’s extension site. We didn’t know what kind of factory it was. We simply worked there….
Lai Kwan said she had not received compensation for her son’s disability, and that two men attempted to pay her into keeping quiet over Cheah.
“They asked me not to say my son’s sickness is related to the rare earth plant. I said I didn’t want the money, whatever the amount was. If I take your money, I said, and your factory continues to operate here, more newborns will get sick. What good is the money then?”
The film is the second in a four-part series called “Survival Guide Untuk Kampong Radioaktif”, a project designed to show viewers the adverse effects of radiation.
The Asian Rare Earth plant in Bukit Merah was closed in 1992 following years of protests from local residents. The area is still going through a massive RM303 million clean-up by Mitsubishi Chemicals.
None of the people in Bukit Merah were compensated, although Mitsubishi Chemicals donated RM500,000 to the community’s schools in an out-of-court settlement.
Locals in the 11,000-large town have blamed the plant for the population’s many birth defects and eight leukemia cases. Seven of the leukemia cases have since died……
Birth defects still exist’
Industrial health expert T Jayabalan told FMT that he lived in Bukit Merah for three years during the 1980s, “collecting data” on the residents there.
According to him, Lai Kwan and Cheah were only two of the many people he studied before presenting his findings to Malaysian courts. “Birth defects still exist,” he said, “and the number of miscarriages is incredibly high. Even if a foetus survives, it can still be born with leukemia and brain damage.”
Jayabalan also said that many people associated with Bukit Merah had since passed away, including “lawyers and plaintiffs” involved with the case.
“They died of cancer. Some of them died very young.”
He said he worried that the controversial Lynas rare earth plant near Kuantan, which is expected to see operations begin early next year, would see a “tenfold” effect.
“The amount of metals to be used is huge compared to Bukit Merah, and it’s going to leak, and these areas (in Kuantan) are prone to flooding,” he said.
“I’ve seen it happen with my own eyes. I’ve seen the suffering of these people. The only good thing about Lynas is that it hasn’t happened yet.”
http://www.freemalaysiatoday.com/2011/11/24/inside-the-world-of-a-radiation-victim/
NUCLEAR HOTSEAT podcast – Nuclear Radiation Cancer Zone: Piketon Ohio’s Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant
Podcast at https://www.nuclearhotseat.com/podcast/piketon-nuclear-radiation-cancer/
: Dangers Grow in Nuclear Radiation Cancer Zone: Piketon Ohio’s Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant – Journalist Jason Salley
The Nuclear Hotseat Hot Story with Linda Pentz. Gunter
Reopen Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant? Ukraine should do renewables instead.
This Week’s Featured Interview:
- Jason Salley is an investigative journalist known for his hard-hitting reporting on environmental contamination and government oversight. With a focus on uncovering the hidden truths of Appalachia, his work has exposed decades of radioactive pollution and corporate negligence at the Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant in Pike County, Ohio. Salley’s fearless storytelling and relentless pursuit of the facts have made him a powerful voice for the communities impacted by America’s nuclear legacy………………
Libbe HaLevy produces and hosts Nuclear Hotseat, the weekly international news magazine on all things anti-nuclear. She has been a TEDx speaker, an Amazon #1 Bestselling Author, hosted rallies, and led media workshops at anti-nuclear conferences around the country.
Canada supplied uranium for atomic bombs in WWII — 80 years later, the cleanup continues
Gordon Edwards, 6 Apr 25
Atomic Reaction is a documentary feature film dealing with the radioactive history and contamination of the town of Port Hope Ontario, located on the North shore of Lake Ontario just east of Toronto.
Here is a YouTube of the film: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8jC1DPOYoQ0
Canada played a key role in chemically refining uranium from Canada and the Congo for use in the first two atomic bombs dropped on the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945. Canada then became the largest supplier and exporter of uranium in the world, in the post-war period, most of it sold for tens of thousands of nuclear warheads during the Cold War, until the sale of Canadian uranium for nuclear weapons was ended by Prime Miniister Pearson in 1965.
