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Police violence does not deter huge anti nuclear protests in France and Germany

After 126 hours en route the 13th CASTOR delivery arrived for storage in Gorleben. The longest and most expensive delivery trip ever was caused by blockades of anti-nuclear activists, starting in France, continuing throughout Germany and culminating in the Gorleben area itself. 

After a trip of nearly five and a half days from Normandy in France the 13th delivery of processed German nuclear waste reached the “temporary” storage hall in Gorleben, a village in northwest Germany at about 10 pm on Monday   +++  Police perpetrated massive violence and breaches of the law against demonstrators, injuring at least 355 with truncheons, gas, dogs, horses and water cannons  +++   The 25,000 activists in the county were the second largest number ever   +++   Resistance against the shipment began in France where activists reported police violence against them but also an upsurge of anti-nuclear sentiment in the country   +++   In the Gorleben area resistance took the form of rail and road squats, chain-ons (one caused a 14-hour delay in the train journey) and massive road traffic disruptions, notably by farmers with tractors and agricultural machinery +++(See German Source here)

The activists’ first aid team of doctors and other health professionals report treating at least 355 injured by police, including serious head wounds and a suspected vertebral fracture from truncheoning. About a third of the injuries were caused by gas, the others mainly by truncheons. One person was run down by a horse, another had a tooth bashed out. Some police who’d been affected by their own mace or who were totally exhausted (10 cases) were also treated. In some cases the first aiders were denied access, especially during the trucking phase. Nine were ordered away from places. A doctor was not allowed to examine an arrested injured person. In another case first aiders were kettled while washing out people’s eyes. There were several cases of police violence against first aiders, e.g. one was injured by gas, another by several blows with a truncheon. A first aid camp in Laase was overrun linkby police, who threatened and insulted first aiders. The group is shocked by the high number of injured which will probably rise because not all the numbers are in yet. http://linksunten.indymedia.org/en/node/50895

November 30, 2011 Posted by | civil liberties, France, Germany, opposition to nuclear | Leave a comment

Kudankulam anti nuclear protestors- are their lives in danger?

Kudankulam N-plant: Protesters allege threat to lives, NDTV – ‎Nov 24, 2011‎ Kudankulam: Days after talks between government representatives and villagers protesting against the setting up of a nuclear power plant at Kudankulam in Tamil Nadu failed, protesters are alleging a threat to their lives. … http://www.ndtv.com/article/india/kudankulam-n-plant-protesters-allege-threat-to-lives-152712

November 27, 2011 Posted by | civil liberties, India | Leave a comment

Nuclear waste safety problems, retaliation against whistleblowers

The agency “seems to be more interested in paying contractor fees than in paying attention to safety concerns or to those who are disciplined for raising them,”

Hanford Nuclear-Waste Safety May Not Be Assured, Markey Says,  By Brian Wingfield Nov. 22 (Bloomberg) –– The U.S. Energy Department may not have adequately responded to safety questions and allegations of retaliation against whistle-blowers at a nuclear-waste treatment plant in Washington state, Representative Edward Markey said. Continue reading →

November 23, 2011 Posted by | civil liberties, USA | Leave a comment

Will Australia afford civil rights to Julian Assange, or kow tow to USA?

Assange’s extradition will have broad implications, not only for the exercise of free speech, but also for all Australians — as it will bring into stark relief our own government’s commitment to our rights as citizens…

If he is sent to Sweden, Assange’s extradition must be conditional on him not being subject to the “temporary surrender” clauses in the bilateral treaty between the USA and Sweden….

[ Former Prime Minister]Kevin Rudd.., unlike the Prime Minister [Julia Gillard]  and Attorney General, knew he was obliged to presume Julian Assange innocent
before proven guilty. Instead of threatening to cancel this Australian passport, the Foreign Minister said publicly that his responsibility was to attend to his legal and consular rights.

While the world watches events unfold in London, we have a singular responsibility here in Australia for the protection the citizenship entitlements of one of our own. The next move is squarely in the court of the Australian Government.

Why Julian Assange Could Be You, New Matilda.com, By Scott Ludlam, 3 Nov  Australians should watch closely how the Gillard Government responds to Julian Assange’s extradition . It will test Labor’s commitment to all of our rights as citizens Continue reading →

November 3, 2011 Posted by | AUSTRALIA, civil liberties | Leave a comment

“Participatory fascism” – citizens can discuss, but Plutonium complex decisions made beforehand

” a totally state-controlled state investment in a very obsolete technology. It’s weapons socialism.”

A Giant New Plutonium Complex at Los Alamos, HUFFINGTON POST Mary-Charlotte Domandi,  10/31/11  or, “How to spend $6 billion, create 600 jobs, and prop up the most unproductive sector of the military industrial complex for another generation.”

