Fukushima disaster: Cameras monitor nuclear ‘ghost towns’ and refugees can observe their contaminated homes!
8 March 2013 Last updated at 15:02
Thousands of residents of the small farming village of Iitate in northern Japan were forced to leave their homes after radiation levels peaked dangerously high in the aftermath of the Fukushima nuclear plant disaster of 2011.
But now a special project is helping them keep an eye on their ‘ghost town’, by allowing them to monitor its surveillance camera feeds.
Roopa Suchak reports.
Video on link.. (Note that this is the main article on fukushima during a weekend of remembrance and protests in the uk and indeeed globally. This is one of the strangest story lines ive come across.. watch the video and see whatyou make of it.. they have given out free electronic tablets so people can look at their irradiated houses.. huh? seems like a waste of money and not good psychological practise to allow victims this type of voyeurism after trauma? At least, i am sure it would stimulate some discussion amongst psychologists.. Arclight2011)
Tokyo stages mass anti-nuclear rally
Thousands of people have rallied in Tokyo to demand an end to atomic power two years after the nuclear disaster in north-eastern Japan.
Organisers said disaster victims and celebrities were among an estimated 15,000 people at a central Tokyo park on Saturday, two days ahead of the second anniversary of the disaster that killed 19,000 and sparked reactor meltdowns at Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant.
Only two of Japan’s 50 working nuclear reactors have been put back online since the disaster. This is partly because of waves of protests like Saturday’s that mark the biggest public demonstrations in Japan since the 1960s movement against the Vietnam War.
Reactor restarts
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and his conservative Liberal Democratic Party has close ties with the nation’s powerful business circle. He has repeatedly said he would allow reactor restarts if their safety could be ensured.
|
“I am going to fight to prevent any more reactors from being restarted“ – Kenzaburo Oe, |
Protesters marched through the capital later in the day and issued a statement that called on Abe to dismantle all nuclear plants.
“The new administration should not misunderstand that the victory can mean approval of policies to maintain nuclear power,” the statement said in reference to the December elections of Abe and his party.
“We will request policies to swiftly begin procedures in decommissioning nuclear reactors and disapprove any plans to newly build nuclear plants.”
Nobel Prize-winning writer Kenzaburo Oe received huge cheers from the protesters gathered in the park when he spoke of lessons learned from the atomic bombings of Japan at the end of World War II.
Trident nuclear weapons system – Pointless?
British anti-nukes campaigners are pressuring the government to change course on replacing its Trident nuclear weapons system at an annual cost of £3 billion and rather spend the money on housing.
video on link
http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2013/03/09/292732/trident-nuclear-weapons-system/
Time to Scrap Trident: Stop fooling with nuclear weapons
Protest at AWE Aldermaston
- 12 noon to 2pm
- Easter Monday 1st April
- Join us and invite all your friends on Facebook!
- Watch and share the video!
This year on April Fools’ Day, we will be going to Aldermaston to highlight our opposition to Britain’s Trident nuclear weapons system – because that’s where the nuclear bombs are made.
We’ll be saying Scrap Trident and cancel plans to replace it.
We’ll be gathering around the base in our thousands with music, colour, and speeches.
Why are we going?
2013 is a year of continuous activity at AWE Aldermaston, prompted by the formation of grassroots campaign Action AWE, to highlight the site’s nuclear bomb-making function.
This is vital as we head towards the 2016 decision point on whether or not Trident should be replaced. Vast sums of money are being poured into developments at Aldermaston, even before any decision is taken on Trident.
The total cost of a replacement for Trident would be over £100 billion. At this time of cuts to jobs, housing and public services think what else Trident’s £100 billion could be spent on! We say it’s time to scrap Trident, and on April Fools’ Day we’ll be telling the government to ‘stop fooling with nuclear weapons’!
How can you get involved?
Bring banners, placards, knitting, poems… and anything else you can think of to decorate the fence with to show what you want to spend the money on rather than Trident.
