[The music is great btw – Niigaki needs to look elsewhere for the real Olympic fraud – Arclight2011 ]
In Japan, Women Launch Sex Strike To Protest Yoichi Masuzoe, Tokyo Governor Candidate
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/02/06/japan-sex-strike_n_4740543.html
In Japan, a group of women have announced a sex strike against anyone who votes for the leading candidate in Sunday’s election for governor of Tokyo.
The boycott was launched after a series of misogynistic comments attributed to the gubernatorial front runner, Yoichi Masuzoe, came to light last week.
A former health minister, Masuzoe is the ruling party’s candidate and leads most polls on who will win this weekend’s election.
But a movement against the candidate, called the No Masuzoe campaign, was launched when an opposition politician’s blog quoted him as saying women are not equipped for national politics because of their strange behavior during the menstrual cycle. The blog cites a 1989 article for the diatribe against female leadership.
The campaign against Masuzoe includes a petition and poster campaign arguing Masuzoe is not fit for public office.
Masuzoe’s relationship with women has been scrutinized by the Japanese press before, including a court battle over child support payments. One of his ex-wives even tried to stand against Masuzoe for the party’s gubernatorial nomination, but he eventually won the president’s endorsement.
The latest scandal just adds to an already tumultuous voting process — this election was called when the previous governor, Naoki Inose, resigned in December after admitting to accepting money from a hospital chain under investigation for vote buying.
Yet at the heart of Sunday’s election is a battle over the future of nuclear power in Japan, after the Fukushima nuclear disaster of March 2011.
Masuzoe’s Liberal Democrat party is largely pro-nuclear, whereas his main opponent, Morihiro Hosokawa, is fiercely opposed to nuclear power. Mizuho Fukushima, the politician whose blog post on Masuzoe prompted the sex strike, is also opposed to nuclear power.
Deaf Japanese composer may be neither deaf nor composer
Niigaki also said he was compelled to put a stop to the fraud after hearing the news that Daisuke Takahashi, a Japanese figure skater, was set to perform to a Samuragochi piece during the Sochi Winter Olympics. Niigaki’s brave move has prevented the Sochi Games from being tainted by any trace of fraud.
http://www.avclub.com/article/deaf-japanese-composer-may-be-neither-deaf-nor-com-107574
Will Fukushima’s Leaking Radiation Contaminate Tokyo’s Water Supply?
Anyone who has been following the ongoing nightmare of the Fukushima nuclear disaster will know that over the past months there have been a slew of news articles documenting the contamination of the land and water beneath the Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant No. 1 (FNPP#1), also referred to as “Dai-ichi,” meaning “no. 1.” The radioactive contamination beneath the FNPP#1 is both highly radioactive and being found at great depths. Situated on the edge of the ocean, FNPP#1 is built on soft and spongy “fill” soil and is nearly the opposite of Chernobyl where that power plant’s foundation was rock solid.
We can clearly detect a pattern here: the corium globs (melted fuel) from the three melted down reactors (numbers 1, 2, 3) are in unknown locations. That melted fuel could either be in the bottom of the reactor buildings where it is constantly being cooled by the coolant water that Tokyo Electric Power Company (Tepco) is pumping onto it, or melted through the bottom of the buildings and undergoing a China Syndrome phenomenon. Either way not only is coolant water leaking out of the buildings before it is recycled into safer storage tanks, but also groundwater is seeping up into those buildings, becoming contaminated, then pouring out again. The contaminated water is traveling both into the ground water and out to sea.
Just recently it has been reported that Tepco is planning to dump all of the stored water on site, as they are running out of space! The filtration system is imperfect and does not remove all radionuclides reliably, and crucially does not remove any tritium, which would be the main source of radiation to be dumped into the ocean.
The Tokyo Connection
Tokyo is one of the world’s most densely populated megapolis regions. Since the 3/11 disaster, radiation has been appearing in the drinking water and airborne fallout is occurring in the prefectures around Fukushima including Tokyo (1; 2; 3). Contamination in Fukushima is particularly bad.
