Danger as oil companies plan drilling in nuclear waste ocean dump
The Kara Sea is so remote that the Soviet Union used it as a dumping ground for radioactive material for more than 25 years. The two oil companies have avoided calls for the nuclear waste, estimated to consist of over 17,000 barrels of radioactive waste, worn-out reactors, and even an old nuclear submarine, to be cleared up before any exploration takes place.
The most dangerous item down on the sea floor in that area is the K-27 nuclear submarine, which was dumped their by the Soviet navy in 1981. The NRPA said that any significant corrosion could damage the ships reactor and cause an environmental disaster.
Exxon, Rosneft eye oil in nuclear wasteland http://www.csmonitor.com/Environment/Energy-Voices/2012/0927/Exxon-Rosneft-eye-oil-in-nuclear-wasteland
Exxon Mobil and Rosneft are planning to drill for oil in the Kara Sea, which the Soviet Union used as a dumping ground for radioactive material for more than 25 years, according to OilPrice.com. By James Burgess, September 27, 2012 It has been well documented that oil majors from around the world are looking at oil exploration in the Arctic, where they believe that some of the largest untapped fields in the world still lie.
Environmentalists have been fighting efforts to start exploring for oil, fearing that any serious oil spill could mean the destruction of one of the last pristine wildernesses on the planet. Continue reading
USA classes Assange with al-Qaeda and Taliban: Australian govt toes the USA line
‘Enemy’ tag poses fresh test of citizens’ rights, The Age editorial September 28, 2012 The law must be the same for Assange as for everyone else. THE designation of WikiLeaks and its co-founder, Julian Assange, as enemies of the US adds to the gravity of the consequences for releasing classified embassy cables two years ago.
The development, revealed in newly released US Air Force documents, puts Assange in the same category as al-Qaeda terrorists and the Taliban. Personnel who contact him risk being charged with crimes that may carry the death penalty.
Senior US politicians have called Assange a terrorist and demanded he be charged with espionage, hunted down or assassinated.
The Age has refuted Australian government claims of ignorance of US plans to pursue Assange. When coupled with public denunciations – Prime Minister Julia Gillard declared Assange to be a criminal – this government inspires little confidence that it would be any more diligent than the Howard government was in standing up for its citizens’ rights.
A member of the military charged with a military offence can expect to be tried in a military court. US Army private Bradley Manning faces a court martial charged with aiding the enemy by transmitting information that became available to the enemy via WikiLeaks. However, as a result of being deemed ”enemy combatants” – an expedient but legally dubious categorisation – Australians David Hicks and Mamdouh Habib endured long detentions without charge at Guantanamo Bay until a special military tribunal was set up to try detainees.
That points to the risks for anyone declared an ”enemy” of the US military. Assange, though, is not a combatant; as WikiLeaks editor-in-chief, he sees himself as a journalist. The Age published excerpts from the cables by arrangement with WikiLeaks, as did The New York Times in the US and The Guardian in the UK. This information exposed the truth
about the conduct of governments involved in wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Publication was based on the conviction that citizens have a right to know about glaring differences between what governments say in public and what they say and do in private. We had no compunction about making public the secret business of governments and their militaries when the public had been deceived about grave decisions of state,
which went to the justifications for and progress of two wars. At the time, The Age cited an obvious historical precedent. Four decades ago, the Pentagon papers, also illegally copied and provided to The New York Times, showed the Johnson administration had deceived Congress and the public about the Vietnam War.
It is hard to mount a credible argument that exposing deceptive conduct and collusion by elected governments is against the public interest. If governments are embarrassed, lose credibility and are politically damaged, they deserve to be……. http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/editorial/enemy-tag-poses-fresh-test-of-citizens-rights-20120927-26o6e.html#ixzz27o1kr02U
VIDEO: USA making Julian Assange an “enemy of the State”?