In the process, the town of Port Hope (where all this refining took place until 1980) became thoroughly contaminated with radioactive wastes that were carelessly discarded and dispersed all about town – dumped into the harbour and into open ravines about town, used in roadways and mingled with the sandy beach, and used in huge quantities as construction material and as fill for up to a thousand buildings – homes, schools, offices, throughout town – requiring a massive radioactive cleanup costing over two billion dollars, resulting in two surface mounds of about a million tons each which will remain highly radiotoxic for many thousands of years to come. The cleanup is stlll ongoing today.
A similarly sized mound of radioactive waste is currently planned for the cleanup of the Chalk River Laboratories, created near the end of World War 2 as a secret site for producing plutonium for the US bomb program among other things. Canada sold plutonium to the US military for weapons purposes.
For 20 years after the end of World War 2. The Chalk River megadump has been approved by Canada’s Nuclear regulator, but two of three court challenges have been successful in delaying the implementation pending legally required consultations with the Algonquin peoples on whose traditional land the megadump would be located, and pending the careful evaluation of alternative sites or waste management options that will not destroy the habitat of several endangered species.
The future of Europe won’t be shaped by mushroom clouds – why nuclear weapons don’t provide security
International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN), April 2025
In these uncertain times, some argue that nuclear weapons are the answer to Europe’s security. But the future of Europe will not be written in the shadow of mushroom clouds, it will be shaped by those who believe in dialogue, diplomacy, and disarmament. Across the continent, people are pushing back against this dangerous illusion. From parliamentary action to media interventions, referendum campaigns, and grassroots organizing, we are proving that real security comes from diplomacy and disarmament, not nuclear weapons. Join us in building a safer, nuclear – weapons – free future. Find local partners near you: http://icanw.org/partners
Radioactive waste danger at St Louis, USA – new film ‘Atomic Homefront’.
‘Atomic Homefront’: St. Louis Residents Fire Back at EPA Over Local Nuclear Waste http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/atomic-homefront-clip-nuclear-waste-st-louis-doc-watch-video-1058118 The film, which premieres at the Doc NYC festival, follows a group of moms-turned-activists as they confront government agencies and corporations over the illegal dumping of radioactive waste in their neighborhood.
A group of concerned St. Louis residents confront representatives from the Army Corps and EPA over the safety of their neighborhood, in light of nuclear waste being dumped in a nearby landfill, in an exclusive clip from the HBO documentary Atomic Homefront.
The film, which is set to premiere at the Doc NYC festival on Wednesday (Nov. 15) before opening in New York on Friday (Nov. 17) and airing on HBO early next year, follows a group of moms-turned-activists in the St. Louis area as they take on the government and corporations over the illegal dumping of nuclear waste in their community in a desperate bid to protect their families from the toxic effects of radioactive waste.
In the clip, the residents of Bridgeton, Missouri, gather at a meeting with representatives from the Army Corps of Engineers and EPA and the residents, many of whom are moms, grow frustrated at the officials’ inability to explain the risk facing their community and suggestion that their neighborhood is a safe living area. The residents are afraid that radioactive particles could become airborne once an uncontrolled, subsurface fire reaches the nuclear waste.
This is what nuclear war in 2024 would look like
ABC RN, Broadcast Thu 16 May 2024, https://www.abc.net.au/listen/programs/latenightlive/this-is-what-nuclear-war-in-2024-would-look-like/103840906
In 1985, President Ronald Reagan and Soviet General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev cautioned the world “a nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought”. Decades later, we’re closer to nuclear Armageddon than ever before, and investigative journalist Annie Jacobsen paints a devastating picture of exactly what that would look like.
Guest: Annie Jacobsen – investigative journalist and New York Times bestselling author. She also writes and produces TV, including Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan. Her latest book is Nuclear War: A Scenario.
Credits
FILM – 3 June. SOS – The San Onofre Syndrome: Nuclear Power’s Legacy
SOS is an empowering story of successful community action to shut down leaking reactors. But then they discover horrific amounts of high-level radioactive waste lethal for millions of years are being placed in thin canisters only 108 ft. from the rising sea. Criminal mismanagement of radioactive waste is a syndrome at all 93 reactors in the U.S. and beyond. Will safer alternatives be taken in time?
Featuring Canada’s Dr. Gordon Edwards.