Also bring pots, pans and musical instruments, as we will be surrounding the base with the sound of protest. We hope you’ll join us for an inspirational day of protest against Britain’s illegal and immoral nuclear weapons!
Each of the gates at Aldermaston will have a different theme and regional/national focus – including a women’s gate and a faith gate.
- A few maps of AWE Aldermaston: walking, gates, satellite, road
- An information sheet is available from the office, as are flyers.
- Please start organising transport from your local area.
- Contact CND on campaigns@cnduk.org for more info.
Coaches
- London: Departs from near Embankment Station at 9:15am and picks up at Hammersmith Apollo at 9:45am. Booking in advance (by 25th March): £16 waged /£8 unwaged. After 25th March £20 waged/£10 unwaged. Contact David at London Region CND on 0207 607 2302 for more information.
- East Midlands: Coach collection points planned to include Chesterfield, Nottingham, Leicester and Northampton. Contact East Midlands CND for details on 01246 235723.
- Yorkshire: Departure at 6:50am from Bradford, University of Bradford, outside Richmond Building, Great Horton Rd. 7:30am from Leeds, Leeds Met Student’s Union, Calverley Street. 8:15am from Sheffield, Ponds Forge Leisure Centre, Pond Hill. £15 waged/ £8 student/low waged. The coach will return by early evening. To book a space please contact 01274 730 795 / dominic@yorkshirecnd.org.uk with your name, contact number and pickup point.
- Wales: For transport from South and Mid Wales contact Brian and Jan Jones (Swansea area) on 01792 830 330 or via email. From North East Wales contact Duncan Rees on 07774 268 371 or via email
- Southampton: Coach will leave Southampton Cenotaph at 10:30 am and will pick up in Winchester by King Alfred’s statue. Tickets cost £15 waged/ £8 unwaged. For bookings phone David Hoadley on 023 8022 9363.
- Merseyside: “AtoB” Coach departs at 7:15am from Mount Pleasant, opposite the multi-storey car park. Also collecting from Chester train station at 8:00am. £20 waged/£10 concessions.
- Bath: Coach will leave Laura Place, Bath at 9:00am. £15 waged/£5 unwaged. Please contact Monica on 01225 312574 for tickets or come to the weekly peace stall each Saturday outside Bath Abbey from 11:30am – 12:30pm.
What next? The Scrap Trident Tour
The Aldermaston event will launch the national Scrap Trident tour through April and beyond. CND Vice-president Bruce Kent will be touring the country, campaigning to Scrap Trident.
He’s working with a range of different organisations to highlight the wasteful spending on Trident when so much investment is needed to eradicate poverty, boost people-friendly development and make our world a safer and more peaceful place to live.
- Bruce would like to cordially invite you to his tour – read a letter from him here.
- For a full list of stops on the tour, check events.
- Download our petition for use at all your upcoming events here.
- Contact the office on campaigns@cnduk.org for more info.
Don’t let nuclear lessons fade over time
The process will continue for 40 years at a minimum and cost trillions of baht, and it is anyone’s guess when, if ever, the surrounding area will be habitable again. And the risks from contamination are not confined to the general area. The biggest concern is that radioactive substances are leaching into the sea, where they will be dispersed around the world and be concentrated in the food chain….
Published: 10 Mar 2013
Bangkok Post
Tomorrow marks the two-year anniversary of the earthquake and resulting tsunami that devastated northeastern Japan, wiping out whole towns and thousands of lives in just minutes. The Japanese resolutely began rebuilding immediately after this natural tragedy of biblical proportions, and although the personal losses will never be forgotten, the material damage has largely been repaired. The exception, of course, is the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant and surrounding vicinity.
The totally unexpected magnitude of the radiation leaks from the Fukushima nuclear accident, the largest since Chernobyl, has dealt a strong blow to an industry that was poised for resurgence as the best alternative to the fossil-fuel derived energy that is changing the weather of the planet. But unless there is a serious global commitment to developing truly clean alternatives, how long will it be before governments begin jumping back on the nuclear bandwagon?