Exposed: U.S. May Have Designated Julian Assange and WikiLeaks an “Enemy of the State Documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act show WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange may have been designated an “enemy of the state” by the United States. U.S. Air
Force counterintelligence documents show military personnel who contact WikiLeaks or its supporters may be at risk of being charged with “communicating with the enemy” — a military crime that carries a maximum sentence of death. We speak to attorney Michael Ratner, president emeritus of the Center for Constitutional Rights and a legal adviser to Assange and WikiLeaks. [includes rush transcript] GUEST: Michael Ratner, president emeritus of the Center for Constitutional Rights and a legal adviser to Assange and WikiLeaks. http://www.democracynow.org/2012/9/27/exposed_us_may_have_designated_julian#.UGTIboIEhrU.twitter
Full impact of Fukushima disaster impresses general public, and local Councils
Occupy the NRC (Nuclear Regulatory Commission) Cathy Iwane (CA). 28 Sept 12, : ANOTHER unanimous local victory!!! Every Encinitas City Council member voted in favor of sending a letter containing even stronger language calling out Southern Cal. Edison to a judiciary procedure regarding inconsistencies on their public commentary about San Onofre.
In addition, their obvious evasion of NRC checks for relicensing. Bad karma for SCE rears it’s ugly head, to everyone’s relief! Tonight illustrates clear distrust of Southern Cal
Edison. The letter to the NRC will hopefully include all sides testifying under oath to include independent testimony from the scientific community.
Public safety concerns abound! Fukushima disaster is consistently referred to in conversations with City Councils everywhere so the conversation is creating awareness,
while parallels and connections to Japan can be drawn easily by the general public.
World Health Organisation obediently follows nuclear lobby’s policies
Margaret Chan VERSUS World Health Organisation http://tekknorg.wordpress com/2012/05/27/margaret-chan-versus-world-health-organisation/
May 27, 2012 by Mikkai “……THE AGREEMENT WHA 12 – 40 between IAEA and WHO: http://independentwho.org/en/who-and-aiea-aggreement/ QUOTE:
“Since the signing of this agreement, WHO has shown no autonomy of action towards achieving its stated objectives in the field of radiation protection.
On the contrary it has shown its capacity for misinforming the public about the health consequences of radioactive contamination caused by the civil and military nuclear industries.
WHO waited five years before visiting those territories that had been heavily contaminated by the accident at Chernobyl. They gave no instructions for evacuation or for the provision of clean food to the affected populations.
WHO has kept hidden the health consequences of this catastrophe, especially by not publishing the proceedings of the 1995 and 2001 conferences.
WHO still estimates the number of deaths caused by Chernobyl at less than fifty and attributes the health problems of populations of Belarus, Ukraine and Russia to fear of radiation.
WHO does not recognise the validity of the work published in 2009 by the Academy of Sciences of New York which estimates the number of deaths caused by Chernobyl to be nearly one million.
With Fukushima, WHO has the same attitude as for Chernobyl.
The World Health Organisation (WHO) does not respect its constitution which lays down the following principle:
“Informed opinion and active cooperation from the public are of paramount importance for improving the health of people …”
In the first chapter, Article 1:
“The goal of the World Health Organization shall be the attainment by all peoples of the highest possible level of health.”
In chapter 2 – FUNCTIONS of WHO:
a) to act as the directing and co-ordinating Authority on International Health Work.”
“The WHO experts had also rejected any relation between radiation and the significant increase in the morbidity in many somatic diseases established in the affected areas of Belarus, Russia and the Ukraine soon after the accident. / the international radiation community practically played a role of an advocate of the USSR government that tried to play down the consequences of this accident from the very beginning.”http://www.rri.kyoto-u.ac.jp/NSRG/reports/1998/kr-21/Malko96-1.html. http://tekknorg.wordpress.com/2012/05/27/margaret-chan-versus-world-health-organisation/
Intrigue as authorities tried to cover up danger of Three Mile Island nuclear accident
Gordon MacLeod had, in his words, “recommended and, on the next day, urged the governor in the strongest possible terms to call for the departure of pregnant women and young children from an area within five miles of the Three Mile Island plant.”
`Gordon,’ the governor said, `I’m going to have to ask for your resignation.'”
