We teeter on the edge of the nuclear abyss
Nuclear disaster http://www.khaleejtimes.com/kt-letter-display.asp?xfile=data/letters/2012/October/letters_October87.xml§ion=letters Farouk Araie, Johannesburg / 20 October 2012 Robert Christy, who died recently at the age of 96, was the man who helped make the Nagasaki bomb. On July 16 1945, a prototype of his creation was tested at Alamogordo in New Mexico. It was a nuclear device with a force of 21,000 tones of TNT.
Today, nuclear powers use their weapons as an instrument of foreign policy. We are teetering precariously on the edge of nuclear abyss. A fact that is unknown to the world till this day is that The Cuban missile crisis could have sparked a nuclear war without the knowledge of former US president Kennedy, and Soviet ex-premier Nikita Kruschev.
Russia and America possess most of the world’s nuclear weapons. In today’s world, there are not many chances of a full-scale world war, but if the superpowers play a risky game, it is only a matter of time before a crisis will arise. If neither side is willing to comprise and the bluffs will be called followed by the destruction of civilisation.
There are approximately 1,440,000 kilogrammes of highly enriched Uranium in the world today. But as little as 25kgs are needed to create a nuclear bomb.
A nuclear war between the US and Russia could result in lowering temperatures to those of the last Ice age 18,000 years ago, leading to the extinction of most or all complex life on the planet.
50 years after Cuban missile crisis: 5 ways US must promote nuclear nonproliferation Christian Science Monitor – Daryl Kimball, October 19, 2012, Fifty years after the Cuban missile crisis brought the world to the brink of a nuclear holocaust, the threats posed by the bomb have changed but still hang over us all. Continue reading
Northern Scotland goes from nuclear to wind and waves, DW 19 Oct 12, The sparsely populated region of Caithness in northern Scotland once relied heavily on the development of nuclear energy for electric power and for job creation. Now wind and wave energy are set to take over. Continue reading
USA sends nuclear powered aircraft carrier through South China Sea
US nuclear-powered aircraft carrier cruise through disputed seas
http://www.straitstimes.com/breaking-news/se-asia/story/us-nuclear-powered-aircraft-carrier-cruise-through-disputed-seas-2012102 on a cruise through the South China Sea, projecting its power in waters that are fast becoming a focal point of its strategic rivalry with Beijing.
The USS George Washington’s mission could raise hackles in China, which is locked in disputes with Vietnam, the Philippines and other governments over ownership of islands in the region.
The United States is building economic and military alliances with the smaller nations, which are grateful for American support as a hedge against China’s growing economic and naval power.
On Friday, China held naval exercises in the East China Sea, where it is engaged in a dispute with US ally Japan over the ownership of other islands.
Nuclear terrorism danger
Consider the domestic and international panic that could ensue if rebel factions, terrorists, government insiders or looters in civil war got control of nuclear weapons or their feedstock, or strike at a nuclear reactor to release radioactive contents
Syria as dress rehearsal: Securing WMD in midst of civil war Reuters, By Bennett Ramberg OCTOBER 19, 2012 Continue reading
US and Australia in cahoots for years over Assange intel -RT
ublished: 19 October, 2012, 14:59
Australia has been handing key intelligence on Julian Assange to Washington for over two years. Newly-released cables indicate the US conducted an “active and vigorous enquiry” as early as 2010 to ascertain if they could try Assange for espionage.
The Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) revealed it had been in cahoots with the US over the Assange case for over two years, saying it had turned over documents as early as 2010 that pertained to the whistleblower’s activities.
One of the cables dated November 2011 includes a communiqué between former Foreign Minister Kevin Rudd and former Attorney-General Robert McClelland on the subject of how best to prosecute Assange.
The cable stipulates that the most successful route to prosecution “would be to show that Mr. Assange had acted as a co-conspirator – soliciting, encouraging or assisting [US Army private] Bradley Manning, to obtain and provide the documents.”
Mobile Phone research cover up in the UK -Italian court finds cancer link -Concern for children
“Parents need to know their children are at risk of this illness.”
Mobile phones can cause brain tumours, court rules.
A landmark court case has ruled there is a link between using a mobile phone and brain tumours, paving the way for a flood of legal actions.
8:28AM BST 19 Oct 2012
Innocente Marcolini, 60, an Italian businessman, fell ill after using a handset at work for up to six hours every day for 12 years.
Now Italy’s Supreme Court in Rome has blamed his phone saying there is a “causal link” between his illness and phone use, the Sun has reported.
Mr Marcolini said: “This is significant for very many people. I wanted this problem to become public because many people still do not know the risks.
[…]
“Parents need to know their children are at risk of this illness.”
British scientists have claimed there is insufficient evidence to prove any link to mobiles.
