Why would the Western authorities allow a country like Turkey to have nuclear plants?
Because it can trap such a nation under secret deals of the colluding powers, expanding and stabilizing their profit-oriented status quo guaranteed by the magic words “national security”
By Hiroyuki Hamada 17 April 14 I don’t understand why people are not talking about this but here it goes. Japan has been working hard to export nuclear plants. That’s odd, right? After what happened in Fukushima? I mean who would want it? And if you want it, would you get it from Japan?
Here is an interesting fact. Japan has accumulated at least 4000 nuclear warheads’ worth of plutonium, and in fact, it used to export plutonium to England where it was used to make nuclear weapons (1). And that is actually an enormous feat for a nation with a peace constitution that bans wars as a means of conflict resolution, and for a nation with multiple regulations guarding against exporting weapons, which of course stipulate anything nuclear as a big no. What I’m trying to say is that Japan has been very very dishonest about its nuclear policies. The numbers and the facts, which have become available after the accident, state that the nuclear energy has not been as efficient as what has been claimed, while the safety measures and potential risks have not been the primary concerns. In fact some of us now believe that the primary reason why Japan acquired nuclear energy at the first place was to acquire bomb- making capability, along with the lucrative deals guaranteed by the western nuclear authorities (2).
Last year, one of the Japanese parliament members demanded detailed info regarding the export of the nuclear plant to Vietnam. Many of us were stunned to see the disclosed papers completely filled with black rectangles, the contents were pretty much all censored due to national-security concerns (3).
Now, why would anyone want a nuclear plant from Japan? Continue reading →
Iran slashes nuclear stock, says UN http://www.skynews.com.au/world/article.aspx?id=968784 April 18, 2014 Iran has cut its stock of highly-enriched uranium by 75 per cent, a new report by the UN’s nuclear watchdog has revealed.
The monthly update by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) showed Tehran remained in compliance with a November interim deal made with world powers, drawn up as part of efforts to find a lasting solution to Iran’s controversial nuclear drive.
Under the agreement, Iran pledged to ‘dilute’ half of its highly-enriched uranium by mid-April, with the rest to be converted by mid-July.
The IAEA report also said that progress on a plant in Tehran that will be used for the conversion of low-enriched uranium had been delayed, but that Iran had said this will not prevent it from fulfilling its part of the deal by the July 20 deadline.
Diplomats who saw the document told AFP everything was in order.
The international community was ‘keeping an eye’ on progress at the conversion plant in Tehran, one of the diplomats added.
Under the November deal, Iran agreed to freeze parts of its nuclear activities, including limiting enrichment. Enriching uranium can be part of a peaceful atomic drive but can also produce weapons-grade material for a bomb.
Tehran has consistently said its nuclear program is for civilian purposes only, while the West believes it has a military dimension.
Iran and six world powers – the US, Russia, China, Britain, France and Germany — will next meet on May 13 in a bid to draw up a lasting accord and end the decade-old standoff over Iran’s nuclear program.
Clean energy: Is a boom coming in 2014?, Christian Science Monitor, 16 April 14Clean energy is off to a strong start in 2014, with global investment rising as prices for wind and solar power continue to drop. Renewables still hold a small share of total energy mixes, but clean-energy growth is picking up momentum.
By David J. Unger, Staff writer / April 16, 2014 he first quarter of 2014 may ease any worries about clean energy’s future. After two years of annual declines, investments in clean energy worldwide jumped 9 percent year-over-year in the first quarter of 2014, according to data released Wednesday by Bloomberg New Energy Finance (BNEF), a London-based energy analysis firm. Solar power led the way with a 23 percent increase, more than offsetting a 16 percent decline in wind power. All told, investors spent $47.7 billion on renewables and energy efficiency in the first three months of this year.
Global investment in renewable energy is up, technology costs continue to drop precipitously, and markets are expanding into emerging economies in Asia, the Middle East, and Africa. The industry still has a long way to go, and many say a shift to cleaner energy is happening too slowly to offset the downsides of carbon-heavy fuels. Even so, the broad, global outlook for renewables is bright, and deployment of the technology verges on rapid acceleration.