As reported in several articles ahead of the fateful anniversary, including a report in today’s Spectrum, progress in the clean-up, decontamination and decommissioning of the reactors knocked out by the tsunami has been taking baby steps. The process will continue for 40 years at a minimum and cost trillions of baht, and it is anyone’s guess when, if ever, the surrounding area will be habitable again. And the risks from contamination are not confined to the general area. The biggest concern is that radioactive substances are leaching into the sea, where they will be dispersed around the world and be concentrated in the food chain. Back in December 2011 the Fukushima Daiichi operator, Tokyo Electric Power Company (Tepco) said it was running out of space to store contaminated water and was considering dumping it into the sea. This brought howls of protest from local fishermen and environmental groups worldwide and the plan was apparently shelved. Yet levels of contaminated water continue to rise and the problem of storing it will only get worse. Now, Fukushima Daiichi’s operator is building a wall going down instead of up to keep contaminated groundwater from entering the ocean.
Proponents of nuclear energy say that that the industry’s track record is remarkably safe, and that’s true at least as far as major accidents go. But there is another big problem with nuclear energy _ how do you store wastes generated by nuclear fission that will be highly radioactive for thousands of years? In a way the ongoing problems at Fukushima are just a dramatic illustration of the fact that the nuclear power industry has yet to come up with a solution to the fundamental problem of waste storage. In fact this problem may be insurmountable.
But again, what are the alternatives? In order to maintain our modern way of life we need energy, lots of it and more every year. We can continue on with fossil fuels, depending more on highly polluting varieties such as coal and shale oil and environmentally risky practices such as fracking and deep-sea drilling. Perhaps nuclear energy would be a better way to go, even with the waste storage problem, providing power plants are strictly regulated and not built in earthquake or tsunami prone areas. After all, they don’t emit greenhouse gases.
This still leaves another big problem with nuclear energy: It is incredibly expensive. The industry could not survive without massive government subsidies. Wouldn’t it be better to subsidise truly clean energies such as solar, wind, tide and geothermal? For these energy sources to truly replace fossil fuels, societies would have to rely much more on mass transit and electric vehicles, but the same is true for nuclear energy.
The assistance that is now given to the fledgling clean energy technologies is insignificant compared to the direct and indirect subsidies going to multinational oil companies and the cost to taxpayers for proposed nuclear power plants.
The way we produce our energy is one of the most, if not the most, important issues facing the human race. Many people say that the quest for renewable and clean energy is an unattainable dream, but this ignores the considerable progress that has already been made by a relative few working with relatively limited resources. A global effort to support innovation and think outside the box is needed. Otherwise we’re doomed to sticking with default technologies that are already wreaking havoc on the planet.
http://www.bangkokpost.com/news/local/339668/don-t-let-nuclear-lessons-fade-over-time
NRA: Tsuruga nuclear power plant reactor ‘likely on active fault’
The Yomiuri Shimbun
A Nuclear Regulation Authority panel has concluded that a geological fault running directly under Japan Atomic Power Co.’s Tsuruga nuclear power plant in Fukui Prefecture is likely active, according to sources.
The NRA verification panel that examined the layer determined Friday that a crush zone running just beneath the No. 2 reactor at the Tsuruga plant was virtually an active fault. As the government’s seismic safety guidelines prohibit the construction of important facilities on active faults, the NRA will make an official decision in the near future not to allow the restart of the nuclear reactor, the sources said.
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said in his policy speech: “Under the Nuclear Regulation Authority, we will foster a new culture of safety that will uncompromisingly raise the level of safety. After doing so we will restart nuclear power plants whose safety has been confirmed.”
Substantive discussion over the assessment of the fault was largely concluded on the day. Unless new data overturning Friday’s conclusion is presented, the No. 2 reactor is highly likely to be decommissioned.
The panel studied the validity of an assessment report compiled in January by an NRA expert team that investigated the plant. The panel basically confirmed the report, which said, “The crush zone, which may have moved in the past 130,000 years, is highly likely an active fault.”
It was the first time for the NRA to confirm such a decision following a meeting of the verification panel.
