As Trump takes control of nukes, Hiroshima’s ex-mayor urges him to meet atomic-bomb survivors
Another voice has joined the chorus of those pleading with newly inaugurated President Trump to exercise restraint when it comes to use of nuclear weapons by the United States — this time from a Japanese city that has seen firsthand the devastating effects of an atomic bomb.
Tadatoshi Akiba, the former mayor of Hiroshima, wrote a letter to Trump just before his inauguration, urging him to make “wise and peaceable” decisions regarding nuclear weapons.
If anything, some of Akiba’s former constituents would know.
On Aug. 6, 1945, U.S. forces dropped an atomic bomb, code-named “Little Boy,” on Hiroshima, a large city on the southwestern coast of Japan’s Honshu island. Three days later, the United States dropped another atomic bomb, “Fat Man,” on Nagasaki, about 260 miles away.
The combined blasts killed as many as 200,000 people and leveled both cities.
The “hibakusha,” or survivors of the atomic bombings, would later describe witnessing white-hot fire consuming those who were not killed instantly. The intensity of the bomb caused some survivors’ skin to peel off and almost all to arrive at makeshift emergency clinics with an agonizing thirst. One survivor recalled the smell of grilled dried squid permeating a treatment room — in reality that of burned human flesh.
Japan surrendered on Aug. 15, 1945, and World War II would end less than a month later. It remains the only time in history a nuclear weapon has been unleashed in war.
“Since the nuclear issue is delicate and complicated, you may find the perspectives of those from one of the nuclear issue’s hot spots useful as you formulate the policy applicable to this area,” wrote Akiba, who was mayor of Hiroshima from 1999 to 2011 and has long been an advocate for eliminating nuclear weapons.
In his letter, dated Jan. 10, Akiba extended an invitation for Trump to visit Japan so he can speak to hibakusha in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Acknowledging Trump is “a busy person,” Akiba also suggested inviting survivors living in the United States to meet him, because “their struggles are worth listening to.”
“They can tell you in English their heart-wrenching experiences and a message that would produce hope in the future,” Akiba wrote. “I would recommend that you take the initiative to meet with them because I believe that the encounter would most likely change your view about war and the meaning of survival.”
The United States must greatly strengthen and expand its nuclear capability until such time as the world comes to its senses regarding nukes
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 22, 2016
Trump’s tweet — and comments he reportedly made the following day to MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” co-host Mika Brzezinski — sparked fears of a renewed arms race between the two countries.
Though Trump later seemed to walk back his statements, suggesting “nuclear weapons should be way down” in an interview with two European publications, there are reasons to be concerned after he gained control of the United States’s nearly 1,400 active nuclear warheads on Friday, as reported by The Washington Post’s Ishaan Tharoor.
Officials in Japan have been paying attention. Two days after Trump was elected, the current mayors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki extended invitations to the president-elect to visit, the Japan Times reported.
In a statement, Nagasaki Mayor Tomihisa Taue said he wanted Trump to “see with his own eyes, listen with his own ears and feel with his heart what happened under the mushroom cloud,” according to the newspaper.
In recent decades, the Japanese government has recorded stories of the hibakusha and placed many of them online, translated into different languages, to educate those around the world about the consequences of nuclear weapons use.
On the 70th anniversary of the atomic bombings, The Post published some of those survivors’ accounts:
“I felt the city of Hiroshima had disappeared all of a sudden,” said Akihiro Takahashi, a 14-year-old at the time in line for school, whose testimony was recorded by researchers in the late 1980s. “Then I looked at myself and found my clothes had turned into rags due to the heat. I was probably burned at the back of the head, on my back, on both arms and both legs. My skin was peeling and hanging like this.”
. . . So many had, in an instant, lost those dearest to them. Eiko Taoka, then 21 years old, was carrying her 1-year-old infant son in her arms aboard a streetcar. He didn’t survive the day. “I think fragments of glass had pierced his head,” she recounts. “His face was a mess because of the blood flowing from his head. But he looked at my face and smiled. His smile has remained glued in my memory.”
In May, President Barack Obama became the first sitting American president to visit Hiroshima and acknowledge the suffering of those who were bombed. There, he greeted and hugged survivors of the blast and called for the pursuit of a world without nuclear weapons.
