An American Tragedy
An American Tragedy
Augusta GazetteFri May 08, 2009,Approximately 225,000 American servicemen participated in atmospheric nuclear tests conducted between 1945 and 1962 in the U.S. and over the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans.
These Americans were placed in very hazardous, extremely dangerous areas and were constantly exposed to the unknown factors of radiation in the performance of their duties. They were assigned to these duties with no formal training, knowledge of the hazards and with very little or no safety gear.
They were America’s atomic guinea pigs and kept away from the public.
And still today the U.S. government remains reluctant to acknowledge the health problems created by the atomic testing, which left the servicemen with hidden wounds — not from bullets or shrapnel, but from radiation.
“Thousands of veterans have died while they begged for medical help. The government has never admitted that subjecting them to atomic radiation causes all different kinds of cancer,” said Gary Thornton of Leon, who has been working hard to bring honor and remembrance to our nation’s forgotten veterans…………………..
They were also instructed to sign a document stating that whatever they “witnessed, saw, or heard would not be revealed for 20 years under the penalty of execution and/or life imprisonment.” This was called the Atomic Secrets Act and no entries were made in the service jackets, medical records or orders of these soldiers.
Because of the sworn secrecy, it’s as if the testing never happened.
Thornton has been telling anyone who will listen that most of the Atomic veterans have experienced severe health problems, as well as their children and grandchildren.
Tracking Central Asia’s Nuclear Traces
Tracking Central Asia’s Nuclear Traces registan Net 10 May 09 “……………………Recently, three Chinese tourists from Xinjiang bought a 600-lb piece of “glittering treasure” at a flea market in Kyrgyzstan. Upon sending a piece of it to a lab at Tsinghua University in Beijing, they discovered it was an enormous hunk of depleted uranium…………..
……………last year a train bound for Iran from Kyrgyzstan was stopped at the border with Uzbekistan when sensors at the border crossing detected high amounts of radiation emanating from an empty car. While the train was isolated and eventually returned to Kyrgyzstan for decontamination, the question remains: how did so much Cesium-137 go undetected in Kyrgyzstan, or through two supposedly secure border checkpoints in Kazakhstan, only being stopped in Uzbekistan? Indeed, Kyrgyzstan seems to be at the center of many nuclear security lapses in the region…
………………Tracking nuclear waste products is just as important as tracking enriched uranium (something the international community still does poorly).
AUSTRALIA: Climate Change – Further Threat to Aboriginals
AUSTRALIA: Climate Change – Further Threat to AboriginalsBy Neena BhandariSYDNEY, May 8 (IPS) – Climate change will further marginalise Australia’s Aboriginal communities, forcing them out of their traditional lands, destroying their culture and significantly affecting their access to water resources, indigenous rights advocates warn.”As coastal and island communities confront rising sea levels, and inland areas become hotter and drier, indigenous people are at risk of further economic marginalisation, as well as potential dislocation from and exploitation of their traditional lands, waters and natural resources,” said Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner Tom Calma.Indigenous people have been living in close affinity with nature for thousands of years, preserving the environment and protecting the biodiversity. “Dispossession and a loss of access to traditional lands, waters, and natural resources may be described as cultural genocide; a loss of ancestral, spiritual, totemic and language connections to lands and associated areas,” said the Human Rights Commission’s 2008 Social Justice and Native Title reports launched this week.
Man had ‘enough uranium for bomb’ | theage.com.au
Man had ‘enough uranium for bomb’ The Age Steve Butcher May 9, 2009 A VICTORIAN man who was arrested and charged last month with serious drug offences held enough uranium at a storage facility to make a “dirty bomb”…………………The court heard that an explosives expert found that the uranium could be used in the “construction” of a dirty bomb and that other chemicals for drug manufacture could in combination make an “incendiary device”.