People Died at Three Mile Island http://www.ratical.org radiation/KillingOurOwn/KOO14.html Gordon MacLeod sat across from the governor of Pennsylvania. It was October 9, 1979. MacLeod had been state secretary of health since twelve days prior to the accident at Three Mile Island.
A tall, trim Bostonian, MacLeod was a lifelong Republican who had served in Richard Nixon’s Department of Health, Education, and Welfare. As both a medical doctor and an engineer he had moved from a research fellowship at Harvard Medical School to a chairmanship at the University of Pittsburgh’s Graduate School of Public Health.
In 1979 Governor Richard Thornburgh, a neighbor of MacLeod’s, had urged him to take charge of the state’s Department of Health, which was in disarray. MacLeod had resisted, but finally agreed, with the understanding he would serve just two years, then return to academia.
Now, eight months later, as controversy still raged over how much radiation had been released at Three Mile Island, the governor’s office called the secretary of health for a conference. The meeting began with some small talk, MacLeod told us a year later. And then Thornburgh got to the point. “`Gordon,’ the governor said, `I’m going to have to ask for your resignation.'”
“I just sat there,” MacLeod told us, “stunned. After going to all that trouble to get me to come on board, he was now telling me to leave after just eight months because things were `just not working out.'”[1]
Thornburgh’s public explanation for MacLeod’s firing was a “difference in institutional style.” But the state media had other ideas. As the UPI reported it, MacLeod had been “state government’s harshest critic of the way the Thornburgh administration responded to the Three Mile Island accident. And that may have been why he was fired.” Indeed, MacLeod’s problems with Thornburgh had begun on March 29, the day after news of radioactive releases from TMI began to spread. MacLeod had, in his words, “recommended and, on the next day, urged the governor in the strongest possible terms to call for the departure of pregnant women and young children from an area within five miles of the Three Mile Island plant.” MacLeod told us later that if he had a chance to do it over, he would also have urged the departure of children in puberty, who are also extraordinarily radiation-sensitive.
But the state’s nuclear engineers and radiation health physicists disagreed with MacLeod, and they told the governor there was no need for an evacuation. Initially Thornburgh advised area residents to stay indoors, but said nothing about evacuating.[3]
Meanwhile Dr. Ernest Sternglass had gone to Harrisburg the day after the accident. After testing on his own and finding high radiation levels, he urged that the state evacuate pregnant women and small children. He was worried in particular that I-131 doses could prove devastating to the small children and infants in utero who were particularly vulnerable to miscarriages, stillbirths, malformations, childhood leukemias, and other radiation-linked problems. Thornburgh publicly charged Sternglass with being an alarmist and stood firm in his refusal to call for an evacuation.
That night the state’s Department of Environmental Resources announced that because the holding tanks at TMI were overloaded with radioactive liquids, Met Ed had been flushing them for hours into the Susquehanna River. No one had bothered to notify communities downstream that were continuing to draw their drinking water from the river.[4]
Finally Thornburgh asked NRC chairman Joseph Hendrie, a nuclear engineer, what he would do if he had a pregnant wife in the area. Hendrie replied that he would get her out “because we don’t know what is going to happen.”
Thornburgh then decided to do what MacLeod had quietly urged and what he had attacked Ernest Sternglass for publicly suggesting. At noon on March 30–two days after the start of the accident–he announced that he was “advising those who may be particularly susceptible to the effects of radiation, that is, pregnant Women and pre-school-age children, to leave the area within a 5-mile radius of the Three Mile Island facility until further notice.”
272 violations against journalists, and the government introduces more. – Iraq
April 2012 (Approx)
” journalists were exposed to a series of attacks after the American invasion in 2003, so far leading to the death of 259 Iraqi and foreign journalists, 146 of them it can be clearly demonstrated were killed due their journalistic work, plus 52 technicians and media assistants. In addition to that, 64 journalists and assistants were kidnapped, most of them being killed, and 14 of them still missing,”
JFO has documented a noticeable increase in the rate of violence against journalists/media workers and restrictions imposed on their work. A striking increase in both can be observed in the period between May 3, 2001 and May 3, 2012. Multiple bills are being introduced by the government, which threaten to severely limit freedom of the press, general freedom of expression, and internet use. The work of journalists/media workers, particularly when carrying a camera, has become a very complicated matter. Authorities have limited the permits of the movement of journalists, which must be obtained by the military and other security leadership in all Iraqi cities.
