Secrecy laws and intimidation cloud information on effects of nuclear meltdowns at Fukuhsima
Fukushima – Deep Trouble CounterPunch, FEBRUARY 22, 2016 by ROBERT HUNZIKER “………As intimated by Mako Oshidori, governmental secrecy laws and intimidation techniques vastly overshadow the tragedy of the disaster, an oppressive black cloud that won’t go away. People are scared to say anything for fear of reprisal, jail, and blacklisting. Mako Oshidori’s name is prominently secretly blacklisted. A government mole told her.
Accordingly, it is instructive to look at Japan’s new state secrecy law Act on the Protection of Specially Designated Secrets (SDS) Act No. 108 of 2013 passed on the heels of the Fukushima meltdown, very similar to Japan’s harsh Public Peace and Order Controls of WWII. According to Act No. 108, the “act of leaking itself” is bad enough for prosecution, regardless of what, how, or why.
Thereupon, Susumu Murakoshi, president of the Japan Federation of Bar Associations says: “The law should be abolished because it jeopardizes democracy and the people’s right to know,” Abe’s Secrets Law Undermines Japan’s Democracy, The Japan Times, Dec. 13, 2014.
Public opinion is shaped by public knowledge of events, but the Abe government’s enactment of an extraordinarily broad dastardly secrecy law (almost anyone can be arrested) that threatens prison sentences up to 10 years undermines confidence in believability of the Japanese government.
But categorically, Japan needs to nurture confidence. Robert Hunziker lives in Los Angeles and can be reached at roberthunziker@icloud.com http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/02/22/fukushima-deep-trouble/
Normalizing radiation – Japan’s nuclear policy “Fukushima is clean and safe again!”
“Instead of taking corrective measures to protect its people, Japan has simply increased internationally recognized exposure limits. It seems that the priority – as we’ve seen in so many other industrial disasters in so many other countries – is to protect industry and limit its liability rather than to ensure the long-term health and well being of the masses. Go figure.”
No bliss in this ignorance: the great Fukushima nuclear cover-up, Extra Sensory News, Media Propaganda Reanalysis Linda Pentz Gunter, 21 Feb 16 Dr. Tetsunari Iida is the founder and executive director of the Institute for Sustainable Energy Policies (ISEP) in Japan……… in person, Iida was most interested in conveying the extent to which the Japanese people were lied to before, during and after the devastating nuclear disaster at Fukushima-Daiichi, precipitated on that same fateful day and by the deadly duo of earthquake and tsunami.
The media may have played the willing government handmaiden in reassuring the public with falsehoods, but in July 2012, the Fukushima Nuclear Accident Independent Investigation Commission concluded that the disaster was really no accident but “man-made“. It came about, the researchers said, as a result of “collusion” between the government, regulators and the nuclear industry, in this case, Tepco.“There should be a Tepco trial like the post-war Tokyo Trials”, Iida said, referring to the post World War II war crimes trial in which 28 Japanese were tried, seven of whom were subsequently executed by hanging.
Hope for such accountability – without advocating hanging – is fleeting at best. In 2011, while addressing a conference in Berlin hosted by the Heinrich Böll Foundation, I suggested the Tepco officials should be sent to the International Criminal Court at The Hague, (a body the US still conveniently refuses to recognize) to answer for what clearly amounts to crimes against humanity.
The remark caused a bit of a stir and earnest questions about the mechanism by which Tepco could be brought there. Needless to say, nothing of the kind ever happened, or is likely to.
Instead, the Abe’s government’s preferred tactic is to go full out to restart reactors and move everybody back home as soon as possible, as if nothing serious had happened. Just scoop off a little topsoil, cart it away somewhere else and, Abracadabra!Everything is clean and safe again!
Normalizing radiation, a policy and now a practice Continue reading
Fukushima and the great repatriation lie
No bliss in this ignorance: the great Fukushima nuclear cover-up, Extra Sensory News, Media Propaganda Reanalysis Linda Pentz Gunter, 21 Feb 16 The great repatriation lie
“……..”It’s the big cover-up,”Iida told his Westminster audience. “People are being told it’s quite safe to have a little [radiation] exposure.”
Indeed, at a recent conferences of prefectural governors, young people in particular were urged to return to Fukushima. “If you come to live with us in Fukushima and work there, that will facilitate its post-disaster reconstruction and help you lead a meaningful life”, said Fukushima Gov. Masao Uchibori.
Young people in Japan, however, appear not to be cooperating. Where evacuees are returning, the majority are senior citizens, who have less to lose from a health perspective and are more traditionally tied to the land and their ancestral burial grounds.
“They want to die where they were born and not in an unfamiliar place”, said Yoshiko Aoki, an evacuee herself who now works with others, and who also spoke at the London conference.
