(Source) http://headlines.yahoo.co.jp/hl?a=20131112-00000160-jij-soci 福島県は12日、東京電力福島第1原発事故を受け、当時18歳以下の子供を対象に行っている甲状腺検査について、胎児の影響への不安が大きいことから、事故当時の胎児も2014年4月から対象に加えると発表した。 同日の県民健康管理調査の検討委員会で示した。甲状腺検査の新たな対象は、原発事故後の11年4月2日から12年4月1日に生まれた約1万5000人。対象者総数は約38万5000人となる。 Fukushima prefecture is going to examine unborn babies at the time of the accident in 2011 for thyroid check from next April. There are going to be extra 15,000 children. In total number of the children in the Fukushima survey will then be 385,000 children.
Fairewinds has fielded a number of questions regarding the removal of the fuel rods from the spent fuel pool in Unit 4 at Fukushima Daiichi. Today’s video shows Arnie debunking TEPCO’s animated film point by point, and highlights the issues TEPCO will have removing the fuel rods. TEPCO needs to be removed as the organization overseeing the cleanup of the site prior to the removal of the fuel rods.
[NEW YORK, NY] Jeremy Hammond, a 28-year-old political activist, will be sentenced Friday, November 15 at the Federal Court for the Southern District of New York [500 Pearl St, The Ceremonial Courtroom on the 9th Floor] after pleading guilty to participating in the Anonymous hack into the computers of the private intelligence firm Strategic Forecasting (Stratfor). An outpouring of support by journalists, activists and other whistleblowers in the run-up to the sentencing hearing has focused on Jeremy Hammond’s actions as civil disobedience, motivated by a desire to protest and expose the secret activities of private intelligence corporations.
Jeremy Hammond’s attorneys have submitted a sentencing memorandum on his behalf asking for a sentence of time served, a call supported by 5,000 people in petitions hosted by Change.org and Demand Progress. Additionally, over 250 letters addressed to the Judge from friends, family, journalists, academics, the tech community, and prominent whistleblowers have been included with the memorandum. Among these is a letter cosigned by 17 editors and journalists representing international media outlets in fifteen countries with a combined audience of 500 million people.
Many of the supporters plan to be present at Mr. Hammond’s sentencing to voice their concern and to raise public awareness of the disproportionate sentences associated with the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA), which grants greater protection to corporations than those it affords to individuals. Private companies like Stratfor account for 70 percent of the government intelligence budget and often operate without public scrutiny or government oversight.
The information released by Mr. Hammond for the first time gives the American people and others in the world a picture of the role that private intelligence corporations play in surveillance of legally and constitutionally protected activities and the activists involved. The Stratfor documents have given us the understanding that private intelligence companies may be a bigger problem for civil liberties than our own government and it is these companies that we ought to be suing as we pursue government accountability for surveillance,” said Michael Ratner, President Emeritus at The Center for Constitutional Rights.
In a letter of support for Mr. Hammond, Pentagon Papers whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg wrote: “My decision to go public with the Pentagon Papers was a difficult one. At my own risk, I released them, just as Jeremy Hammond has done. I believe the actions taken by Jeremy Hammond need to be viewed in a context that considers the profound consequences of private surveillance of political activists in the United States.”
“[Jeremy Hammond] performed an act of civil disobedience out of a deeply held belief that the people have a right to know what the government and unregulated corporations are doing behind closed doors against them,” wrote Jesselyn Radack, a whistleblower and former ethics adviser to the Department of Justice, in a letter of support for Jeremy. “He is a patriot who only sought to provide transparency and expose the surveillance crimes being perpetrated on the American people.”
A longtime social activist and proponent of ethical hacking, Jeremy has stated that he revealed the information about Stratfor because “people have a right to know what governments and corporations are doing behind closed doors.”
Originally facing a sentence totaling more than 35 years and additional indictments in 12 other federal jurisdictions, Jeremy pled to a single count of conspiracy under the draconian Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA). He faces a maximum of ten years. Jeremy’s co-defendants from England and Ireland have received sentences ranging from probation to 30 months in prison and are not likely to be extradited to the US.
To speak to members of the defense committee or to some of the people who wrote letters to the Court on Mr. Hammond’s behalf, please contact Christina DiPasquale at 202.716.1953 or christina@fitzgibbonmedia.com.
The sentencing hearing for Jeremy Hammond is scheduled for November 15, 2013 at 10 AM at Federal District Court for the Southern District of New York, 500 Pearl Street, in the Ceremonial Courtroom on the 9th floor. For interviews at the November 15 hearing, contact Andy Stepanian, 631.291.3010, andy@sparrowmedia.net.
