James Corbett of corbettreport.com and Broc West of apperspective.net are pleased to bring you the latest edition of their monthly video series, “The Asia-Pacific Perspective.” In this episode, we cover:
The Free Syria Army says it will allow UN’s nuclear watchdog inspectors into the Al-Kibar nuclear facility that rebels seized last week,
‘if our conditions are met’.
The IAEA has never been allowed to visit the suspected nuclear site that was allegedly ruined by an Israeli strike in 2007. Rebels claim they took control of the site, but said the premises were empty. The statement by a spokesman for the FSA, did not specify what conditions they were demanding.
Syria: IAF to blame for uranium traces at suspected nukes site – A depleted uranium mystery?
In Syria, for example, the IAEA was successful in collecting uranium particles at a site that had been “sanitized.” But then the IAEA cavalierly dismissed Syrian explanations that the natural uranium particles found at a bombed suspect site came from Israeli missiles. The agency’s claims that the particles are not of the correct isotopic and chemical composition for missiles, displays an appalling lack of technical knowledge about military munitions based on information from questionable sources. If the IAEA is to be respected it must get proper technical advice…………..
For the first time in Syria, 150 Kurdish women have set up a female-only battalion in the northern province of Aleppo, which has seen some of the heaviest fighting since the start of the Syrian uprising in early 2011.
The news comes from a statement by the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights on Saturday. While women have been known to fight alongside men in both pro and anti-regime forces – as well as the Kurdish militia, it is the first time they have formed their own fighting unit. An amateur photograph has been circulating on the internet, showing rows of women in military fatigues during training.
The announcement comes a month after the government set up paramilitary units called the National Defence Forces, which have actively been seeking to recruit women of all ages. This is testimony to the steady increase of women’s numbers in armed units. They are also becoming very useful in assisting male fighters, as they arouse less suspicion when transporting supplies and weapons.
“Women are fighting on all the fronts now, though it’s possible the Islamist rebel ranks have the fewest women taking part in them,” says Abdel Rahman of the Observatory.
The Kurdish question
The city where the battalion originated is Afrin, which in late 2012, was the last scene of fighting between Kurdish units and Arab militias fighting the regime of President Bashar al-Assad. While a number of Syrian Kurds remain neutral, they also exist on both sides of the current Syrian split, getting invariably involved in the violence.
Small amounts of HEU in solid form have long been exported, without incident, by the U.S. to Canada and turned into “targets” that are irradiated to produce medical isotopes. More than a million packages containing other radioactive material are transported in Canada each year.
By Ian MacLeod, Ottawa Citizen February 23, 2013 7:59 PM
As many as 76 transport truckloads of high-level nuclear waste could journey along the Trans-Canada Highway over the coming four years in an effort to ship decades’ worth of radioactive rubbish from Chalk River to a U.S. repro-cessing site.
The magnitude of the task is revealed in documents and statements from the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), part of the U.S. Department of Energy. Initial details were first reported by the Citizen last week.
Additional details show the plan calls for an anticipated 40 to 50 payloads of highly-enriched, weapons-grade uranium (HEU) liquid secured in fortified steel casks.
A total of about 23,000 litres of the solution would be moved in batches of a few hundreds litres at a time, the first attempt to truck liquid HEU in Canada.
The shipments would begin moving under armed guard through Eastern Ontario late this summer, pending approvals from Canadian and U.S. nuclear safety regulators, according to the NNSA.
“An initial agreement has been reached (with consignor Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd.) but more preparations must occur before shipments and processing of the solutions can begin,” at the U.S. energy department’s Savannah River Site for nuclear waste reprocessing, Robert Middaugh, a NNSA spokesman in Washington, said in a Wednesday email.
Once there, the solution is to be downblended to low enriched uranium (LEU) and used as fuel in U.S. commercial power reactors.
The estimated $60-million cost will be paid by AECL, which operates Chalk River, Middaugh said.
As well, under a separate proposed plan, several thousand spent fuel rods also made from U.S.-origin HEU and used to drive Chalk River’s NRU and NRX research reactors since the 1960s are to be trucked to the Savannah River Site.
Those shipments are to begin late this summer, again pending approvals from regulators, according to 2012 NNSA documents. (NRX was shuttered in 1993 and NRU has used LEU since the early 1990s.)
Gerald talks with Jeff Rense on the latest Trends.