Watch the film June 3 – 10 here:
https://watch.eventive.org/scnuclearfree/play/65df95a376a72b002f4c49af
Then join the webinar discussion with Gordon and others:
Mon. June 10, 8 p.m. ET
Hosted by SIERRA CLUB’s Nuclear Free Grassroots Network Team
https://sierraclub.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_nlzk54JWTHyKg8cFlKP5Hw#/registration
URANIUM FILM FESTIVAL MARATHON ACROSS THE USA
EIN Presswire Oct 28, 2023, https://fox5sandiego.com/business/press-releases/ein-presswire/664773439/uranium-film-festival-marathon-across-the-usa/
The International Uranium Film Festival will embark on a marathon tour of the United States next year, including Vancouver in Canada.LOS ANGELES, CA, USA, October 28, 2023 /EINPresswire.com/ — The schedule for the American edition of the International Uranium Film Festival is almost set. From March 2nd to May 10th, 2024, the world’s only film festival on nuclear dangers will embark on a marathon tour across the USA and take place in 10 states and more than 12 cities including Vancouver in Canada – www.uraniumfilmfestival.org.
“We will be showing important, eye-opening films about risks and consequences of uranium mining, the use nuclear power, nuclear arms and uranium weapons,” says festival’s director and co-founder Norbert G. Suchanek. The IUFF will start in March in Albuquerque and Window Rock, the capital of the Navajo (Diné) Nation. From there, the festival will go on its marathon like round tour. Cities already included with fixed dates are Tucson, Santa Fe, Ashville (NC), Seattle, Portland, Salem, Irvine, Santa Barbara and Las Vegas.
One highlight shall be Washington DC. Here the International Uranium Film Festival (IUFF) will focus on documentaries about the use of Depleted Uranium (DU) Weapons. “It will be the first International Gathering to stop Depleted Uranium Weapons use in Washington DC held in conjunction with the International Coalition to Ban Uranium Weapons (ICBUW),” says Damacio A. Lopez, the IUFF director of the American Southwest.
In California, the festival will be held in several cities with the participation of Libbe HaLevy, Ambassador of the IUFF to the USA. Libbe is producer of the weekly radio show Nuclear Hotseat – www.nuclearhotseat.com.
Last May this year, the 12th IUFF of Rio de Janeiro at the famous Modern Art Museum Cinematheque showed 15 atomic films from around the globe including the new US productions “Radioactive: The Women of Three Mile Island” by Heidi Hutner and “Downwind” by Mark Shapiro and Douglas Brian Miller. Heidi Hutner’s film received the Best Investigative Documentary Award and “Downwind” the Best Documentary Feature Award of the festival in Rio.
In addition Students of the State School FAETEC Adolpho Bloch presented at MAM Rio a special Dance performance remembering the terrible accident with blue shining highly radioactive Cesium 137 in Goiânia in 1987: “The blue shine of death”.
Libbe HaLevy: “For the dance, about 30 students, dressed all in white, presented themselves miming normal actions – brushing hair, putting on make-up, talking, hugging in friendship. I have never thought of how dance might address nuclear issues. So to see this was both shocking and deeply moving. It challenged me, and all the audience. The cheers at the end went on for several minutes.“
“We wish we could take the FAETEC dance group with us on the tour of the USA. But for that we would need a lot more donations and sponsors,” says FAETEC teacher and IUFF executive director Márcia Gomes de Oliveira. The Uranium Film Festival depends mainly on hard and a lot of voluntary work and donations from individuals. Márcia: “We thank all volunteers and festival partners Anna Rondon from the New Mexico Social Justice Equity Institute (NMSJEI) and the Navajo Nation, Veterans for Peace in Santa Fe and Albuquerque, Jesse Andrewartha from the Atomic Photographers Guild (APG) and Cineworks Independent Filmmakers Society in Vancouver, Jad Baaklini from Washington Physicians for Social Responsibility (WPSR) in Seattle, PSR Oregon in Portland, Principal Man Ian Zabarte from the Western Bands of the Shoshone Nation in Las Vegas, Leslie Poplawski from WNC-PSR in Ashville and Kathy Altman from PSR-Az in Tucson just to name a few.“
Scary simulator shows what could happen in the event of a nuclear disaster
Poppy Bilderbeck 21 Jan 24 (Videos on the original site)
Researchers have revealed what it would look like if a nuclear explosion occurred.
