Fukushima nuclear reactor No.4 and the current state of cleanup
The status of Fukushima – robinwesternra blogspot Here is a good summing up of the status of Fukushima from Mike Ruppert –
……. There are just too many conflicting stories and a lot of fresh propaganda and lies trying to convince the imprisoned, slow campers that everything is under control. There’s obviously fraudulent and misleading video and reportage that turns the stomach. The intensity of the propaganda push signals that something big is happening soon.
On the other hand we have clear, compelling, redundant, well-sourced information and documentation that the following is true:
— GE and the US government are withholding any tech support or physical assistance for Japan until Japan agrees to hold GE harmless for all liability, and that all liability rests with TEPCO. GE designed the reactors and the site, including removal of more than 100 feet of cliff height which would have prevented the meltdowns. GE built the reactors with horrendous design flaws and reportedly still owns them. TEPCO is only the operator.
— ….— As of this moment my understanding is that Japan, TEPCO, and the Yakuza are completely on their own. It has been abundantly documented on many occasions over the last 2.5 years that these guys do not even remotely possess the skill sets necessary to even attempt to deal with this crisis.
My gut still says that if there is the slightest bit of sanity anywhere, the attempt will not be made. Yet the fact remains that this leaves all life awaiting the next earthquake, tsunami, typhoon, butterfly effect… or the absolute certainty that at some point the saturated ground under the plant will give way and bring the tottering Bldg 4 to the ground, the fuel assemblies with it. Perhaps one of the cooling towers that have broken loose from it moorings will fall into Bldg 4. Perhaps many of the tanks will rupture, multiplying the already astronomical amounts of radiation being released daily…
But most certainly the genocide of the Pacific Ocean will continue apace — as it has for 2.5 years — as both atmospheric and water-borne radiation levels continue to soar and set records.
In any event, the outcome looks the same from all directions.
That’s where we are……..http://robinwestenra.blogspot.com.au/2013/11/the-status-of-fukushima-11072013.html
Women’s part, or lack of it, in nuclear industry decisions – theme for May 2014
Decisions on nuclear power, nuclear weapons, nuclear wastes are almost exclusively made by men.Yet the brunt of nuclear-caused cancer is suffered by women and children, as is the brunt of nuclear war, and of depleted uranium spread.
Opinion polls over many years, and in many countries, consistently show that women are opposed to nuclear power and nuclear weapons.
More women than men are concerned about health and environmental effects of the nuclear industry.
Yet they are consistently reassured by narrowly educated nuclear physicists, and other technocrats, that nuclear power is safe, and that they have nothing to worry about in regard to ionising radiation.
Decisions on nuclear power and ionising radiation. The nuclear power heirarchy is almost uniformly male, though the nuclear lobby tries hard to pretend that they have equal rights credentials by getting a few token women to show off. And, a favourite male trick, – put a woman in an untenable position .
A good example would be Maria Korsnick, who was made Chief Nuclear Officer, by Exelon Nuclear – the poisoned chalice given to a woman in these troubled times for the industry?
Conservative financier stresses energy security importance of renewable energy
Guy Hands: Ukraine crisis underlines importance of UK renewable energy http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/may/12/guy-hands-calls-for-government-action-on-renewable-energy
Guy Hands, one of the City’s most flamboyant deal-makers, warns on Monday that the Ukraine crisis has underlined the importance of the UK’s renewable energy sector, and attacks those wanting to phase out onshore wind subsidies.
The financier, who has close links to the Conservative party, says energy security cannot be achieved by markets alone and that the government needs to play a decisive role. “We should be grateful to President Putin for bringing energy security back to the top of the political agenda inEurope. But it is up to us to ensure we understand and act on the long-term threat. And that is certainly not by turning our backs on renewable energy, no matter how persistent or loud the voices against it,” Hands argues in an article on the Guardian website.
The intervention by Hands, who runs the Terra Firma private equity firm, comes at a time when instability in Crimea has been used as a major argument in favour of shale gas – most notably by a House of Lords committee last week.