It is too early to say definitively that 2013 was the low point for clean energy investment worldwide and that 2014 will show a rebound, but the first-quarter numbers are encouraging,” Michael Liebreich, chairman of the advisory board for Bloomberg New Energy Finance, said in a statement Wednesday.
The bulk of the gains came in the form of small-scale solar installations, like residential rooftop solar panels. It suggests that falling prices and new financing options are quickly eroding the barriers to entry that long discouraged consumers from home solar. The cost of a rooftop solar array has dropped from nearly $7 per watt in 2008 to $4 or less in 2013, according to an April report by McKinsey & Company, a global consulting firm.
Clean-energy growth isn’t limited to the world’s developed economies. Brazil saw the biggest investment gain, jumping 211 percent year-over-year to $1.3 billion in the first quarter of 2014, according to BNEF. Investment grew 82 percent to $2.4 billion in the Middle East and Africa.
Thorpe St Andrew nuclear test veteran speaks of defect fears, after PM gives hope to families, Norwich Evening News 24, 17 April 14
“………Veterans say they were made ill as a result of being exposed to radiation during the tests, and have been battling for recognition and compensation for years.
Fewer than 3,000 veterans survive and while welcoming Mr Cameron’s pledge, Mr Freeman said: “We are concerned it’s just an election ploy. Tony Blair said something similar in opposition, then did nothing when he was elected.”
Mr Freeman, a father-of-three and grandfather-of-eight, said his ninth grandchild was expected next month, but added: “I’ve got grandchildren who suffer from deafness and one was born with one kidney. With another grandchild due, we are all worried that everything is going to be OK, as you can never tell.”
Nuclear test campaigners say Mr Cameron’s pledge is the closest they have been to formal recognition of the suffering caused by the South Pacific explosions. The meeting between Mr Cameron and Tory MP John Baron last week was the first time the veterans had their case put forward to any prime minister.
Mr Baron, patron of the British Nuclear Test Veterans’ Association, told the PM descendants had 10 times the normal rate of birth defects, their wives had elevated rates of miscarriage, and no other veterans’ group had suffered harm which spread down the generations. France, the US, Australia, New Zealand, Russia, China and even the Isle of Man recognise and compensate test veterans. The MoD has always insisted no harm befell the men.
President Obama will challenge companies Thursday to expand their use of solar power, part of his ongoing effort to leverage the power of his office to achieve goals that have been stymied by Congress. The new initiative comes as the White House is hosting a Solar Summit aimed at highlighting successful efforts on the local level to speed the deployment of solar energy…….
“Now is the time for solar,” said Anya Schoolman, executive director of theCommunity Power Network, a Washington-based nonprofit group that helps communities build renewable energy projects. She will be honored at the summit Thursday.
“The costs are affordable, in reach of middle America and above. We know how to do it now, we know how to scale it, and we kind of just need people to let it go and encourage it,” she said.
In an effort to make it easier for state, local and tribal governments to expand their solar portfolios, the Energy Department is launching a $15 million-dollar “Solar Market Pathways” program………
States are starting novel ways to help commercial tenants access solar energy. In Connecticut, the state set up a green bank with taxpayer dollars. When a building owner wants to access capital for solar projects, the state puts a tax lien on the building and gives the owner a loan that must be paid back over 20 years, said Jessica Bailey of theConnecticut Clean Energy Finance and Investment Authority.…
Rhone Resch, president and chief executive of the Solar Energy Industries Association, a trade group, said solar is no longer an “afterthought” in the renewable energy conversation, accounting for nearly 30 percent of new electric in 2013.
Breakthrough could help solve solar power’s biggest problem: Power generation at night Extreme Tech, By Joel Hruska on April 16, 2014
One of the most fundamental barriers to the widespread adoption of renewable energy has been the inconvenient truth of planetary rotation. Solar power has advanced enormously over the past few decades but panel efficiency and solar concentration plants are of limited assistance when Apollo is busy elsewhere on the Earth. Now, researchers think they’ve found a partial solution to that problem by combining the known properties of one substance with everyone’s favorite technological advance: carbon nanotubes……….
What’s needed is a simple method of converting energy gathered during the day into a resource that can be tapped at night — and Timothy Kucharski, a post-doc at MIT and Harvard, thinks his team has found it.
