Why is World Health Organisation not releasing Iraq birth defects report?
What’s delaying the WHO report on Iraqi birth defects http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2013/06/201365101540408281.html A 2012 World 
Health Organization study on congenital birth defects in Iraq has still not been released to the public. 06 Jun 2013 Mozhgan Savabieasfahani Dr Mozhgan Savabieasfahani, a native of Iran, is an environmental toxicologist based in Michigan. She is the author of over two dozen peer reviewed articles and the book, Pollution and Reproductive Damage (DVM 2009).
Iraq is poisoned. Thirty-five million Iraqis wake up every morning to a living nightmare of childhood cancers, adult cancers and birth defects. Familial cancers, cluster cancers and multiple cancers in the same individual have become frequent in Iraq.
Sterility, repeated miscarriages, stillbirths and severe birth defects – some never described in any medical books – are all around, in increasing numbers. Trapped in this hellish nightmare, millions of Iraqis struggle to survive, and they and they call for help.
At long last, public pressure and media attention to this public health catastrophe prompted a joint study by the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Iraqi Ministry of Health to determine the prevalence of birth defects in Iraq. This study began in May-June 2012 and was completed in early October 2012. Continue reading
Closure of San Onofre nuclear plant hastens the death of nuclear power
San Onofre is Dead & So is Nuclear Power, Nukefree.org, Harvey Wasserman, 7 June 13 From his California beach house at San Clemente, Richard Nixon once watched three reactors rise at nearby San Onofre. As of June 7, 2013, all three are permanently shut.
It’s a monumental victory for grassroots activism. it marks an epic transition in how we get our energy…… In the early 2000s, Units 2 & 3 needed new steam generators of their own. In the usual grasp for more profits, Edison chose untested, unlicensed new designs.
But they failed. And the whole world was watching. In the wake of Fukushima, two more leaky tsunami-zone reactors surrounded by earthquake faults were massively unwelcome.
So a well-organized non-violent core of local, state and national activists and organizations rose up to stop the madness.
At Vermont Yankee, Indian Point, Seabrook, Davis-Besse and dozens of other reactors around the US and world, parallel opposition is escalating.
Make no mistake—this double victory at San Onofre is a falling domino. Had the public not fought back, those reactors would have been “fixed” at public expense.
Today, they are dead…… we have yet another proof that citizen action makes all the difference in our world…… http://www.nukefree.org/editorsblog/san-onofre-dead-so-nuclear-power
California can now move to safe, clean renewable energy
The End of the San Onofre Nuclear Plant — An Advance for Safe, Clean, Renewable Energy Technologies http://karlgrossman.blogspot.com.au/2013/06/the-end-of-san-onofre-nuclear-plant.html
Southern California Edison’s announcement this week that it will close its troubled twin-reactor San Onofre nuclear power plant—along with other recent setbacks for atomic energy in the United States—marks a downward spiral for nuclear power.Environmentalists win 50 year battle to close San Onofre nuclear plant
opponents of the plant acknowledged that questions remain regarding what will happen to radioactive waste generated by the site and to the region’s energy needs.
Environmentalists Celebrate Nuclear Plant Closing, abc news, By GILLIAN FLACCUS and AMY TAXIN Associated Press axin reported from Tustin. AP Writer Elliot Spagat contributed to this report from SAN CLEMENTE, Calif. June 8, 2013 (AP)
Using a cane and wearing a hat reading “Peace No Nukes,” 85-year-old Lyn Harris Hicks shuffled to the front gates of the San Onofre nuclear power plant on Friday to celebrate a utility company’s decision to close the seaside facility for good.
A long-time resident of San Clemente in Southern California, Harris Hicks said she has been fighting the plant — which has been idle since last year — since the 1960s over safety concerns. Continue reading
Youtube: Fallujah birth defects and US depleted uranium weapons
Inside Story Americas – Did the US cause Fallujah’s birth defects? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V9YQ1GimBDc 1 Aug 2012
New research is under way on the alarming increase in birth defects in the Iraqi city of Fallujah, showing elevated levels of radioactivity in the city and across the country. Iraqi doctors have long reported a spike of cases involving severe birth defects in Fallujah since 2004 which are shocking in their severity. So is the US being honest about the weapons it used in the 2004 battle for the city, and in its other theatres of war? Guests: Ross Caputi, Dai Williams, Raed Jarrar.