Hands, whose best man at his wedding was the foreign secretary, William Hague, expresses astonishment that there has been speculation the Tory election manifesto could contain a commitment to end financial help for onshore wind, given it is the “most affordable” of all green power technologies.
Hands’s Terra Firma invests in onshore wind but also landfill gas and other green schemes through a business called Infinis. The financier said Vladimir Putin’s actions in Crimea had done Britain an indirect favour by putting energy security at the top of the agenda. “We have a large industry of successful and enterprising renewable energy businesses which are ready to rise to the challenge of powering homes and businesses from clean and sustainable sources. But politicians are being pressed by a coalition of opponents of renewable energy to ignore this potential.”
He argues that the subsidy debate has been dominated by those who believe energy is a market like any other, and that all efforts should be focused on prices.
“This is nonsense. Energy is not just another commodity but the lifeblood of an economy. No responsible government can step away from a market which is at the heart of a nation’s security and prosperity. Security of supply as well as affordability are critical. So too are environmental impact and public acceptance.”
Radiation -linked cancers increased around Pilgrim Nuclear Plant
Study: Increase in radiation-linked cancers around Pilgrim “Tobacco Science” versus fact CAPE COD TODAY, OP ED | MAY 10, 2014 BY MARY LAMPERT, PILGRIM WATCH.
Industries that can harm the public have “tobacco scientists” and lobbyists to promote their message. The Pilgrim Nuclear plant is 
no exception, and denies the pattern of radiation-linked cancers and disease around it.
Pilgrim’s spin doctors choose to rely on fiction, not facts. We rely on the National Academies (our nation’s premier scientists). The National Academies’ latest report said there is no safe dose of radiation and that exposure to even very low levels of radiation is three times more dangerous than previously expected – and more so for children and women. We rely also on statistics from the Massachusetts Cancer Registry. In 1982 it began recording data showing a continued increase in radiation-linked cancers in communities around Pilgrim.
A review of Massachusetts Cancer Registry data shows that Plymouth (from 2002-2009) has a statistically significant increased level of leukemia, at a 95% probability level. This means that there is, at most, a 5% chance that the difference between the observed and expected cases of leukemia is due to chance. There also is a statistically significant increased level of prostate cancer, another radiation linked disease.
For the previous two decades, the Massachusetts Cancer Registry shows the “footprints” of radiation linked disease (leukemia, thyroid cancer, multiple myeloma and prostate cancer) in the seven towns most likely to be impacted by Pilgrim – Carver, Duxbury, Kingston, Marshfield, Pembroke, Plymouth, and Plympton. The Cape is downwind from Pilgrim much of the year. It, along with southeastern Massachusetts, has the highest cancer rates in the state. There has not yet been a study to determine if radiation emissions from Pilgrim are the missing variable to explain the high cancer rates there.
A major case-control study by the Massachusetts Department of Public Health in 1990 (MDPH) found a four-fold increase in adult leukemia the closer one lived to or if one worked at Pilgrim. Pilgrim did not like the results and cut a political deal allowing it to appoint a second peer review panel to re-review the study and write a report. Even Pilgrim’s hand-picked panel concluded that, “The original study team adhered to generally accepted epidemiological principles… [And] …the findings of the study cannot be readily dismissed on the basis of methodological errors or proven biases… [and last]…the association found between leukemia and proximity to the Pilgrim nuclear facility was unexpectedly strong.” http://www.capecodtoday.com/article/2014/05/10/25347-study-increase-radiation-linked-cancers-around-pilgrim
Pro nuclear shills like James Lovelock have brought about deep general distrust
Our Nuclear Menace – Just as Darwin Would Have Predicted Andrew McKillop MAY 6, 2014 BY 21WIRE Revenge of Gaia The Nuclear Lobby can be squarely accused of bringing Hell down on itself. Ambassador Richard H. Jones, the deputy director of the International Energy Agency, for some while before the Fukushima disaster of March 2011, when addressing major conferences, would systematically hand out free copies of books authored by “the co-inventor of Gaia”, Britain’s greenist priest, James Lovelock – who has made a name for himself in recent years as a shameless shill for the nuclear power industry.Before 2011, Lovelock’s nuclear pitch and extreme exaggeration of global warming theory were major money-spinners for himself………The fundamental problem with nuclear is this: when it goes wrong, there is no “fix it” measure, and almost no change of mitigation, other that migrating away from ground zero. Lovelock does not like talking about this elephant in the room at all, and it’s not great for book sales (trust me on that).