I think the current contamination in Tokyo to water and air is from a combination of the initial fallout and the stirring up of radionuclides from wind and weather.
It could also be from incineration of radioactive debris, but, I personally doubt that that is spreading much radiation into the environment directly, as the filters would remove most of the radiation (the fly ash is another story as to where and how it is stored). On the other hand, how much illegal burning of debris is occurring which is releasing high levels of radiation? No one knows but it is possible given the dearth of information about the topic in the censored Japanese media.
Ongoing emissions from FNPP#1 could also be adding to the general burden of radiation being measured in fallout and water supply in the Tokyo region. Prefectures to the west of Tokyo generally do not measure detectable radiation in fallout or drinking water, according to the government.
I find it hard to believe that ongoing airborne emissions from the FNPP#1 are reaching Tokyo in any great amount, directly, however. Tokyo has hotspots but those are mainly from the initial accident.
An Underground Plume Of Doom?
However, the groundwater contamination issue is something few people are talking about. A colleague of mine who is an astute researcher, Professor Uranium, and I, were discussing the possibility of the Tokyo drinking water supply eventually becoming contaminated by this process.
“I think the plume of radiation in the aquifer is relatively slow moving. But my understanding is that the aquifer under Daiichi eventually connects up to other aquifers in Japan, including the one that sources Tokyo. The fuel is underground. The water supply is going to be contaminated in the long run.”
Back in 2012 one of the more honest and outspoken nuclear engineers in Japan at the time, Masashi Goto, was quoted as saying he worried the contamination from the FNPP#1 could potentially reach “public water supplies” (4).
I located two hydrological maps that appear to be reliable (5; 6). In the first map we can see that the major aquifer, or, “groundwater basin” that clearly includes Tokyo, has a border that cuts just to the south of the FNPP#1. Too close for comfort.
Transboundary Aquifers in Asia
In the second map, we see that the areas surrounding the major Tokyo groundwater basin contain “local and shallow aquifers.” This is also obvious from looking at topographical maps of Fukushima which has many streams and rivers, something that is very common in mountainous Japan and typical of such topography.
Inside the Global Aquifer Map
“Most of the water resources of Tokyo come from rivers” and is processed through a series of dams and reservoirs (7). When the initial 311 nuclear disaster occurred radiation was dumped into some of these reservoirs from above and contaminated public water supplies. They remain so today.
The Japanese government states regarding the national water supply:
Surface water (including dam, river and lake) consists 72% of total annual intake, and ground water (including river-bed, shallow and deep well) consists 26% (2006). Therefore, most of the water supply sources can be easily influenced by pollutions such as eutrophication, oil spill accidents, etc (8).
They admit the groundwater supply is vulnerable to pollution, as it certainly would be in the case of long lived radiation.
Therefore, it would be logical to hypothesize that the contaminated water leaking from FNPP#1 is finding its way not only into the local and shallow aquifers but ultimately the major Tokyo aquifer. The levels of radiation and the length of time that it would take for the radiation to reach Tokyo might be of minimal concern. That said, radionuclides like cesium and strontium are around for hundreds of years.
Exelon may shut down nuclear plants in profit struggle
The company said it continues to be pummeled by lower power prices but that those losses were offset by higher capacity prices (a kind of reservation fee for power paid to Exelon) and higher revenue from its three utilities, including Chicago-based Commonwealth Edison Co. This year’s fourth quarter earnings also saw a bump over last year’s fourth quarter, which was hurt by Superstorm Sandy.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/breaking/chi-exelon-earnings-20140206,0,4428970.story
Chicago-based Exelon Corp. said Thursday on a conference call following its quarterly earnings results that it will shut down nuclear plants to save money if it doesn’t see a path to steady profits this year.
The company’s large fleet of nuclear plants have struggled to remain profitable as they attempt to compete with subsidized renewable generation and stubbornly low natural gas prices, which have driven down the price Exelon receives for power.