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“According to the agency’s report, enrichment to a purity level of 20 percent with the aim of fueling the Tehran reactor is going smoothly, and it indicates the peaceful use of enrichment to supply the Tehran research reactor with fuel to provide hospitals with radioisotopes they need,”
Last Updated:2013-02-23 23:34 | Xinhua
Iran’s chief nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili said Saturday that the Islamic republic insists on its full nuclear rights within the framework of Nuclear Non- Proliferation Treaty (NPT).
Making the remarks at an annual conference of the Iranian Managers of Nuclear Industry, Jalili said Iranians do not accept ” less rights or more tasks,” the state IRIB TV reported.
Iran is committed to its tasks within the directives of the NPT and insists on all its rights within the framework of the NPT regulations, he emphasized.
Jalili said that the Islamic republic hopes the so-called P5+1 group, comprising Britain, China, France, Russia, the United States and Germany, come to the upcoming nuclear talks with “new strategy and valid proposals,” according to IRIB.
On Saturday, the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI) announced that the Islamic republic plans to construct 16 nuclear power plants in different parts of the country, Press TV reported.
“After months of efforts, 16 new sites for nuclear power plants have been designated in coastal areas of the Caspian Sea, the Persian Gulf, the Sea of Oman, (southwestern province of) Khuzestan and northwestern part of the country,” the AEOI was quoted as saying.
The projects are in line with Iran’s long-term plans to develop electricity generation through nuclear power plants and in accordance with international regulations, according to the announcement.
It also said that Iran has discovered more uranium deposits which increase Iran’s uranium reserves to 4,400 tons, according to official IRNA news agency.
Earlier this month, Iranian Foreign Minister Ali-Akbar Salehi said in Moscow that Iran hoped Russia could participate in constructing the second unit of Iran’s Bushehr nuclear plant.
Russia’s state atomic agency Rosatom said last May it was ready to help Iran build another unit at the Bushehr plant after the plant “successfully” reached 100 percent of its nominal capacity last August.
AEOI’s Saturday announcement and Jalili’s remarks came ahead of Iran’s upcoming nuclear talks with the P5+1 slated for Feb. 26 in Almaty, Kazakhstan. It would be the first-of-its-kind meeting between Iran and the P5+1 since the stalemate in Moscow in June 2012.
In a reaction to the recent report of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) on Iran’s nuclear program, Iranian ambassador to the IAEA Ali-Asghar Soltanieh said that the report of UN nuclear watchdog on Iran’s nuclear program confirms the peaceful nature of the country’s nuclear activities, Tehran Times daily reported Saturday.
“It’s impossible to recover fully from a nuclear accident,” says Aiko. “Each anniversary Kenji and I will be thinking: ‘Is this the year that one of our daughters will get sick?'”
Two years after the Fukushima nuclear disaster, a new phenomenon is on the rise: atomic divorce. Abigail Haworth reports on the unbearable pressures and prejudices being faced by those caught in the radiation zone
Two years after the Fukushima nuclear disaster, a new phenomenon is on the rise: atomic divorce. Abigail Haworth reports on the unbearable pressures and prejudices being faced by those caught in the radiation zone.
Two years after the Fukushima nuclear disaster, a new phenomenon is on the rise: atomic divorce. Abigail Haworth reports on the unbearable pressures and prejudices being faced by those caught in the radiation zone.
‘Each anniversary we will be thinking, “Is this the year one of our daughters will get sick?”’ Kenji and Aiko Nomura with Sakura, 3, and 15-month-old Koto. Photograph: Panos Pictures/Eric Rechsteiner
Perhaps one day Aiko and Kenji Nomura will laugh about the Birthday Cake Incident. It happened last autumn. Aiko, a care worker from the city of Koriyama in Japan’s Fukushima prefecture, was celebrating her 35th birthday. Her husband Kenji decided to surprise her. On the way home from his job at the post office, he picked up the biggest cake he could find. It was filled with whipped cream and decorated with pink roses.
“I couldn’t help myself,” recalls Aiko. “Kenji had a huge smile on his face, but the first words that shot out of my mouth when I saw the cake were: ‘Is the cream safe?'”
Since March 2011, when a triple meltdown occurred at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant 56km from their home, the Nomuras have avoided buying dairy and other foodstuffs produced in their region. Kenji, 42, confessed to Aiko that he had forgotten to check the cream’s origins. “I’m sure it’s fine. Please eat some – just this once,” he begged her. Aiko refused. She would not let their children have any, either. In silence, Kenji picked up a fork and ate the cake alone, right down to the last crumb. The couple did not speak for two days.