[…]
And here is the reason for the limited studies
Dr Busby and Children with Cancer -mobile phone research shut down
Published on Mar 9, 2012 by drdrwoland
Chris Busby lays into the UK charity Children with Cancer, the largest childhood cancer charity in the UK, which he explains is standing in the way of finding the real causes of childhood cancer. He advises people to stop donating their money to an organisation that wastes it and which avoids looking at what is the obvious cause of childhood cancer, environmental exposure to radioactive contamination. This is clear from the recent studies of uranium particle exposure in Fallujah Iraq and a 14-fold increase in childhood cancer in that town. Nuclear sites, he argues, also run on uranium and release particulates, and are associated with childhood cancer. He accuses the conference committee of bias and draws attention to the astonishing choice of ex- nuclear industry British Nuclear Fuels (Sellafield) research chief, Richard Wakeford, (a man who has described himself as BNFLs Rottweiler) as the CWC plenary conference speaker on the relationship between ionizing radiation and childhood leukemia.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=zMyWYbqvlFM#t=56s
[…]
They said electromagnetic radiation emitted by mobile and cordless phones can damage cells, making tumours more likely.
Prof Levis told The Sun: “The court decision is extremely important. It finally officially recognises the link.
“It’ll open not a road but a motorway to legal actions by victims. We’re considering a class action.”
NMC – Jeff Berger said he was surprised that flying over Pilgrim Nuclear Power Plant violated no rules. (Video)
“That didn’t seem to impress several of those in the room. Selectman John Mahoney, who is the board’s liaison to the NMC noted that, when Entergy officials gave a presentation at Plymouth North High School last year, residents were told any threatening aircraft wouldn’t get close to Pilgrim. “Obviously, that was fraudulent,” Mahoney said.”
by MATTHEW NADLER on OCTOBER 19, 2012
Paul Rifkin, a Cotuit resident and an opponent of the relicensing of the Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station, recently took photographs of it from a helicopter.
He told CapeNews.Net he was shocked that he recivred no warning, either from Pilgrim security or flight controllers, for his actions. He shouldn’t have been.
It seems that, while entering the power plant’s property from land or sea is tightly controlled, flying over it is just fine. While aviators are advised to avoid it, Pilgrim Station is not in a no-fly zone, PNPS spokesman David Tarantino told the Nuclear Matters Committee Monday night. If an aircraft were to linger near the plant, security would contact the FAA, he said.
NMC Chairman Jeff Berger said he was surprised that flying over Pilgrim violated no rules.
Next to an elementary school -radioactive hotspot that measures 38.54 microsieverts! Date City, Fukushima
Thursday, October 18, 2012
The myth of ‘decontamination’
1. After a specific property (or school) is ‘decontaminated’, it is nearly impossible to prevent it from becoming re-contaminated with radiation from neighboring properties that have yet to be ‘decontaminated’ when it rains or when the wind blows.2. Short of actually cutting down all the forests and shaving the topsoil (both large sources of radiation) off the surface of the mountains in the entire contaminated area, true ‘decontamination’ will be impossible.
3. Many companies in charge of ‘decontamination’ are simply small, local construction companies that have no experience or expertise in ‘decontamination’ and offer employees nearly no specialized training and even less personal protection.
4. During ‘decontamination’, which often takes place around schools and homes where children live, the actual act of cutting down trees and removing contaminated dirt in and of itself causes radiation to become airborne once again and causes danger to people, and especially to children, breathing in the contaminated dust.
5. ‘Decontamination’ is viewed by many citizens of Fukushima as a way for the government to make residents “feel safe”, therefore terminating the discussion of evacuation and, more importantly, the associated cost to the government of providingfinancial compensation to those affected.
Japan robot suit offers hope for nuclear work at Fukushima Diachi disaster site?
“We have to think of ways to protect nuclear workers, otherwise Fukushima won’t be sorted out,” he said.
Agençe France-Presse
19 October 2012
TOKYO: Brainwave-controlled robot suits that allow wearers to don heavy radiation protection without feeling the weight have been unveiled in Japan.
Researchers showed off the latest incarnation of HAL, the Hybrid Assistive Limb, a full body suit that could eventually be used by workers dismantling the crippled Fukushima nuclear plant.
HAL – coincidentally the name of the evil supercomputer in Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey – has a network of sensors that monitor the electric signals coming from the wearer’s brain.
Nuclear news – snippets from the past week
Christina Macpherson’s websites & blogs
Iraq a University of Michigan study (<-warning: not for faint of heart) funded by the World Health Organization has uncovered “staggering” increases in sometimes bizarre birth defects.
Russia’s government decided last week to end its participation in the Nunn-Lugar Cooperative Threat Reduction program. Russia planning to salvage two sunken nuclear submarines in the northern Barents and Kara seas in order to prevent potential radioactive pollution of the area.