Abby Martin gives a call to action for a March Against the Mainstream Media on November 16 by talking about the abysmal failure of the fourth estate and the lack of public knowledge about important issues.
…For a filmmaker, there is perhaps no greater honour than to have an audience fully engage with his or her work, and I am extremely grateful for the opportunity that this experience gave me to think about what I do in different ways…
Back from the second leg of the world tour of ‘A2-B-C’ two nights ago, I had just enough time to grab some clean clothes (and a warmer jacket!) before I took a bullet train yesterday morning to Nagoya for more domestic screenings of the film.
The PIA Film Festival, during which the Japan premier of the ‘A2-B-C’ was held in September (INFO), goes on tour to cities around Japan with a selection of films from the main program, and this week it is playing in Nagoya (INFO).
There was a great turnout for the screening today which took place at the Aichi Prefectural Arts Centre. It was wonderful to see festival director Keiko Araki, to whom I am extremely grateful for the support, advice and encouragement she has given to me since the film’s world premier in Germany nearly six months ago (INFO).
Perhaps I was more jet-lagged than I realized as during the post-screening Q&A, I was less than articulate at times, and at one point Araki-san even gave me a friendly jab, saying, “What is wrong with you today?”
Following the screening, I was interviewed by a group of students from the Nagoya Visual Arts School for a class project. It was exactly 10 years ago that I was working on my MA in filmmaking, and seeing this fresh-faced group of young filmmakers in action gave me a wonderful feeling of nostalgia.
The students asked me if I had any advice for them, and I struggled to give them an answer. I certainly don’t have this “filmmaking thing” all figured out, and I wasn’t really sure what to say. In the end, I simply said, “Listen to the voice in your heart.”
In the evening, I had the honour of speaking at Nagoya University at the invitation of Professor Hideaki Fujiki, whom I had the pleasure of meeting during last month’s Yamagata International Documentary Film Festival (INFO). The Visual Studies Network event (INFO) was attended by students from various departments, including film studies and philosophy, as well as several members of the public.
Federal plans to truck radioactive material from a World War II-era plant in Tennessee to Nevada for burial in the desert are rekindling a long-running battle to prevent the Silver State from becoming the nation’s nuclear dumping ground.
U.S. Department of Energy officials told residents at a town hall meeting Wednesday in Las Vegas that the state doesn’t have authority to prevent shipments of uranium waste from Oak Ridge, Tenn., to the Nevada National Security Site north of Las Vegas.
A similar meeting was scheduled late Thursday in rural Pahrump.
Nevada Gov. Brian Sandoval, who protested the waste transport and burial plan when it became public last summer, issued a statement Thursday calling it premature to say whether the state will seek a federal court order to block the shipments.
Sandoval aide Mary-Sarah Kinner pointed to continuing talks between state and Energy Department to address concerns about the plan.
Energy Department administrators said they’ve revised transportation plans, agreed to bury the waste deeper than initially planned, and performed evaluations “above and beyond regulatory requirements” to address state concerns, including the safety of the waste for 10,000 years.
A truck was loaded at Oak Ridge in June, and officials told residents in Las Vegas they want to begin shipments under armed guard in January, before the trip certification expires. Up to 100 shipments would follow before 2017. Shipping times and routes would be kept secret.
The delay is costing $2.5 million a month, department spokeswoman Aoife McCarthy said.
Tracy Mustin, a deputy to Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz, declared Wednesday that moving the potentially deadly material some 2,000 miles was “necessary and in the interest of national security.”
“We’re confident that we can execute the program safely and securely,” Mustin said.
The assurances brought criticism from several of the 80 or so people who attended Wednesday’s town hall meeting, including veterans of the decades-long battle that has so far blocked a plan to entomb waste from nuclear plants in tunnels at Yucca Mountain, about 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas.
…With uranium prices low after the 2011 accident at Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi atomic power plant, Russia has “no need” now to blend down more highly enriched uranium for fuel, said Sergei Novikov, spokesman for state nuclear corporation Rosatom….
MOSCOW (Reuters) – A 20-year-old deal that has powered American homes while reducing the risk of Russian nuclear material falling into the wrong hands approached its end on Thursday when the final shipment of uranium left St Petersburg for Baltimore.
Under the 1993 HEU Purchase Agreement, Russia downblended 500 metric tons of highly enriched uranium (HEU) from nuclear weapons into low-enriched uranium and sent it to the United States, where it was made into fuel for nuclear power plants.