The fantasy claim that nuclear power is “cheap” cannot resist these real world facts……..Industry Lobby: ‘Trust us – you know we’re lying’
The Nuclear Lobby – fighting a losing battle and probably its last – has played on themes that ultimately trace to distrust both in people and nature. By repeatedly distorting, and often lying, the Lobby has reinforced distrust of other human beings and intensified the fear-based desire of going through life avoiding all risk, just keeping the status quo alive, defending supposed stability and the Natural Order of Society. Peddling the fear of disaster – for the climate and the economy – the Lobby has made people more fearful of nuclear risk, accident, and radioactive contamination of the environment, the food chain and the atmosphere. Not less fearful………
New Mexico nuclear waste facility will not fully re-open for years
DOE: Could be 3 years to fully reopen NM nuke dump LAKE WYLIE PILOT, BY SUSAN MONTOYA BRYAN Associated PressMay 8, 2014 ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — The head of the recovery effort at the federal government’s nuclear waste repository in southern New Mexico said Thursday it could be up to three years before full operations resume at the underground facility.
Recovery manager Jim Blankenhorn made the announcement when answering questions from the public during a weekly meeting in Carlsbad. He said the timeline continues to be a moving target, but full operations are expected to resume no earlier than 18 months from now.
Crews continue investigating the cause of a radiation release at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant near Carlsbad that exposed some workers and halted operations in February……..
Los Alamos is under a tight deadline to get the plutonium-contaminated waste off its northern New Mexico campus before wildfire season peaks. The state of New Mexico pressured the lab to hasten the cleanup after a massive wildfire in 2011 lapped at the edges of lab property.
Lab Director Charlie McMillan said Thursday during a news conference in Albuquerque that the recent developments “are very much a cause for concern.” But he said it was too soon to tell if they will have any effect on the lab’s ability to meet the state’s deadline. http://www.lakewyliepilot.com/2014/05/08/2418188/doe-could-be-3-years-to-fully.html
The terminal decline of the nuclear industry is becoming apparent
Our Nuclear Menace – Just as Darwin Would Have Predicted Andrew McKillop MAY 6, 2014 BY 21WIRE The Dark Enlightenment
The nuclear enlightenment has shredded the claims that nuclear power is “clean cheap and safe”. The most nuclear-intensive country in the world for power production, France, from 2013, has set a yearly rise of power prices of 10% for at least the next 3 years, probably continued after 2017, in an attempt to start paying the economic damage from its nuclear binge. France’s official CPI is about 1.5% annual, meaning that power prices will rise at 7 times the official inflation rate.
As many as 25 of its 60-strong reactor fleet, simply due to age, will have to start being decommissioned through 2025-2040. The cost estimates for this are unsure, but the French General Accounting Office (Cour des Comptes) in Jan 2012 estimated about 3.8 billion euros for each NPP – and the French government is now trying to amass a decommissioning and dismantling fund. Inevitably this will mean further decline of power-intensive industries and fuel poverty.
The Fukushima disaster of 2011 in Japan has had a wide number of estimates for its total costs through the next 15 – 20 years, running to a consensus average around $150 – $175 billion, and that cost will surely increase as every year of inaction passes by.
Total accumulated costs from the Chernobyl disaster of 1986, to date, for the governments of Ukraine, Belarus and Russia are placed in the region of at least $350 billion by sources including the UN Economic Commission for Europe (ECE).
