Dr Yamashita is only one among a host of politicians, bureaucrats, experts and advertising and media consultants who support the post-3.11 safety mantra of anshin (secure 安心), anzen (safe 安全), fukkō (recovery 復 興). Through public meetings, media channels, education manuals and workshops,54 local citizens in Fukushima Prefecture were inundated with optimistic and reassuring messages.
*********************************************
At the same time, to reduce ‘radiophobia’ and anxiety, while focusing on the psychological impact from stress, health risks from radiation exposures have been trivialised and/or normalised for the general public.
*********************************************
This approach is backed up by international nuclear-related agencies. As stipulated on 28 May 1959 in the ‘WHA12-40’ agreement, the WHO is mandated to report all data on health effects from radiation exposures to the IAEA, which controls publication.
*********************************************
Nevertheless, it is no longer possible to ignore a significant body of research, including 20 years of scientific studies compiled in Belarus and Ukraine that show serious depopulation, ongoing illnesses and state decline.
Informal Labour, Local Citizens and the Tokyo Electric Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Crisis: Responses to Neoliberal Disaster Management Adam Broinowski {extensive footnotes and references on original] September 2018, “……… (Official Medicine: The (Il)logic of Radiation Dosimetry On what basis have these policies on radiation from Fukushima Daiichi been made? Instead of containing contamination, the authorities have mounted a concerted campaign to convince the public that it is safe to live with radiation in areas that should be considered uninhabitable and unusable according to internationally accepted standards. To do so, they have concealed from public knowledge the material conditions of radiation contamination so as to facilitate the return of the evacuee population to ‘normalcy’, or life as it was before 3.11. This position has been further supported by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), which stated annual doses of up to 20 mSv/y are safe for the total population including women and children.43 The World Health Organisation (WHO) and United Nations Scientific Commission on the Effects of Atomic Radiation (UNSCEAR) also asserted that there were no ‘immediate’ radiation related illnesses or deaths (genpatsu kanren shi 原発 関連死) and declared the major health impact to be psychological.
While the central and prefectural governments have repeatedly reassured the public since the beginning of the disaster that there is no immediate health risk, in May 2011 access to official statistics for cancer-related illnesses (including leukaemia) in Fukushima and southern Miyagi prefectures was shut down. On 6 December 2013, the Special Secrets Protection Law (Tokutei Himitsu Hogo Hō 特定秘密保護法) aimed at restricting government employees and experts from giving journalists access to information deemed sensitive to national security was passed (effective December 2014). Passed at the same time was the Cancer Registration Law (Gan Tōroku Hō 癌登録法), which made it illegal to share medical data or information on radiation-related issues including evaluation of medical data obtained through screenings, and denied public access to certain medical records, with violations punishable with a 2 million yen fine or 5–10 years’ imprisonment. In January 2014, the IAEA, UNSCEAR and Fukushima Prefecture and Fukushima Medical University (FMU) signed a confidentiality agreement to control medical data on radiation. All medical personnel (hospitals) must submit data (mortality, morbidity, general illnesses from radiation exposures) to a central repository run by the FMU and IAEA.44 It is likely this data has been collected in the large Fukushima Centre for Environmental Creation, which opened in Minami-Sōma in late 2015 to communicate ‘accurate information on radiation to the public and dispel anxiety’. This official position contrasts with the results of the first round of the Fukushima Health Management Survey (October 2011 – April 2015) of 370,000 young people (under 18 at the time of the disaster) in Fukushima prefecture since 3.11, as mandated in the Children and Disaster Victims Support Act (June 2012).45 The survey report admitted that paediatric thyroid cancers were ‘several tens of times larger’ (suitei sareru yūbyōsū ni kurabete sūjūbai no ōdā de ōi 推定される有病数に比べて数十倍の オーダーで多い) than the amount estimated.46 By 30 September 2015, as part of the second-round screening (April 2014–March 2016) to be conducted once every two years until the age of 20 and once every five years after 20, there were 15 additional confirmed thyroid cancers coming to a total of 152 malignant or suspected paediatric thyroid cancer cases with 115 surgically confirmed and 37 awaiting surgical confirmation. Almost all have been papillary thyroid cancer with only three as poorly differentiated thyroid cancer (these are no less dangerous). By June 2016, this had increased to 173 confirmed (131) or suspected (42) paediatric thyroid cancer cases.47
The National Cancer Research Center also estimated an increase of childhood thyroid cancer by 61 times, from the 2010 national average of 1–3 per million to 1 in 3,000 children. Continue reading →
Radioactive material is still missing in Malaysia: Cause for concern?, Bulletin of the Atomic ScientistsBy Francisco Parada, Margarita Kalinina-Pohl, Miles A. Pomper, September 14, 2018 A radioactive source was reported missing on August 10 in Malaysia. Since then, Malaysian authorities have expressed growing concern about the possible use of this material in a terrorist attack. The reality is that this material could be used to build a radiological dispersal device (RDD), commonly known as a “dirty bomb,” and it can be found virtually in any country in the world……..