All of this impacts revenue from the inhabitants’ tax which constitutes 24.3% of all local tax sources and is collected by both prefectures and municipalities. It is levied on both individuals and corporations but with the bulk of revenue coming from individuals.
Senior citizens who have retired do not contribute to income tax, so the onus is on governors and mayors to lure as many working people as possible back to their towns and regions in order to effectively finance local public services………
People are confronted, said Iida, with “two extreme views, either that it’s very dangerous or quite safe. So it’s very difficult to decide which is the truth and it has been left up to individuals.”
One of those towns that could be declared ‘safe’ is Tomioka, Japan’s Pripyat, formerly home to close to 16,000 people but now uninhabited.
“It’s like a human experiment, that’s how we feel,” said Aoki in London, herself a former Tomioka resident. “The Governor of Fukushima spoke about a safe Fukushima. We want it to become safe, but our thoughts and reality are not one and the same.”
Observes Kyoto University professor of nuclear physics, Koide Hiroaki, in the Vice film, who has been outspoken for decades against the continued use of nuclear energy:
“Once you enter a radiation controlled area, you aren’t supposed to drink water, let alone eat anything. The idea that somebody”, he pauses, ” … is living in a place like that is unimaginable.”
Linda Pentz Gunter is the international specialist at Beyond Nuclear, a Takoma Park, MD environmental advocacy group. http://extrasensoryprecepts.blogspot.com.au/2016/02/no-bliss-in-this-ignorance-great.html
USA had nuclear weapons on Okinawa- declassified information, but everyone knew anyway
“Fact of” Nuclear Weapons on Okinawa Declassified http://fas.org/blogs/secrecy/2016/02/okinawa-nuclear/ Feb.19, 2016 The Department of Defense revealed this week that “The fact that U.S. nuclear weapons were deployed on Okinawa prior to Okinawa’s reversion to Japan on May 15, 1972” has been declassified.
While this is indeed news concerning classification policy, it does not represent new information about Okinawa.
According to an existing Wikipedia entry, “Between 1954 and 1972, 19 different types of nuclear weapons were deployed in Okinawa, but with fewer than around 1,000 warheads at any one time” (citing research by Robert S. Norris, William M. Arkin and William Burr that was published in 1999 in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists). As often seems to be the case, declassification here followed disclosure, not the other way around.
If there is any revelation in the new DoD announcement, it is that this half-century-old historical information was still considered classified until now. As such, it has been an ongoing obstacle to the public release of records concerning the history of Okinawa and US-Japan relations.
Because this information had been classified as “Formerly Restricted Data” under the Atomic Energy Act rather than by executive order, its declassification required the concurrence of the Department of Defense, the Department of Energy, and (in this case) the Department of State. Any one of those agencies had the power to veto the decision to declassify, or to stymie it by simply refusing to participate.
Instead, the information was declassified as a result of a new procedure adopted by the Obama Administration to coordinate the review of nuclear weapons-related historical material that is no longer sensitive but that has remained classified under the Atomic Energy Act by default. The new procedure had been recommended by a 2012 report from the Public Interest Declassification Board, and was adopted by the White House-led Classification Reform Committee.
Also newly declassified and affirmed this week was “The fact that prior to the reversion of Okinawa to Japan that the U.S. Government conducted internal discussion, and discussions with Japanese government officials regarding the possible re-introduction of nuclear weapons onto Okinawa in the event of an emergency or crisis situation.”
Such individual declassification actions could go on indefinitely, since there are innumerable other “facts” whose continued classification cannot reasonably be justified by current circumstances. A more systemic effort to recalibrate national security classification policy government-wide is to be performed over the coming year
Update: The National Security Archive posted the first officially declassified document on nuclear weapons in Okinawa, which was released in response to its request. See Nuclear Weapons on Okinawa Declassified, February 19, 201
Call on the British govt to hold a public enquiry on the murder of Hilda Murrell
The British Government: To open a public enquiry on the murder of Hilda Murrell https://secure.avaaz.org/en/petition/The_British_Government_To_open_a_public_enquiry_on_the_murder_of_Hilda_Murrell/?sFUDDfb Why this is important
The unsolved murder of Hilda Murrell, Anti-Nuclear Activist
Hilda Murrell, Anti-Nuclear Activist, Abducted & Murdered 31 years ago, Mining Awareness Plus, “Hilda Murrell (3 February 1906 – 23? March 1984) was a British rose grower, naturalist, diarist and campaigner against nuclear power and nuclear weapons. She was abducted and found murdered five miles from her home in Shropshire,…” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hilda_Murrell
In the UK House of Commons, 1984:
“There is also the evidence of my friend, Mr. Gerard Morgan Grenville, whom I have known for nearly 40 years. Mrs. Morgan Grenville tells me how Hilda Murrell rang them up in a great state at the end of February, and how she fetched her husband. Mr. Morgan Grenville, with whom I have had a good deal to do and who is a deeply serious man, says that her parting words on the telephone were: “If they don’t get me first, I want the world to know that one old woman has seen through their lies“. One is reminded of Scudder, the diarist in John Buchan’s “The Thirty-Nine Steps”. Mr. Morgan Grenville had never heard Miss Murrell speak in that way before. Why should an old lady be prompted to say that?