Exelon owns 10 nuclear power plants, six of which are in Illinois. Analysts have signaled that if power prices don’t recover its Clinton and Quad Cities generating stations are among the potential closures.
In the meantime, the company said, it is looking for ways to drive up earnings. Exelon said it wants the operator of the electric grid to reward steady so-called baseload power generators like Exelon over that of wind and solar generators whose power is intermittent. At the same time, the company said it continues to lobby for energy policies that would end the subsidization of renewables and help drive more closures at coal-fired power plants.
Exelon continues to believe that 52 gigawatts of coal plants will retire in the power markets it sells into before 2016, and has said investors who hold onto the stock will be rewarded when that market tightening drives up power prices for Exelon.
Profit at Chicago-based Exelon Corp. rose 31 percent in the fourth quarter to $495 million, or 58 cents per share from $378 million or 44 cents per share in the fourth quarter of 2012.
The company said it continues to be pummeled by lower power prices but that those losses were offset by higher capacity prices (a kind of reservation fee for power paid to Exelon) and higher revenue from its three utilities, including Chicago-based Commonwealth Edison Co. This year’s fourth quarter earnings also saw a bump over last year’s fourth quarter, which was hurt by Superstorm Sandy.
The nation’s largest owner of nuclear plants had sales of $6.18 billion, a slight decrease from $6.25 billion in the same quarter last year.
For the full year, Exelon’s revenue was up at $24.9 billion versus $23.5 billion in 2013 and net income grew to $1.72 billion in 2013 from $1.16 billion in 2012 or $2 per share versus $1.42 per share.
Netherlands – The Hague will host the Nuclear Security Summit 2014
Feb 06, 2014 at 12:56 PM PS
On 24 and 25 March 2014 the Netherlands will welcome 58 world leaders, 5,000 delegates and 3,000 journalists which will attend to the Nuclear Security Summit (NSS), the largest gathering of its kind ever held in this country.
Why the Hague ?
The International Nuclear Security Summit 2014 conference (NSS 2014) will be taking place in the World Forum in The Hague on 24 and 25 March 2014. The world leaders will be meeting to agree on measures aimed at preventing nuclear terrorism.
Thanks to the presence of many international organisations in this field in The Hague, the city enjoys an international reputation as the City of Peace and Justice. One major reason for this is the presence of the Peace Palace, the symbol of hope for a better world, as well as the International Zone where many international organisations are based, such as Europol and the OPCW, which won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2013.
Themes of NSS 2014
- Reducing the amount of dangerous nuclear material in the world
- Improving the security of all nuclear material and radioactive sources
- Improving international cooperation
Negotiators from the countries and organizations that will participate in the 2014 Nuclear Security Summit (NSS) were meeting in January (13 -15) in Pattaya/Thailand for what is likely to be the final preparatory meeting ahead of the Summit in March. (Full text)
PPW2010 is based in Bucharest, Bukarest, Romania, and is a Stringer for Allvoices.
Faslane workers vote to strike – Creeping privatisation
http://www.banthebomb.org/index.php/news/trident/1527-faslane-workers-vote-to-strike
Published on Wednesday, 05 February 2014 18:01
Commenting on the news that workers at the Faslane nuclear base have voted to take industrial action, Arthur West, Chair of the Scottish Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, said, “We are concerned that this industrial dispute may be the result of the creeping privatisation of the British nuclear programme. The role which Babcock Marine play at Faslane has grown and the number of civilians directly employed by the Ministry of Defence has declined.”
(OT) Strange Logic of Some “Beyond Nuclear” Supporters on Tokyo Gubernatorial Election
The winner of the election looks clear to me for now, unless the turnout is much, much bigger than the normal election. Even then, splitting the votes between the two supposedly anti-nuclear candidates will likely to result in the win for the LDP/Komei backed (i.e. backed by huge organized votes) candidate.
EX-SKF / February 3, 2014 / I have to say these must be the same people who participated in the fluffy “beyond nuclear” demonstrations (more like entertainment festivals) in Tokyo starting in the early summer of 2011, as the Fukushima I NPP nuclear accident was very, very far from being “stabilized” and reports of high levels of radiation contamination in sewer sludge and ashes from garbage incineration were beginning to pour in.