Of photoswitches and nanotubes
Kucharski’s work is based on the well-known properties of azobenzenes. These are molecules, dubbed photoswitches, that have one particular molecular configuration by default but, when struck by certain frequencies of ultraviolet light, assume a new configuration, as shown below. (diagrams) ……..
The goal would be to create a short-term thermal battery that could be used to power a stove or other heat sources during the night after charging all day. A gravity system would be simple, with few moving parts. The long-term goal is to create a system that could be used to provide thermal power for entire buildings and to further increase efficiency.
Lawyer Yoshiro Yabe’s tweets persistently slandering others including me after ETHOS leader’s criminal accusation. He is a supporter of ETHOS leader Ms. Ryoko Ando and implies further accusation against me including imposing me to pay considerable amount of compensation fees.
“The Lawyer Yuichi Kaido, the former Secretary General of Japan Federation of Bar Associations, who made Monju Nishimura Case as a civil case though Nishimura’s medical record shows that he was killed instead of committing suicide as the police report said.”
＊＊＊＊＊＊＊＊＊＊＊＊＊＊＊＊＊＊＊＊＊＊ On March 26, I got a swift reply from Japan Federation of Bar Association, only one day after I gave them my open questions.
As I suspected, JFBA didn’t answer my question in their e-mail which is strangely unreliable situation. The e-mail is below.
Dear Ms. Takenouchi
I read your e-mail.
JFBA cannot express our views on individual issues or individual lawyers’ activities. We would appreciate your understanding.
Japan Federation of Bar Associations
＊＊＊＊＊＊＊＊＊＊ Takenouchi’s mail to JFBA
Please excuse me for writing this so suddenly.
My name is Mari Takenouchi, I am a freelance journalist/translator who has a 4 year old boy, I am a single mother who investigates anti-nuke/anti-radiation exposure issues.
At the end of January 2014, I was notified by Fukushima Prefectural police that I was being accused for “criminal contempt” by the leader of the Fukushima ETHOS group, Ms. Ryoko Ando. In February, 3 policemen flew to Okinawa from Fukushima, and made some investigations at my house and questioned me at the police station.
Concerning this news, Reporters Without Boarders covered the article as an international news item on March 11, 2014, some three years after the Fukushima nuclear accident.
Also, I have been harassed and intimidated on the internet by many people before and after the criminal accusation.
I have the following 3 questions for both the Japan Federation of Bar Associations and Kyoto Lawyers’ Society. I would be very appreciative if you could reply back to me at mariscontact@gmail.com by Friday, April 4th, 2014.
Best regards,
Mari Takenouchi, freelance journalist, translator 1: Persistant harrassement by Lawyer Yoshiro Yabe
I have been harassed by lawyer Yoshiro Yabe @motoken_tw in various ways in a quite persist way on the internet. When I collected the petition not to indict me and presented it to the Fukushima Local Prosecutors’ Office, Mr. Yabe insisted the petition was not valid and disseminated his statement a number of times. Recently, when I put my mother’s letter on my blog http://savekidsjapan.blogspot.jp/2014/03/further-legal-case-against-takenouchi.html, he said,
Takenouchi’s mother who said, “Can you take responsibility if something happened to my only daugthter and my only grandson? could be regarded as a threat”
As a matter of fact, Mr. Yabe’s remark seems to a threat against my mother.
When I said so on my twitter, surprisingly, Mr. Yabe said, “That is a defamation against me. Why don’t we accuse each other one time?” He is disseminating such a threatening tweet against me!!
Furthermore, though I have repeatedly asked him not to obstruct me since his deeds have been inflicting tremendous hurt for me, he never stopped and continued his harassment.
On the other hand, Mr. Yabe is an obvious supporter of Ms. Ryoko Ando, who raised the controversy by saying, “Why don’t we drop the argument saying, “Life is important”? Mr. Yabe protected her controversial statement in the following.
As Japan Federation of Bar Associations, and Kyoto Lawyers’ Society, what do you think of the attitudes of Lawyer Yoshiro Yabe?