There has been speculation that her death was connected with a paper that she had written on the problems of nuclear waste and reactor choice, which she hoped would be read at the Sizewell B inquiry. Arthur Osman, writing in The Observer on 2 December, began his article: Silkwood parallels in English woman’s death … Was anti-nuclear power campaigner Hilda Murrell murdered because she was becoming too much of a nuisance to the industry?” “House of Commons Sitting, Miss Hilda Murrell (Murder) HC Deb 19 December 1984 vol 70 cc458-72 458 3.51 am, Mr. Tam Dalyell (Linlithgow)” © Parliamentary Copyright, OPL:http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1984/dec/19/miss-hilda-murrell-murder [1]
Book Review of:
“A Thorn in Their Side – The Hilda Murrell Murder
Submitted by Anonymous on Fri, 01/27/2012 – 10:49 Reviewed by Nigel Chamberlain, January 2012………anybody who was involved in anti-nuclear activities during the 1980s was placed under Police Special Branch surveillance in their own localities. Those asking the more penetrating questions and those encouraging others to join them in actively opposing the nuclear state were subject to more intensive forms of intimidation – and worse – at the hands of MI5 and their sub-contractors. The ‘civil’ nuclear power industry also had a surveillance arm.
Hilda Murrell was one of those anti-nuclear activists whose research and writing was deemed dangerous enough by the security state to warrant their full attention and to prevent her ideas from spreading and challenging those who held power. Although it is hard to comprehend in our post-Cold War environment and less ideological times, those who held power decided that those who fundamentally challenged it, could legitimately be harassed, have their human rights suspended and be marginalised – all in the name of defending freedom and democracy.
The irony is that those who were campaigning for the abolition of nuclear weapons and the prevention of the expansion of the nuclear power industry were trying to achieve it by almost entirely democratic means. …………..
Read the book, visit the Hilda Murrell website, then make your own judgement. http://www.hildamurrell.org
Author: Rob Green, Publisher: Rata Books
Year published: 2011
ISBN: 978-0-473-19685-1“http://www.natowatch.org/node/611http://www.natowatch.org/legal http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/uk/ [The book is available at Amazon, Ibooks, etc. Additional info is found at the Hilda Murrell web site.]……………https://miningawareness.wordpress.com/2015/03/22/hilda-murrell-anti-nuclear-activist-abducted-murdered-31-years-ago/
UK public conned by vested interests, into funding Trident nuclear weapons system
The whole nuclear weapons industry, the flaccid phallic posturing, the stern, brow-furrowing arguments for maintaining it – all are a con of epic proportions. We, the public, are being deceived left, right and centre into allowing fraudulent governments to squander our money on something which merely serves to inflate the wealth of those involved.
Trident: How the banks have their fingers on the button https://www.commonspace.scot/articles/3468/trident-how-the-banks-have-their-fingers-on-the-button CommonSpace columnist Steve Topple investigates the finance behind nuclear weapons
THE debate surrounding the renewal of the Trident nuclear ‘deterrent’ is a perpetual one that never appears to be out of the news in some way. Take last week. On Monday, Labour went into (another) nuclear-grade meltdown over the ‘thorny’ issue (pun intended) of the party’s stance on the matter, with the GMB Union wading into the debate on Tuesday.
Thursday saw Whitehall sources suggest David Cameron will be delaying the vote on its renewal until after the EU referendum, and on Saturday the US defence secretary blundered in, urging the UK to renew the programme to keep its “outsized” role in the world, like our country was some sort of fast-food meal deal you only get in America.
How much do we really know about the detail of the finance behind Trident and the networks of power?
The UK’s Trident system consists of four submarines, each capable of carrying 16 missiles (but in line with government policy only ever carry eight). These in turn carry up to 12 warheads each (although again, policy deems a maximum of 40). One is on constant patrol, while another is under maintenance and two are either in training or in port.
The cost of the Trident renewal programme is, as is always the case, subjective. The government claims it will be £31bn (up from £25bn last year); activists claim the figure will be a lot higher, and the top-end amount quoted was by Reuters, estimating that over its lifetime the system will cost £167bn.
But how much do we really know about the detail of the finance behind Trident and the networks of power? I delved deeper into the murky waters of vested and financial interests that surround the world’s nuclear weapons – and the results were telling.