The incident caused concerns at the highest levels of the government, and it was discussed in the National Security Council of Malaysia. Datuk Ayub Khan Mydin Pitchay, the Special Branch’s Counter-Terrorism Division assistant principal director, reported that after an investigation, the case was not linked to terrorism, and now is a criminal investigation. However, the possibility of malicious intent and insider threat cannot be ruled out, and the Malaysian government in late August set up a special force of the Atomic Energy Licensing Board and local police to continue investigating the incident.
Regional concerns in Southeast Asia. The missing radioactive device in Malaysia also raises concerns on the regional level, for a variety of reasons. First, Malaysia is in a strategic location for shipping routes as it shares a border with Singapore—one of the world’s busiest ports. With a high volume of cross-border transfer of goods into and out of Singapore, a perpetrator could smuggle a radioactive source to a country with porous borders. Fortunately, Singapore has a robust radiation portal monitor (RPM) infrastructure to prevent the smuggling of radioactive material. Complementing their RPMs, national authorities decided to ramp up security at their borders checkpoints as well. ……..
Big research payments in radiation oncology are distributed only to a few, Radiology Business, September 19, 2018 | Subrata Thakar |New research in the Journal of the American College of Radiology suggests an association between disclosed payment from the healthcare industry and increased individual productivity metrics.
“Studies have suggested radiation oncologists are less likely to disclose financial conflicts of interest compared with their surgical and medical oncology colleagues,” wrote Nicholas Zaorsky, MD, of the Penn State Cancer Institute in Hershey, Pennsylvania, and colleagues.
MEPs defy warnings from internet pioneers, civil liberties groups and commercial interests, Guardian, Rankinin Brussels, Wed 20 Jun 2018 A European parliament committee has voted for legislation that internet pioneers fear will turn the web into “a tool for surveillance and control”.
In a key vote on a draft law to overhaul EU copyright rules, the parliament’s legal affairs committee on Wednesday voted for measures that would require the likes of Google and Microsoft to install filters to prevent users from uploading copyrighted materials.
The MEPs voted narrowly for the provision, despite warnings from some of the biggest names in the internet, and civil liberties campaigners, that the law would damage freedom of expression, while entrenching the power of the biggest companies and loading costs on to European startups.
The plans still have to be agreed with representatives from the EU’s 28 governments before becoming law, but the vote reduces the chances of serious changes.
Guardian 17th Sept 2018 Britain’s energy regulator has been fighting to keep secret the claims of
two whistleblowers who independently raised concerns about potentially
serious irregularities in projects worth billions of pounds, the Guardian
can reveal. The two men say Ofgem threatened them with an obscure but
sweeping gagging clause that can lead to criminal prosecutions and possible
jail terms for those who defy it. https://www.theguardian.com/law/2018/sep/17/ofgem-made-my-life-hell-whistleblowers-say-they-were-threatened-by-regulator
Bideford radiation expert held over home chemicals, BBC News, 13 September 2018A radiation scientist has spoken of his anger at being arrested on suspicion of making a bomb.Two police officers “felt unwell” during a visit to Dr Chris Busby’s home in Bideford, Devon, which boasts its own laboratory.
The 73-year-old said he was held for 19 hours under the Explosives Act before being released with no further action………..
A cordon was set up around his home on Wednesday morning when the two officers complained of feeling unwell – which Dr Busby attributed to “psychological problems associated with their knowledge of the Skripal poisoning”.