What strange logic? When some supporters of the anti-nuclear candidates start to say things like:
If the combined votes for Mr. Utsunomiya (liberal attorney) and Mr. Hosokawa (former prime minister) exceed the votes for Mr. Masuzoe (TV personality and former Minister of Health, backed by LDP/Komei), we will win!
It seems to me tantamount to either delusion or concession of defeat.
If the combined votes for the two exceed those for Masuzoe, that means it will be Masuzoe who will win, not their candidates. They must mean a “symbolic” win, not the real one.
Meanwhile, 10 or so influential “intellectuals” (文化人) – novelists, journalists – who are mostly in support of Mr. Hosokawa held a press conference yesterday urging the two anti-nuclear candidates to somehow “join efforts” to beat Mr. Masuzoe.
At this point in the election, I don’t think there is any legal way for either candidates to drop out, or collaborate with the promise of a prominent position in the administration after the election.
Younger supporters of Mr. Utsunomiya have been rather busy dissing Mr. Hosokawa and Mr. Koizumi in the past few days, often bringing up the money “scandal” of Mr. Hosokawa from 20 years ago which even the very person who had instigated the “scandal” admits it was all made up.
Another “smear” point by Mr. Utsunomiya’s supporters is that people in Tokyo don’t care about nuclear power. All they care about is “welfare and healthcare”, they say, citing the opinion polls. Their candidate does address those issues in details, they say.
What’s missing in those details is how he would pay for them, but that’s apparently of no concern to the supporters.
The winner of the election looks clear to me for now, unless the turnout is much, much bigger than the normal election. Even then, splitting the votes between the two supposedly anti-nuclear candidates will likely to result in the win for the LDP/Komei backed (i.e. backed by huge organized votes) candidate.
Another Sochi activist arrested as Krasnodar police open war on environmentalists
The Olympics, soon coming to Tokyo where the water looks clearer 
arclight2011
Tap water from a Sochi hotel in a twitter photograph sent out by Chicago Tribune reporter Stacy St. Clair earlier today.
SOCHI, Russia – Another activists has been jailed in a crushing sweep against environmentalists who have gathered damning evidence on Russia’s Olympic construction and had planned to present it in a report as international media begins to swoop on this Black Sea resort town.
Igor Kharchenko of the Environmental Watch on the North Caucasus, a group that has been instrumental in shedding a grim light on the environmental damages inflicted on protected lands in the North Caucasus, was late yesterday arrested and jailed for allegedly not cooperating with police.
He was roughed up by police on the street, hastily rushed through a court proceeding during which he was not allowed to consult a lawyer and given a five-day administrative sentence, making him the second activists from EWNC to be jailed in three days, according to EWNC’s lawyer Alexander Popkov.
“That he was not allowed legal counsel is an absolute violation of Russian law,” said Popkov. “When it comes to activists, no one cares any more.”
It was the second time Kharchenko had been detained by police yesterday. Earlier in the day, he and EWNC activist Olga Soldatova were stopped by police and taken to a precinct on the pretense that Kharchenko had been driving drunk. Both were forced to undergo blood alcohol level tests and turned loose when the results of the test came back negative.
Separately, activists Alexei Mandrigelya, Anna Mikhailova and Tatyana Borisova were stopped near Krasnodar by police who pointed automatic weapons them and verbally abused them, Popkov said. He added that the police said the three were being followed in connection with a crime, but the police would not explain further.
On late Wednesday, Soldatova was hauled in by police for standing and holding a picket sign outside of the temporary holding facility where Kharchenko’s is currently being detained, EWNC’s twitter feed reported. The sign she was holding read: “Shame on Kuban (region) Prostitutes in Judges Robes! Free Igor Vitishko. Both she and Olga Zazulya, who photographed her, were taken to a police precinct where Soldatova told me in an email that she and Zazulya had been warned in strong terms to discontinue their protest before they were released.
