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ATOM Project presented at the ICAN Civil Society Forum in Oslo

The Atom Project will tell the tragic and hopeful stories of survivors of nuclear testing from the region of Semey, Kazakhstan, the site of more than 450 Soviet-era nuclear tests. The survivors and their children continue to suffer from illness, disease and severe deformities caused by exposure to nuclear radiation during and after the testing, which took place 100 miles outside of the city, then called Semipalatinsk.

semipalatinsk in eastern kazakhstan was the main test facility for nuclear weapons in the soviet union - photo by robert knoth

semipalatinsk in eastern kazakhstan was the main test facility for nuclear weapons in the soviet union – photo by robert knoth

04 March 2013, 11:37

ASTANA. March 4. KAZINFORM Kazakh delegation with the Honorary ATOM Project Ambassador Karipbek Kuyukov was among  500 campaigners from 70 countries gathered in Oslo, Norway, from 2 to 3 March 2013 for the Civil Society Forum of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN), with the aim of ramping up efforts to get negotiations started on a treaty banning nuclear weapons. The two-day forum included presentations by international policy and military experts, the Red Cross and UN representatives.

The ATOM project has been presented during the event.  Deputy Director of “Nazarbayev Center” Roman Vasilenko informed the participants and guests of the efforts of the Republic of Kazakhstan and the international community in the aftermath of nuclear tests at the Semipalatinsk nuclear test site, and stressed the importance of further work in this area.

The ATOM Project is an international petition campaign designed to unify global public opinion against nuclear weapons testing. The Atom Project went live August 22, 2012 with international television and social media campaigns, a short documentary and video profiles of current survivors of nuclear testing.

The Project is an initiative of The Nazarbayev Center, whose mandate, in part, is to continue and broaden Kazakhstan’s legacy of fighting for a world free of nuclear weapons and weapons testing. The Atom Project hopes to affect real and lasting change by engaging millions of global citizens to stop nuclear weapons testing by joining together to show the world’s leaders that its citizens deserve and demand a world safe from additional nuclear weapons testing.

Continue reading →

March 4, 2013 Posted by | Uncategorized | 4 Comments

UK ministers have no nuclear ‘plan B’, MPs warn

Ministers have no ‘plan B’ if new nuclear plants are not built and are “crossing their fingers” that private companies deliver on time and on budget, a committee of MPs warned on Monday.

By

6:00AM GMT 04 Mar 2013

A series of obstacles could mean the Government’s target of 16 gigawatts of new nuclear power by 2025 is not met, according to a report from the commons Energy Select Committee. It warns that if new plants do not materialise it could be “much more expensive” to meet Britain’s legally-binding climate change targets, and could leave the country more dependent on imported gas to keep the lights on.

Tim Yeo MP, the Committee’s chairman, said ministers must “urgently come up with a contingency plan in case the nuclear industry does not deliver the new power stations we need”.

But the committee also criticises the lack of transparency in Government talks with EDF Energy over subsidies to build Britain’s first new nuclear plant in a generation at Hinkley Point in Somerset, and warns that “new nuclear should not be delivered if the price is too high”.

With all but one of Britain’s existing nuclear reactors due to close by 2023, new plants are “crucial” if nuclear power is to remain part of the UK’s energy mix in future decades, the report says.

However the MPs heard evidence that the Government’s 16GW target – a plan that would see new reactors at five sites around the UK – was “’ambitious’ at best and ‘unrealistic’ at worst”.

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March 4, 2013 Posted by | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Fukushima becoming like a totalitarian state

civil-liberty-2smIn his article, Nakajima likens the situation that of an almost totalitarian state, wherein one either adheres to the commonly held belief set or is seen as a potential threat

The government has created an environment wherein people are going about their daily lives, all the time wondering whether their child will develop cancer or leukemia, yet conditioned not to breathe a word about it. It’s like living in wartime Japan again.

flag-japanLead Architect of Microsoft Windows 95: Something very much amiss in Fukushima — Like an almost totalitarian state — People now saying “For the sake of my child’s health, I’m not going to think about radiationhttp://enenews.com/lead-architect-of-microsoft-windows-95-something-very-much-amiss-in-fukushima-like-an-almost-totalitarian-state-people-now-saying-for-the-sake-of-my-childs-health-im-not-go Title: Japanese Blogger’s Troubling Insight into the Psyche of Post-Disaster Fukushima Residents
Author: Philip Kendall
Date: Mar. 1, 2013

In just 10 days’ time, two years will have passed since the magnitude-9.03 earthquake […]