It is almost two years since the colossal earthquake and tsunami in northeastern Japan that killed 20,000 people and caused the world’s worst nuclear disaster in 25 years. The Nomuras’ home city of Koriyama, an inland commercial hub with 337,000 people and shimmering views of nearby mountains, was spared the tsunami’s monstrous waves. But it could not escape the clouds of radioactive particles that spread widely, following multiple explosions at the Daiichi plant. The total amount of radiation released into the air was (depending on who funded the estimate) between 18 and 40% of the quantity released during Chernobyl in 1986 – and over an area of Japan with a population density 10 times greater. In the aftermath, radiation levels in Koriyama spiked at 30 to 40 times higher than legal limits, contaminating the city with caesium and other long-life radionuclides for decades to come.
The Nomuras, who have two small daughters, Sakura aged three and 15-month-old Koto, have managed to hold together their marriage and family throughout the crisis so far. But only just. Over the past two years, they have had to cope with the arrival of a new baby (Aiko was pregnant with Koto when the disaster struck), periods of enforced separation and life in an environment that feels infinitely less wholesome and secure than it did before.
The stress on family life for all two million people across Fukushima has been immense. Marital discord has become so widespread that the phenomenon of couples breaking up has a name: genpatsu rikon or “atomic divorce”.
There are no statistics yet, but Noriko Kubota, a professor of clinical psychology at the local Iwaki Meisei University, confirms there are many cases. “People are living with constant low-level anxiety. They don’t have the emotional strength to mend their relationships when cracks appear,” she explains. Couples are being torn apart over such issues as whether to stay in the area or leave, what to believe about the dangers of radiation, whether it is safe to get pregnant and the best methods to protect children. “When people disagree over such sensitive matters, there’s often no middle way,” adds Kubota, who also runs a counselling service.
Moreover, now that what Kubota calls the “disaster honeymoon period” of people uniting to help each other in the immediate aftermath is over, long-term psychological trauma is setting in. “We are starting to see more cases of suicide, depression, alcoholism, gambling and domestic violence across the area,” says the psychologist. The young are not immune either. In late 2012, Fukushima’s children topped Japan’s obesity rankings for the first time due to apparent comfort eating and inordinate amounts of time spent indoors avoiding contamination. “From the point of view of mental health, this is a very critical time,” says Kubota.
Most unmentionable of all, cases of discrimination against people from Fukushima are arising within Japanese society. Social stigma attached to victims of radiation goes back to the aftermath of the wartime atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, when men could not find work and women were unable to marry due to fears they were “tainted”. While the ignorance that remains is far from universal, it is highly insidious. Tales exist of people from Fukushima being barred from giving blood, having their car windows smashed or being asked to provide a medical certificate of their caesium levels on job applications.
A Tokyo maternity hospital advised a new mother not to let her Fukushima-based parents visit their new grandchild, “just to be safe”. Prejudice against women is the most pervasive: many negative comments in the media and on websites insinuate that Fukushima women are “damaged goods”. Even some people who are supposedly on the side of radiation victims are prepared to throw them on the reproductive scrap heap.
Last year, prominent anti-nuclear activist Hobun Ikeya, the head of the Ecosystem Conservation Society of Japan, said at a public meeting: “People from Fukushima should not marry because the deformity rate of their babies will skyrocket.”
Aiko and Kenji are eating lunch when I arrive to meet them at a wooden restaurant just outside Koriyama’s city centre. It is a freezing winter’s day, but inside there is a charcoal-burning stove and the comforting smell of roasted sesame. The couple are sitting at a low table on a tatami-mat floor eating calmly while their impossibly cherubic girls, Sakura and Koto, clamber all over them.
The restaurant, Aiko says, is their new sanctuary. Called Ginga no Hotori (“Edge of the Galaxy”), it is a former Japanese health-food restaurant that has transformed itself into a place serving something even better for the body: guaranteed non-radioactive meals. “It’s relaxing to eat here. I don’t have to cook or worry,” says Aiko, who is swaddled in a brightly coloured jumper and scarf. “And the food is very tasty.”
