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In France, nuclear industry manages to cancel a film showing, about Fukushima nuclear disaster

France TV Info 6th March 2019 A film about the Fukushima disaster censored in a commune that houses a
nuclear power plant. The Nuclear Exit Association planned a projection
eight years after the Fukushima accident in Japan. But the event was
canceled after the nearby nuclear plant contacted the town hall.

https://www.francetvinfo.fr/monde/japon/fukushima/nievre-un-film-sur-la-catastrophe-de-fukushima-censure-dans-une-commune-qui-heberge-une-centrale-nucleaire_3220981.html

March 9, 2019 Posted by | civil liberties, France | 1 Comment

Britain now needs a Green New Deal

Times 7th March 2019  Britain needs a new economy that works for everyone and to move beyond the
old, broken systems and status quo that left many people behind. A green
new deal for the UK could give us just that. Climate change has muscled its
way back onto the political agenda. It was debated by MPs last week for the
first time in two years.

It seems that the momentum around Alexandria
Ocasio-Cortez and Senator Ed Markey’s green new deal in the US, the
audacious climate march on Westminster by schoolchildren last month and
increasingly rising temperatures may have finally jolted our politicians
out of their climate stupor.

Four months ago, a group of experts on the
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) delivered the news that
the world must halve carbon emissions in a little over a decade. Responding
would require an almighty push to green our economy – one that would touch
on every aspect of our lives.

Despite this stark warning from scientists,
the political establishment in Westminster barely flinched. There was no
commitment to redouble our efforts, no renewed urgency or call to action.

Instead, our politics continued to be consumed by Brexit. But the IPCC
report was a sobering wake-up call for many. A movement of activists in the
US, backed by a new generation of Democrats, including the Justice
Democrats, are reacting with the urgency needed. The green new deal – an
idea that came from organisations including the New Economics Foundation
(NEF) a decade ago – has emerged as a forceful response.

The idea is
simple: an unprecedented mobilisation of resources to achieve 100 per cent
renewable energy and eliminating greenhouse gas emissions within a decade
while creating millions of jobs and lifting living standards.

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/0ab3eb08-403c-11e9-aa0a-30b9d78dd63b

March 9, 2019 Posted by | ENERGY, politics, UK | Leave a comment

UK, Japan scientists study radioactive Fukushima particles

 

This sounds like a good idea. But – can we really be confident about science done by Atomic Energy Agencies , whose brief is to further develop atomic energy?

OXFORD, England (Reuters) 8 Mar 19,  – Eight years after the Fukushima nuclear meltdown in Japan, radioactive particles collected from the site are undergoing new forensic investigation in Britain in an effort to understand the exact sequence of events…….

The Japan Atomic Energy Agency (JAEA) is currently collaborating with British researchers to learn more about the state of the radioactive particles created by the meltdown.

Dr Yukihiko Satou from the JAEA oversaw the transportation of particles collected from within the restricted zone, very close to the disaster site, to Britain.

“The particles were fundamentally extracted from those attached to soil, dust and debris,” Satou told Reuters.

Encased in protective tape, the samples were brought to the Diamond Light Source, Britain’s national synchrotron, or cyclic particle accelerator, near Oxford.

Here electrons are accelerated to near light speeds until they emit light 10 billion times brighter than the sun, then directed into laboratories in ‘beamlines’ which allow scientists to study minute specimens in extreme detail.

…… Understanding the current state of these particles and how they behave in the environment could ultimately determine if and when the area could be declared safe for people to return…… Writing by Matthew Stock,; Editing by Gareth Jones   https://www.reuters.com/article/us-japan-disaster-radiation/uk-japan-scientists-study-radioactive-fukushima-particles-idUSKCN1QP1GF

March 9, 2019 Posted by | Fukushima continuing | Leave a comment

Trump’s endeavour to nuclearise Saudi Arabia is driven by family business interests and tacitly approved by Israel. Aljazeera, by Hamid Dabashi, 8 Mar 2019  Like chronic indigestion that refuses to go away, presidential son-in-law Jared Kushner is back causing much discomfort to the general public.

“Kushner meets Saudi’s MBS for the first time since Khashoggi murder,” Al Jazeera recently reported, “The meeting focused on ‘increasing cooperation’ between Washington and Riyadh, as well as the Middle East peace process.”

But there might be more on their plate than just another bogus “peace process”.

Kushner has two paramount concerns while sitting comfortably in the big pocket of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS): pursuing his own personal financial gains and helping Israel steal what is left of Palestine. MBS also has two objectives while playing with Kushner, like a shiny marble in his pocket:  To confront Iran and to establish himself as a ruling tyrant not just in Saudi Arabia but throughout the Arab and Muslim world.

The slaughter of innocent men, women and children in Yemen and the butchery of Jamal Khashoggi are the first flowers of his dream of a Saudi Spring. But in his pursuit of power and glory through murder and destruction, MBS does not seem to be satisfied with using only conventional means. It appears that he is now harbouring a great desire to go nuclear and the Trump administration is more than willing to oblige.