“The world was forever changed here,” Obama said as the Genbaku Dome, or A-Bomb Dome, loomed in the distance. “But today, the children of this city will go through their day in peace. What a precious thing that is. It is worth protecting, and then extending to every child. That is the future we can choose, a future in which Hiroshima and Nagasaki are known not for the dawn of atomic warfare but as the start of our own moral awakening.”
A full copy of the letter from Akiba to Trump is available here, courtesy of the Mainichi Shimbun.
Desperate uranium miners switch to survival mode despite nuclear rebound
LONDON (Reuters) – The nuclear industry is “gradually” recovering from its post-Fukushima slump, but excess capacity keeps uranium prices at record lows, forcing mining companies to mothball mines, slice costs and cut debt as they struggle to survive.
http://swop.news/desperate-uranium-miners-switch-to-survival-mode-despite-nuclear-rebound/
India was ready with H-Bomb to counter Pakistan’s nukes
idrw.org . Read more at India No 1 Defence News Website , Kindly don’t paste our work in other websites http://idrw.org/under-rajiv-gandhi-india-was-ready-with-h-bomb-to-counter-pakistans-nukes/ .
House OKs Federal Energy, Nuclear Power Rule Changes
Law360, New York (January 23, 2017, 6:13 PM EST) — The House of Representatives on Monday pushed through a series of changes to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, in bills meant to change how courts treat FERC decisions and give more flexibility to new nuclear plants.
The two bills, passed by a voice vote, are meant to help consumers in the existing power industry and to help the development of new nuclear reactor technologies. The Fair Rates Act would expand the reviewability of FERC rate change decisions and the Advanced Nuclear Technology Development Act of 2017 would direct the U.S. Department and of Energy and the NRC to come up with a plan to allow for regulatory approvals of more advanced technology in nuclear reactors.
Rep. Joe Kennedy, D-Mass., the prime sponsor of the Fair Rates Act, said that the legislation would avoid the situation that power consumers in the Northeast faced. Following a rate auction, FERC deadlocked on approving the results, and they went into place automatically but consumers could not challenge them without a final FERC decision.
“With no official decision from the agency, there was no decision to appeal, leaving my constituents completely voiceless,” Kennedy said.
The bill would prevent situations in which consumers are forced to pay higher rates without the opportunity to appeal the decision either through the agency or through the courts, Kennedy said.
“Although this situation may sound completely isolated to New England, there’s not a corner of this country that’s immune from the unpredictability of the American energy market and the resulting burden they are forced to bear as a result,” Kennedy said.
Kennedy’s bill alters Section 205 of the Federal Power Act, designating that if a rate approval becomes final through action of law, it should be treated as a final agency action for purposes of agency and court appeals.
The court case that spurred the passage of the law came from Public Citizen and the state of Connecticut, which argued to overturn the approval of regional grid operator ISO New England Inc.’s 2014 auction — through which power generators offered their resource capacity for future power needs — by default.
However, in October, the D.C. Circuit ruled that it cannot review the approval of the auction without a final decision by the agency; the 2-2 deadlock kept the state and public consumers out of the courtroom.
Rep. Buddy Carter, R-Ga., said that one of the other bills the House passed on Monday, the Advanced Nuclear Technology Development Act of 2017, would help bring more advanced nuclear reactor designs to market more quickly. The language mandates that the Energy Department and the NRC enter into a memorandum of agreement to “knock down those walls to innovation and provide an opportunity to develop advanced nuclear reactor designs.”
The bill specifically includes advances on existing light-water reactor technologies that are intended to be more efficient and generate less waste as well as nuclear fusion reactors — which have not yet been built on an economically feasible scale. According to press reports, research institutions in both the United States and abroad have continued work on scaling up the power and sustainability of such reactors.
The bill would require a uniform, predictable plan for approval of more advanced reactors, which is meant to be based on mathematical models of their behavior.
Rep. Diane Degette, D-Colo., said that the changes to the NRC would be “a commonsense way for the federal government to safely advance the goals of the advanced nuclear power industry” and pave the way for lowering America’s overall carbon emissions.
https://www.law360.com/articles/883931?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=articles_search
Empire Files: Post-Soviet Russia, Made in the U.S.A.