According to one former Fukushima resident, however, there is something very much amiss in the prefecture. […] Continue reading →

March 4, 2013 Posted by | civil liberties, Fukushima 2013, Japan, secrets,lies and civil liberties | Leave a comment

Fukushima – Strontium 90 is about half the amount of Cesium in the sea water

Sunday, 3 March 2013

Strontium 90 is about half the amount of Cesium in the sea water

 

Strontium90 is one of the four major radio nuclides from the nuclear disaster that we need to be aware of.  According to Prof. Koide, Kyoto University Reactor Research Institute, the amount of strontium90 that was discharged from Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant was 1/1000 of Cesium 134/137, that doesn’t sound a lot comparing it with Cesium, but it’s considered to be very harmful to the environment: It is 300 times more radioactively toxic.  While cesium can be out of body in 100 days, much of strontium90 stays in bones of the body, and yet we don’t hear much about it.  The Food Authority checks Iodine and Cesium but not Strontium90 because it’s difficult to measure the exact amount.  It costs ￡300 in Japan to measure one item and takes half a month. Therefore if you measure fish, they rot in this time.  So there has been a tendency to ignore Strontium90.
While Cesium vaporizes easily and moves far away, Strontium90 dissolves in water easily.  Therefore you find it more in rivers, ponds, lakes and in sea water.  This is worrying because once our water source is contaminated, then all living things are affected.  Soon after the accident, milk farmers in the Fukushima prefecture had to throw away all the milk that was produced there.  As a result, one milk farmer committed suicide, feeling there was no hope. Mr. Takashi Hirose, a journalist, and one of the main figures of the anti-nuclear campaign in Japan commented that it was the water that the cows were drinking that had been the cause of the contamination.
According to a survey report by the Marine Information Department Environmental Research Division Pollution survey Room, Strontium90 is about half the amount of Cesium in the sea water.
When it gets into the food chain it can accumulate further by biological concentration: (a few million times more than Cesium) In Japan fishmeal mixed into fertilizers for soil and into the feed for farm animals such as pigs and chicken.  Because no authorities check for strontium90, there is no control on how much of it is getting into our food and drink.
When it’s taken into the body, most of it accumulates in the bones and stays there for the rest of your life as it has a long half life is (29.1 years).  It continues emitting alpha radiation, damaging nearby cells and leads to the development of leukemia and bone cancer.   Strontium90 can get accumulated in seaweed including Nori, too.
Prof. Koide commented on a radio program that: since the magnitude 7 Earthquake smashed the Daiichi nuclear power plant buildings, lots of concrete buildings now have cracks ; hence lots of radioactive water must have been leaking into the sea all the time. 
Tepco has been pretending they don’t know this, except for occasional reports about finding leakage.  Recently Tepco announced that they are going to discharge radioactive water into the sea this April.  I heard about a report saying all the existing tanks are full.  The tanks at reactor 5 and 6 are actually flooding.  It sounds like there is no end to this situation.  We can’t stop the contamination of the environment once a nuclear disaster has occurred.  All we can do to protect ourselves is to minimize the quantity of contaminated food and drink we take into our bodies.
More detail information on Food safety in Japan:
NHK Science & Culture blog  24/7/12 http://www9.nhk.or.jp/kabun-blog/200/127165.html
Strontium90 was detected in Akita, Iwate, Yamagata, Ibaragi, Kanawagawa, Gunma, Saitama, Chiba, Tochigi prefectures and Tokyo.
Highest level of Strontium90 was in Hitachinaka-shi, Ibaragi prefecture: Strontium90 – 6BQ/m2, equal to 1/2850 of Cesium.

Posted by at 12:46

http://fukushimaappeal.blogspot.co.uk/2013/03/strontium90-is-about-half-amount-of.html

65 percent of worlds nuclear laboratories get Strontium 90 measurement wrong –

“The determination of 90Sr proved difficult for 65 % of the participants which submitted results outside the acceptable range (± 20 %). No improvement could be seen compared to 90Sr determination in one of the previous ILC exercises (Wätjen et al., 2008).
The laboratories concerned, i.e. the vast majority of laboratories reporting 90Sr results, are urged to review their analysis procedures.”