Higherdeath rate for those living near Browns Ferry Nuclear Plant
The full report may be downloaded at www.matrr.org or www.bredl.org
Major findings of the report• Continue reading
Nuclear waste rolling in to Texas dump site
Texas Site Begins Taking Federal Nuclear Waste http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/texas-site-begins-taking-federal-nuclear-waste-19343196#.UbJENOdwo6I By BETSY BLANEY Associated Press ANDREWS, Texas June 7, 2013 (AP) Republican mega-donor Harold Simmons’ remote hazardous waste dump in West Texas began accepting low-level radioactive material Thursday from a federal lab in New Mexico — the latest step in Simmons’ vision of site that accept all types of waste. Continue reading
Uranium mining continues to radioactively poison land and water in USA
Uranium Mine Pits Continue to Leak Radiation Today
Radiation and heavy metals from uranium mines continue to pollute the land, air and water today and very little action is being taken to stop it.
America’s “Secret Fukushima”: Uranium Mining is Poisoning the Bread Basket of the World By Margaret Flowers and Kevin Zeese Global Research, June 07, 2013 Truthout Early in the morning of July 16, 1979, a 20-foot section of the earthen dam blocking the waste pool for the Church Rock Uranium Mill caved in and released 95 million gallons of highly acidic fluid containing 1,100 tons of radioactive material. The fluid and waste flowed into the nearby Puerco River, traveling 80 miles downstream, leaving toxic puddles and backing up local sewers along the way.
Although this release of radiation, thought to be the largest in US history, occurred less than four months after the Three Mile Island partial nuclear meltdown that sent radioactive gases and iodine into the air, the Church Rock spill received little media attention. In contrast, the Three Mile Island accident made the headlines. And when the residents of Church Rock asked their governor to declare their community a disaster area so they could get recovery assistance, he refused. Continue reading
Safety upgrades required will cost U.S. nuclear plant operators $billions
U.S. plants covered under the directive are older, boiling-water reactors mainly similar in design to the Fukushima facility…..
Plant operators may have to spend nearly $3.6 billion over the next three to five years on modifications to the nation’s 102 nuclear facilities in response to the Fukushima accident, according to a Platts survey released on Thursday.
U.S. orders new safety upgrades at nuclear plants By CNN Staff June 7, 2013 –– Washington — U.S. regulators are directing 31 nuclear reactors similar in design to the Fukushima Daiichi plant in Japan, where an earthquake and tsunami caused a meltdown two years ago, to take additional steps to help contain radiation and other damage from any accident that is not quickly halted.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission directive on Thursday requires enhancements to systems for venting accumulated pressure from containment structures during an emergency. Vents must also be able to safely handle rising temperatures, hydrogen concentrations and radiation levels.
The changes also aim to ensure that plant personnel can continue to operate vents safely if a reactor core melts down, the agency said. Continue reading
Nuclear economics; a fourth American nuclear plant bites the dust
California nuclear plant to shut: a case of unforgiving nuclear economics, Christian Science Monitor, Peter Spotts, 7 June 13 Southern California Edison is shutting the remaining two reactors at San Onofre, citing high repair costs and an NRC ruling that the utility says would delay reactor restarts.
The San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station (SONGS), a nuclear power plant set into the seaside bluffs in northern San Diego County, is closing after the high cost of repairs and a Nuclear Regulatory Commission board ruling prompted its owner, Southern California Edison, to pull the plug on the 45-year-old facility.The announcement Friday that San Onofre’s two functioning reactors were being shut down brings to four the number of reactors that nuclear utilities have slated for closure since last November. Meanwhile, nuclear utilities have three new reactors on the drawing boards.
At least for now, “we’re losing them faster than we’re building them,” quips David Lochbaum, a nuclear engineer by training who focuses on nuclear-energy issues at the Union of Concerned Scientists in Washington…..
n early May, the utility Dominion shuttered its single-reactor Kewaunee nuclear plant in Carleton, Wis., a casualty of cheaper sources of electricity and an inability to build additional reactors to take advantage of what the company called economies of scale.
“Nuclear economics is tenuous at best,” Mr. Lochbaum says. “If you do everything right, you can make money at this. But if you stumble, there’s a big price to pay, and not just from a Fukushima-type tragedy.”
Financial setbacks can take their toll as well, he says, whether a setback comes from lost business or from hardware failures or human error that sets the stage for costly repairs……..