The scientist said he was handcuffed and interviewed all night by police who suspected he was making a bomb, but the only substances found at his home were “innocuous chemicals for research into radiation”.
He returned home that night to find officers had searched his home laboratory and sealed off his home in Bridge Street.
“They destroyed my experiment. It was most irritating,” he said.
Dr Busby said he felt he was being targeted because of his criticism of the government’s current assessment of radiation risks.
WikiLeaks Whistleblower Awaits Fate, American Free Press , September 7, 2018 The fate of gutsy WikiLeaks founder and whistleblower Julian Assange rests in the hands of the government of Ecuador, first reported here in AFP’s Issue 33&34. Assange has lived at the Ecuadorian embassy in London since 2012 and will be instantly arrested by the UK if he leaves the building. Just-released news that his health is deteriorating rapidly makes even more urgent Ecuadorian action’s even more urgent.
By S.T. PatrickAs the future of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange twists in the political winds, the United States, Great Britain, and Ecuador continue to negotiate over the life of the Australian computer programmer and hacker.
Assange has been housed at the Ecuadorian embassy in London since 2012. According to one of his lawyers, Assange’s health is suffering and, for the past four months, he has been held in a situation that can be more accurately described as “solitary confinement.” The end of WikiLeaks, as well as Assange’s own version of freedom, may soon be near.
The white-haired Australian, Assange, 47, founded WikiLeaks in 2006, but his presence in the global spotlight dates back to 2010 when he published a series of leaks given to him by U.S. Army soldier Bradley (Chelsea) Manning. The leaks, factual yet damaging to the U.S. military’s public image, prompted a federal criminal investigation into WikiLeaks and its founder. Allied nations were encouraged to do the same………
Technically, Assange is not a prisoner of any government. That is the inevitability that he is trying to avoid. He may leave the embassy, but doing so would trigger the execution of an active warrant that still exists in the UK for jumping bail. If arrested, extradition to the United States seems likely.
Time may be at hand for Assange. On July 27, Ecuadorian President Lenin Moreno admitted that he has been in talks with the British government to revoke the asylum. Moreno had been a detractor of Assange since taking office in May 2017……..
Because there is a clause in the UK-Ecuadorian extradition treaty that bars one country turning citizens over to the other, Assange’s Ecuadorian citizenship may have to be rescinded for extradition to occur.
…..In April, Attorney General Jeff Sessions hinted to the media that he would consider bringing criminal charges against Assange.
“We are going to step up our efforts and already are stepping up our efforts on all leaks,” Sessions said. “We will seek to put some people in jail.”…….
Former U.S. litigator Glenn Greenwald, founder of “The Intercept” website, believes that extradition to the United States would not be as automatic as is being reported by many news outlets. He calls the British government “subservient” to the United States, yet he points out that the British judges lean more independent. He also points out that the specifics of the U.S.-UK treaty may not allow extradition.
“Political crimes, like publishing documents and engaging in journalism—that really isn’t what extradition is for,” Greenwald said. “And in fact . . . is excluded from most extradition treaties, including the one between the U.S. and the UK.”……
Big Brother is keeping ‘Five Eyes’ on you,Darius Shahtahmasebi is a New Zealand-based legal and political analyst, currently specialising in immigration, refugee and humanitarian law. Rt.com 7 Sep, 2018 Just last week, the world’s leading snooping powers quietly and without notice issued a disturbing warning to tech giants, telling them to surrender unprecedented backdoor access to their citizens’ data.
Not many people know this, but the United Kingdom has some of the most extreme spying powers in the developed world. At the end of 2016, passing what some people called the “Snooper’s Charter,” the UK put into law some of the most draconian anti-privacy laws that we have ever known, allowing its government to compel companies to break their own encryption.
The UK plays a pivotal part in the so-called Five Eyes alliance, which also includes the US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. Nobody knew it at the time, but the American military base which my family and I grew up next to has played a crucial role in delivering US drone strikes across the Middle East and beyond. America’s drone-strike regime, largely considered illegal for numerous reasons, is not something that countries should willingly participate in lightly and without public scrutiny.
Why am I mentioning this? Because it goes to the very heart of my point: the extent to which we know or do not know what our governments are doing behind closed doors is quite literally a matter of life and death.