European Commission
Joint Research Centre
Institute for Reference Materials and Measurements

https://nuclear-news.net/2012/11/14/65-percent-of-worlds-nuclear-laboratories-get-strontium-90-measurement-wrong/

 

Radioactive strontium one million times over limit into ocean from Fukushima

“The source of the beta radiation in the water is likely to include strontium 90, which if absorbed in the body through eating tainted seaweed or fish, accumulates in bone and can cause cancer,”

Fukushima floods into Pacific Ocean, Strontium becomes One Million Times over Limit, The Canadian, 07 DECEMBER 2011

https://nuclear-news.net/2011/12/09/radioactive-strontium-one-million-times-over-limit-into-ocean-from-fukushima/

 

March 4, 2013 Posted by | Uncategorized | 1 Comment

Taiwan’s opposition Democratic Progressive Party launching anti nuclear campaign

ballot-boxSmDPP to launch ‘rational’ anti-nuclear campaign Focus Taiwan, By flag-TaiwanLee Shu-hua and Ann Chen, Taipei, March 3 (CNA) The opposition Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) said Sunday that it will launch a “rational” anti-nuclear campaign after the ruling Kuomintang (KMT) accepted the idea of holding a referendum on the controversial Fourth Nuclear Power Plant project. Continue reading →

March 4, 2013 Posted by | politics, Taiwan | Leave a comment

Misleading information masks true level of radiation received by Fukushima workers

text ionising63 workers exposed to higher radiation than logged in their records,
March 02, 2013, THE ASAHI SHIMBUN  by Toshio Tada and Jun Sato
Dozens of workers at the crippled Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant
were exposed to radiation levels higher than those registered in their
personal records, according to a health ministry investigation. Continue reading →

March 4, 2013 Posted by | employment, Fukushima 2013, Japan | Leave a comment

USA military in Niger to establish control over uranium resources

Obama’s Military Presence in Niger: US Control over Uranium under the Disguise of Counter-terrorism Global Research, By Wayne Madsen, 3 Mar 13, President Obama’s military incursion into Niger, ostensibly to establish a drone base to counter «Al Qaeda» and other Islamist guerrilla activity in neighboring Mali, has little to do with counter-insurgency and everything to do with establishing U.S. control over Niger’s uranium and other natural resources output and suppressing its native Tuareg population from seeking autonomy with their kin in northern Mali and Algeria. Continue reading →

March 4, 2013 Posted by | Niger, politics international, Uranium, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Workers say Fukushima radioactive debris dumped in a river

Fukushima cleanup workers break silence: Ordered to dump ‘debris’ into river — Gov’t “appeared not to believe him”http://enenews.com/fukushima-cleanup-workers-break-silence-ordered-to-dump-debris-into-river-govt-appeared-not-to-believe-him
March 2nd, 2013
 Asahi Shimbun,, March 1, 2013: CROOKED CLEANUP: Workers break silence to allege boss ordered corner-cutting […] Three laborers involved in radioactive cleanup around the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant have alleged that a supervisor told them to dump debris in a river […] At a news conference in the Diet building on Feb. 28, the men said a foreman ordered them to discard fallen branches and leaves into a river in an upland forest in Tamura, Fukushima Prefecture, in November 2012.  […] this is the first time that decontamination workers have publicly come forward. […] The third man, in his 40s, said he related what had happened to officials at the Environment Ministry. He spoke to them for more than an hour, he said, but they appeared not to believe him. […]
See also: Asahi: River turned brown after dumping radioactive waste into water — “I was following an order, I am sorry for polluting

March 4, 2013 Posted by | Fukushima 2013 | Leave a comment

Koch brothers and fossil fuel front groups are not winning in Kansas

Koch-climate-changeKansas Ignores Koch Brothers, Keeps Renewable Energy Standard Clean Technica, March 2, 2013 The Topeka Capital-Journal reports that twin votes in Kansas State House and Senate on Thursday put the kibosh on legislative efforts to roll back and delay Kansas’ renewable energy standard (RES).

Passed in 2009, Kansas’ RES requires investor-owned utilities to generate 20 percent of peak demand electrical capacity from renewable sources by 2020. The American Wind Energy Association has actually highlighted the RES as a driving factor in the states burgeoning wind power sector — half of Kansas’ wind farms began operating between 2010 and 2012, after the RES went into effect.

Unfortunately, Kansas has also been targeted by conservative anti-renewable efforts. Republican Rep. Dennis Hedke, the chairman of Kansas’ House Energy and Environment Committee, recently acknowledged he had private talks with a lobbyist for Koch Companies Public Sector LLC concerning the House bill to dilute the RES. (HB 2241) Even anti-tax activist Graver Norquist got in on the action, telling the state’s legislature it ought to abandon the “costly renewable energy mandate so as to mitigate its negative impact on the economy.”