More and more, journalists find themselves banned from covering an event if they haven’t obtained security permits, the explanation of which changes regularly and arbitrarily, depending on whichever security forces happen to be present on the scene. When the type of permit is actually made clear, obtaining one is complicated in most cases. Security forces deals with a journalist holding a camera in the same way the way it deals with those they find possessing car bombs or unlicensed weapons.
Nuclear company Exelon’s amazing influence over President Obama
Exelon, “Obama’s Utility” Has Amazing Influence in the White House- Energy the “Chicago Way” Against Crony Capitalism, August 23, 2012 by Nick Sorrentino “……Exelon, the nuclear electrical utility based out of, you guessed it- Chicago, has the inside track at the White House. This special access appears to have influenced regulation which has hammered competitors of Exelon, helped Exelon garner very favorable DOE loans, and may have even influenced whether Exelon competitors were able to build power plants. (From The New York Times)
“Exelon’s top executives were early and frequent supporters of Mr. Obama as he rose from the Illinois State Senate to the White House. John W. Rogers Jr., a friend of the president’s and one of his top fund-raisers, is an Exelon board member. David Axelrod, Mr. Obama’s longtime political strategist, once worked as an Exelon consultant, and Rahm Emanuel, the Chicago mayor and Mr. Obama’s former chief of staff, helped create the company through a corporate merger in 2000 while working as an investment banker.
With energy an increasingly pivotal issue for the Obama White House, a review of Exelon’s relationship with the administration shows how familiarity has helped foster access at the upper reaches of government and how, in some cases, the outcome has been favorable for Exelon.” http://www.againstcronycapitalism.org/2012/08/exelon-obamas-utility-has-amazing-influence-in-the-white-house-energy-the-chicago-way/
Nuclear lobbying might succeed in resuscitating the dangerous Monju dream
The [nuclear industry] lobbying has also forestalled scrapping a controversial, 25-year-old fast breeder reactor on the country’s western coast in Fukui prefecture.
25 years and $13 billion after construction began, the Monju fast breeder reactor has managed to produce electricity for only one hour.
“What’s frightening is that it has the property that once it starts running out of control it can’t be stopped,…. What no one can ignore is that Monju is located adjacent to an earthquake fault.
Japan Plans Restart of Controversial Reactor VOA Correspondent Steve Herman was given unprecedented access inside Japan’s Fast Breeder Reactor Research and Development Center at a time when the country is debating its future energy policy in wake of last year’s Fukushima nuclear disaster.
kui Pref., Japan. Steve Herman September 25, 2012 TSURUGA, JAPAN — There has been an ongoing debate in Japan on the best way to obtain a safe and affordable energy supply for the island nation. The nuclear option suffered a setback in March, 2011, when a massive earthquake and devastating tsunami caused a meltdown in reactors at Japan’s main Fukushima-1 nuclear power plant. Continue reading
Youtube – Living Under Drones
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6yMOzvmgVhc Living Under Drones Sep 24, 2012 by bravenewfoundation http://www.warcosts.com Since 2004, up to 884 innocent civilians, including at least 176 children, have died from US drone strikes in the North Waziristan region of Pakistan. A new report from the Stanford and New York University law schools finds drone use has caused widespread post-tramatic stress disorder and an overall breakdown of functional society in North Waziristan. In addition, the report finds the use of a “double tap” procedure, in which a drone strikes once and strikes again not long after, has led to deaths of rescuers and medical professionals. Many interviewees told the researchers they didn’t know what America was before drones. Now what they know of America is drones, death and terror. Follow the conversation @WarCosts #UnderDrones
Nuclear and coal power plants the victims of global warming
As the U.S. Warms, Power Plants Face New Water Limits Climate Central,By Andrew Freedman, 25 Sept The power sector is responsible for a large share — about 40 percent — of greenhouse gas emissions in the U.S., particularly thermoelectric-generating stations, such as coal-fired power plants. And so it is not without a hint of irony that a recent study concluded that the effects of global warming, particularly drought and heat waves, will increasingly limit the generating capacity of these power plants — thereby making them both contributors to and victims of global warming…
… In the U.S., power plant operators must comply with laws such as the Clean Water Act, as well as state regulations that prohibit nuclear and other plants from operating once water temperatures go above a certain threshold, Continue reading
US drones in Pakistan – counterproductive
Pakistan Drone Study Finds ‘Damaging And Counterproductive’ Consequences From U.S. Policy HUFFINGTON POST 09/25/2012 A new study conducted by law professors at Stanford and New York University contends that the U.S. use of drones to target suspected militants in Pakistan has had a “damaging and counterproductive effect” on the country and has killed far more civilians than previously acknowledged. Continue reading
Nuclear waste problem slams the brakes on USA’s nuclear ndustry
“You can’t store this waste in a region where there’s intense local opposition to it.”