Germany’s nuclear industry fights to make tax-payers pay for cleanup
German utilities and government clash over nuclear ‘bad bank’ By Jeevan Vasagar in Berlin http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/49c5b222-d926-11e3-837f-00144feabdc0.html#axzz31XFPjIHH 11 May 14,
Germany’s nuclear industry is fighting Berlin over a plan to transfer the risks of shutting down facilities to a publicly owned foundation that would act as a “bad bank”.
The power companies are engaged in a decommissioning exercise with an estimated cost of more than €30bn after Berlin announced an accelerated exit from nuclear energy following the Fukushima disaster in 2011. The work includes demolishing nuclear plants and disposing of radioactive waste.
German utilities Eon, RWE and EnBW have discussed the creation of a state-owned foundation to oversee the decommissioning process. Under their plan, the utilities would transfer to the foundation billions of euros in reserves that they have built up to pay for demolition and disposal. In return, the German government would shoulder the risk for any cost overruns.
But that proposal, first reported in Der Spiegel on Sunday, was rejected by German environment minister Barbara Hendricks. She said: “The full responsibility for the safe phasing out, closure, decommissioning and interim storage of nuclear waste lies with the energy companies.”
One German energy executive said on Sunday that while the idea had been discussed, there were no concrete plans. Eon, RWE and EnBW all declined to comment.
The proposal is the latest sign of strain between Berlin and utilities, which have clashed in the courts over the closure of nuclear plants and the validity of a nuclear fuel tax.
The fight comes at a time when German power companies are struggling because the favourable treatment given to renewable energy has battered the profitability of their conventional electricity plants.
The country’s seven oldest nuclear plants were all taken offline immediately after the Japanese disaster, while an eighth plant that was offline at the time stayed shut: the remaining nine are to be closed down by 2022.
Eon said in March that it intended to shut the Grafenrheinfeld nuclear plant in Bavaria seven months before schedule because of its lack of profitability.
That plant, in a state that is home to some of Germany’s most successful manufacturers, will now close in May 2015.
Berlin’s abrupt decision to phase out nuclear energy represented a U-turn on a 2010 deal to extend the lives of nuclear plants. The companies agreed, in that deal, to a tax on nuclear fuel, which was introduced at the start of 2011 – and remains in place, despite the change of policy.
A court in Hamburg ruled in April that the German state should repay more than €2.2bn in nuclear fuel taxes to the utilities.
However, this decision is not legally binding and the case has been referred to the European Court of Justice.
RWE is pursuing a civil claim for damages over the decision by the state government of Hesse to order the closure of the Biblis nuclear power plant after Fukushima.
World is waking up to the decline of the nuclear industr, despite the pro nuclear mainstream media
junk version of Darwinism to sell the same products. Tainted strongly by Lysenkoism – not Darwinism, the new Darwinist Theory of Nuclear Power is that a bit of radiation does you good because your tail feathers will be high in antioxydants after 28 years – or you will die. Yes, you do have a choice!
The Economist reveals its true pro-nuclear colours with recent articles under gloating titles like “Anti-nuclear Protest in Japan is Fizzling Out”. It gives outright support to Shinzo Abe’s attempts to restart Japan’s nuclear reactor fleet with titles like “Nuclear Power in Japan: Start ‘em Up”.
But objective reporting on nuclear power sometimes nudges its way, even into The Economist’s tainted fare, with rare articles where it tells us the world’s NPP fleet is still using “nasty old technology”.
Exactly that.
In reality, the “Nuclear Renaissance”, as the Nuclear Lobby calls it, is doing very badly. For starters, the economics of nuclear power are terrible. Further increases in the cost of nuclear power are certain, simply due to attempts by the industry to replace “nasty old technology” with Darwin-style, “evolved and perfected technology”.
The advanced European Pressurized Reactor (EPR) is a good example, in technological terms – and a somber example in economic terms……..