Journalist Mark Ames gives crucial context to Putin’s rise to power & explains how post-Soviet Russia went from colony of the US Empire to “enemy number one” on The Empire Files: http://bit.ly/2klyJGX
Does America’s Most Deadly Nuclear Missile Have a Big Problem? Trident disaster spreads!
What caused a British-operated Trident II D5 submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM) to go off course?
British media reports that a Trident II SLBM launched from HMS Vengeance—a Vanguard-class boomer—went drastically off target this past June. According to those reports, the submarine launched the test missile against a target on the west coast of Africa, however the missile veered toward the continental United States. If the failure is the result of a technical problem with the missile—there could be serious implications for the United States’ own strategic nuclear deterrence, which relies on the Trident II D5 as a key part of its nuclear triad. But that assumes that there is a systemic problem with the weapons.
The United States Navy has not suffered a Trident II failure in recent memory, but there is a small possibility that this British failure could be indicative of defect in the missile. “One failure isn’t enough to conclude we are in the tail end, statistically speaking,” Jeffrey Lewis, Director of the East Asia Nonproliferation Program at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey told me. “Now, you do need to figure out what went wrong. It is possible that it was an age-related defect, or a modification to the missile—which we make all the time—something with the test payload (it was unarmed) or something with the submarine. Maybe the failure reveals a show-stopper of a problem, although the excellent record of the D5 suggests it will be something small.”
However, overall, the Trident II has a remarkable reliability record. “There have been only a few failures—the Royal Navy one in June and perhaps one more a few years ago,” Lewis said. “Even at two out of 163, the D5 is remarkably reliable. There were some additional failures early in the program, but that’s a typical bathtub effect where you get failures at the beginning while you develop the missiles, then failures at the end when it ages out.”
But if there is a systematic problem with the missiles, the U.S. Navy is also impacted.
“The UK leases its D5 missiles out of a common pool shared with the U.S.,” Lewis told me. “They are the same missiles as the U.S. uses. While the U.K. has conducted relatively few firings—this was the first since 2012—the U.S. has conducted 161 successful firings since 1989.”
For the British government, covering up the test failure was likely a stupid public relations move. “Obviously, the Tories, mindful of the vote on Dreadnaught [replacement for the Vanguard-class], covered it up to the avoid the embarrassment. This is a serious mistake in my view. One former Admiral called it ‘bizarre and stupid.’ I think he’s altogether too kind,” Lewis said. “The cover-up gives the impression that the system has major flaws that are being hidden. I doubt it, but how can [British Prime Minister Theresa] May offer her word as bond on that point?”
The entire fiasco is has a negative impact on nuclear deterrence and on the political support for the British Trident program. “That’s bad for deterrence, as well as the political support for the massive investment that Dreadnaught will require,” Lewis said. “It is also unethical, I am old-fashioned that way.”
Meanwhile, the United States Navy—the by far the largest Trident operator and steward of the bulk of America’s nuclear forces—did not comment by press time.
Dave Majumdar is the defense editor for The National Interest.
US official confirms Trident missile failure
Washington (CNN)A missile test involving Britain’s Trident nuclear deterrent system ended in failure off the coast of Florida last year, a US defense official with direct knowledge of the incident told CNN on Monday.
Government challenged on CNN report
May under fire
Israeli whistle-blower convicted over release terms
OCCUPIED AL-QUDS: Israeli nuclear whistle-blower Mordechai Vanunu has been convicted of violating the terms of his release, more than a decade after completing an 18-year jail term, a court announced on Monday.
https://www.thenews.com.pk/print/181356-Israeli-whistle-blower-convicted-over-release-terms
Upon his release in 2004, Vanunu was slapped with a series of restraining orders, which he was charged with violating on three counts.
Vanunu was convicted of meeting with two US nationals in Occupied al-Quds in 2013 without having permission to do so, and will be sentenced in two months, a court statement said.
He was cleared of two other charges, one of which related to an interview he gave to Israel’s Channel 2 television in 2015.
Vanunu conviction’s dates back to January 18 but it was not made public until Monday. A sentencing hearing has been set for March 14.
The former nuclear technician was jailed in 1986 for disclosing the inner workings of Israel’s Dimona nuclear plant to Britain’s The Sunday Times newspaper. He spent more than 10 years of his sentence in solitary confinement.