Olga Soldatova of EWNC holding a protest sign outside the detention center in Krasnodar where Kharchenko is being held. Here sign reads “Shame on Kuban (region) Prostitutes in Judges’ Robes! Free Igor Kharchenko!” (Photo: Olga Zazulya via twitter)
Kharchenko’s arrest follows yesterday’s jailing for “petty hooliganism” of Yevgeny Vitishko, who unknown witnesses said was swearing in public. It is rare that one walks down a street in Russia without hearing someone swearing, making the choice of accusations against Vitishko especially exotic.
Vitishko already faces three years in jail for destruction of property for spray-painting on an illegal construction fence constructed in the Sochi National Forest – something he did not do. His current incarceration means he will not be able to attend his own appeal of that sentence, scheduled for February 12.
EWNC activists in Krasndar were meanwhile in a panic Wednesday as they struggled to complete a report on Olympic environmental damages and violations that they had hoped to release earlier this week.
Activist Dmitry Shevhchenko, suspicious of speaking on the telephone, told me via Skype that EWNC’s office was surrounded by police and vehicles from the Federal Security Service, or FSB, the successor organization to the KGB.
Siege at EWNC’s Krasnodar office
“It’s a total siege,” he told me from his office in Krasnodar, the capitol of the Krasnodar Region where the Sochi Winter Olympics are taking place. “We are barricaded in the office. There are police all over the place out in front– evidently they seem to want to round us all up and throw us in jail immediately.”
Nuclear Hotseat #137: Sierra Club’s Nuke Nuker Susan Corbett vs. South Carolina!
CONTENTS OF NUCLEAR HOTSEAT #137:
INTERVIEW: Susan Corbett is Chair of the National Sierra Club Nuclear Issues Activist Team and Chair of the South Carolina Chapter of the Sierra Club. She shares how South Carolina is the most nuclear-industry-intensive state in our country, Hanford-like leaks from the Barnwell Nuclear site, and the ongoing battle to prevent South Carolina from becoming “the nuclear waste “paid toilet of the south.”
NUMNUTZ OF THE WEEK: The Kids Cancer Seminar in Fukushima – just the thing for 5th and 6th graders! According to the poster,”Especially because this is Fukushima, we need the best cancer education in Japan!” Oy!
More here
The New Snowden Revelation Is Dangerous for Anonymous — And for All of Us
Meanwhile, agencies like the GCHQ face no such risks, deterrents, consequences, oversight, or accountability. This scenario is all the more alarming given that some of Anonymous’ actions may be illegal and might warrant attention from some law enforcement agencies — but do not even come close to constituting a terrorist threat. And that means we’re inching into the same territory as the dictatorial regimes criticized by democratic governments for not respecting internet freedoms.
- 02.04.14
If we’re going to prosecute activists for making a website unavailable for one minute, then that same limitation should apply to anyone who breaks the law.
The latest Snowden-related revelation is that Britain’s Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) proactively targeted the communications infrastructure used by the online activist collective known as Anonymous.
Specifically, they implemented distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks on the internet relay chat (IRC) rooms used by Anonymous. They also implanted malware to out the personal identity details of specific participants. And while we only know for sure that the U.K.’s GCHQ and secret spy unit known as the “Joint Threat Research Intelligence Group” (JTRIG) launched these attacks in an operation called “Rolling Thunder,” the U.S.’ NSA was likely aware of what they were doing because the British intelligence agents presented their program interventions at the NSA conference SIGDEV in 2012. (Not to mention the two agencies sharing close ties in general.)
Whether you agree with the activities of Anonymous or not — which have included everything from supporting the Arab Spring protests to DDoSing copyright organizations to doxing child pornography site users — the salient point is that democratic governments now seem to be using their very tactics against them.
The key difference, however, is that while those involved in Anonymous can and have faced their day in court for those tactics, the British government has not. When Anonymous engages in lawbreaking, they are always taking a huge risk in doing so. But with unlimited resources and no oversight, organizations like the GCHQ (and theoretically the NSA) can do as they please. And it’s this power differential that makes all the difference.