(National Nuclear Security Administration’s plans for a new Chemistry and Metallurgy Research Replacement (CMRR) facility at LANL,)

“There’s the fake citizen input but not the real citizen input,” said Mello. “It’s what Robert Higgs called “participatory fascism.” We are allowed to participate in discussions which already have predetermined outcomes.” Continue reading →

November 1, 2011 Posted by | civil liberties, USA | 3 Comments

India’s National Nuclear Safety Authority Bill aims to hide nuclear information

The government also intends to amend the RTI law to exempt the proposed nuclear energy regulator – the National Nuclear Safety Authority – from the ambit of the transparency law….the bill seeks to amend the RTI law to prevent seeking of information on the grounds of “the larger public interest”..
New laws to get around Right To Information act, Chetan Chauhan, Hindustan Times New Delhi, October 17, 2011 India’s transparency law – the Right To Information Act – will not change but the government wants to restrict its applicability to some areas of sports and nuclear safety through other laws.

Two new draft laws – the National Sports Development Bill  and the National Nuclear Safety  Authority Bill – have specific provisions prohibiting disclosure of information in addition to the exemption clauses already in the RTI law Continue reading →

October 18, 2011 Posted by | civil liberties, India | Leave a comment

France increases fines, cracks down on anti nuclear protestors

Post-Fukushima, France breaks silence on nuclear safety, The Hindu VAIJU NARAVANE, 11 Oct 11 “…….France has always come down hard on any anti-nuclear protests and there has been very little debate on the decision taken in the 1950s or under the post-oil-crisis Messmer Plan of 1974, to wholeheartedly embrace nuclear energy. An appeals court in the northern city of Caen on September 27, upped the fines slapped on Greenpeace France for occupying the nuclear site at Flamanville (Normandy) where France’s first EPR reactor is under construction.

Greenpeace France will now have to pay €2,500 instead of the initial €1,500 and individual protesters will have to cough up fines of €200 each. The French electricity giant EDF, which is the constructor and future operator of the reactor, had called for damages and interest amounting to €155,000…. http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/op-ed/article2526288.ece

October 11, 2011 Posted by | civil liberties, France | Leave a comment

Israel prevents nuclear whistleblower Vanunu from emigrating

Israel bars nuclear whistle-blower from emigrating: media, Google News, 7 Oct 11 JERUSALEM — Israel’s supreme court on Thursday barred nuclear whistle-blower Mordechai Vanunu from emigrating on the grounds he still poses a threat to state security, Israeli media reported. Vanunu, under orders to stay in Tel Aviv and not to speak to journalists, “has proved several times he can not be trusted and does not respect the letter of the law,” supreme court judges said in turning down his appeal.

The prosecution charged he posed “a real danger to the security of Israel,” while the judges stressed the 56-year-old former nuclear technician had contacts with unspecified “foreign elements.”

Vanunu served 18 years behind bars for disclosing the inner workings of Israel’s Dimona nuclear plant to Britain’s Sunday Times newspaper in 1986. He was released in 2004 but banned from travel or contact with foreigners without prior permission. He has since been sanctioned more than 20 times for breaking the rules.

Israel is widely believed to be the only nuclear-armed power in the Middle East, with between 100 and 300 warheads, but it has a policy of neither confirming nor denying that.

The Jewish state has refused to sign the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty or to allow international surveillance of its Dimona plant in the Negev desert of southern Israel. http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5g9x-LXW9KK7ZK3qTE9Lev88ZJTHg?docId=CNG.c05571d1da8b533f5fbbc6407b4da20d.ae1

October 7, 2011 Posted by | civil liberties, Israel | Leave a comment

India: police crack down on Koodankulam anti nuclear protestors

Koodankulam tense, cops step up security, IBN Live 10 Sept 11, TIRUNELVELI: With the announcement of the hunger strike at Idinthakarai near Koodankulam on Sunday, police have initiated preventive measures by detaining a few persons, Continue reading →

September 14, 2011 Posted by | civil liberties, India | Leave a comment

School shuts up Fukushima teacher on radiation risks

Fukushima Teacher Muzzled on Radiation Risks, Bloomberg, By Takahiko Hyuga – Jul 28, 2011 As temperatures soared to 100 degrees Fahrenheit on a recent July morning, school children in Fukushima prefecture were taking off their masks and running around playgrounds in T-shirts, exposing them to a similar amount of annual radiation as a worker in a nuclear power plant.

Toshinori Shishido, a Japanese literature teacher of 25 years, had warned his students two months ago to wear surgical masks and keep their skin covered with long-sleeved shirts. His advice went unheeded, not because of the weather but because his school told him not to alarm students. Shishido quit this week.