The NRA has not made a decision on the plant’s No. 1 reactor, which will soon enter its 43rd year of operation.
According to NRA regulations, the decommissioning of reactors after 40 years of operation will become mandatory in July, which will make it difficult to restart the No. 1 reactor.
On Friday, Japan Atomic Power said it was deeply regrettable the NRA reached the conclusion unilaterally, based solely on the possibility that the fault may be active.
FRANCE-ENERGY-NUCLEAR-ENVIRONMENT-DEMO ( 9 March 2013)
09 Mar 2013
A man dressed as a nuclear waste drum stands in front of protesters holding hands to form a human chain during an anti-nuclear power demonstration on March 9, 2013 in the center of Paris. AFP PHOTO / PIERRE ANDRIEU (Photo credit should read PIERRE ANDRIEU/AFP/Getty Images
Photographer:
PIERRE ANDRIEU/Staff
A protester holds an anti-nuclear banner in front of another’s mouth during an anti-nuclear power demonstration on March 9, 2013 in the center of Paris. AFP PHOTO / PIERRE ANDRIEU (Photo credit should read PIERRE ANDRIEU/AFP/Getty Images)
A woman shouts into a megaphone during an anti-nuclear power demonstration on March 9, 2013 in the center of Paris. AFP PHOTO / PIERRE ANDRIEU (Photo credit should read PIERRE ANDRIEU/AFP/Getty Images)
Still Fukushima Suffers in Nuclear Disaster Shadow
by Bidita Debnath on March 10, 2013 at 12:04 AM
Med India
But Japan’s fragile economy means Nihei feels unable to leave his job in a car parts factory in Fukushima City, some 60 kilometres (37 miles) from the nuclear plant, so he stayed behind in the family home when his wife and two daughters — now three and five — fled for Tokyo.
Now he sees them only every four weeks.
“I don’t know how long this situation will continue,” Nihei, 38, told AFP in a house decorated with photographs of his daughters and letters they have written for him.
“I can go see them in Tokyo only once a month as travel expenses are high… It’s tough to keep going in this double life, economically and mentally.”
The world’s worst nuclear disaster in a generation is officially recorded as having killed no one. But the human cost has been high.
More than 100,000 people were forcibly evacuated from their homes in a 20-kilometre (12-mile) exclusion zone around the crippled plant. Tens of thousands more — like the Niheis — left a wider area, worried about the health dangers from radiation they could neither see nor smell.
Many take little comfort from pronouncements by government scientists or international bodies, who say the amount of radiation they are being exposed to is unlikely to cause them any harm.
The International Commission of Radiological Protection recommends a dosage limit of one millisievert per year from all sources of radiation, but says exposure to less than 100 millisieverts per year presents no statistically significant increase in cancer risk.
A single CT hospital scan delivers around 10 millisieverts, according to the National Institute of Radiological Sciences in Japan.
But, say campaigners, any amount of reassurances cannot mitigate the ever-present fear and little understood threat.
Nihei’s wife Kazuko, 36, said she wanted to avoid any possible risk from radiation, even if it was below 100 millisieverts per year.
“We couldn’t let children play outside anymore, and they got frustrated,” she said in Tokyo. “I didn’t want our daughters to eat locally-grown rice and vegetables.”
On the day AFP visited the Nihei family home in the city of Fukushima, a radiation monitoring post in front of a nearby junior high school showed 0.1 microsievert per hour. If that figure remained constant it would be equal to less than a 1.0 milisievert annual dose.
The World Health Organization said last month that lifetime rates of thyroid cancer for women who lived inside the government-mandated exclusion zone were expected to be 1.25 percent, up 70 percent from the baseline risk of 0.75 percent for Japanese women.
In an illustration of how polarising the issue can be, Greenpeace immediately said the WHO was vastly underestimating the risk, while the Japanese government said its calculations were overblown and based on unrealistic premises.
Two years after the crisis, the no-go zone around the plant is gradually shrinking as radiation levels decrease.