Now, it has been revealed that the Five Eyes alliance, dedicated to a global “collect-it-all”surveillance task, has issued a memo calling on their governments to demand that tech companies build backdoor access for states to access users’ encrypted data or face measures that will force companies to comply.
The memo was released quietly with little media coverage last week by the Australian Department of Home Affairs, and essentially demanded that providers “create customized solutions, tailored to their individual system architectures that are capable of meeting lawful access requirements.” The memo was reportedly released after ministers for the intelligence agencies of the Five Eyes nations met on Australia’s Gold Coast last week……
Will those tech companies cave in to these government’s demands? You can bet your bottom dollar that eventually, yes, they very well might. ……
It is worth noting that there has been next to no criticism of these Five Eyes powers for delivering such a blatant attack on our right to privacy. Remember that, of course, Russian President Vladimir Putin is attempting to “wrest control of the internet,” as the Guardian wrote approximately three years ago. But these same Western media companies are awkwardly silent about what their own governments are proposing to do, something which other nations could only dream about achieving on such a global scale. …….https://www.rt.com/op-ed/437895-privacy-five-eyes-encryption/
The Fukushima Prefectural Government and the Reconstruction Agency are looking to take legal action over the video over concerns it will stoke “unreasonable” fears of radiation in the Fukushima Prefecture, the Japan Times reports.
A senior official from the prefecture said they were “examining the video content”.
In the episode, Farrier is filmed taking a tour of areas affected by the 2011 meltdown of a nuclear plant in Fukushima where he suspects a meal served from a restaurant in Namie, a town in Fukushima Prefecture, has been contaminated by radiation.
It also shows the journalist enter a no-go zone around the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant without permission from authorities, reporting from an abandoned game arcade, and tourists on a bus becoming distressed over rising radiation levels without information about the vehicle’s location.
The show has the journalist travel to different locations around the world associated with grim historical events, including the footsteps of serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer in Milwaukee, and voodoo rituals in Benin, West Africa.
Senator requests documents on Michael Cohen’s ‘pay to play’ work for nuclear developer
Illinois senator wants communications between DOE and President Trump’s former lawyer. Think Progress, MARK HAND, AUG 29, 2018 A Democratic senator wants more information about efforts by Michael Cohen, President Donald Trump’s embattled former attorney who recently pleaded guilty to committing multiple felonies, to get the Department of Energy (DOE) to approve a huge nuclear loan application for one of his clients.
Franklin Haney, who donated $1 million to Trump’s inaugural fund, reportedly hired Cohen to secure a $5 billion loan guarantee from DOE. Haney agreed to pay Cohen $10 million if he succeeded in getting the department to approve the loan guarantee.
Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-IL) sent a letter on Tuesday to Energy Secretary Rick Perry asking him for more information on how the agency is evaluating the loan application. She wants the department to provide a list of DOE political appointees, career employees, and contractors who had contact with Cohen or Haney — or representatives of either — in regard to the loan application for the Bellefonte Nuclear Plant project in Alabama.
Duckworth is also seeking all memorandums, meeting notes, emails, and any other records related to Haney’s loan application and communications with Cohen.
“This unseemly pay-to-play arrangement raises serious questions of conflict-of-interest, corrupt practices, and potential violations of lobbying disclosure laws,” Duckworth wrote in her letter to Perry.
Haney, a Tennessee real-estate mogul who owns the Bellefonte Nuclear Plant site in Alabama, reached the agreement with Cohen just days before federal agents raided Cohen’s home, office, and hotel room, the Wall Street Journal reported earlier this month.
The Wall Street Journal article noted that Cohen lobbied several DOE officials to support Haney’s loan application and speed up the review process, even though public records show that Cohen has never registered as a lobbyist.
Duckworth said she is requesting the documents to help her office better understand how the DOE is evaluating Haney’s loan application. In her letter, she asked Perry for a “prompt and thorough response” to the document requests.
Duckworth is a member of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, which has congressional oversight jurisdiction over DOE the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), and the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee.
Earlier this year, Duckworth introduced legislation to protect whistleblowers who are employed by DOE and the NRC. Currently, DOE and NRC whistleblowers are at risk of retaliation, even when they report critical public safety concerns, because of administrative law rulings that allow the two agencies to dismiss any whistleblower claim brought against them under the Energy Reorganization Act’s employee protection authorities.