In the Channel 2 interview, Vanunu said he longer has any secrets to spill and just wanted to join his new bride in Norway, theology professor Kristin Joachimsen whom he married at a Lutheran church in Occupied al-Quds in May that year.
He has been barred from emigrating on the grounds that he still poses a threat to national security.
Vanunu, 62, converted from Judaism to Christianity shortly before being snatched by Mossad agents in Rome and smuggled to Israel.
He has twice before been jailed for breaking the terms of his parole. Israel is the Middle East’s sole if undeclared nuclear power, refusing to confirm or deny that it has such weapons.
It has refused to sign the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty or to allow international surveillance of its Dimona plant in the Negev desert of southern Israel.
Theresa Mays WMD willy waving droop spectacular
THE office of Prime Minister Theresa May has admitted finally that she was informed about the Trident missile test at the centre of cover-up allegations prior to addressing MPs on the matter.
http://www.morningstaronline.co.uk/a-ce51-Mays-WMD-willy-waving#.WIamgGebxz0
It’s hard to see how she thought she could brazen it out after refusing four times in quick succession to answer a direct question from Andrew Marr on Sunday.
Her stubborn stonewalling served only to confirm in everyone’s mind that she had definitely been told and that failure to admit this was evidence of a cover-up.
Even now, the official line is that no-one is allowed to know whether a Trident-launched D5 missile veered off course after being launched off the coast of Florida last June.
Logic dictates that this did indeed happen, otherwise the Ministry of Defence would have denied any suggestion of a malfunction.
Defence industry insiders and politicians have lined up since then to declare that tests are held to seek out faults and correct them, which seems quite reasonable.
The major problem with it, however, is that, if the missile had been armed and international relations deteriorated to the extent that the PM was prepared to order Trident missile launches, at least one device would have obliterated Florida rather than delivering its payload wherever she had intended.
Apologetic phone calls to Trump Tower in the wake of a cock-up of that enormity would be unlikely to smooth ruffled feathers or bring back millions of dead US citizens.
Some pro-Trident commentators suggest that demanding information on a weapons system that we all pay for is out of order.
They claim silence is necessary to keep our “enemies” in the dark about how effective Trident is.
But our government has already had to inform other states — not least the US — over what was taking place in the region.
The idea that other nuclear-armed powers designated as our enemies would have been unaware of what happened is beyond risible.
The only people kept in the dark are taxpayers in Britain who fund this grotesquely expensive white elephant.
While the NHS, social care, council housing, infrastructure projects and industrial modernisation cry out for serious investment, our politicians across Parliament prefer to throw good money after bad to maintain an outdated pretence that possessing weapons of mass destruction is essential to be seen as a genuine leading world power.
Tell that to Germany, Japan or any other advanced country mature enough to have moved beyond WMD willy-waving.
Justifying the commitment of tens of billions of pounds — adding up to £205bn — to maintain the pretence of an independent nuclear deterrent depends on two basic falsehoods.
One is that Trident keeps Britain safe from invasion or nuclear blackmail and the other is that it provides employment.
Aside from the reality that there is no power seeking to invade or destroy our country, even were that the case, no British government could launch its nuclear missiles without a White House OK.
And if there was someone deranged enough as US president to authorise a global nuclear exchange, we could all kiss our backsides goodbye in such a scenario.
The myth of Trident guaranteeing defence employment was exposed recently by the Jimmy Reid Foundation, which revealed that just 600 civilian jobs are directly linked.
Its successor programme will safeguard 11,520 jobs, which works out at nearly £18 million a job.
Far better to devote that wasted investment in supporting jobs sacrificed on the austerity altar and to drop the obsession with global posturing.
Pakistan’s Fourth Nuclear Reactor at Khushab Now Appears Operational
Pakistan’s fourth heavy water reactor at Khushab nuclear site which allows it to build a larger number of miniaturised plutonium-based nuclear weapons now appears to be operational, a US think-tank has said. The reactor is part of Pakistan’s program to increase the production of weapons-grade plutonium
Did Fukushima Daiichi Cause Cancer in Children and Plant Workers?