Niger’s uranium, poverty and France’s growing wealth
The $1.5 billion new uranium mine in Niger that is expected to yield 5,000 tonnes of uranium a year once opened will follow in the tradition of the existing two Areva-owned mines. Areva currently operates two uranium mines in Niger that have left poverty in place and radiological contamination behind. The new Imouraren mine – that will be the second largest uranium mine in the world – will continue to deliver most of the profits to France (Areva is 90%-owned by the French government.) The Niger government has only a 33% share in the mining operation but historically any domestic profit has in any case been fed back into the richer southern half of the country
Niger’s uranium, poverty and France’s growing wealth AFRIK.COM 5 May 2009, by Konye Obaji Ori, Patrick K. JohnssonNiger to get the world’s 2nd largest uranium mineThe President of Niger, Mr. Mamadou Tandja has sought peace-talks with rebel groups in the country to reach terms of agreement to share the country’s impending rise of Uranium wealth. According to estimates, Niger will become home to the world’s second largest uranium mine by 2012. To benefit from this development, the president has promised amnesty to rebels who will lay down their weapons. But will the mines profit Nigeriens?…………….……….Areva, French nuclear energy giant formerly known as Cogema, is building the mine and will take a majority share in it. France has kept close ties with its former colony for its uranium; a relationship which is vital to France’s nuclear energy program. Areva’s uranium mines have helped in shaping France’s place as the world’s fourth uranium producer and the first producer of nuclear power…………………In 2007, anti-Areva protests rocked the country as thousands of Nigeriens marched on the streets against the presence of the French company, following a nearly 40 year Areva operation in Niger that had yielded little development in the lives of the local people and the country………………..
……………Activists from the local branch of the Greenpeace lobby group claim that the potential pollution from the Uranium mines will bring about the forced displacement of the local people……..
……………the fluctuating price in uranium created by the big consumers in a profit maximization system, has brought repeated instability to Niger’s economy as the world’s fourth biggest producer of uranium.
Abandoned uranium mines pose health risk to New Mexicans
Abandoned uranium mines pose health risk to New Mexicans Study: The New Mexico Independent Increased likelihood of kidney disease and diabetes among people who live close to mines by Marjorie Childress 5 May 09
ALBUQUERQUE — New Mexico legislators are in Washington D.C. this week to press the federal government to help clean up hundreds of abandoned uranium mines that dot the state’s landscape.
The trip comes on the heels of an appropriation of $150,000 included in this year’s state budget to help complete the painstaking work of assessing the extent of the problem………………
…………The abandoned mines are found literally all over the state. But the overwhelming concentration is in the “Grants uranium belt” in western New Mexico. Uranium mining began in earnest on Navajo land in the 1950s and lasted until the late 1980s. This was the “Grants uranium boom,”……………………………
Data on the health impacts of uranium mining on communities is hard to come by. While studies have been done on miners themselves, studies looking at the effects on entire communities have been limited in scope.
Dr. Johnnye Lewis, director of the Community Environmental Health Department in the College of Pharmacy at UNM’s Health Sciences Center, is currently heading up an effort to assess the health impact of uranium mines in 20 chapters of the Eastern Agency of the Navajo Nation…………………….
Lewis’s team has only finished the first stage of the study, but initial findings show an increase in likelihood of kidney disease and diabetes among people who live close to mines, she said.
The findings have to take into account a higher prevalence of these health problems among Navajo and Hispanic populations in general, she said. However, a longterm medical monitoring program conducted in Fernald, Ohio has also shown an increase in kidney disease among people living near and drinking water contaminated by uranium. The initial findings in New Mexico support those results, she added…………………………….
The Mount Taylor Uranium Mine also faces a lot of scrutiny from the Navajo Nation, the Hopi Tribe, and the pueblos of Zuni, Acoma, and Laguna, which consider Mount Taylor a sacred site and pushed for its designation by the state last year as a traditional cultural property, as a direct result of the increased interest in uranium mining.
New Mexico Independent » Abandoned uranium mines pose health risk to New Mexicans
Scientists disagree over radiation effects
Scientists disagree over radiation effects
Abnormalities are found in Chernobyl’s wildlife 22 years after meltdown. Mother Nature Network by Victoria Schlesinger.By all visual accounts, the area surrounding Ukraine’s Chernobyl nuclear power plant is a 19-mile haven flush with wildlife and greenery. Scientists note moose, boar, wolf, eagle, and river otter sightings, all signs of a thriving ecosystem. So fecund is the infamous and irradiated land, the Ukrainian government designated it a wildlife sanctuary in 2000.But looks can be deceiving………………………….
“Of all the small mammals out there, the voles are getting the highest internal dose,” says biologist Robert Baker, who studies bank voles (Clethrionomys glareolus) in Chernobyl. “They eat lichens and things that perpetuate the radioactivity, so when they eat it they become ‘screamers’ themselves. That’s our slang for highly radioactive because it makes the Geiger Counter scream.”……………………..an ongoing study of Chernobyl barn swallows (Hirundo rustica) by two scientists at the University of South Carolina and Universite Pierre et Marie Curie, say they’ve found significant effects.The study (PDF) of 7,700 barn swallows by biologists Tim Mousseau and Anders Møller published last year concluded there is “an elevated diversity and frequency of abnormalities in barn swallows from Chernobyl compared with control populations in Ukraine and elsewhere.”They identified abnormalities ranging from albinism, abnormal coloring, tumors, deformed toes, beaks, tail feathers, eyelids, and air sacks occurring more frequently or uniquely as compared to control groups. Most importantly, they concluded these deformities are the result of radiation exposure and are affecting the swallows’ survival…………………………..