Earlier this month The Wall Street Journal also reported that Haney agreed to pay Cohen a monthly retainer for his work on behalf of the nuclear plant. The loan application submitted by Haney’s company, Nuclear Development LLC, is still pending at DOE.
In 2016, Nuclear Development entered into a contract to purchase the partially completed Bellefonte Nuclear Plant from the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) at auction for $111 million and invest up to an additional $13 billion to complete construction of the nuclear energy facility.
The site includes two partially constructed nuclear reactors, which are 55-percent completed, two high-voltage switchyards, reinforced containment buildings, and used fuel storage pools and high capacity cranes for fuel loading……….
The government of Japan is clearly intending that the 2020 Olympics will function as a public relations win in which the image of Japan, and especially of Northern Japan and Fukushima are cleansed of images of radiological contamination. Even as the Fukushima Daiichi site itself, and the traces where the plumes of its explosions deposited fallout throughout the area remain un-remediated, the public perceptions will be remediated. This is typical of the behavior of governments in the developed world that suffer radiological disasters. The disasters themselves are so difficult to clean up, and take decades to even begin the clean up, that money is allocated for extensive public relations efforts. These become tasks that CAN be completed and CAN be considered successful. They function both to advance the public image agenda of the governments, and also deliver a sense of agency when the overall tone of nuclear disaster remediation is one of lacking effective agency.
Towards that end, the Japanese government is planning to integrate Fukushima sites and perceptions into the upcoming Olympics media fest. The journey of the Olympic torch through every prefecture of Japan will begin in Fukushima, a symbolic rebirth intended to facilitate the repopulating of the local communities that were evacuated, many of which have had few returnees since the government has declared them “safe” and cut public funds to those forcibly evacuated.
The government is also planning to hold multiple Olympic events in Fukushima prefecture including baseball and softball events. “Tokyo 2020 is a showcase for the recovery and reconstruction of Japan from the disaster of March 2011, so in many ways we would like to give encouragement to the people, especially in the affected area,”said Tokyo 2020 president Yoshiro Mori last March.
This active rebranding of Fukushima as safe involves removing physical reminders of ongoing risk. The central government has recently announced that it will be removing 80% of public radiation monitors from the region. An argument can be made that the presence of these monitors is theatrical in that they only measure external gamma radiation levels, which are not the primary risk to residents (this comes from internalizing radioactive particles that blanketed the region in the fallout of the plumes of the explosions of March 2011), and that positioning these gamma detectors in midair produces low readings since the particles are primarily on the ground. However, they are a tangible, embodied reminder that risk remains.
While there is a clearly an active campaign to rehabilitate the image of the region leading up to the 2020 Olympics, an effort that will no doubt intensify as the event draws near, there is also pushback and resistance in the local and national communities. A recent sculpture unveiled at the JR train station in prefectural capital Fukushima City (about 80km from the Daiichi nuclear site) has been stirring up controversy. A Guardianarticle explained:
“The statue, by Kenji Yanobe, depicts a child dressed in a yellow Hazmat-style suit, with a helmet in one hand and an artistic representation of the sun in the other.
Yanobe said his Sun Child, which was installed by the municipal government after appearing at art exhibitions in Japan and overseas, was intended to express his desire for a nuclear-free world.
The artist said he did not mean to give the impression that local children needed to protect themselves from radiation more than seven years after the Fukushima Daiichi plant became the scene of the world’s worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl.
He pointed out that the child was not wearing the helmet and that a monitor on its chest showed radiation levels at ‘000’.”
While some, including the mayor of Fukushima City, have praised the statue for emphasizing a hopeful future for local children, others have criticized the statue for suggesting that there is any danger to local children.
Regardless of how one interprets the sculpture, it does confront people with the fact that things are far from normal in the region. This, in spite of the central government’s strong efforts to implore people not to pay any attention to what is happening behind the curtains it has been raising.
The Nuclear Resister, August 13, 2018 UPDATE: August 17 – the jailed activist was released from custody today.