Enormous effort goes into preparing the tofu burgers, black sesame buns, organic miso soup and other menu items. Hidden behind a rustic partition is a high-tech metal panel with dials and switches that operates a gamma spectroscopy machine. It looks similar to an industrial-size Magimix, except it measures levels of the potentially deadly radioisotope caesium 137. The restaurant’s owner, Katsuko Arima, an energetic 50-something in a blue bandana, explains that each food item must first be peeled and chopped before being placed in the machine for 30 minutes. “Samples from everything we use in our cooking are checked and re-checked,” Arima says. “It’s a lot of work, but I wanted to do this to give people some certainty, some peace, when they eat here.”
While the restaurant is one of a kind, numerous citizens’ groups with similar machines have set up makeshift offices in shopping centres so people can self-test everything from their groceries to garden soil. “Nobody trusts the government any more,” says Arima. She cites recent cases of official incompetence when supplies of beef, rice and vegetables declared safe by the authorities were found to be heavily contaminated. “You can only trust yourself.”
Kate Hudson Chairperson of CND interviewed by Japanese independent media, IWJ. She talks about Japanese anti-nuclear movement, Hiroshima & Nagasaki, Pacifist Japanese Constitution, the new government’s pro-nuclear policy and oppression of civil liberty.
グリーナムコモンの戦いで有名な英核廃絶団体CNDの代表、ケイト・ハドソンさんをIWJがインタビュー。日本の脱原発運動にエールを送り、原爆投下や新政権の原発推進政策、憲法9条や市民運動と弾圧についても大いに語っています。 http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/29500915 IWJ, Kate Hudson Chairperson of CND interviewed by Japanese independent media.( Japanese and English language)
She talks about Japanese anti-nuclear movement, Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the Pacifist Japanese Constitution, the new government’s pro-nuclear policy and oppression of civil liberty. IWJ interviewed representatives of British nuclear weapons groups CND famous battle of Greenham common, Kate Hudson.
Send a yell to the anti-nuclear movement in Japan, article 9 of the Constitution, the bombings and the new Administration’s nuclear power plant promotion policy and speaks a great deal about the citizens ‘ movement and the repression. http://www.Ustream.TV/recorded/29500915 (Translated by Bing)
h/t Satsuki Goto
Fairewinds Chief Engineer, Arnie Gundersen: This picture is undated, but when it was taken, it clearly shows that there is no water in the pool. If you look, there’s a green, a long, green device. That’s the refueling bridge. Normally that glides along on rails above the pool, and the pool is that crystal-clear water that you’re used to seeing. Well, after the explosion it has collapsed and is lying in the pool. Between seconds thirty-three and thirty-seven on this video you can see little boxes. The little boxes are just to the left of that green bridge. The boxes are in air. Those boxes are the top of nuclear fuel racks. They’re supposed to be under thirty feet of water. They’re not.
What that means to me is a couple things. First off, the top of the nuclear fuel is exposed. Perhaps all the nuclear fuel is exposed, but certainly the top is. You can see steam coming up, but not from the top of the fuel. [From] down further in the cavity there is steam coming up. So, the water that they’re spraying in is hitting the nuclear fuel and creating steam, but it’s not filling that swimming pool. The water has two purposes: cooling, but also shielding. That means the fuel is unshielded. […]
The other thing it means to me is that the nuclear fuel itself is extraordinarily hot, and the plutonium inside can become volatile. I spoke yesterday, in the [I mean] earlier update [today], about cerium being discovered offsite and plutonium being discovered, and the fact that the nuclear fuel pool does not have water in it, to me, indicates that it might be a clean path for those heavy elements to be escaping from the building and being discovered offsite. I would recommend, based on this, that the evacuation zone should be pushed back further […]
The UK Government said in December that moving the weapons elsewhere would be an “enormous exercise” costing billions of pounds”.
“First the UK Government’s own legal adviser agreed that the Scottish Government’s time- scale for independence was ‘realistic’, and now the paper published by the Coalition says that nuclear weapons won’t be allowed in an independent Scotland – which will be music to the ears of the Scottish people. The SNP already propose to make weapons of mass destruction illegal in the constitution of an independent Scotland.”
By EDDIE BARNES Published on Sunday 24 February 2013 00:00
THE UK Government has confirmed that Scotland would be banned from having nuclear weapons after independence under non-proliferation treaty rules.
Coalition Government offi-cials have acknowledged that, under international law, Scotland “would not be recognised as a state entitled to possess a nuclear deterrent”.
The statement, in a government analysis report on the effects of independence, appears to rule out the possibility of the UK doing a deal with an independent Scotland to keep nuclear weapons on the Clyde indefinitely under a new military pact.