Baker’s group, which openly supports nuclear power as a clean, safe source of electricity and receives research funding from the Department of Energy (DOE), says in his most recent bank vole research that while they found as increase in DNA mutations, it is not due to radiation exposure at Chernobyl.
Scientists disagree over radiation effects | MNN – Mother Nature Network
International dialogue on nuclear waste management held in Stockholm
International dialogue on nuclear waste management held in Stockholm People’s Daily Online By Xuefei Chen People’s Daily Online correspondent in Stockholm.
7 May 09 “……………………. Panelists from 8 countries including those from China, the US, Germany and France came to attend the discussions…………………..According to SKB, there is currently 120 thousand tones of high-level nuclear waste in the world. This quantity is increasing at a rate of 7200 tons per year. The largest amounts are in the US: around 50 thousand tons. Europe has about 35 thousand tons while Asia has an equal amount……………………..So far no country has a complete system in place yet for the final disposal of spent nuclear fuel or other high-level waste..
Top secret US military info sold on eBay: Report
Top secret US military info sold on eBay: Report PRESS TV May 7 09 A hard drive sold on the online auctioning website eBay reportedly contains highly sensitive details of a US missile air defense system………………The drive reportedly contained the test launch procedures for the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense, known as THAAD.
The ground to air missile defense system, which uses a hit-to-kill approach to shoot down short- and medium-range ballistic missiles, was last tested in March.
A Nuclear Power Is About to Fall to Islamists
Joel HillikerColumnist A Nuclear Power Is About to Fall to Islamists
May 6, 2009 | From theTrumpet.com Radical Muslims are closer to the nuclear bomb than we’d like: only 60 miles. Pakistan is turning into the Iranian Revolution—plus nuclear weapons.
The immediate danger is heightened exponentially by Pakistan being one of the world’s eight nuclear powers, possessing between 60 and 100 nukes, scattered throughout the country. Amid escalating chaos, some of those bombs are sure to slip into extremist Muslim hands……………..
A Nuclear Power Is About to Fall to Islamists | Columns | theTrumpet.com
Another contentious issue, another phony nuclear consultation
Issues: Another contentious issue, another phony consultation Nuclear Consultations VUE WEEKLY Ricardo Acuña Why bother? Does anyone in Alberta really believe that “consultations” and “expert panel” reports generated by the provincial government are ever anything more than attempts to whitewash contentious issues and unpopular policies? Yet the government continues to spend millions of dollars on these public relations exercises, and continues to try pass them off as genuine and objective consultations.
The latest supposed information gathering and public consultation effort launched by the government is no different. When Albertans responded loudly and angrily to a proposal from Ontario’s Bruce Power to build up to four nuclear reactors in northern Alberta, the government sought to quell the outcry by assuring us that they would not take a position on nuclear power without first studying the pros and cons in depth and fully consulting the public.
As always, the first step in this process was the appointment of an “expert panel” to produce a “comprehensive and balanced” research report, which would look at the environmental, safety and myriad other issues related to nuclear power generation.Unfortunately, the panel itself was neither comprehensive nor balanced. The panel is chaired by Harvie Andre, a former Conservative MP who remains closely allied with pro-nuclear Conservatives, including Stephen Harper. Also on the panel is John Luxat, who is a past president of the Canadian Nuclear Society, and a current board member of Atomic Energy of Canada Limited (AECL). Rounding out the panel are Joseph Doucet, an energy policy professor from the University of Alberta, and Harrie Vredenburg, a prof from the University of Calgary who has done work in the past for energy companies holding a direct stake in Bruce Power.
Missing from the panel were any environmental researchers, any health professionals and generally anyone who might be critical or provide a different perspective to that being presented by the nuclear industry. In fact, when Dr. Helen Caldicott, one of the world’s leading researchers on the health impacts of nuclear energy, was in Alberta recently she offered to meet with Harvie Andre and the entire panel, but her offer was refused by panel chair Andre…………….
The panel’s report heavily downplayed the environmental and health impacts of nuclear energy, focusing instead on nuclear energy as a low-carbon-emission source of electricity. To achieve that claim, the report ignores the full life-cycle emissions of nuclear power, which includes mining and transportation.