As a single mother who is under criminal accusation, his remarks themselves sound like threats to me. He has been imposing tremendous mental hurt if he was to actually file a lawsuit against me, my life and my 4 year old boy’s life could be devastated.
I would be very appreciative if Japan Federation of Bar Associations and Kyoto Lawyers’ Society could give Mr. Yoshiro Yabe some recommendation.
Please let me know if that is possible or not.
PS. After I put up this blog page, Mr. Yoshiro Yabe tweeted the following, implying that he will make tremendous amount of compensation money from me.
The title speaks for itself! and the screenshots speak volumes. Also Peace News is being blocked – please like Peace News on Facebook to overcome the censorship – here is there link for a beleagured Peace news ; https://www.facebook.com/pages/Peace-News/278904385459229?fref=ts , also, Google in Ireland is filtered to stop bad news for the nuclear industry, so use meta crawler or Start Page
Vote with your feet – And let google know you are not happy!
Torbrowser is worth the effort as well (I will post instructions as i get more familiar with it)
Fukushima accident mentioned in only 1 elementary school science textbook
Only one of the six science textbooks approved for use at elementary schools from the next academic year covers the issue of the Fukushima nuclear accident triggered by the 2011 earthquake and tsunami disaster.
The textbooks are the first to be screened and approved by the education ministry since the triple meltdown at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant. The results of the screening were announced April 4.
Five of the six publishers considered taking up the topic, but four eventually gave up. This was mainly because the word “atom” is not included in the education ministry’s curriculum guidelines for science in elementary school, making teaching how a nuclear plant works even harder than it is.
An editor at one publisher also said, “We could not deal with the issue negatively when our textbook is used in some municipalities hosting a nuclear plant.”
Even the science textbook from Dainippon Tosho Publishing Co., the only one that covers the accident, simply wrote: “The earthquake off the Pacific coast of the Tohoku region triggered an accident at a nuclear power plant.” The textbook mentioned effective use of resources as a lesson from the accident.
One publisher, though, tried hard to include an analysis of radiation in its science textbook for sixth graders.
“(Radiation) is an issue we will face for years,” said Takahiro Yano, editor in chief of the elementary school science textbooks division at Gakko Tosho Co. “We thought that if it is a science textbook, the issue should be included.”
But as the word “radiation” is also not included in the guidelines, publishers cannot take up the issue directly.
Under the circumstances, Gakko Tosho tried to include an explanation of radiation at the bottom of a one-page column on the life of Marie Curie, a Polish-born physicist and chemist who conducted pioneering research on radiation.
The publisher tried to relate the column with the guidelines and included two lines on a water solution–which is taught under the guidelines for sixth-graders–because Curie used a water solution in her study.
However, the textbook failed to pass the ministry’s screening.
“There is no appropriate relation with the curriculum guidelines,” the education ministry’s comment said.
The publisher finally gave up on including the column after repeated discussions did not change the ministry’s view.
Our doctors are worried about your health―in fact, about your very survival.
No, they’re not necessarily your own personal physicians, but, rather, medical doctors around the world, represented by groups like International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War (IPPNW). As you might recall, that organization, composed of many thousands of medical professionals from all across the globe, won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1985 for exposing the catastrophic effects of nuclear weapons.
The problem, as a new IPPNW report indicates, is that the world is showing growing symptoms of a terminal illness. In a nuclear war involving as few as 100 weapons anywhere in the world, the report noted, the global climate and agricultural production would be affected so severely that the lives of more than 2 billion people would be in jeopardy. Even the use of the relatively small nuclear arsenals of India and Pakistan could cause terrible, long lasting damage to the Earth’s ecosystems. The ensuing economic collapse and massive starvation would throw the world into chaos.
And this is just a small portion of the looming nuclear catastrophe.
Today, some 17,300 nuclear weapons remain in the arsenals of nine nations, and their use would not only dramatically exacerbate climate disruption, but would create almost unbelievable horrors caused by their enormous blast, immense firestorms, and radioactive contamination.
The International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN), founded by IPPNW in 2007, reports that a single nuclear weapon, detonated over a large city, “could kill millions of people in an instant.” Subsequently, many additional people would die of burns and other injuries, disease, and cancer.