Over much of the life of the deal, it was used to generate roughly half of all commercial nuclear energy produced in the United States, or nearly 10 percent of all U.S. electricity, according to the U.S. Energy Department.
“For two decades, one in 10 light bulbs in America has been powered by nuclear material from Russian nuclear warheads,” Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz said of the agreement, commonly known as Megatons for Megawatts.
It provided cash and jobs in Russia’s nuclear industry at a time, after the 1991 Soviet collapse, when fears ran high that impoverished scientists would sell secrets or “dirty bomb” ingredients.
It was “crucial for stabilising the Russian nuclear complex at a critical time in the 1990s,” said Matthew Bunn, a Harvard University professor and expert on nuclear security and proliferation.
He called it “perhaps the most successful U.S.-Russian cooperative effort to reduce nuclear dangers”.
But times have changed. A richer Russia, while seeking to expand its nuclear energy industry, has resisted U.S. efforts to extend the agreement or come up with another one to continue blending down HEU, Bunn said.
The deal was done when Russia wanted financial aid from the West. President Vladimir Putin, in power since 2000, has made a point of rejecting handouts and demanded that the United States treat Russia as an equal.
“It is too bad … that Russia has not decided to blend down substantial additional quantities of highly enriched uranium,” Bunn said. “They still have far more than is plausibly needed for their military programmes.”
The following brief was just published by the Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS) on the current state of Iran’s nuclear program:
Key Findings from the IAEA Iran Safeguards Report
David Albright, Christina Walrond, and Andrea Stricker
November 14, 2013
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) released on November 14, 2013 its report on the implementation of NPT safeguards in Iran and the status of Iran’s compliance with Security Council resolutions. Below are the key findings from the report. A complete ISIS analysis will follow later today.
Key Findings:
1) Iran has continued to produce near 20 and 3.5 percent low enriched uranium (LEU) at the same rate as the last reporting period. Its centrifuge capability at the Natanz and Fordow enrichment facilities remains essentially the same as the last reporting period.
2) Number of installed IR-1 centrifuges at the Natanz Fuel Enrichment Plant (FEP) increases by only 4 machines; number of enriching centrifuges decreases by two cascades.
3) No new IR-2m machines installed and no enrichment in IR-2m cascades in the FEP.
4) No new centrifuges enriching at the Fordow Fuel Enrichment Plant, and no increase in the number of installed centrifuges at the plant.
5) Iran continues to convert its 19.75 percent uranium hexafluoride into uranium oxide, but it has increased its stockpile of near 20 percent low enriched uranium hexafluoride by 10 kg to 196 kg total.
6) Critical components of the IR-40 Reactor at Arak remain uninstalled.
7) No new fuel assemblies completed for the IR-40 reactor; number of fuel assemblies remains consistent at 10; Iran in the process of completing an eleventh assembly. A full core would hold 150 fuel assemblies
8) Iran takes positive step in concluding initial cooperation agreement with IAEA; much more is required to satisfy IAEA’s concerns about past or possibly ongoing nuclear weapons related work. Iran also did not agree to provide updated, detailed design information on the Arak Heavy Water Reactor.
Published: November 14th, 2013 at 1:22 am ET
By ENENews
Amchitka Island, Alaska, Biological Monitoring Report 2011 Sampling Results, September 2013: To determine what [Fukushima Dai-ichi’s] direct release of radioactive materials into the atmosphere might have contributed to the background radiation on Amchitka and Adak Islands, semiquantitative gamma spectrometry measurements were made […] The results imply that Dolly Varden [a type of fish], rockweed, and to a lesser extent, Irish lord [a type of fish] appear to contain a significant cesium isotope signature from Fukushima Dai-ichi. The estimated 134Cs/137Cs activity ratios in pooled fauna samples at the time sampled ranged from <30 to about 60 percent. Observations of Fukushima-derived fallout impacting on this region are supported by findings of elevated levels of 134Cs (and 137Cs) in lichen and soil collected from both the Adak and Amchitka regions. […]
Lichen sample from mid-2011 expressed in picocuries/kilogram — Lichen on the island had less than 70 pCi/kg of Cs-137 in 1997.