There was no mention in the report of peer-reviewed studies from Germany citing higher cancer rates in children living near nuclear plants, nor was there mention of the issue of radioactive emissions from reactors, including tritium. The risk assessment in the report was based on a small 800 megawatt reactor, despite the fact that what is being proposed in Alberta is up to 4000 megawatts of generation. The costs of nuclear generation were also downplayed, focusing only on the direct costs of generation and not including the full life-cycle costs of plants, including construction and decommissioning. These are the costs that have Ontario citizens still paying a premium on their monthly electricity bills to subsidize their nuclear power plants, which have never actually run at anywhere near 100 per cent of capacity…………..
………………… In short, the panel’s research report reads like a public relations document for nuclear power that would make Mr. Burns of The Simpsons proud. The government is now using this report as the foundation for its public consultation exercise…………………
……..Nuclear energy is an issue that demands public discussion, input and dialogue. It is an issue that requires an understanding of all the risks and implications. To tackle this issue by way of a glorified public relations campaign and consultations with predetermined results is an insult to Albertans, and does significant damage to the public interest
Radiation Authority Sees Serious Safety Problems at Olkiluoto,Nuclear Building Site
Radiation Authority Sees Serious Safety Problems at Nuclear Building Site Uutiset 7 May 09
The Finnish Nuclear and Radiation Safety Authority STUK says that the construction of the commercial nuclear reactor in Olkiluoto, which is to be the world’s largest, has not proceeded according to official requirements.
STUK has demanded that the builder of the installation, the French company Areva, correct faults with the automation that guides the reactor……………….. According to STUK, the design of the automation does not meet the basic principles required for nuclear safety, and on this basis STUK does not see any possibilities to approve the automation for installation at Olkiluoto.
Spent nuclear material focus of IAEA meeting
Spent nuclear material focus of meeting VIENNA, May 6 (UPI) — The International Atomic Energy Agency is planning to host a multinational meeting in Vienna to address the safety and security of spent nuclear material. The IAEA meeting, scheduled for May 11-20,…….
………According to an IAEA news release, the meeting will focus on long-term challenges, “such as the management of spent fuel, the disposal of high-level radioactive waste and the need to find suitable disposal options for all types of radioactive waste.”
Concern coming over states dumping nuclear waste in Utah
Concern coming over states dumping nuclear waste in Utah SALT LAKE CITY (ABC 4 News) May 7, 2009 –– A new study shows several states may dumping nuclear waste in Utah when they could be doing it in their own backyard.
An Associated Press analysis of U.S. Department of Energy records shows three states with their own radioactive waste dump have shipped millions of cubic feet of waste this decade to a private facility in Utah that’s the only one available to 36 other states.
Concern coming over states dumping nuclear waste in Utah – ABC 4.com – Salt Lake City, Utah News
Russia Plans a Deadly Mix of Offshore Oil Drilling and Floating Nuclear Reactors in the Arctic
Russia plans a deadly mix of off-shore drilling and floating nuclear reactors Red,Green and Blue
Published on May 6th, 2009Russia is planning to build floating and submersible nuclear reactors to power oil drilling platforms which it intends to use to extract the untouched oil and gas reverses of the Arctic……………………………..Of possibly greater concern is the radioactive waste dumped at sea. Russian authorities told Dr. Hollister that 11,000 to 17,000 waste containers, holding 61,407 curies of radioactivity, were dumped off Novaya Zemlya from 1964 to 1990. In addition, 165,000 cubic meters of liquid waste were dumped in the Barents Sea west of Novaya Zemlaya from 1961 to 1990. For comparison, the Chernobyl accident released about 86,000,000 curies of radioactivity.Dr. Hollister reckons the amount of nuclear material within some of the Soviet sunken submarines at seven times that in the ill-fated Chernobyl reactor.
The Norwegian environmental group Bellona reported two years ago that some of the nuclear waste dumped in sea is at risk of exploding. The group reported corrosion in the storage tanks which have spent fuel rods inside.
While the Russian point to the benefits of small nuclear plants and fall back on the vast experience of operating nuclear powered ships, there are no guarantees that the nuclear waste generated will not be dumped into the sea,
1 This Month
10 June – Assessing Canada’s Investments in Small Modular Nuclear Reactors – https://zoom.us/meeting/register/IiqHA5feRhaEBycOLNTJlA#/registration
Cuba Is Not a Failed State – It Is a Besieged State
PETITION: “Global Appeal to Endorse Palestinian Right of Return of Refugees”
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