Here is the latest update on news about Fukushima children’s thyroid cancer rate and cancer among workers at the plant:
10 more thyroid cancer cases diagnosed in Fukushima. The Mainichi, December 28, 2016 (Mainichi Japan) http://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20161228/p2a/00m/0na/008000c
FUKUSHIMA — Ten more people were diagnosed with thyroid cancer as of late September this year in the second round of a health survey of Fukushima Prefecture residents, which began in April 2014, a committee overseeing the survey disclosed on Dec. 27. The number of people confirmed to have cancer during the second round of the survey stands at 44, while the overall figure including cases detected in the first round stands at 145.
… Some have pointed to the danger of “excessive diagnoses” during health checks in which doctors find cases of cancer that do not require surgery, which could place a physical and mental burden on patients. There have accordingly been calls for the Fukushima Prefectural Government to scale down the scope of its health survey.
Plant worker’s thyroid cancer certified as linked to nuclear disaster. The Mainchi, December 17, 2016 (Mainichi Japan) http://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20161217/p2g/00m/0dm/025000c
TOKYO (Kyodo) — A worker exposed to radiation when disaster struck the Fukushima nuclear plant has been found to have developed thyroid cancer caused by an industrial accident, the labor ministry said Friday.
The employee of Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings Inc., the operator of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, is the third person determined to be entitled to benefits due to illness caused by exposure to radiation released when three reactors melted down in the days after a massive earthquake and ensuing tsunami in March 2011.
The man is the first to be certified for developing thyroid cancer because of the nuclear disaster. The first two persons suffer from leukemia.
Here is some BACKGROUND ON THE DEBATES ABOUT FUKUSHIMA EFFECTS ON CHILDREN IN JAPAN excerpted from my book, Crisis Communication, Liberal Democracy and Ecological Sustainability
…Children are likely at greatest risk for health consequences from exposure because they are biologically more vulnerable to radiation since their cells are dividing faster. The thyroid is particularly susceptible to radiation-induced damage because it bioaccumulates radioactive iodine. People with thyroid conditions have an increased risk of dying because of damage that occurs prior to treatment.[i]
Potassium iodide helps block absorption of radioactive iodine but as mentioned earlier in the chapter, distribution was delayed. Consequently, many children in Japan became internally contaminated with radioiodine, in addition to whatever other radionuclides internalized through inhalation and ingestion.
July 6, 2011 the Japanese press Kyodo reported that in a March 2011 survey of 1,080 children aged 0 to 15 in Iwaki, Kawamata, and Iitate 45 percent of kids in Fukushima survey had thyroid exposure to radiation.[ii]
A separate study measuring thyroid exposure to Iodine-131 conducted between April 12, 2011 and April 16, 2011 and published in Research Reports found “extensive measurements of the exposure to I-131 revealing I-131 activity in the thyroid of 46 out of the 62 residents and evacuees measured”[iii]
In August of 2011, NHK reported that Japan’s nuclear commission had erased children’s exposure data derived from a test of 1,000 children aged 15 or younger who had been screened for radiation affecting their thyroid.[iv] By February of 2014, there were 75 confirmed or suspected thyroid cancer cases among 270,000 Fukushima Prefecture individuals screened, who were 18 or under at the time of the disaster.[v]
The screening committee claimed the Fukushima disaster was an unlikely cause.[vi] However, the observed frequency of thyroid cancer and nodules exceeds established incident rates. For example, the prevalence of thyroid nodules in children typically ranges from 0.2-5.0 percent,[vii] while in Fukushima, 42 percent of 133,000 children were found to have thyroid nodules and cysts two years after the disaster.[viii]
In 2015 two research articles were published arguing that the rate of thyroid cancer among Fukushima children was excessive.