Department of Energy: Biological Monitoring at Amchitka Appears to Show Impacts from Fukushima Dai-ichi Incident […] The U.S. Department of Energy Office Legacy Management (LM) has a long-term stewardship mission to protect human health and the environment from the legacy of underground nuclear testing conducted at Amchitka Island, Alaska, from 1965 to 1971. […] Atmospheric monitoring in the United States showed elevated cesium activities shortly after the [Fukushima] nuclear incident. LM scientists anticipated that atmospheric transport of cesium would potentially increase the cesium activities in the 2011 biological samples collected near Amchitka. Because cesium-134 has a relatively short half-life of 2 years and indicates leakage from a nuclear reactor, it is a clear indicator of a recent nuclear accident […] Because the Amchitka 2011 sampling event occurred soon after the Fukushima nuclear accident, the biota impacted by atmospheric precipitation showed the greatest impact (e.g., species that live in freshwater or shallow ocean waters) when compared to marine biota living in deeper water. This is because ocean currents are a slower transport process than wind currents. LM scientists anticipate that the marine biota will show the impacts of Fukushima during the next sampling event, currently scheduled to occur in 2016. […]
They also found Uranium-235, 236 and 238 in these items. Starts on Page 247.
>> You can see how these radioisotopes can add up very quickly if you’re eating the fish.
……………………………………………………………………………………
And from Mary M….
In this report, it appears that the Plutonium detected was actually NOT more in 2011 compared to their testing in 2004.
Cesium 137, Uranium 234 and Uranium 236 levels were higher/more in 2011 (pg55).
Maybe there’s something I’m missing, but this area was definitely a hot spot before, so it is not all related to Fukushima. Does anyone read the Plutonium part differently?
For a long time now there has been concern about the Trans Pacific Partnership Agreement and what it might mean for intellectual property laws and online rights but little is known about the negotiations for the treaty because talks are being held in secret. However, WikiLeaks managed to obtain and release the chapter of the agreement concerning IP and people who’ve been following the talks are more worried than ever. We spoke to journalist, writer and author of Rebel Code, Glyn Moody about just what the TPP is and the potential consequences of it being signed.
…..The deal, worth over $10 billion, is seen as a pivotal test of the technology’s future on the continent, and Rosatom’s marketing and engineering subsidiaries abroad, Rusatom Overseas and Astomstroyexport, are competing against Westinghouse, a U.S. unit of Japan’s Toshiba.
The rules could also make it difficult for Rosatom to license its VVER reactor in Britain with a view to build it at a British site, Laaksonen said.
“It is not enough to have the world’s best plants, if you cannot tell how good you are and how are your plants,” he said…..
Published: Friday November 15, 2013 MYT 12:10:02 AM
MOSCOW (Reuters) – An ambitious export drive by Russia’s nuclear reactor corporation is being hamstrung by dated Soviet-style secrecy rules, foreign executives at the company say.
Rosatom has hired a former Finnish nuclear regulator, Jukka Laaksonen, to be the face of Russian nuclear energy abroad and a guarantor of safety.
But in a throwback to Soviet secrecy rules, Laaksonen and two other new foreign vice presidents are barred from working out of its Moscow headquarters, a hulking colonnaded building that housed the Soviet Union’s atomic ministry in the 1950s.
Before Rosatom’s export branch, Rusatom Overseas, moved to its own offices, its Czech vice president, Leos Tomicek, often worked out a cafe across the street, a company spokesman said.
Tomicek and Laaksonen say strict internal commercial secrecy rules prevent the Russian state firm from advertising its latest technology and are the biggest obstacle to Russia’s ambitions to triple sales by 2030.
“You cannot sell something in a black box,” said Laaksonen, who joined Rusatom Overseas almost two years ago.
“The legislation is old, and the culture is old. This is very helpful for all our competitors.”
The Russian nuclear industry has won recent sales by offering full-package deals for nuclear newcomers such as Vietnam, Turkey, China and Bangladesh.
This was made possible by a consolidation of the industry under Rosatom’s chief Sergei Kiriyenko, who was Russia’s youngest-ever prime minister under President Boris Yeltsin.
Rosatom now controls all facets of the business from uranium mining to fuel enrichment and grid development.
Backed by President Vladimir Putin, it is now building more nuclear plants worldwide than any other vendor, bidding for most major tenders and plans to open 20 marketing offices.
The nuclear giant, which is building 19 reactors outside of Russia, this month said its foreign orders portfolio was worth $66.5 billion in 2012, up 30 percent from a year earlier. It aims to have orders for 30 reactors abroad by 2030.
But Russia will fail to sell reactors to the European Union and other markets with nuclear know-how, unless it scraps rules preventing it from supplying the level of details on its reactor designs that such clients and regulators demand, Laaksonen said.