It increases the prospect of Scottish and UK governments having to negotiate a formal leasing deal to allow nuclear weapons to continue to be stationed in Scotland, even temporarily, following a Yes vote in next year’s referendum.
The SNP said last night that once an independent government had signed up to non-proliferation treaty rules, Britain’s current submarine-based nuclear deterrent based at Faslane and Coulport would have to leave Scotland as soon as possible.
The Non Proliferation Treaty is a 40-year-old international agreement which has been signed by 190 countries – including the UK – and is designed to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons.
Article 1 states that countries such as Britain, which have nuclear weapons, must not give control over such armaments to non-nuclear states.
The UK Government’s legal position on Faslane has now been clarified in its analysis paper on Scottish independence. It states: “The future of the UK’s nuclear weapons and facilities would be an important issue to be resolved. Under international law, an independent Scotland would not be recognised as a state entitled to possess a nuclear deterrent.”
Nissan Leaf’s government subsidized attempt to garner support with taxi drivers is failing spectacularly. In less than 2 years of use, the 60 mile battery has degraded to 30 miles per charge. Instead of 15 minutes to charge the battery, it now takes 40 minutes. This is wasted time for taxi drivers. To save energy as much as possible, some drivers are shunning the car’s heater in favor of chemical pocket warmers, and even blankets. In the wake of the Fukushima nuclear disaster, electricity is no longer seen as the clean, safe option it once was.
If everyone switched to electric cars, we would need 7 times more power plants. These power plants would burn oil or coal or use nuclear radiation power. More would be placed near people’s neighborhoods.
Electric cars are simply not green. They just shift the source of pollution elsewhere. They would also risk more nuclear disasters. They are also not efficient use of oil since you have to burn more barrels of oil to power an electric car than that used to power a gas car.
Far better are hybrids or alternative fuel source cars – such as alcohol or biodiesel cars. They have renewable sources of energy.
Compare Nissan’s experience with the spectacular success of Toyota’s Prius and Prius V with Taxi drivers.
If electric cars don’t work for Taxi Drivers, then they are not worth it at all. Taxi Drivers are the ultimate testers for reliability and longevity of cars.
Abby Martintalks to RT Web Producer, Andrew Blake, about the case of political activist, Jeremy Hammond, convicted over the hacking of Strategic Forecasting Inc, and the leaking of the now infamous Stratfor emails.
““The tragic death of Internet freedom fighter Aaron Swartz reveals the government’s flawed ‘cyber security strategy’ as well as its systematic corruption involving computer crime investigations, intellectual property law, and government/corporate transparency,” Hammond writes. “The United States Attorney’s aggressive prosecution, riddled with abuse and misconduct, is what led to the death of this hero. This sad and angering chapter should serve as a wake-up call for all of us to acknowledge the danger inherent in our criminal justice system.””
Hacker Jeremy Hammond attacks US cyberwars from behind bars
February 22, 2013 15:35
Only hours before a federal judge dismissed concerns over a possible conflict of interest and refused to step down in the case against hacker Jeremy Hammond, the defendant issued a strong-worded assault critiquing the government that’s prosecuting him.
On Thursday, US Federal Judge Loretta Preska denied a motion for disqualification entered in the court two months earlier by attorneys for Hammond, a 27-year-old political activist awaiting trial for his alleged role in a high-profile series of hacks. And although the judge acknowledged this week that her husband of over 30 years was victimized in one of those hacks, Preska said the defense’s request for recuse was based off of insubstantial and insufficient speculation.
“Upon review of the record, Defendant has fail to carry his substantial burden of showing that a reasonable observer, with knowledge and understanding of the relevant facts, would ‘entertain significant doubt that justice would be done absent recusal,’” Judge Preska told the court [.pdf].
The federal government has accused Hammond of participating with the shadowy hacktivist movement Anonymous and two offshoots — LulzSec and AntiSec — in a laundry list of cyber escapades that have targeted, among others, the Arizona Department of Public Safety, security firm HBGary Federal and Strategic Forecasting Inc., or Stratfor — a private intelligence company that has been called a “Shadow CIA” by some. With regards to the Stratfor hack, Hammond and others are attributed with swiping data from the company’s servers in December 2011 and then publically releasing internal emails, client lists and subscriber credit card information. Two months ago, it was discovered that the name and email address of Judge Preska’s husband, attorney Thomas Kavaler, were included in the files pilfered from Stratfor and then circulated by members of Anonymous and the media. The internal correspondence, some of which has led to significant news breaks in their own right, has also been continuously published by the WikiLeaks whistleblower site.