The nuclear enlightenment has also challenged the Nuclear Lobby’s assumption that the world energy system and its need for electricity is always growing. Here’s a fact: in some EU28 countries, electricity demand has been stagnant since the 1990s – long before the 2008 crisis. Since then, demand has decreased in most major EU28 countries – including Germany and UK. Long term power demand growth in the US is now forecast by the EIA at no more than 1% a year, if that.
Only the emerging and developing countries show “belle epoque” power demand growth trends – and even here the rates have seriously declined since 2010. To be sure, China and India are still the “last best hope” for the Nuclear Lobby, but the costs of nuclear power are eating into and pushing down nuclear program goals in both countries.
Hawkish orders from Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei
Nuclear talks in jeopardy: Khamenei orders Rev Guards to mass-produce missiles – regardless DEBKAfile Special Report May 11, 2014, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei threw a large spanner in the works of nuclear diplomacy Sunday, May 11. Less than a week before the next round of talks with the six powers, he said: “The Revolutionary Guards should definitely… not be satisfied with the present level [of missile production]. They should mass produce.”
Referring to Western concerns that Iran is designing missiles able to carry nuclear warheads, Khamenei said: “They [the West] expect us to limit our missile program while they constantly threaten Iran with military action. So this is a stupid, idiotic expectation.”
Khamenei spoke during a visit to the aeronautics fair organized by the Revolutionary Guards (IRGC), which are responsible for Iran’s missile and nuclear programs………
New Mexico Environment Department Secretary Ryan Flynn calls for closure of Nuclear waste Facility Panels
WIPP: NM Environment Secretary Ryan Flynn calls for immediate closure of waste panels Current-Argus News, By Zack Ponce zponce@currentargus.com 05/09/2014 CARLSBAD >> 
EIGHTY-FOUR DAYS HAVE PASSED SINCE THE FEBRUARY RADIATION LEAK AT THE WASTE ISOLATION PILOT PLANT AND COMMUNITY LEADERS IN CARLSBAD AND NEW MEXICO GOVERNMENT OFFICIALS HAVE BEGUN TO REVEAL THEIR IRRITATIONS.
New Mexico Environment Department Secretary Ryan Flynn capped the weekly WIPP town hall with a fiery speech about the Department of Energy’s latest theory of what caused the Feb. 14 accident in Panel 7 of the underground nuclear waste facility located 26 miles east of Carlsbad. Flynn called for the immediate closure of all waste panels except Panel 7 at WIPP, as well as complete public transparency.
“I agree that these panels need to be closed and they need to be closed immediately,” Flynn said.
Seven panels have been mined underground at WIPP for nuclear waste storage and three of them remain opened, including Panel 7 where the DOE believes the radiation leak originated. According to the contractual obligations, DOE must now close all open panels where the radiation leak is not suspected to have occurred.
The DOE halted shipments of nuclear waste containers from Los Alamos National Laboratory to the Waste Control Specialists private facility in Andrews County, Texas last week after investigators narrowed the likely cause to the waste makeup from LANL.
Nuclear Waste Partnership Recovery Manager Jim Blankenhorn announced on Thursday that WIPP officials believe the radiation leak was likely caused by nuclear waste that contained nitrate salt which gave off some sort of a chemical reaction. The waste with nitrate salt matched waste stored in drums that originated from three separate waste streams: two of the waste streams originated from LANL and the source of the other was unknown because DOE and NWP refused to name the source. WIPP has stored waste streams from LANL, Savannah River, and Idaho National Laboratory in the past……..http://www.currentargus.com/carlsbad-news/ci_25729464/flynn-calls-immediate-closure-waste-panels-tranparency
Japan’s govt not happy about Manga art depicting radiation effects of Fukushima nuclear disaster
Manga story about radiation criticized Japan News, Jiji Press, 10 May 14 Environment Minister Nobuteru Ishihara has criticized a manga story for linking nosebleeds to exposure to radiation at Tokyo Electric Power Co.’s stricken Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant.