You may’ve seen – or heard, if you were in a different room watching Barbie – the sound of an atomic bomb going off in Oppenheimer, but do you know what effect one could have on its surroundings if it went off today?
Well, a team of researchers have harnessed the power of technology to predict what could happen.
A team of researchers from the University of Nicosia (UNIC) in Cyprus looked into what would happen in the event of a nuclear explosion, and how it could impact surrounding buildings and people.
Titled Nuclear explosion impact on humans indoors, the paper investigated what would happen if an intercontinental ballistic missile caused an atomic bomb explosion.
Using advanced computer modeling, the team created two videos showing how such an explosion would alter the temperature of its surroundings, alongside how the sheer force of the air the explosion would generate could impact buildings and people.
And if you wanted to see a simulation of what it looks like from a person’s point of view on the ground, well another video has been shared to X – formerly known as Twitter – by Historic Vids (@historyinmemes), and it’s pretty horrifying………………………………………………………. more https://www.unilad.com/news/world-news/nuclear-explosion-simulator-scary-670922-20240117
The threat of catastrophe is assessed in Nuclear Armageddon: How Close Are We? — review
Ft.com, 19 Jan 24,
BBC documentary surveys experts in international security, diplomacy and military science to shed light on current reality
………………………………….. Nuclear Armageddon: How Close Are We?, a BBC documentary tied to the Doomsday Clock update, asks why the hands have ominously ticked to within 90 seconds of a catastrophic “midnight”, the shortest time recorded since the clock’s inception in 1947. The title strikes an alarmist tone but the show itself is built on the reporting of journalist and filmmaker Jane Corbin and insightful interviews with experts in international security, diplomacy and military science. They include a Nobel Prize winner and a physicist who has been given rare access to North Korea’s nuclear facilities……………………………………………….
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https://www.ft.com/content/64d5c035-b1de-480a-95d6-06ce7b07b9ae
The documentary is balanced and informative yet it can only scratch the surface in a single hour. A longer runtime would have left room for a more thorough analysis of how the conflict in the Middle East could shape Iran’s uncertain nuclear future, and what the re-election of a man accused of keeping classified domestic documents in the bathroom of his private residence might mean for the US and the world. As Bronson notes at one point, all it takes are careless “accidents and misperceptions” to plunge us into midnight darkness. https://www.ft.com/content/64d5c035-b1de-480a-95d6-06ce7b07b9ae
Nuclear technology: the shady beginnings and the uncertain future
ABC RN, Broadcast Mon 8 Jan 2024, https://www.abc.net.au/listen/programs/bigideas/nuclear-technology-history-and-future/102960302?fbclid=IwAR2QQafugR_2Vy3Est_CdP4MVvA6gu7g-nypcNFKhe5ixGEX8VCdTgrJpEM
The history and development of the nuclear industry is shrouded in secrecy and contradictions. And its future is throwing up more questions than answers.
A scientist, a historian and a poet consider the economic, scientific and social realities of nuclear technology.
They discuss how the lessons from the past might shape an uncertain future, and the possible consequences of playing God.
Nuclear Fallout was presented at the Brisbane Writers Festival. May 10, 2023
Original broadcast on July 6, 2023.
Speakers
Associate Professor Elizabeth Tynan
Coordinator of the professional development program at the James Cook University Graduate Research School
Author of The Secret of Emu Field: Britain’s Forgotten Atomic Tests in Australia, NewSouth Publishing, May 2022
Poet and writer; Author of The Exclusion Zone, UQP 2023
Ian Lowe
Environmental scientist, Emeritus professor at Griffith University,
Ashley Hay (host)
Novelist and essayist, former editor of Griffith Review, editorial consultant for the Climate Justice Observatory
Short film explores nuclear legacy through the lens of the Marshallese community
Hawaii Public Radio | By Cassie Ordonio. October 27, 2023, https://www.hawaiipublicradio.org/local-news/2023-10-27/short-film-explores-nuclear-legacy-through-the-lens-of-the-marshallese-community
Several decades after the United States detonated 67 nuclear bombs on the Marshall Islands, many Marshallese in the diaspora are longing to return home.
“In Exile,” which explores the nuclear legacy in the Pacific told through the experience of the Marshallese community in Arkansas, premiered at the Hawai’i International Film Festival this month.