the used fuel will sit, in the “backyard” of nuclear plants, likely for several years, because of the federal court ruling.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission recently announced it will start a two-year environmental review of temporary waste storage, even as it refuses to grant permits for any new reactors
Nuclear industry slowed by its own waste By Kristi Swartz, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, 23 Sept 12, Just as the nuclear industry is starting to build reactors after a 30-year drought, it faces another dry spell.
The industry thought it had what it needed for its rebirth: federal loan guarantees; a uniform reactor design; a streamlined licensing process. The nightmares from the 1979 partial meltdown at Three Mile Island, 1,000 new safety regulations and cost overruns would be left in the past, industry officials believed.
But what never came together was a long-term plan for how to store the used radioactive fuel. As a result, judges and regulators have slammed the brakes on new reactor projects — with two exceptions, one of those in Georgia Continue reading
VIDEO: USA militarism in the Pacific – Australia’s role questioned
VIDEO Malcolm Fraser: Australia – US Relations in the Asian Century MELBOURNE, 25 September 2012 – Former Prime Minister of Australia The Right Honorable Malcolm Fraser AC CH has questioned the nature of Australia’s relationship with the United States in a broad-ranging speech to an audience of over 400.
Fraser describes US policy towards China as “containment” and praised the measured response from Beijing:
“China has refused to be provoked, and that is not surprising because they are well aware that this is an election year in the United States. We need to be aware that China can be profoundly measured in international affairs.” http://asialink unimelb.edu.au/video/politics/malcolm_fraser_australia_-_us_relations_in_the_asian_century
Government secrecy on the litany of nuclear accidents
Windscale nuclear reactor, U.K. (1957); Idaho National Engineering Laboratory, U.S. (1961); Three Mile Island power plant, U.S. (1979); Chernobyl power plant, Russia (1986); Seversk, Russia (1993); the Tokai-Mura nuclear fuel processing facility, Japan (1989); Mihama power plant, Japan (2004); Fukushima Daiichi power plant, Japan (2011) and the Marcoule nuclear site, France (2011).
All these incidents and many more unreported ones including from India have obviously raised questions about the desirability of nuclear energy and any real possibility of it being “safe.”
Desirability of nuclear power is the real question, THE HINDU, 28 Sept 12 MADHUMITA DUTTA “….. The claim [is that]modern technology, maintenance and safety standards will make it “safe.” Notwithstanding of course the ideal scientifically “controlled” conditions vs ground realities.
If one looks at the dubious track record of nuclear power plants across the world and its horrendous reputation of regularly exposing its workers and residents to dangerous levels of ionising radiations, the disconnect is pretty obvious.
In 1957, a fault in the cooling system in Kyshtym nuclear complex in Russia led to a chemical explosion and the release of 70-80 tonnes of radioactive material into the air, exposing thousands of people and leading to the evacuation of thousands more. Major accidents, which have killed, maimed and exposed large populations of worker and local
residents, have been reported from various other nuclear facilities — Continue reading
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”
To see nuclear-related stories in greater depth and intensity – go to https://nuclearinformation.wordpress.com
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