Among the many commemorative events all around the Peace Park in Hiroshima, Japan on August 6 was an evening memorial service for victims of both the Bomb and nuclear power by Go West, Come West. It is a civic association of evacuees from the March, 2011 Fukushima disaster and their supporters who are challenging the Japanese government’s response to the ongoing catastrophe affecting all of eastern Japan as inadequate and cruel.
This is their story about how police then arrested one of their members on trumped-up charges. [The headline of this post was corrected 8/15/18 to reflect that the jailed activist is a friend of Fukushima evacuees, and not herself an evacuee. The gender of the arrested person was also corrected from the error in the machine translation of this story.]
Emergency Statement on the Oppression at the Hands of the Local Police against the Fukushima Nuclear Evacuees’ August 6 Hiroshima Action.
Hiroshima Police Unlawfully Arrested a Citizen to Silence Evacuees Appealing about Ongoing Fukushima Disaster.
A Serious Threat to Human Right and Free Speech.
We demand that the Hiroshima police immediately release the arrested friend of the nuclear evacuees who participated in August 6 Hiroshima actions!
We, an organization of evacuees from the Fukushima nuclear disaster and their supporters, attended various peace rallies and events held in Hiroshima on August 6th 2018, commemorating the 73rd anniversary of 1945 nuclear atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima, killing hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians. Survivors of Hiroshima atomic bombing and Fukushima nuclear evacuees are both victims of nuclear disaster and radiation.
Our goal was to unite with Hiroshima and act together to end these ongoing disasters in the world.
There on the night of the 6th, in front of the great number of people coming for these peace events from all over the world, we gave speeches in both Japanese and English. Our speech was for remembrance of those killed by the nuclear atomic bombing and the endless damage caused by the Fukushima nuclear disaster in 2011.
A lot of Japanese and foreign tourists who visited Hiroshima for this anniversary stopped and listened to our speeches earnestly, taking our handouts explaining what the Fukushima nuclear disaster has caused: the real health damage of residents now spreading all over the eastern Japan; and the predicaments that evacuees are faced with even today.
We were deeply moved by the amount of attentions and feedback we received from them. When one of the 2nd generation of atomic bomb victims gave a speech on how Hiroshima and Fukushima are connected with one straight line, radiation exposure, there was a round of applause from people including locals of Hiroshima. It became a great place of solidarity for sharing experiences and thoughts among those who were there with us.
However all things were changed when a suspicious passerby wearing military fashion, pointing his camera, started shouting complaints at us, and took photos of us, apparently aiming to disturb our speeches. We ignored him but when we were finishing it up and packing our stuff, he screamed saying, “Someone just broke my camera” and called the local police even though we did not go near him or made any physical contact with him or whatsoever.
The local police officers rushed to us and blocked us from going anywhere. The officers started to question us and we explained many times that we did nothing to him, it was totally a false accusation and we needed to go back home because some of us were getting very sick from the summer heat. However, the police officers still refused to let any of us leave.
The officers were talking with their supervisor by cell phone all the time. Then suddenly they said, “The police have had an eyewitness who saw your member break that man’s camera. So now we will take this person to the police station.”
We told them that none of us did such a thing, however the officers put handcuffs on one of our members, saying, “You are under suspicion of escape!! You are under arrest!! We’ll let you know the reason of arrest when you are brought to the police station.” The police officers lifted that her body violently and then threw her into their police car and took her to the main police station in Hiroshima. This is clearly illegal abduction and confinement by the police using a false accusation.
The police officers physically held us away, telling us not to approach to the suspicious camera man or “eyewitness”. Witnessing a whole situation, some citizens there shouted to the police officers, “How dare you doing such a thing on the memorial day for war dead!” and “How come? They have done nothing wrong!”
The officers withdrew to the police station right after they made the arrest as if they themselves were fugitives.
The reason for this arrest was, we suspect, that the upper-level of the police department judged our speeches and handouts politically, and they ordered those police officers at the site to arrest our member.
This fact shows how the current Japanese administration is terrified of their biggest skeleton in the closet, the actual health damage due to the Fukushima nuclear disaster, coming to light. They are also making desperate efforts to hamper the voices of Fukushima nuclear victims and the concerns and resentment against atomic bombings from spreading among people in Japan and around the world. So they use whatever means to stop those real pictures being known to the public, domestically and internationally.
Prosecutors have since asked that she be held in detention at the Hiroshima prefectural police headquarters until at least August 18, or even August 28.