Brooklyn-based director Nathan Fitch said the nuclear migration of the Marshallese is a blind spot in American history.
“The film is partly intended for an American audience who just doesn’t know anything about the Marshall Islands, let alone that piece of American history,” Fitch said. “Also, the fact that the (Marshallese) people have been in exile for nearly 70 years and still dream of going home.”
The Marshall Islands is located roughly 2,000 miles southwest of Hawaiʻi. It’s a sovereign nation comprising over 1,200 islands and chains of coral atolls, including its most populous Majuro and Kwajalein. The U.S. conducted a series of nuclear tests in Bikini and Enewetak Atolls during the Cold War between 1946 and 1958.
The radioactive fallout from the tests impacted people’s health, and many experienced birth defects and cancer. Descendants of the Bikini islands have lived in exile since 1946, and much of the island today is still unlivable.
Thousands of Marshallese have lived in the U.S. under the Compacts of Free Association. This agreement allows the Marshallese to migrate visa-free to the U.S. and its territories in exchange for the U.S. military having strategic denial rights of vast swaths of water in the surrounding islands.
The film follows the story of the Marshallese in Springdale, Arkansas, who gather annually to commemorate the Nuclear Victims Remembrance Day. Arkansas has one of the largest populations of Marshallese in the U.S., with a population of roughly 15,000.
Also, the film revealed that many Marshallese only knew the nuclear history once they were older. This was eye-opening for Angela Edward, a film producer and a Pohnpeian podcaster.
“They were never told about the nuclear testing their whole lives, almost until they were adults,” Edward said. “For them, it was almost a survival thing because they felt like it was their way of coping with this humongous tragedy that happened historically. “
The debut of “In Exile” is in juxtaposition with the negotiations of the Compacts of Free Association, according to Fitch. Recently, the U.S. and the Marshall Islands have renewed their agreement to extend economic assistance for another 20 years.
Fitch said he hopes the film will give an audience an understanding of why Marshallese, as well as other COFA citizens, migrated to the U.S.
“In Exile” sold out tickets at the Hawaiʻi International Film Festival. It recently won the Reel South Award at the Hot Springs Documentary Film Festival.
The short film is part of a larger film project called “Essential Islanders,” which Fitch said is still in the works.
“In Exile” will be available online next year. #nuclear #antinuclear #NoNukes #radiation
‘The Day After’ Director Returns to Sound the Alarm with ‘How to Stop a Nuclear War’
Military.com | By Blake Stilwell 11 Oct 23
It might come as a surprise to some, but for most of the Cold War, Hollywood never really depicted what might actually happen to Americans if the Soviet Union suddenly nuked the United States. Sure, they did emergency drills in schools and likely saw photos of Nagasaki and Hiroshima, but it was a 1983 made-for-television movie starring Steve Guttenberg and John Lithgow that changed how many Americans felt about the looming prospect of a nuclear war.
“The Day After” aired on Nov. 20, 1983, and bluntly showed everyday Americans going about their lives before getting vaporized to the bone by a Soviet intercontinental ballistic missile, or ICBM, as they ran in vain for the nearest fallout shelter. More than 100 million people watched Kansas and Missouri get suddenly and violently obliterated — and they didn’t handle it well.
Nearly 40 years later, director Nicholas Meyer (who is also responsible for all the good “Star Trek” movies featuring the original cast) is back to warn us again about the danger posed by nuclear weapons and how the world is currently teetering on the edge of destruction. This time, he’s doing it through a new documentary, “How to Stop a Nuclear War” based on the book “Doomsday Machine: Confessions of a Nuclear War Planner” by famed Pentagon Papers whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg………………………………………………………….
Whether Jay and Meyer’s upcoming documentary “How to Stop a Nuclear War” will have an effect on whoever occupies the White House after its release is anyone’s guess. But if it’s anything like “The Day After,” it will likely have an effect on the rest of us.
— Blake Stilwell can be reached at blake.stilwell@military.com. He can also be found on Facebook, X or on LinkedIn. more https://www.military.com/off-duty/movies/2023/10/11/day-after-director-returns-sound-alarm-how-stop-nuclear-war.html #nuclear #antinuclear #NuclearFree #NoNukes #NuclearPlants
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