The first study noted that the surge of thyroid cancers detected among 370,000 Fukushima residents aged 18 or younger was “unlikely to be explained by a screening surge” given the incident rate was found to be 20 to 50 times the national average at the close of 2014.[ix]
The second study observed that the rate of thyroid cancer being detected in Fukushima’s children exceeded the rate found after Chernobyl.[x] However, Shoichiro Tsugane, Director of the Research Center for Cancer Prevention and Screening, asserted that “Unless radiation exposure data are checked, any specific relationship between a cancer incidence and radiation cannot be identified,” and noted there exists a “global trend of over-diagnosis of thyroid cancer….”[xi]
Fukushima Prefecture residents’ concerns about living in a radiation-contaminated zone are too often trivialized by government officials. In 2015, evacuees from Naraha located in Fukushima Prefecture challenged a government official who described their concerns about drinking water contamination as a “psychological issue” after the Ministry of Education reported up to 18,7000 Becquerels of radioactive cesium per kilogram of soil taken from the bottom of a reservoir at Kido Dam which serves as the community’s drinking water source.[xii]
Dr. Shunichi Yamashita of Japan’s Atomic Bomb Research Institute produced widespread outrage for claiming that radiation does not harm people who are happy and that there is little risk from annual exposure levels below under 100 millisieverts.[xiii]
[i] Anne Laulund, Mads Nybo, Thomas Brix, Bo Abrahamsen, Henrik Løvendahl Jørgensen, Laszlo Hegedüs, “Duration of Thyroid Dysfunction Correlates with All-Cause Mortality. The OPENTHYRO Register Cohort,” PLOS, 9.10(2014): 1-8, e110437-110 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0110437.
[ii] “45% of kids in Fukushima survey had thyroid exposure to radiation,” The Mainichi (July 5, 2011): http://mdn.mainichi.jp/mdnnews/news/20110705p2g00m0dm079000c.html.
[iii] Shinji Tokonami, Masahiro Hosoda, Suminori Akiba, Atsuyuk Sorimachi, Ikuo Kashiwakura, and Mikhail Balonov “Thyroid doses for evacuees from the Fukushima nuclear accident.” Scientific Reports, 2(507)(2012): 1. doi:10.1038/srep00507.
[iv] “Nuclear Commission erases children’s exposure data,” NHK (August 11, 2011). http://www3.nhk.or.jp/daily/english/11_14.html.
[v] Nose, T., & Oiwa, Y. (2014, February 8). Thyroid cancer cases increase among young people in Fukushima. The Asahi Shimbun. Available: http://ajw.asahi.com/article/0311disaster/fukushima/AJ201402080047
[vi] “Eight more Fukushima kids found with thyroid cancer; disaster link denied,” The Japan Times (February 7, 2014): http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2014/02/07/national/eight-more-fukushima-kids-found-with-thyroid-cancer-disaster-link-denied/#.U2Zvr61dVXo
[vii] Gerber, M. E., Reilly, B. K., Bhayani, M. K., Faust, R. A., Talavera, F., Sadeghi, N. & Meyers, A. D. “Pediatric thyroid cancer,” Emedicine. (2013): http://emedicine.medscape.com.ezproxy1.lib.asu.edu/article/853737-overview.
[viii] Haworth, A. (2013, February 23). After Fukushima: Families on edge of meltdown. The Guardian. Available http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2013/feb/24/divorce-after-fukushima-nuclear-disaster.
[ix] Toshihide Tsuda, Akiko Tokinobu, Eiji Yamamoto and Etsuji Suzuki, “Thyroid Cancer Detection by Ultrasound Among Residents Ages 18 Years and Younger in Fukushima Japan: 2011 to 2014,” Epidemiology (2015), 1-7.
[x] Shigenobu Nagataki and Takamura, Noboru, “A review of the Fukushima nuclear reactor accident: radiation effects on the thyroid and strategies for prevention. Current Opinion in Endocrinology, Diabetes & Obesity, 21.5 (October 2014): 384–393. doi: 10.1097/MED.0000000000000098, available http://journals.lww.com/co-endocrinology/pages/articleviewer.aspx?year=2014&issue=10000&article=00012&type=abstract.
[xi] “New Report Links Thyroid Cancer Rise to Fukushima Nuclear Crisis,” The Japan Times, Oct 7, 2015, accessed October 8, 2015, available http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2015/10/07/national/science-health/new-report-links-thyroid-cancer-rise-fukushima-nuclear-crisis/#.VhU3aCtBmFt
[xii] “Fukushima town residents protest official’s comment about radiation safety,” The Mainichi (July 7 2015). Date accessed July 8, 2015. Available: http://mainichi.jp/english/english/newsselect/news/20150707p2a00m0na019000c.htm.