Individual international and organizational statements of support for Mr. A. and Go West Come West should be sent via email to danatsu8.6@gmail.com. ………
Radioactive sheep shed light on secret nuclear weapons test, https://nypost.com/2018/08/14/radioactive-sheep-shed-light-on-secret-nuclear-weapons-test/Christopher Carbone, Fox News, August 14, 2018 Newly discovered data from radioactive sheep provides strong evidence that a mysterious “double flash” detected almost 39 years ago near a remote island group was a nuclear explosion.
Ever since the flash was observed by a US Vela satellite orbiting above Earth in September 1979, there’s been speculation that it was produced by a nuclear weapon test by Israel. International researchers in the journal Science & Global Security analyzed previously unpublished results of radiation testing at a US lab of thyroid organs from sheep in southeastern Australia in order to make their determination.
The flash was located in the area of Marion and Prince Edward islands, which are in the South Indian Ocean about halfway between Africa and Antarctica.
“A new publication sheds further light on the Vela Incident of 1979,” said Professor Nick Wilson of Otago University at Wellington, who highlighted the findings but was not involved with the study itself. “[The research] adds to the evidence base that this was an illegal nuclear weapons test, very likely to have been conducted by Israel with assistance from the apartheid regime in South Africa.”
Wilson, an epidemiologist and member of the Australia-based Medical Association for the Prevention of War, said the test would have violated the Limited Test Ban Treaty signed in 1963, and urged the United Nations to mount a full inquiry.
The researchers conclude that iodine-131, which is an unstable radioactive form of the element iodine found in the thyroids of some Australian sheep, “would be consistent with them having grazed in the path of a potential radioactive fallout plume from a [Sept. 22, 1979] low-yield nuclear test in the Southern Indian Ocean.”
Thyroid samples from sheep killed in Melbourne were regularly sent to the US for testing — monthly in 1979 but also in the 1950s and 1980s, researchers say.
According to a report in the New Zealand Herald, the sheep had been grazing in an area hit by rain four days after the flash incident was observed, which would have been in the downwind path from the suspected explosion site.
Researchers also said the detection of a “hydroacoustic signal” from underwater listening devices at the time is another piece of evidence pointing to a nuclear test.
Israel, which has neither confirmed nor denied the existence of a nuclear program, dismissed the claim that it was responsible for the 1979 incident.
srael’s ambassador to New Zealand, Itzhak Gerberg, told the Herald, when asked if Israel was responsible for the explosion: “Simply a ridiculous assumption that does not hold water.”
However, the country’s former Knesset speaker, Avrum Burg, told a conference in 2013 that “Israel has nuclear and chemical weapons” and called for public discussion.
Commenting on the findings, US nuclear weapons expert Leonard Weiss of Stanford University said in the online Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists that the “important” new evidence “removes virtually all doubt” that the flash was a small-yield nuclear explosion.
Weiss added that there was “growing circumstantial evidence” that it was conducted by Israel.
“Israel was the only country that had the technical ability and policy motivation to carry out such a clandestine test,” he said.
opposition in New Mexico to siting the facility there, and opposition along any potential transportation routes, would doom the idea
“It’s extremely troubling because they are going to be handling a decommissioning fund of almost a billion dollars,” Tauro said. “This really points to the need absolutely for the independent oversight board. To lend this whole deal transparency and independence, and having people on that board who have absolutely nothing to gain.”
Once a privately held company is in charge of decommissioning, she said, transparency will be lost.
A high-level nuclear waste storage facility doesn’t exist yet, since the federal government stopped its attempts in 2011 to develop the Yucca Mountain facility in Nevada in the face of local and regional opposition.
So, for the foreseeable future, nuclear plants’ spent fuel must be stored on site of both operating and closed plants.
But Holtec International, which is trying to buy the Oyster Creek plant in Lacey Township for decommissioning, has an application before the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to open a short-term facility in New Mexico. It proposes to store high-level nuclear waste there, such as spent fuel rods from nuclear plants. A Holtec spokesperson did not respond to requests for information.
Holtec would likely try to transport Oyster Creek’s waste to the New Mexico facility. That and the fact that Holtec manufactures casks for storage of nuclear waste bring up conflicts of interest, said Clean Water Action Board Chairwoman Janet Tauro, of Brick Township. She has been fighting to get the Oyster Creek plant closed for years.