There are many shades of gray around using denial-of-service attacks as a protest tactic. Unlike a hack, which involves accessing or damaging data, a DDoS attack renders a web page inaccessible due to an excessive flood of traffic. As an anthropologist who has studied hacker culture, hacktivism, and Anonymous in particular, I struggled to find some black-and-white moral certitude for such activities. But as one member of Anonymous told me: “Trying to find a sure fire ethical defense for Anonymous DDoSing is going to twist you into moral pretzels.”
Judging the “moral pretzel” of DDoS attacks requires understanding the nuances of how they are carried out, and DDoS attacks tend to be problematic no matter what the motivation. Still, they’ve been a worthwhile exercise in experimenting with a new form of protest in an increasingly digital era. In the case of Anonymous, this form of protest came about because of the banking blockade against WikiLeaks. While the protest was rooted in deceit (they used botnets and many of their participants did not know that), it was certainly not destructive (especially since it was leveled against a large organization that could withstand it). The whole point was to get media attention, which they did.
But here’s the thing: You don’t even need to believe in or support DDoS as a protest tactic to find the latest Snowden revelations troubling. There are clearly defined laws and processes that a democratic government is supposed to follow. Yet here, the British government is apparently throwing out due process and essentially proceeding straight to the punishment — using a method that is considered illegal and punishable by years in prison. Even if DDoS attacks would do more damage upstream (than to IRC), it’s a surprising revelation.
Radioactive Reindeer; Chernobyl; Guinea Pigs: Part V of a series
5 February 2014
Since we discussed an epidemiological re-evaluation of Three Mile Island last time, we found the following information, from our reblog post, of special interest:
“The amount of radiation that escaped at Three Mile Island is unknown. Outdoor radiation monitors were spaced too far apart to capture plumes of radiation. Monitors within the reactor building were out of order. Traps for radioactive iodine had been inexplicably removed. All one has to go on are the health and environmental effects: the clouding over of dentists’ films…, the livestock keeling over, the one eyed kittens, a parrot breeder’s dead birds, vanished insects,…, tulips with buds on their stems, the metallic taste experienced by many Three Mile Island area residents-an effect experienced at Hiroshima and Chemobyl-and cancers and cancers and cancers.” http://miningawareness.wordpress.com/2014/02/05/lies-of-our-times-high-level-omissions-by-anna-mayo/ The current US EPA rad net monitors are also amazingly sparse — usually one per state. A lot in the reblog on Sellafield too.
Chernobyl Piglet
Is this acceptable? Is it “ok”?
Photo of piglet in the Ukrainian National Chernobyl Museum. Photo by Vincent de Groot, via wikmedia. (It looks kind of like a puppy, but the photo says it’s a pig. Pigs do have teeth).
It’s absolutely infuriating to see the IAEA and others (e.g. UNSCEAR), as seen in our previous post, proclaim thyroid cancer and disease no real problem. In a 2005 article the IAEA upped the cases to 4,000 thyroid related cancer at Chernobyl, all while glossing over the seriousness of this disease. http://www.iaea. org/newscenter/features/chernobyl-15/thyroid.shtml Not only are there issues of mortality but also of morbidity or disease. Contrary to what IAEA and UNSCEAR would lead us to believe, thyroid cancer is not the only cause of morbidity or mortality from Chernobyl. Nonetheless, also contrary to what they try to mislead everyone to believe, thyroid cancer and thyroid disease is extremely serious business. In short, IAEA and UNSCEAR admit to thyroid cancer related to Chernobyl but not much of anything else. They gloss over the thyroid cancer as no big deal, while suggesting that it would not have happened if the population had not been iodine deficient. They almost totally ignore the rest. This is obscene.
Thyroid damage can be caused by both external radiation to neck and head and internal radiation from ingestion of radioiodine (and possibly other radionuclides).