How to Get Censored on China’s TwitterProPublica, Nov. 14, 2013, 11:19 a.m.“Author Name, ProPublica.” not to be resold, reposted or changed without Authors Accreditation 中文版:新浪微博:遭遇中国式审查
Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Mark Welsh says the change was initiated as the Air Force searched for a successor to Maj. Gen. Michael Carey. He was fired in October for misbehavior as commander of 20th Air Force, which is responsible for all 450 of the Air Force’s Minuteman 3 nuclear missiles.
The removal of Carey came amid a series of disclosures by The Associated Press about security and leadership lapses, morale problems, training flaws, and an assertion by one midlevel nuclear officer that he had found ”rot” inside his unit at Minot Air Force Base.
….In August, the number of people in Fukushima who have died since the accident from illnesses related to prolonged evacuation rose to 1,539, nearing the prefecture’s tsunami death toll of 1,599….
By Mia 14/11/13
The government said they are going to support the evacuees with a new proposal. I am concerned because:
Those residents in the area more than 50mSv/y will get sufficient financial help from the government, but those in the remaining area are not going to be financially supported.
Where are those residents in 50mSv/y going be housed? They could be offered to live in 20mSv/y zone in Fukushima prefecture as the government considers it safe.
Maybe people outside Japan think that those 160,000 evacuees from the Fukushima nuclear accident, earthquake and tsunami were evacuated into a safe area from the Fukushima prefecture, but the most of the evacuees had been evacuated just outside 20km radius of the crippled plant where radiation level is anywhere between up to 20mSv/y. Those husbands among the evacuees who had lost jobs from the earthquake, tsunami and Fukushima nuclear accident have ended up working as Tepco clean-up workers and have been even more exposed to radiation. Other help offered by the Japanese government was announced for pregnant women and children to be provided free accommodation if they decide to come back to Fukushima prefecture. In my opinion, this is a disgrace. Also, they would advise the residents to use dosimeters because it reads even lower than the public monitoring posts.
[Mia`s note – Correction to main stream media published figures] The number 160,000 is reported as a number of evacuees in the most of Japanese and English news except for a few reports, but I think it is figure of total evacuees who were affected by Earthquake, Tsunami and Fukushima accident in Tohoku region. After searching the regional information concerning refugees, I think seems 86,000 is about right for the Fukushima disaster evacuees. The Japanese government evacuated only the residents in the areas 20km radius of the Fukushima Nuclear power plant and also from Iidate village, Kawauchi village and some from Minami-soma city. Total population in those areas was about 86,000.)
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“For many Fukushima evacuees, the truth is they won’t be going home” by Sophie Knight and Antoni Slodkowski Iwaki, Japan Mon Nov 11, 2013 (Reuters)
“The government is also considering a proposal floated earlier this month to offer new compensation to residents in the areas of highest radiation who have no prospect of returning home, officials involved have said.”
For many of Japan’s oldest nuclear refugees, all they want is to be allowed back to the homes they were forced to abandon. Others are ready to move away, severing ties to the ghost towns that remain in the shadow of the wrecked Fukushima nuclear plant.
But among the thousands of evacuees stuck in temporary housing more than two and a half years after the worst nuclear accident since Chernobyl, there is a shared understanding on one point – Japan’s government is unable to deliver on its ambitious initial goals for cleaning up the areas that had to be evacuated after the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami disaster……
…..Lawmakers from Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s coalition parties on Monday recommended the government step back from the most ambitious Fukushima clean-up goals, and begin telling evacuees that a $30 billion clean-up will not achieve the long-term radiation reduction goal set by the previous administration. “The government and ruling party will act as one and deal with this firmly,” said Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga, adding that Abe would consider the proposal seriously.
The government is also considering a proposal floated earlier this month to offer new compensation to residents in the areas of highest radiation who have no prospect of returning home, officials involved have said.
FRUSTRATION, RESIGNATION 福島原発避難者：不満とあきらめ
……. Social workers report an increase in domestic strife, alcoholism and illnesses such as deep vein thrombosis from lack of exercise. In August, the number of people in Fukushima who have died since the accident from illnesses related to prolonged evacuation rose to 1,539, nearing the prefecture’s tsunami death toll of 1,599.
Among those who remain, there is frustration, resignation and a sense that the hardest decisions remain ahead……… No matter how hard they try to decontaminate, radiation isn’t going down. So even though we have decided to go back, we can’t,” said Keiko Shioi, a 59-year-old housewife from Naraha, near the nuclear plant. …..“No matter how much they decontaminate I’m not going back because I have children and it is my responsibility to protect them,” said Yumi Ide, a mother of two teenage boys from Tomioka……
nuclear-news 