“I want to get away from this situation where I’m not even allowed to alert children about radiation exposure,” said Shishido, a 48-year-old teacher who taught at Fukushima Nishi High School. “Now I’m free to talk about the risks.”…..

Radiation Exposure   About a fifth of the 1,600 schools in Fukushima are exposed to at least 20 millisieverts of radiation a year, the Network to Protect Fukushima Children from Radiation said, citing the most recent government readings in April. That’s the limit for an atomic plant worker set by theInternational Commission on Radiological Protection.

More than three-quarters of the schools receive radiation readings of 0.6 microsievert per hour, said the network, a group comprising 700 parents. That’s 10 times more than the readings in Shinjuku, central Tokyo, on average….. http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-07-28/fukushima-teacher-muzzled-on-radiation-risks-for-school-children.html

July 29, 2011 Posted by | civil liberties, Japan | 1 Comment

Japan about to censor Internet news on nuclear radiation?

On June 17, 2011 the Japanese Parliament passed “The Computer Network Monitoring Law” . Prof. Ibusuki of Seijo Univ. Law Dept. comments that “The Computer Network Monitoring Law will enable the police to monitor anyone’s internet activity without restriction.”…

The question is, will METI draw the line at “clarifying” erroneous information, or will it act to clamp down and suppress sources of information that it finds inconvenient?

New Japan Law Cleanses Bad Nuclear News, UK PROGRESSIVE,  | JULY 24, 2011  Friday, July 15, the Ministry of Industry and Trade (METI) – Agency for Natural Resources and Energy, opened a call for bids (tender) regarding the “Nuclear Power Safety Regulation Publicity Project”, for contractors to monitor blogs and tweets posted about nuclear power and radiation……. Continue reading →

July 24, 2011 Posted by | civil liberties, Japan | 4 Comments

Doctor ejected from airport for refusing radiation scanning

Airport Boots Doctor for Refusing Radiation Assault, (NEWSER) 2 July 11– An eye specialist on his way to treat child patients in Switzerland was escorted out of Britain’s Manchester airport by police after refusing a full-body scan. Tony Aguirre declined the scan on both medical and ethical grounds, calling the technology a “radiation assault,” reports the Daily Mail. Fliers at the three British airports that have installed the scanners are not offered the dreaded “pat-down” option offered to American travelers who refuse the scan.

“X-rays are known to cause cancer and I think somebody will get cancer from this body scanner whether it’s me or someone else,” the doctor told officials. The “no scan, no fly” rule “raises the suspicion that perhaps it’s more expensive to do a manual search and that’s why they are forced to go through an X-ray,” he says. The doctor eventually flew to Switzerland from Liverpool airport, which does not have the scanners…..http://www.newser.com/story/122386/airport-boots-doctor-for-refusing-radiation-assault.html
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July 2, 2011 Posted by | civil liberties, UK | Leave a comment

Japanese actor punished for his anti nuclear stance

“I received an email from my manager today. ‘Your planned role in a July 8 drama has gone away because of your statements regarding nuclear power plants.’”…

It’s Not Easy Being Antinuclear – Japan Real Time – WSJ* May 30, 2011, By Yoree Koh It’s a difficult time to trumpet the virtues of nuclear energy in Japan, but it appears naysayers are finding that speaking out can have negative consequences. Continue reading →

May 31, 2011 Posted by | civil liberties, Japan | Leave a comment

Broadening spying on Julian Assange – Australian govt introduces new law

Last week the government introduced legislation to define ASIO’s role more broadly to include collection of intelligence ”about the capabilities, intentions or activities of people or organisations outside Australia.”..

ASIO eye on WikiLeaks,The Age 23 May 11, “………declassified official briefings do not support Ms Gillard’s public assertion that Assange broke Australian law by publishing leaked US government secrets. Continue reading →

May 23, 2011 Posted by | AUSTRALIA, civil liberties | Leave a comment

How a Fukushima safety whistleblower was blackballed

Despite a new law shielding whistle-blowers, the regulator, the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency, divulged Mr. Sugaoka’s identity to Tokyo Electric, effectively blackballing him from the industry

Safety Left Out in Japan’s ‘Nuclear Power Village, Culture of Complicity Tied to Stricken Nuclear Plant, New York Times, By NORIMITSU ONISHI and KEN BELSON,  April 26, 2011, TOKYO — Given the fierce insularity of Japan’s nuclear industry, it was perhaps fitting that an outsider exposed the most serious safety cover-up in the history of Japanese nuclear power. It took place at Fukushima Daiichi, the plant that Japan has been struggling to get under control since last month’s earthquake and tsunami. Continue reading →

April 27, 2011 Posted by | civil liberties, Japan | 1 Comment

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