“I cannot understand the intention behind the story or what the author wants to say,” Ishihara said at a news conference. He underscored the importance of keeping unfounded rumors in check…….
Ishihara also said Friday that doctors with special knowledge have denied a causal relationship between exposure to radiation after the nuclear accident and nosebleeds.
The Environment Ministry is conducting research on the human health effects of radioactive substances released from the plant…….http://the-japan-news.com/news/article/0001269114
“Hibakusha” thinking will lead us to nuclear free world
Citizens need hibakusha ‘minds’ To attain a genuine nuclear-free world, we should think like A-bomb survivors: Peru diplomat 11 May 14, JAPAN TIMES, NEW YORK – THE WORLD MUST FULLY UNDERSTAND THE HUMAN TOLL OF THE TWO ATOMIC BOMBS DROPPED ON JAPAN TO END NUCLEAR PROLIFERATION AROUND THE GLOBE, THE CHAIRMAN OF A U.N. NUCLEAR CONFERENCE SAID FRIDAY.
“I think the only way to get the world free of nuclear weapons is if every citizen of this world becomes a hibakusha in the mind,” Enrique Roman-Morey, the chairman of the final meeting before the 2015 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty review conference, told reporters.
The Peruvian diplomat used the Japanese word to describe the A-bomb survivors.
Having been born right after the bombs exploded over Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945, he emphasized the importance of listening to the personal stories of rapidly aging survivors in order to understand the humanitarian cost of the nuclear devices.
“I have been there (to Japan) and I have listened to the hibakusha,” he explained.
The issue of recognizing the humanitarian and environmental cost of the atomic bombs generated discussion in the two-week preparatory meeting that ended Friday………..
While Roman-Morey admits the goal of totally eliminating nuclear weapons is a difficult one to realize, he is passionately pursing that end by striving to work with countries to press for qualitative, not just quantitative, disarmament.
“The only thing that I can say is that we should never stop fighting (for total elimination),” he said.
Drawing on his roots as the son of a military man growing up in the post-World War II era, he still remembers his father’s words “never again” (to another Hiroshima) and the sentiment seems to guide him to this day. http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2014/05/10/national/citizens-need-hibakusha-minds/#.U3GBJ4FdWik
Pilgrim Nuclear Plant’s history of poor safety and dodgy radiation monitoring
Study: Increase in radiation-linked cancers around Pilgrim “Tobacco Science” versus fact CAPE COD TODAY, OP ED | MAY 10, 2014 BY MARY LAMPERT, PILGRIM WATCH. “….Pilgrim apologists say that radiation from Pilgrim is closely monitored and controlled. Not so. Pilgrim collects its own environmental samples, fewer now than previous years; analyzes the samples in their own lab; and writes its own reports – the equivalent of letting students write and grade their own exams. MDPH has a very limited offsite monitoring program due to lack of finances. Since 2007, there have been onsite monitoring wells to detect radioactive tritium leaks before they enter Cape Cod Bay. Leaks of tritium are evident but not the source. If more wells were installed, would more releases be detected?
In 1990, MDPH recommended that Pilgrim place real-time air monitors in off-site communities. Pilgrim refused to do so. MDPH began its own, very limited offsite air monitoring program in 2010.
Pilgrim’s operational history affects us today. Pilgrim began operations with bad fuel and without filtration. In 1982, Pilgrim blew its toxic filters, spewing hot particles into neighborhoods. A state sponsored study showed that weather conditions then were worst-case for holding contamination over local communities and Cape Cod. Environmental samples showed Cesium-137 in milk samples from a close-by farm was 1,000,000 times greater than expected; no Cesium-137 was found in control samples. A similar pattern was recorded by Pilgrim in other environmental samples. Pilgrim claimed it was due, not to it, but to Chinese test bombs. You decide. Did the Chinese have “smart” test bombs that targeted Pilgrim’s indicator samples but not their control samples?