Tauro said whoever does the decommissioning should have to choose the best and safest cask and storage options, not the ones that will make the most money for them.
“How do you do that if it’s all your stuff, if Holtec is managing the decommissioning and buying their own casks and choosing to store at a Holtec-owned site in New Mexico?” asked Tauro.
Tauro is especially concerned about Holtec casks, since some of them malfunctioned at the decommissioned San Onofre nuclear plant in San Diego County, California, she said
NRC spokesman Neil Sheehan said the problem was discovered Feb. 20 “during a mandatory pre-loading inspection of multipurpose canisters, the stainless-steel casks that hold the spent fuel.”
He said it involved a broken shim standoff bolt inside the cask. The loose bolt — about 4 inches long and 7/16th of an inch in diameter — was found in the bottom of one of the casks.
It was shipped back to Holtec, Sheehan said. Holtec inspected other canisters at its facility in Camden and found another with a broken standoff bolt.
On March 6, Southern California Edison, which owns San Onofre, halted its dry cask loading activities. The site subsequently resumed that work, using casks with a different approved shim design, Sheehan said.
Other plants that have casks with the same design are Vermont Yankee, Dresden, Grand Gulf, Hatch, Columbia, Watts Bar and Callaway.
The New Mexico storage facility is unlikely to become a reality, said New Jersey Sierra Club Director Jeff Tittel, since it would require moving high-level radioactive waste across the country.Sheehan said Vermont Yankee in Vernon, Vermont, and Oyster Creek are the only nuclear plants ever proposed to be sold for decommissioning.
However, in 2010, Exelon transferred the license for Zion Nuclear Power Station in Zion, Illinois, to EnergySolutions of Salt Lake City to do the decommissioning, and will take the license back after the work is done. In that case, Exelon continues to be responsible for the spent fuel.
“Years ago we called them ‘mobile Chernobyls,’” said Tittel of the idea of moving such waste by truck or train. His organization has also fought to close the plant for decades. Tittel predicted opposition in New Mexico to siting the facility there, and opposition along any potential transportation routes, would doom the idea
Tauro is also concerned about Holtec’s plans to subcontract the decommissioning work to Comprehensive Decommissioning International LLC, of Camden. CDI was formed earlier this year as a joint venture company of Holtec and SNC-Lavalin.
SNC-Lavalin has been charged with corruption, fraud and bribery in Canada, according to Canadian media reports.
“It’s extremely troubling because they are going to be handling a decommissioning fund of almost a billion dollars,” Tauro said. “This really points to the need absolutely for the independent oversight board. To lend this whole deal transparency and independence, and having people on that board who have absolutely nothing to gain.”
Once a privately held company is in charge of decommissioning, she said, transparency will be lost.
“NRC staff, both in our regional offices and headquarters in Rockville, Maryland, closely monitored the actions being taken by plant owners and Holtec, the cask vendor, in response to the issue,” Sheehan said. “Holtec and the plant owners performed root-cause and extent-of-condition analyses. Those assessments determined that the heat flow inside the casks would not be adversely impacted by the problem. We are still reviewing the issue.”
Doctor Chris Busby about the nuclear mud dumping issue in Wales, United Kingdom
REAL PLUTONIUM
How Global Warming and Arctic Ice Melt Intensify Hurricanes
The Science of Today’s Superstorms: 1 of 3
WEIBO SIGNUP LINK IN ENGLISH As western media clamps down on environmentalists etc, Chinas Weibo allows unrestricted access to this site unlike Google, FB etc. Maybe this is worth signing up too until a new search engine for the masses becomes available (Or Google begins censoring Chinas internet). Here is the English language link for sign up; https://www.weibo.com/signup/signup.php
November 29th and 30th and December 1st, Navajo Nation Museum, Hwy 264 & Post Office Loop, Window Rock, Navajo Nation, AZDecember 2nd, Flagstaff, AZDecember 6th, Guild Cinema, 3405 Central Ave, Albuquerque, NMDecember 7th, Grants, NMDecember 9th, Jean Cocteau Cinema, 418 Montezuma Ave, Santa Fe, NM