As the New York Times recently revealed, the Trump administration has been pursuing a deal with Saudi Arabia to develop its nuclear energy sector. “By ramming through the sale of as much as $80 billion in nuclear power plants, the Trump administration would provide sensitive know-how and materials to a government whose de facto leader, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, has suggested that he may eventually want a nuclear weapon as a hedge against Iran and has shown little concern for what the rest of the world thinks,” the newspaper claimed.

At the forefront of these efforts, of course, are Kushner and his business interests. It turns out a company that bailed out his family after an ill-conceived real estate deal in New York brought them close to bankruptcy now intends to sell nuclear reactors in Saudi Arabia.

That, along with other shenanigans, has gotten the US security establishment worried. Their attempts to cancel his security clearance, however, have been repeatedly overridden by his father-in-law.

Hence, Kushner remains undeterred in his pursuit to nuclearise Saudi Arabia.

In exposing this worrying reality, the US media, however, has made two very wrong assumptions: one, that a nuclear deal with Saudi Arabia somehow contradicts the interests of the Israeli leadership; two, that it is the result of some kind of a Gulf-money entrapment.

……. Given that President Donald Trump’s son-in-law has been the principal driving force behind a “peace plan” that aims to strip Palestinians of all their legitimate rights and legalise the Israeli occupation, it is hard to believe that he is now pursuing a policy that contradicts Israeli interests.  …….

The reason why a Saudi nuclear programme is in the interest of the Israeli settler colony is very simple: It would fuel Saudi-Iranian rivalry, keeping them in a permanent state of war in the shadow of nuclear proliferation, which is good for Zionism, and of course, for the Israeli arms industry. It would keep the populations of both countries preoccupied with the imagined Sunni-Shia conflict and make them increasingly oblivious to the plight of the Palestinian people and the desecration of the holy sites in Jerusalem. …….. https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/making-nuclear-mbs-190307135114759.html

March 9, 2019 Posted by | Saudi Arabia, secrets,lies and civil liberties, USA | Leave a comment

People of Kashmir – stuck in a dangerous, potentially nuclear, conflict

In Kashmir, we’re stuck in the middle of a potentially nuclear conflict but the world looks away, ABC News, By Umar Lateef Misgar   9 Mar 19, When Adil Dar rammed a car stuffed with explosives into a paramilitary convoy in Indian-administered Kashmir last month, I didn’t make much of the news.

I was travelling across northern India at the time. Having been born and brought up amid a conflict that has defined the life of every young Kashmiri for the past three decades it just seemed more of the same: military cordons, gunfights, curfews, blown-up houses, maiming and the death of our friends and acquaintances.

But the magnitude of this attack by Dar, a 22-year-old Kashmiri, crept up on me through numbers and images. It was the worst attack against Indian forces since the armed insurgency erupted in Kashmir in the late 1980s.

At least 40 Indian paramilitary personnel had been killed, setting off a chain of events that almost brought South Asia to the brink of an all-out nuclear war.

I felt heartbroken by the loss of life that had occurred.

The Indian media instantly began to whip up a frenzy against the Kashmiris, doubling down on efforts to demonise an entire people.

The Indian population’s anger was focused against Kashmiri civilians, students and migrant businessmen, who were attacked by mobs. As many as 2000 of them were forced to flee from different Indian cities…….

I have lived in India as a student and travelled across the country throughout my life, but I have never felt as threatened as during this recent visit.

Constantly dehumanised in the Indian media as well as politics, Kashmiris have been undermined and permanently relegated as dispensable other in the Indian consciousness. Even the India’s parliamentary opposition, led by the Indian National Congress party that finds its roots in the anti-colonial struggles of the subcontinent, didn’t even dare to speak a word against this wave of anti-Kashmiri hate-crimes………

Amid rising tensions, both the countries mobilised their armed forces, leading to the worst tension in 20 years. Diplomats succeeded in persuading the two nuclear-armed nations to back-off. For now.

It is local Kashmiris whose lives were disrupted by this military posturing and brinkmanship. Civilians across the de-facto border that divides Indian and Pakistani-administered Kashmir, suffered the stress of warplanes hovering above and the impending threat of war………

Deadliest decade

The confrontation between India and Pakistan has slowly de-escalated but people continue to be killed, and while last year was the deadliest in a decade the coming year looks catastrophically bleak.

In the past week 15 people including eight Kashmiri civilians died in shelling and gunfights on the border.

As world attention shifts elsewhere the plight of Kashmiri people remains constant. Our land, our air and our bodies will remain the sites of violent confrontation and electoral bargaining.

Will anyone bat an eye before the next nuclear showdown? https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-03-09/kashmir-is-stuck-in-the-middle-of-nuclear-tension/10878950

March 9, 2019 Posted by | India, Pakistan, weapons and war | Leave a comment

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