But to Kansas’ credit, it looks like neither effort bore fruit: Continue reading →

March 4, 2013 Posted by | renewable, USA | Leave a comment

Fukushima Rad News 3/3/13:Tepco Fails to Report Worker Rad Levels; Hanford-67 Tanks May Be Leaking

MissingSky101

Published on Mar 3, 2013

TEPCO fails to report worker radiation levels
Tokyo Electric Power Company has failed to report to a national body the radiation exposure doses of 21,000 workers mobilized to contain the crisis at the Fukushima Daiichi plant.
Operators of nuclear plants in Japan are required to report such exposure every year to the Radiation Effects Association to keep each worker’s dose below 50 millisieverts.

Abe pledges support for Tokyo’s 2020 Olympic bid
Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe says his government will offer all-out support for Tokyo’s bid to host the 2020 Summer Olympics and Paralympic Games.
Abe spoke on Friday at an inaugural meeting of his cabinet ministers to support the city’s bid.

Researchers: Landslide played role in 2011 tsunami
An international team of researchers says a huge undersea landslide may have played a role in the massive tsunami that hit northeastern Japan 2 years ago.
The team led by Professor Stephan Grilli of Rhode Island University in the United States says it found the likely cause of waves higher than 20 meters that hit parts of Iwate Prefecture.

Link to source links for video on “More” description on You Tube

 

March 4, 2013 Posted by | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

“Radiation leaking” from Kudankulam nuclear power plant

Kudankulam plant ‘leaking radiation’ since Feb 27, Deccan Herald,
Colombo, Mar 2, 2013  Days after India dismissed as “baseless” reports
about radiation leaks at the yet to be commissioned Kudankulam Nuclear
Power Plant in Tamil Nadu, a Sri Lankan interest group on Saturday
alleged that the atomic power station has been leaking radiation since
February 27.

The People’s Movement Against Kudankulam Nuclear Power Plant, in a
statement, urged officials here to bare the truth.They held the
government of Sri Lanka responsible for turning a blind eye to
radiation threats from Kudankulam…..
http://www.deccanherald.com/content/316125/kudankulam-plant-leaking-radiation-feb.html

March 4, 2013 Posted by | India, safety | Leave a comment

Uranium mining industries again out to mine on Navajo land

Uranium mining cos. eye new Navajo Nation projects http://www.myfoxphoenix.com/story/21448485/uranium-mining-cos-eye-new-navajo-nation-projects  SHIPROCK, N.M. (AP) – Uranium mining companies are showing signs of renewed interest in the Navajo Nation.

The Farmington Daily Times reports that several companies during the past year have addressed the tribe, begging for permission to once again mine the uranium-rich land that the tribe sits upon.

But several environmental studies have suggested that elevated levels of uranium in and around the mines caused health problems for the people working in and living around them.

The Navajo Nation sits on more than 70 million tons of naturally occurring uranium, a radioactive ore.

Uranium mining companies say that history will not repeat itself, especially since they are using advanced technologies and take more precautions.

The tribe banned uranium mining on its land in 2005, though federal government has jurisdiction on Navajo Trust Land

 

March 4, 2013 Posted by | indigenous issues, USA | Leave a comment

(3.11から2年) March 11, 2011 DISASTER: looking back two years later

DocumentingIan

Published on Mar 3, 2013

As the two-year anniversary of the March 11, 2011, disaster approaches, this is a look back at the first few days after the earthquake, tsunami and nuclear meltdown.

– Ian Thomas Ash
http://www.documentingian.com/

Short documentaries appearing in this compilation:

Panic Buying (March 14, 2011)
http://youtu.be/g-Lx3ErjKWk
Foreigners Flee (March 15, 2011)
http://youtu.be/1P4JZJLUENk
Nuclear Crises: radiation in Tokyo (March 17, 2011)
http://youtu.be/1ZPcR9g1XOQ
After the tsunami: Part 1 (filmed March 24, 2011)
http://youtu.be/nyPzGalHNxI
After the tsunami: Part 2 (filmed March 24, 2011)
http://youtu.be/1S5kez9arYE

More short documentaries about the March 11, 2011disaster:

Fukushima: one month after the nuclear meltdown
http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=…
Fukushima: six months after the nuclear meltdown
http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=…
Fukushima: one year after the nuclear meltdown
http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=…
Iitate Village: nuclear ghost town
http://youtu.be/YXocjiKU-Vk
Fukushima: 15 months after the nuclear meltdown
http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=…

Feature documentaries about the Fukushima nuclear disaster:

In the Grey Zone (2012, Japan)
http://youtu.be/5lLOALNx_kU
A2 (2013, Japan)
http://youtu.be/ZD9yGONdEUY

 

March 4, 2013 Posted by | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

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