But for Norio Kanno, mayor of Iitate, a village from which some 6,000 residents have been evacuated, a return to normality is still a long way off.
“When we first evacuated, we thought we could go back in about two years,” he said in Tokyo. “But two years have already passed, and things have only just begun.”
Indeed, the timescales involved in the clean-up are far longer than were first imagined.
Full decommissioning of the reactors, where molten fuel ate through concrete casing, is expected to take at least three decades. That, along with the decontamination of surrounding areas, will cost billions of dollars, much of it borne by the taxpayer.
Farmers and fishermen in the region — previously one of Japan’s breadbaskets — complain that despite rigorous testing showing their produce to be safe, few people want to buy it.
Tourism is still suffering, with attractions like the fruit farms near the Niheis’ home seeing visitor numbers cut by three-quarters.
“The government doesn’t have anything that can convince evacuees to come back,” said Mikio Nihei. “I wonder how they are going to rebuild Fukushima.”
Source-AFP
Read more: Still Fukushima Suffers in Nuclear Disaster Shadow | Medindia http://www.medindia.net/news/still-fukushima-suffers-in-nuclear-disaster-shadow-115512-1.htm?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+allhealthnews+(Medindia+Health+News)#ixzz2N4d9LwAf
Video: 200,000 protest nuclear power – Taiwan
http://enenews.com/video-200000-protest-nuclear-power
Published: March 9th, 2013 at 11:33 am ET
By ENENews
CNA ENGLISH NEWS, March 9, 2013: 200,000 take part in Taiwan’s anti-nuclear protest […] In what organizers called the largest anti-nuclear protest in Taiwan, an estimated 200,000 people took to the streets in several parts of the island on Saturday to call for the scrapping of nuclear power plants. The protest was held simultaneously in northern, central, southern and eastern Taiwan just two days before the second anniversary of the meltdown of Japan’s Fukushima nuclear power plant in the wake of the big earthquake and tsunami on March 11, 2011. […] Later Saturday, a spokeswoman for the Presidential Office said President Ma Ying-jeou was willing to have dialogues with anti-nuclear groups and listen to their suggestions on how Taiwan can find alternatives for nuclear power. […]
The China Post, March 10, 2013: […] Over 100 civic groups joined the nationwide event, including the I am Human group and Victims of Nuclear Power, from Northern Taiwan. Despite the unseasonably hot and humid weather, people flooded into the street in front of the Presidential Office, with some even decked out in heavy costumes. Police estimates put attendance in Taipei at over 50,000, with some 8,000 each in Taichung and Kaohsiung. The event’s main organizers, however, estimated that 120,000 protesters turned out in Taipei and 200,000 nationwide. […]
Published on 9 Mar 2013
山本太郎311から2年©報道ヘリの会©空撮
http://www.ourplanet-tv.org/
OurPlanet-TV 山本太郎3/9/2013 ©「正しい報道ヘリの会」空撮：東京・明治公園
IWJ
http://www.ustream.tv/channel/iwakami…
３．９～１１は「つながろうフクシマ！さようなら原発大行動」 | さようなら原発1000万人アクション
http://sayonara-nukes.org/
Are sanctions over-hyped? Is North Korea really a threat?
Beijing wants to avoid a collapse of its neighbour. The dissolution of North Korea could mean a flood of economic refugees into China and the formation of a capitalist Korea controlled by Seoul and friendly with the United States. Bruce Klingner, a retired CIA North Korea analyst at the Heritage Foundation, doubted China was prepared to take the steps needed to make North Korea suffer the way Tehran has.
Sun, 10 March 2013
Oman Daily Observer
By Louis Charbonneau — NEW steps by the UN against North Korea over its nuclear arms programme were designed to bring its sanctions regime more, but fears remain that the measures will have little impact on Pyongyang’s defiant leaders. US Ambassador to the UN Susan Rice — who led the drafting of UN Security Council resolution 2094 adopted unanimously last Thursday as well as the bilateral negotiations with China that produced it — said, “These sanctions will bite and bite hard.”