[xiii] ‘Studying the Fukushima Aftermath: “People Are Suffering from Radiophobia”’ (19 August 2011), Der Spiegel, http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,780810,00.html, date accessed 4 September 2011.
http://majiasblog.blogspot.fr/2017/01/did-fukushima-daiichi-cause-cancer-in.html
AMS analyses of I-129 from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear accident in the Pacific Ocean waters of the Coast La Jolla – San Diego, USA April 2015
It is very convenient for the nuclear industry to focus only on Cesium 137 and omit talking about all the other radionuclides released in our environment thanks to the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster. Though less detectable and usually not looked for they are nevertheless present and harmful to life. This study from April 2015 about the Iodine-129 release is quite revealing, knowing that if Iodine-129 half life is 15,7 Million years, its full life is multiplied by 10: 157 million years.
Royal Society of Chemistry, National Institute for Physics & Nuclear Engineering, Romania, 2015:
AMS analyses of I-129 from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear accident in the Pacific Ocean waters of the Coast La Jolla, San Diego, USA — This paper presents the results of an experimental study we performed by using the Accelerator Mass Spectrometry (AMS) method with iodine 129 (Halflife = 15.7 Million years], to determine the increase of the radionuclide content in the USA West Pacific Coast waters, two years after the March 2011 Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant accident… The results of the experiments showed a significant increase of the radionuclide concentration during the late spring of 2013. Compared to the isotopic ratio 129I/127I, measured at a 40 km distance, offshore of Fukushima and immediately after the accident, our results show an increase on the USA West Coast that was more than a 2.5 factor higher. Also, compared with the pre-Fukushima background values [in San Diego], our results show an isotopic ratio of about two orders of magnitude higher…
The Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant… released an enormous amount of liquid waste of 129I and other fission isotopes directly into the Pacific Ocean that were subsequently dispersed eastwards. This paper reports on the determination of the nuclear plume impact on the West Coast of the USA that happened during April–July 2013… The determined maximum 129I concentration increase was in an amount of more than 2 times greater than the concentration of the isotope measured offshore of Fukushima at a 40 km distance immediately after the accident…
129I concentrations were measured… from the ocean water of the West Coast of the USA [at] La Jolla, San Diego… This work reports two sudden increases of the 129I/127I isotopic concentration in the ocean water, which were observed at the end of spring 2013…
Our exploratory measurements on the USA West Coast started on samples collected at the beginning of 2013. The lowest 129I concentrations that we measured had values between [6-20 million] atoms per L. Such values correspond to the equilibrium concentration of iodine… offshore of La Jolla, San Diego…
Our results… measured offshore of Cove La Jolla, San Diego, USA, during the spring of 2013, are presented in Fig. 5. Two high and distinct spike maxima are visible. They reveal the maximum concentration values of [1.2 billion] atoms per L measured on May 24, 2013 and [1.7 billion] atoms per L measured on June 18, 2013, with 24 days in between. Both peaks occurred in the measurement spectrum after a slow increase in concentration that started about 15-20 days before the main increase…
Samples collected [by Fukushima Daiichi, Jun 2011] at a distance of about 40 km away from the coast [had] a maximum concentration value of [620 million] atoms per L for 129I in the surface water of the ocean. Taking into account this value as a reference value, the maximum 129-iodine concentration reaching the USA West Coast was 2.5 times stronger than in the contaminated ocean water offshore of Fukushima after the accident. If we compare it to the equilibrium value of 129I concentration in the ocean water [near San Diego], then during the impact its concentration was about 100 times higher…
AMS measurements of 129I were performed on ocean water… offshore of Cove La Jolla, San Diego, USA, and definitely have shown an increase of the radioactivity more than two orders of magnitude over the natural level of the Pacific Ocean before the accident…
Correlation between infectious disease and soil radiation in Japan: an exploratory study using national sentinel surveillance data
Abstract
We investigated the relationship between epidemics and soil radiation through an exploratory study using sentinel surveillance data (individuals aged <20 years) during the last three epidemic seasons of influenza and norovirus in Japan.
We used a spatial analysis method of a geographical information system (GIS). We mapped the epidemic spreading patterns from sentinel incidence rates.
We calculated the average soil radiation [dm (μGy/h)] for each sentinel site using data on uranium, thorium, and potassium oxide in the soil and examined the incidence rate in units of 0·01 μGy/h.