What looked to the utility to be a sensible $780 million investment in 2009 and ’10 to extend the lifetime of the two reactors turned into an economic albatross, Continue reading
Heavy illness price paid by indigenous people in uranium mining
A few decades after uranium mining began in the Navajo Nation, increased numbers of cancer cases, lung cancer in particular, began to show up in the miners. A 2008 literature review in New Mexico found that the “Risk of lung cancer among male Navajo uranium miners was 28 times higher than in Navajo men who never mined, and two-thirds of all new lung cancer cases in Navajo men between 1969 and 1993 was attributable to a single exposure — underground uranium mining. Through 1990, death rates among Navajo uranium miners were 3.3 times greater than the U.S. average for lung cancer and 2.5 times greater for pneumoconioses and silicosis.”
America’s “Secret Fukushima”: Uranium Mining is Poisoning the Bread Basket of the World By Margaret Flowers and Kevin Zeese Global Research, June 07, 2013 Truthout
“……..Thousands of open uranium mines excavated beginning in the 1950s continues to release radiation today. There have been inadequate measurements but the limited measures done show ongoing leaks larger than Fukushima. How did we get here?
It is estimated that 60 to 80 percent of uranium in the US is located on tribal land, particularly in the lands of the Navajo and Great Sioux Nations. After WWII, the United States Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) was created so that the US could obtain uranium for weapons production domestically. The AEC guaranteed that it would purchase all uranium that was mined. A uranium boom ensued. Private corporations jumped in and, in areas of South Dakota, individuals started mining for uranium on their private lands unaware of the dangers.
Private corporations set up thousands of underground and open pit uranium mines on tribal lands and hired local native Indians at low wages. Other than jobs, the uranium mines brought little benefit to these nations because the lands were given to non-Indian companies such as Kerr-McGee, Atlantic Richfield, Exxon and Mobil. Native Indians had little control over what took place. Continue reading
VIDEO: Global effect of Fukushima radiation
Title: Fighting a dragon I cannot see
Source: Fairewinds Energy Education
Date: June 5, 2013
Nathaniel White-Joyal, Host: It’s clear that the west coast of the United States will be affected by the radiation from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant.
Akio Matsumura, Diplomat: Let me clarify. We are facing global disaster — catastrophe — occurring. From that perspective, over 40 years, 50 years, or maybe 100 years. We cannot escape from this fact. For that we have to keep in mind. […] This radioactive material, or contaminated water, any cases, reach out to your west coast as well. If you are counting on Japan, I can assure you now they do not take serious action.
Watch the video here
Cameco’s Australian uranium project in doubt, with 4 year record low price
Spot Uranium Falls Below $40/Pound Benchmark for First Time in Four Years http://uraniuminvestingnews.com/14766/spot-uranium-falls-below-40pound-benchmark-for-first-time-in-four-years.html June 7, 2013,The West Australian reported that spot uranium prices fell to below $40/pound for the first time since August 2009, placing pressure on uranium explorers.
As quoted in the market report:
A hearty increase in the spot price is needed to force WA’s fledgling uranium sector into first gear, with Canadian giant Cameco indicating a price of more than $70/lb is needed before it can give the green light to its massive Yeelirrie or Kintyre deposits.
Japan and France in a marketing frenzy to sell nuclear technology
Hollande is on a three-day visit to Tokyo accompanied by several cabinet ministers and 
more than 30 executives, including the head of France’s nuclear energy giant Areva, Luc Oursel.
As well as agreeing to boost the exports of nuclear technology, Tokyo and Paris confirmed plans to cooperate on Japan’s troubled nuclear spent fuel reprocessing and fast-breeder projects,
France, Japan join forces for larger share of nuclear market http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/06/07/us-japan-france-nuclear-idUSBRE9560C720130607 By Antoni Slodkowski TOKYOJun 7, 2013 Japan and France on Friday agreed to boost nuclear cooperation to secure a larger share of global atomic energy markets as Tokyo’s pro-nuclear government looks to restart reactors despite public unease in the wake of the Fukushima disaster. Continue reading
Candidates for Iran’s Presidential election in dispute over nuclear issue
Iranian Candidates Quarrel Over Nuclear Talks By ALI AKBAR DAREINI Associated Press TEHRAN, Iran June 7, 2013 (AP) Iran’s eight presidential candidates quarreled about talks with world powers over the country’s disputed nuclear program Friday as they held their final televised debate ahead of next week’s election.
Iran’s president does not have control of central issues like nuclear development policy but does generally enjoy a close relationship with Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei that can prove influential. The issue also has come to the fore as the Islamic Republic’s ailing economy has emerged as a major focus of campaigning ahead of the June 14 vote…… http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/iran-presidential-candidates-debate-nuclear-talks-19349438#.UbOr5edwo6I
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