North Korea responded with an escalation of its bellicose rhetoric, including a threat to launch a preemptive nuclear strike against the United States. It also repeated previous threats to cancel the armistice that ended the 1950-53 Korean war and moved to cut off a hotline with the South. But will the sanctions actually bite? And, if they do bite, will they end the cycle of rocket launches and nuclear tests that have resulted in a sustained push by the US, South Korea and Japan at the UN Security Council to condemn and punish Pyongyang?
Only Beijing and Pyongyang can answer those questions. Some analysts question whether North Korea’s ally and diplomatic protector China really wants “full implementation” of the UN restrictions on trade with North Korea, as its UN envoy Li Baodong called for last Thursday. Without China’s active support, the measures could be largely symbolic. George Lopez, a professor at the University of Notre Dame and a former member of a UN expert panel that monitors compliance with the North Korean sanctions regime, said the new measures could prove to be more effective than previous rounds of UN sanctions have been against Pyongyang.
“This diversity of sanctions measures and other directives in the new resolution have the potential to take a considerable bite out of DPRK (North Korea) money movements and to constrain their access to specialised products critical to missile and centrifuge operations,” he said. The Council’s latest resolution prohibits countries from engaging in any financial transactions with Pyongyang that could in any way be linked to its nuclear and missile programmes.
It also makes interdictions of suspicious North Korean cargo coming in and out of the country in violation of UN sanctions mandatory. Such raids on North Korean vessels were voluntary prior to last Thursday’s action by the Council. Some diplomats and analysts say North Korea’s effectively closed economy dulls the impact of sanctions. But not everyone believes China is ready to get tough on North Korea, even though it clearly dislikes Pyongyang’s nuclear weapons programme and wants to avoid a new Korean war. As one senior UN Security Council diplomat put it recently, if China had to choose between a nuclear North Korea and no North Korea at all, it would choose the former.
Beijing wants to avoid a collapse of its neighbour. The dissolution of North Korea could mean a flood of economic refugees into China and the formation of a capitalist Korea controlled by Seoul and friendly with the United States. Bruce Klingner, a retired CIA North Korea analyst at the Heritage Foundation, doubted China was prepared to take the steps needed to make North Korea suffer the way Tehran has. “Despite excitement by China watchers that internal debate amongst pundits and media organisations indicate the new Chinese leadership will adopt a new, more stringent policy towards its pesky ally, Beijing again shows itself to be an obstruction at the UN Security Council,” he said.
“The new UN resolution is an incremental improvement, but it doesn’t live up to Ambassador Rice’s hype that it’s exceptional and will significantly impede North Korea’s nuclear and missile programmes,” he said. Pyongyang was hit with UN sanctions for its 2006 and 2009 nuclear tests, measures that were subsequently tightened and expanded after several rocket launches. In addition to the luxury goods ban, there is an arms embargo on North Korea, and it is forbidden from trading in nuclear and missile technology.
http://main.omanobserver.om/node/156192
North Korea Not a Threat
Published on 6 Feb 2013
Abby Martin talks to the national coordinator for the ANSWER Coalition, Brian Becker, about North Korea’s nuclear drive, its tense relations with the US and the rationale of harsh rhetoric coming from the International community.
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Tokyo High Court Declares Japan National Election Unconstitutional
Published on 8 Mar 2013
The high court has ruled that the recent national elections in Japan were not in line with the Japanese constitution.
Asahi Daily Report:
http://ajw.asahi.com/article/behind_news/politics/AJ201303060070
Tokyo court rules Dec. 16 election unconstitutional but not invalid
March 06, 2013
By RYUJIRO KOMATSU/ Staff Writer
The Tokyo High Court on March 6 ruled that the December Lower House election was unconstitutional, but stopped short of invalidating the results, the first verdict handed down in a series of lawsuits over the election.
Lawyers around Japan filed lawsuits asking that the election be invalidated because it was conducted without reapportioning districts to overcome the imbalance in the value of a vote due to population discrepancies. The Supreme Court had previously ruled that this imbalance was “in a state of unconstitutionality.”