The correlations between the incidence rate and the average soil radiation were assessed. Epidemic clusters of influenza and norovirus infections were observed in areas with relatively high radiation exposure.
A positive correlation was detected between the average incidence rate and radiation dose, at r = 0·61–0·84 (P < 0·01) for influenza infections and r = 0·61–0·72 (P < 0·01) for norovirus infections.
An increase in the incidence rate was found between areas with radiation exposure of 0 < dm < 0·01 and 0·15 ⩽ dm < 0·16, at 1·80 [95% confidence interval (CI) 1·47–2·12] times higher for influenza infection and 2·07 (95% CI 1·53–2·61) times higher for norovirus infection.
Our results suggest a potential association between decreased immunity and irradiation because of soil radiation.
Further studies on immunity in these epidemic-prone areas are desirable.
In America’s energy sector, solar power employs by far the most people
SURPRISE: U.S. Solar Now Leads Employment In EnergyIndustry http://sciencevibe.com/2017/01/20/surprise-u-s-solar-employs-more-people-than-oil-coal-and-gas-combined/
Trump’s first White House website post – will scrap Climate Action Plan
Donald Trump will eliminate landmark climate protection plan, says first post on White House website http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/donald-trump-white-house-president-global-warming-climate-change-environment-a7538206.html
The Climate Action Plan was introduced four years ago as a national strategy for tackling climate change Andrew Griffin @_andrew_griffin 21 January 2017 Donald Trump’s first post on the White House website suggests destroying the US’s strategy to tackle climate change.
After President Trump took over the site, he posted six “Issues” to its home page. The first of those is an “America First Energy Plan”.
The first proposal in that document suggests getting rid of “burdensome regulations on our energy industry”. Those include getting rid of “harmful and unnecessary policies such as the Climate Action Plan and the Waters of the US rule”.
President Trump doesn’t suggest a replacement for any of those regulations, and goes on to suggest that getting rid of them will save money and keep America secure.The Climate Action Plan was landmark legislation introduced by Barack Obama in June 2013. It served as a “national plan for tackling climate change”, according to the government.
The key parts of the plan were divided into three sections. Those outlined plans to cut carbon pollution in the US, actions to get the country ready for the effects of climate change, and plans for how to lead international efforts to address global warming.No part of the Mr Trump’s environmental document makes any mention of climate change or global warming – something that President Trump has in the past said was just a Chinese hoax. The only mention of the environment calls for “responsible stewardship of the environment”, but that refers only to keeping water and air clean. “Lastly, our need for energy must go hand-in-hand with responsible stewardship of the environment,” the document reads. “Protecting clean air and clean water, conserving our natural habitats, and preserving our natural reserves and resources will remain a high priority.”It also says that Donald Trump will focus the Environmental Protection Agency onto “protecting our air and water”, and presumably away from climate policies.
President Trump says that his environmental policies will join up with his economic ones, by encouraging more spending in the US economy. The document says that he will encourage the burning of coal, and the use of shale oil and gas in the US.By doing so, he will be able to use the revenues to pay for the rebuilding of “roads, schools, bridges and public infrastructure” that he promised to his voters. It will also help stimulate the agriculture industry, he claimed. President Trump says that his environmental policies will join up with his economic ones, by encouraging more spending in the US economy. The document says that he will encourage the burning of coal, and the use of shale oil and gas in the US.That will also allow the US to achieve energy independence from the OPEC alliance of oil producing countries. But President Trump says he will continue to work with countries in the Gulf – many of which are in OPEC – “to develop a positive energy relationship as part of our anti-terrorism strategy”.The document also calls for a new focus on coal and a revival of the country’s coal industry. President Trump has claimed that he will do that by backing “clean coal” – but it’s not clear that such a thing would actually be possible and whether such thing as clean coal could actually exist.
1 This Month
Chernobyl: The Lost Tapes – A good documentary on Chernobyl on SBS available On Demand for the next 3 weeks– https://www.sbs.com.au/ondemand/tv-program/chernobyl-the-lost-tapes/2352741955560
of the week–London Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament
Tell the Ukrainian Government to Drop Prosecution of Peace Activist Yurii Sheliazhenko
To see nuclear-related stories in greater depth and intensity – go to https://nuclearinformation.wordpress.com
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