Mr. Kavaler’s information was indeed released through the hack, the judge admitted, but no other sensitive information of his had been compromised. Further, Judge Preska dismissed concerns that both she and her husband maintained professional relationships with others who were victimized, vaguely or otherwise, in the hack.
“The reasonable observer would conclude that any appearance of this court’s interest in Mr. Kavaler as a victim of the crime is too insubstantial to require disqualification,” the judge wrote.
In regards to other possible connections between the court and the Stratfor victims, Judge Preska wrote, “[the] Defendant’s attempt to draw such a link is futile.”
Before and after satellite images of the Syrian nuclear reactor at al-Kibar, which was reportedly struck by Israel in 2007 (AP/DigitalGlobe)
Syrian rebels claimed Saturday that they had taken control of a nuclear facility that was reportedly bombed by Israel in 2007.
The al-Kibar site, located in the Deir ez-Zor region of eastern Syria, is believed to have housed a nuclear reactor, which according to foreign reports, was destroyed by the Israeli Air Force.
Israel has never admitted to carrying out the airstrike, and Syria denied that the facility was military in purpose.
In messages posted online, rebel sources described the site on Saturday as a “nuclear research facility.”
Some 165 people died Friday in clashes between President Bashar Assad’s forces and rebel fighters, reported Al Jazeera. In reported scud missile attacks in Aleppo, at least 29 people were killed, according to activists, and dozens more were feared to be trapped under rubble.
The UN estimates that nearly 70,000 people have died in the nearly two-year-old Syrian civil war.
According to freelance journalist Tanaka, Tepco’s former chairman Katsumata will not be prosecuted due to the lack of evidence. Plaintiffs from Fukushima surrounded public prosecutors office and Tepco and demanded Tepco to surrender.
<Translate> The information that Tepco’s former chairman Katsumata had a cognitive interview leaked to mass media. It seems like Tokyo district public prosecutors office is not to prosecute him for the lack of evidence. This evening, the plaintiffs from Fukushima will surround the public prosecutors- “side with the strong and crush the weak” <End>
<Translate> The plaintiffs surrounded Tokyo district public prosecutors office to demand investigation for Tepco, and then moved to Tepco, the principal offender. It’s been a while since last time over 500 Fukushima citizens protested in front of Tepco. <End>
<Translate> The situation is imminent in front of Tepco. Fukushima citizens submit the written request to demand Tepco to surrender to justice for causing Fukushima accident. <End>
Tsunehisa Katsumata, chairman of Tokyo Electric Power Co., 9501.TO -0.49% is among the most powerful and well-connected businessmen in Japan. A former Tepco president, he essentially took control of the company last March, after dealing with the crisis at its Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant proved too much for then-President Masataka Shimizu.
Now, as Tepco and the government hammer out a proposal—due by month’s end—on how to rebuild the utility amid staggering costs from the nuclear accident, Mr. Katsumata is the most formidable and effective champion for keeping the company out of Tokyo’s control, government officials and others familiar with the negotiations say….”
The Chinese Government has acknowledged so-called “cancer villages” for the first time in an official report on pollution and public health.
The term is used to describe towns with higher incidences of cancer due to air and water pollution.
China’s Environment Ministry has also acknowledged local industry habitually uses poisonous and harmful chemicals banned elsewhere in the world, which pose a risk to human health and the environment.
The government faces growing discontent over hazardous smog and industrial waste problems in China’s big cities.
Environmental lawyer Wang Canfa, who runs an aid centre in Beijing for victims of pollution, says this is the first time the “cancer village” phrase has appeared in a ministry document.
“It shows that the Environment Ministry has acknowledged that pollution has led to people getting cancer,” he said.
“It shows that this issue, of environmental pollution leading to health damages, has drawn attention.”
China -Thyroid cancer cases continue to increase at double-digit rate
Updated: 2013-01-26 03:47
By Shan Juan ( China Daily)
Chen Wanqing, deputy director of the National Central Cancer Registry, added: “The reasons for the increases aren’t exactly clear, but factors like increasing exposure to radiation, mounting workload and mental pressure, and irregular lifestyles could be significant.” Qoute from Chinese article,,
nuclear-news 