Verdicts in the other lawsuits are expected by March 27. The Supreme Court is then expected to hand down a uniform ruling by the end of the year.
In March 2011, the Supreme Court ruled that the August 2009 Lower House election was in a state of unconstitutionality because the largest difference in the value of a single vote between the most and least populous districts was 2.3 times. In its ruling, the Supreme Court called for the elimination of the process of first giving all prefectures one seat before distributing the remaining seats by population. That process was viewed as being the main cause for the large difference in the value of a vote.
However, the Diet in November passed a bill that only cut seats from the five least populous prefectures. The bill passed on the day the Lower House was dissolved.
The Dec. 16 Lower House election was conducted using the same electoral district boundaries used in the 2009 election that was ruled in a state of unconstitutionality by the Supreme Court. For that reason, the difference in the value of a vote between the most and least populous districts had increased to 2.43 times.
The Tokyo Election Administration Commission, the defendant in the case, argued that the call to invalidate the recent election should be rejected because time was needed to reapportion districts, and the 21 months between the Supreme Court ruling and the December Lower House election was insufficient to make that change.
Under the Public Offices Election Law, lawsuits seeking to invalidate election results are first submitted to high courts rather than district courts as is the usual case with lawsuits. While there is also a provision in that law that calls for efforts to be made to issue rulings within 100 days of the lawsuit being filed, that has previously not been followed to the letter. However, that has apparently changed, as the Tokyo High Court ruling came 79 days after the lawsuit was filed.
The Supreme Court ruled in 1976 and 1985 that Lower House elections were unconstitutional because of the large gap in the value of a vote. However, the court stopped short of invalidating the results of those elections.
The lawsuits related to the 2009 Lower House election led to four rulings at high courts that said it was unconstitutional, three that said it was held “in a state of unconstitutionality,” on the ground that there had not been enough time before the election to correct the vote imbalance, and two rulings that said it was constitutional.
Japan- Allegations of General Election Fraud on Dec. 16, 2012 come to light!
THURSDAY, 17 JANUARY 2013
Vaya con Dios, Hugo Chàvez, mi Amigo – Greg Palast
March 6, 2013
By Greg Palast, http://www.gregpalast.com/vaya-con-dios-hugo-chavez-mi-amigo/
For BBC Television, Palast met several times with Hugo Chàvez, who passed away today.
As a purgative for the crappola fed to Americans about Chavez, my foundation, The Palast Investigative Fund, is offering the film, The Assassination of Hugo Chavez, as a FREE download. Based on my several meetings with Chavez, his kidnappers and his would-be assassins, filmed for BBC Television. DVDs also available.
Media may contact Palast at interviews (at) gregpalast.com.
Venezuelan President Chavez once asked me why the US elite wanted to kill him. My dear Hugo: It’s the oil. And it’s the Koch Brothers – and it’s the ketchup.
Reverend Pat Robertson said,
“Hugo Chavez thinks we’re trying to assassinate him. I think that we really ought to go ahead and do it.”
It was 2005 and Robertson was channeling the frustration of George Bush’s State Department.
Despite Bush’s providing intelligence, funds and even a note of congratulations to the crew who kidnapped Chavez (we’ll get there), Hugo remained in office, reelected and wildly popular.
But why the Bush regime’s hate, hate, HATE of the President of Venezuela?
Reverend Pat wasn’t coy about the answer: It’s the oil.
“This is a dangerous enemy to our South controlling a huge pool of oil.”
A really BIG pool of oil. Indeed, according to Guy Caruso, former chief of oil intelligence for the CIA, Venezuela hold a recoverable reserve of 1.36 trillion barrels, that is, a whole lot more than Saudi Arabia.
If we didn’t kill Chavez, we’d have to do an “Iraq” on his nation. So the Reverend suggests,
“We don’t need another $200 billion war….It’s a whole lot easier to have some of the covert operatives do the job and then get it over with.”
Chavez himself told me he was stunned by Bush’s attacks: Chavez had been quite chummy with Bush Senior and with Bill Clinton.
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