Spin-doctors cannot raise the dead or make the sick well. If the dead and sick with radiation-linked diseases are significantly more prevalent near Pilgrim than in communities distant, the conclusion seems obvious.
Mary Lampert is a resident of Duxbury, founder and director of Pilgrim Watch, and co-chair of the Town of Duxbury’s Nuclear Advisory Committee. http://www.capecodtoday.com/article/2014/05/10/25347-study-increase-radiation-linked-cancers-around-pilgrim
President Rouhani calls for more clarity in the nuclear debate
Iranian president calls for more open, better-informed nuclear debate https://au.news.yahoo.com/world/a/23426769/iranian-president-calls-for-more-open-better-informed-nuclear-debate/ May 11, 2014, By Michelle Moghtader and Mehrdad Balali DUBAI (Reuters) – President Hassan Rouhani said on Sunday he wanted Iran to do a better job of explaining its nuclear programme to prevent “evil-minded” people misleading world opinion, two days before Tehran resumes talks with world powers on its disputed atomic activity.
Iran and the United States, France, Germany, Britain, China and Russia will reconvene in Vienna to try to iron out differences over how to end a long standoff over suspicions that Tehran has sought the means to develop nuclear weapons.
Western powers have long demanded greater openness from Iran to address those concerns and head off the risk of a downward spiral towards a new Middle East war, with Israel threatening to attack its arch-foe if diplomacy does not rein it in.
“What we can offer the world is greater transparency,” Rouhani, a relative moderate who replaced a conservative hardliner who antagonised the West – said in a speech at a ceremony celebrating Iran’s scientific achievements.
In his remarks, Rouhani reiterated that Iran was not seeking nuclear weapons and would never halt its atomic programme, which was for peaceful purposes. He also repeated a denial of Western charges that Iran has carried out any secret nuclear bomb work.But along with achieving scientific progress, Rouhani added, Iran ought to develop its abilities in the legal, political and information realms to prevent “the enemy” making problems for its nuclear developments.
“If one engages in a technological endeavour but is not doing good legal and political work, then the enemy might come up with a fictional excuse to cause trouble for you,” he said.
The Islamic Republic’s leaders normally use the term “the enemy” to refer to the United States and Israel.
“If you don’t have good public relations and are not able to communicate well, then you might find other evil-minded people misleading world public opinion,” Rouhani said.
“So our effort today is to even out our efforts on multiple levels … We don’t want to retreat one step from our pursuit of technology, but we want to take a step forward on the political front.”
His comments appeared to be a criticism of hostile statements from within the hardline conservative establishment, including his predecessor Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who called U.N. resolutions against Iran on the nuclear dispute a “worthless piece of paper”………..
“RIGHT DIRECTION”
Ahmadinejad’s strident rhetoric during his eight years in office on issues like the Holocaust and Israel served to shore up international resolve to curb Iran’s nuclear programme.
Iran in January halted its most sensitive nuclear operations under a preliminary deal with world powers, winning some relief from painful economic sanctions that have damaged its oil-dependent economy by forcing a sharp reduction in crude exports.
Rouhani said Iran if it so chose could resume enrichment of uranium gas to a fissile purity of 20 percent – its most sensitive nuclear activity because it is a relatively short technical step away from the level required for nuclear weapons.
“We wanted to tell the world that our activities are moving in the right direction: If we say we can enrich to 3.5 percent, we can do it. If necessary we will do (it to) 20 percent,” he said.
Iran agreed under its Nov. 24 deal to shelve enrichment to 20 percent. It has since diluted some of its 20 percent-enriched stockpile to a lower concentration and converted some into an oxide less suited to processing into bomb-grade material.
Iran has justified its 20 percent enrichment drive by saying it was meant to replenish the fuel supply of a Tehran medical research reactor. But Western officials are sceptical, saying Iran had refined far more than it required for such a purpose.
While Iran stopped 20 percent enrichment in January, it is allowed under the November pact to keep producing uranium refined to up to 5 percent, the level required for fuelling civilian nuclear power stations.
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