UK : govt promises mandatory low electricity prices, upsetting the nuclear industry.
Lithuanian referendum – a resounding “NO” to nuclear power
Bahrain backs away from nuclear energy.
Romania urges power companies to go wind and solar, not nuclear
China slows down its nuclear power program, in view of safety concerns.
Namibia: AREVA puts the brakes on its $1 billion Trekkopje uranium mine in Namibia due to lousy economic outlook for uranium market.
Canada sent back some radioactive kitchenware to India
Plutonium a nuclear servant that will become a nuclear killer
five years of meetings between Soviet and American scientists from the Federation of American Scientists about what to do with the separated plutonium. There is a tremendous pressure to use it. . . . It is as if we don’t know what to do with this unless we make it serve us, and that is exactly what I am beginning to think, that we cannot ask of the poison fire. If we want to make it serve us, it will kill us
Nuclear Guardianship The Search for New Perspectives Lecture by Joanna Macy reprinted with permission from Poison Fire, Sacred Earth, TESTIMONIES, LECTURES, CONCLUSIONS, THE WORLD URANIUM HEARING, SALZBURG 1992 pages 256-258
To call this stuff “waste” is a misnomer, it is hardly an accurate term, because the strange and almost mythic character of the poison fire — uranium — and our processing of it has been that at every stage of the fuel cycle, everything that we have employed, every glove, every boot, every truck, every reactor, every facility, every mine, every heap of mill tailings, everything becomes not only contaminated, but contaminating.
And governments and industry and scientists themselves don’t know what on earth to do with it. They don’t know what to do with this stuff, and it is our most enduring legacy. They say they have a final solution to bury it in the ground in deep geological disposal, hiding it out of sight and out of mind, as if the earth were dead, as if the earth were not a living being, shifting with underground waters and seismic activities, as if the containers themselves could outlast a generation, which they cannot!
For nothing lasts as long, no container lasts as long as the poison fire itself. And it will leak out and out to contaminate. Continue reading
India and Australia both lying about nuclear weapons proliferation
The opening up of nuclear trade with India — first by the US in 2008 and most recently by Australia — has broader implications. It fundamentally changes the proliferation equation for other countries.
The most dangerous lie peddled by industry and by the Australian and Indian governments is that India has a strong track record of nuclear non-proliferation.
The Gillard government has no intention of seriously addressing any of the proliferation, safety, security and regulatory problems, nor does it care about the repression and murder of peaceful citizen protesters in India.
India’s Abysmal Nuclear Record, By Jim Green, New Matilda, 18/10/12 http://newmatilda.com/2012/10/18/indias-abysmal-nuclear-track-record
While the media focuses on Julia Gillard’s stumbles, India’s clunker of a nuclear industry stays unexamined. But hey, what’s a bit of nuclear proliferation between friends? Jim Green from Friends of the Earth on the South Asian nuclear arms race
According to Gemma Bailey, writing in the Australian Financial Review, Prime Minister Gillard has a cunning plan. She will ensure that Australia’s uranium supply treaty with India contains strict conditions on the safe use of the nuclear fuel. The plan, we’re told, “is intended to neutralise opponents who highlight that India has not signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.”
If only that were true. Here’s Gillard’s real plan: trot out tired old lines about strict conditions and hope that journalists will regurgitate them without question. For the most part, it works. …. At stake is the nuclear arms race in South Asia and broader, global nuclear proliferation concerns. As Ron Walker, a retired Australian diplomat and former Chair of the Board of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), said last year: “I am horrified that the media have not explained the enormity of this proposal.”
India is at least as culpable as its neighbours in fanning the nuclear arms race in South Asia. Continue reading
Russia pulls out of nuclear Threat Reduction program
After 20 Years of US Aid, Russia Goes Solo on Controlling Loose Nukes Voice of America October 18th, 2012 The day that Russia’s government decided last week to end its participation in the Nunn-Lugar Cooperative Threat Reduction program, a huge, mushroom-shaped cloud rose high in the air over Orenburg.
In this case, the dust was kicked up by massive, accidental blasts of conventional weapons, largely stores of Soviet-era artillery shells.
To avoid the real thing, a nuclear explosion, American taxpayers have paid $7 billion over the last 20 years to cut the threat of loose nukes scattered around the former Soviet Union. Continue reading
Bahrain backs away from nuclear energy
“The price of nuclear energy is going up and at the same time the price of renewable energy is going down.”
“It makes more sense to move towards solar or wind energy,”
Bahrain postpones nuclear energy plans http://www.tradearabia.com/news/OGN_224008.html Manama,18 Oct 12 Bahrain has postponed its plans to adopt nuclear energy as a source of power by 2017, according to sources familiar with the matter. Continue reading
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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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