Thyroid cancer-disease IS a problem. The thyroid is NOT an expendable organ. The thyroid is critically important for the human body. Victims may live but being forced to take thyroid medicine for life is serious business. Furthermore, it locks the individual into the medical-industrial complex for life and their lives depend upon it; it appears difficult to get the medication in balance, as well. (Who pays for a lifetime of medication? The individual? The taxpayer?) Too much medication gives the symptoms of hyperthyroidism; too little hypothyroidism. An excess in medication causes nervousness, insomnia, and can even increase risk of heart attack. Too little can lead to fatigue and weight gain, and other problems.
A good doctor is required. An imbalance of the medication can be life-threatening. Nothing can replace the human body! Nothing can replace lost organs! Nothing can replace the good seafood, which is no longer safe to eat either.
If you read, or have read, the following by US EPA, you quickly see just how widespread exposure to the radionuclides, iodine 129 and iodine 131 must be. Iodine 131 has a half-life of 8 days; Iodine 129 of 15.7 million years. This means that all of the iodine 129 which has entered the environment whether from nuclear tests, nuclear accidents or nuclear power plants, still is there and is still increasing in quantity:
“How do iodine-129 and iodine-131 get into the environment?
Iodine-129 and iodine-131 are gaseous fission products that form within fuel rods as they fission. Unless reactor chemistry is carefully controlled, they can build up too fast, increasing pressure and causing corrosion in the rods. As the rods age, cracks or wholes may breach the rods.
Citizen scientists can fill information gaps – David Suzuki
An Internet search turns up an astounding number of pages about radiation from Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant meltdown that followed an earthquake and tsunami in March 2011. But it’s difficult to find credible information.
One reason is that government monitoring of radiation and its effects on fish stocks appears to be limited. According to the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, “No U.S. government or international agency is monitoring the spread of low levels of radiation from Fukushima along the West Coast of North America and around the Hawaiian Islands.”
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s most recent food testing, which includes seafood, appears to be from June 2012. Its website states, “FDA has no evidence that radionuclides from the Fukushima incident are present in the U.S. food supply at levels that would pose a public health concern. This is true for both FDA-regulated food products imported from Japan and U.S. domestic food products, including seafood caught off the coast of the United States.”
The non-profit Canadian Highly Migratory Species Foundation has been monitoring Pacific troll-caught albacore tuna off the B.C. coast. Its 2013 sampling found “no residues detected at the lowest detection limits achievable.” The B.C. Centre for Disease Control website assures us we have little cause for concern about radiation from Japan in our food and environment. Websites for Health Canada and the Canadian Food Inspection Agency yield scant information.
But the disaster isn’t over. Despite the Japanese government’s claim that everything is under control, concerns have been raised about the delicate process of removing more than 1,500 nuclear fuel rod sets, each containing 60 to 80 fuel rods with a total of about 400 tonnes of uranium, from Reactor 4 to a safer location, which is expected to take a year. Some, including me, have speculated another major earthquake could spark a new disaster. And Reactors 1, 2 and 3 still have tonnes of molten radioactive fuel that must be cooled with a constant flow of water.
A radioactive plume is expected to reach the West Coast sometime this year, but experts say it will be diluted by currents off Japan’s east coast and, according to the Live Science website, “the majority of the cesium-137 will remain in the North Pacific gyre – a region of ocean that circulates slowly clockwise and has trapped debris in its center to form the ‘Great Pacific Garbage Patch’ – and continue to be diluted for approximately a decade following the initial Fukushima release in 2011.”
Unite to strike again, prejudicing nuclear safety at Faslane and Coulport
http://forargyll.com/2014/02/unite-strikes-again-prejudicing-nuclear-safety-at-faslane-and-coulport/
On an 82% constituency vote, 95% of workers in the Unite union employed at the naval bases at Faslane and Coulport, within HMNB Clyde in Argyll, have opted to strike because the 1% pay increase offered by their employer Babcock, is below inflation.