Residents of the United States and Russia, two nations currently engaged in an international brawl, might be particularly interested in the fact that their countries possess over 16,000 nuclear weapons. About 2,000 of them on hair-trigger alert, ready for use within minutes. According to the ICAN report, if only 500 of these weapons were to hit major U.S. and Russian cities, “100 million people would die in the first half an hour, and tens of millions would be fatally injured. Huge swaths of both countries would be blanketed by radioactive fallout.” Furthermore, “most Americans and Russians would die in the following months from radiation sickness and disease epidemics.”
Letter from Sir Tony Cunningham MP for Workington following over 100 letters from constituents.
“Thank you for your letter dated 26th march together with letters from constituents and visitors to Workington regarding the non prosecution of landfill operators FCC following the prosecution of Sellafield for “illegally dumping three bags of low level and one bag of intermediate level waste into Lillyhall landfill”.
I have written to the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change on this issue and will be back in touch once a reply is received.
Jon Doe Our man in Japan breaks down the abuses of the homeless, disabled, drug addicts and the financially desperate working at the Fukushima Daichi nuclear disaster site.
Published on 16 Apr 2014
TEPCO`s shady firing practices and lack of willingness to do anything in a proper manner strikes again.
OPG, Westinghouse forge nuclear alliance OPG and Westinghouse will join forces to bid for nuclear projects around the globe Toronto Star, By:John SpearsBusiness reporter, Apr 16 2014
Ontario Power Generation will join forces with Westinghouse to bid for nuclear projects around the globe, the companies announced Wednesday.
The news comes the same week that the Ontario government set up a panel headed by TD Bank chairman Ed Clark to consider privatization – or other strategies – for provincial assets.
OPG is 100 per cent owned by the province.
“Under the agreement, the companies will consider a diversity of nuclear projects including refurbishment, maintenance and outage services, decommissioning and remediation of existing nuclear power plants, and new nuclear power plants,” OPG said a release.
The study, covering the city of Tamura and the villages of Kawauchi and Iitate, showed that the radiation level in many areas is still beyond 1 millisievert per year — a level the government is seeking to achieve at contaminated lands in the long term.
The government lifted an evacuation order imposed on the Miyakoji district in Tamura on April 1, but the content of the interim report, compiled in October, was not conveyed to the citizens or the local governments before the action was taken.
The government explained the content to local governments later, while the report was posted on the website of the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry on Monday. It also plans to release a final report on Friday. A government team tasked with supporting people affected by the crisis said it did not initially plan to release the interim report but decided to make it public because of the “high attention among residents.”
The team decided to conduct the radiation level study at 43 points in Tamura, Kawauchi and Iitate last July, hoping to address concerns among evacuees seeking to return to their homes.
The study showed that radiation levels measured by individual dosimeters tend to be about 70 percent of those estimated from air dose. Twenty-seven points were also found to be above 1 millisievert per year.
The outcome has raised concerns among the residents that have already returned to their homes.
A 65-year-old man living at his home in the Miyakoji district said, “It was premature to lift the evacuation order. We’ve been deceived.”
The 20-kilometer radius of the Fukushima plant and some areas beyond have been subject to evacuation orders in the wake of the nuclear crisis that began in March 2011.
The Miyakoji district became the first area excluded from the 20-km zone following decontamination and infrastructure restoration efforts.
It’s OK to Support Nuclear Power and Still Enjoy a Movie Now and Then Bloomberg, By Eric Roston Apr 15, 2014The nuclear power industry received a springtime Christmas present this week.
The world’s authoritative climate science group Sunday threw its arms around nuclear energy, among others, as a future source for powering economies. The industry’s share of global electricity generation has been falling since 1993.
The report, from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, emboldens proponents of nuclear energy, who tend to talk it up no matter what the issue is at hand.
Take the op-ed in last week’s New York Times, “Global Warming Scare Tactics,” by the founders of the energy and environment research group, the Breakthrough Institute. Ted Nordhaus and Michael Shellenberger dress up a pro-nuclear argument as criticism of a new, nine-part documentary series about climate change.
The piece reads as if, say, when someone sneezes, the authors say gesundheit and then make the case for nuclear power…..
nuclear-news 