The action – whose date or dates have yet to be decided, with mass meetings to be held – is said to be likely to impact on nuclear submarine maintenance – Faslane is the UK Trident nuclear submarine base; and on the monitoring of radiation levels at the base, a matter in which the existing record at Faslane is far from reassuring.
At one point, the Scottish Environmental Protection Agency said that if it had the authority to do so, it would close the base.
In London this evening the city was in chaos, with the first of two 48 hour strike on the London Underground planned by the RMT and TSSA unions. only 40% of the tube workers voted. The strike decision was taken on a majority vote of those who did vote. This is hardly a defensible foundation for crashing the country’s metropolis.
The second of the two 48 hour strikes is to start at 21.00 on Tuesday 11th February.
The Mayor of London, Boris Johnston UK Government is calling for the UK Government to consider whether to designate the Underground an essential service, an action which would make it more difficult for workers to strike.
The confrontational stand offs between workers and employers, resulting in strikes like these and in those we may see at Faslane and Coulport are from the archaeology of industrial relations and must be replaced.
If the London tube is an essential service – and it unarguably is – work connected with the armed services must be similarly off limits for strike action.
Unite all but took out Scotland itself in its astonishingly ill-judged action at Grangemouth only months ago.
It has also been seen in the report leaked to The Guardian this week as having taken wholly improper action to rig the selection of the Labour Party candidate for the Falkirk Westminster seat in favour of Unite employee and favourite, Karie Murphy.
And despite all of this, it is irresponsible enough to promise that the impact of its planned strikes at the nuclear facilities at Faslane and Coulport will be ‘significant’.
Moscow Agrees to Process Uzbekistan’s Spent Nuclear Fuel
Wednesday 5 February 2014
http://www.nti.org/gsn/article/russia-agrees-process-uzbekistans-spent-nuclear-fuel/
Russia has approved an agreement with Uzbekistan to import some used research-reactor fuel for reprocessing, Interfax reported on Monday.
Under the draft agreement, signed by Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev on Jan. 29, the output from the reprocessing — including any plutonium or uranium — will not be sent back to Uzbekistan. Instead, Russia will use, store or dispose of materials that emerge from the procedures.
The draft text of the deal specifies that the spent fuel and any atomic material derived from such activities cannot be used “for any types of nuclear weapons and nuclear explosive devices” or other military research.
With Medvedev’s approval, the Russian Foreign Ministry and the state-atomic energy firm, Rosatom, have been directed to hold final talks with Uzbekistan and sign off on the deal when it is completed.
Fire Prompts Evacuation of New Mexico Nuclear Repository
Update ; Feb 05, 2014, 11:21 PM GMT 15m
Chief Scientist at New Mexico Nuclear Site where underground fire is underway says sensors indicate air is clear – no nuclear release – @astoneabcnews……………………………………………………………………………………………………
Earlier article
The repository is licensed by the federal Environmental Protection Agency every five years, said Rod McCullum, the director of used-fuels programs at the Nuclear Energy Institute.
CARLSBAD, N.M. February 5, 2014
http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/fire-prompts-evacuation-nuclear-repository-22380709
Emergency crews battled a fire Wednesday at the southeastern New Mexico site where the federal government seals away its low-grade nuclear waste, including plutonium-contaminated clothing and tools.
Six people were treated for smoke inhalation and released a short while later after a truck hauling salt caught fire at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant near Carlsbad.
All employees were evacuated from the underground site after the fire broke out about 11 a.m. Wednesday, and none of the radioactive waste was impacted, plant officials said.
Authorities said they weren’t sure what caused the blaze.
At an afternoon news conference, officials said the fire occurred on a truck hauling salt in the facility’s north mine, The Carlsbad Current-Argus reported. Nuclear waste is stored in the south mine, officials said.
Fire suppression systems and rescue teams were immediately activated, and all waste handling operations were suspended, officials said.
A spokeswoman answering an emergency line late Wednesday afternoon said it was unclear if the fire was still burning or when the site might reopen. Any re-entry must be approved by the U.S. Mine Safety and Health Administration.
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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