To understand why the current UK Government and its predecessors are just so keen on keeping our ‘deterrent’ – ignoring the advice of so many independent bodies – as always the first place to begin is the House of Lords.
Lord Hollick, who was a member of the select committee on economic affairs which gave evidence against Scottish independence, is also a director of a company called Honeywell, which has a contract with the government to develop systems to extend the life cycle of Trident.
I delved deeper into the murky waters of vested and financial interests that surround the world’s nuclear weapons – and the results were telling.
Lord Hague, director of Intercontinental Exchange Inc. (a company which deals in the trading of stocks and shares, including defence) is also chair of the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI), which advises government on defence policy.
Meanwhile, Lord Hutton, adviser to nuclear weapons site security firm Bechtel Corporation, consultant for big-name weapons manufacturer Lockheed Martin and chair of the Nuclear Industries Association, was until last year chair of RUSI.
By my calculations (checking every member’s interests against those companies involved with the Trident), over 15 per cent have what can be deemed as ‘vested interests’ in either the corporations involved in the programme or the institutions that finance them, and this is just for our nuclear capability – one suspects the percentage for defence in general would be higher.
While we’re on the subject of RUSI, on 4 February this year Malcolm Chalmers, director of research there, participated in a debate on Newsnight where he asserted it was “most unlikely that [Trident] will be phased out … I see no evidence for that”, while promoting the myth that the main argument against nuclear weapons was a “moral” one – because we couldn’t spend £167bn in a better way, obviously…
This stance from Chalmers on Trident (and RUSI’s previous proposals of merely scaling back the programme) is unsurprising when you consider the links to the House of Lords I mention above – even less so when you take into account that RUSI is sponsored byfour companies directly involved in Trident – Babcock, Lockheed Martin, Raytheon and Rolls Royce.
The rot surrounding the rabid disease of cronyistic, chumocratical influence in Westminster putridly festers in the banks.
But there’s more. The rot surrounding the rabid disease of cronyistic, chumocratical influence in Westminster also putridly festers in the banks. A report by the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (iCan) cited 41 UK-based financial institutions that invested directly in the nuclear weapons industry (including Labour Party bankrollers the Cooperative); institutions which can be found splattered across the House of Lords register, riddling the government external appointments list (note HSBC’s former directors Lord Green, Rona Fairhead of the BBC Trust and Ruth Kelly of the FCA); and on the headers of numerous political party consultations.
But, here’s the real crux of the matter regarding financial institutions and the system as a whole’s involvement in the nuclear weapons industry – they don’t just bat for ‘our team’.
Almaz-Antey is a state-owned Russian defence industry manufacturer, responsible for at least 26 sub-operators, which predominantly develops anti-aircraft defence systems. It gained notoriety after it was suggested that it was one of its BUK surface-to-air missiles that shot down flight MH17 over Ukraine in 2014.
Funding for Almaz-Antey generally comes from either the Russian Government directly, or via the state-owned Vnesheconombank (VEB) development bank – for example, in 2012 Almaz received RUB 35bn from the Defence Ministry and 25bn from VEB to develop the S-500 Prometey air and missile defence system – touted to be the most advanced on the planet.
Being ‘state-owned’, however, doesn’t always mean state-funded, as an archived press release from 2011 shows. In April of that year VEB signed an agreement for a syndicated loan worth $2.4bn, from 19 banks – and they were all outside of Russia.
UK institutions included Barclays and HSBC, and other prominent contributors were JP Morgan, Morgan Stanley and Credit Suisse – five of the very same banks that were also listed on iCan’s report as funding/investing in Western nuclear programmes.
This example is not, however, some fluke. Uralvagonzavod, which develops Russia’s anti-aircraft tanks, deals with the country’s Sberbank. It, in turn, is 43 per cent retained by ‘international legal investors’ (the detail of which I cannot find), and owns £87bn of assets across the OECD countries. Furthermore, Barclays is also involved, having bid forthe contract to supply the bank with an RUB 3.5bn credit line.
Rostec State Corporation (an umbrella company for 663 other organisations, mostly relating to the military) owns and is part-financed by Novikombank – which in turn is financed by Deutsch Bank, Credit Suisse and – yes, you guessed it – Barclays.
Note also that the latter runs investment operations in the country, and has been assisting the Russian Government with the privatisation of state assets. But perhaps the most disturbing part of this is who finances Russia’s Trident equivalent – the Dolgorukiy class submarine programme.
Manufactured by a company called Sevmash, it receives its financing from the state-owned VEB bank. So yes, correct – Barclays and HSBC, both UK banks, are both directly funding Trident via investment and financing arrangements with Rolls Royce, BAE Systems and Babcock in the UK, while also indirectly funding the equivalent nuclear deterrent of UK ‘enemy’ Russia.
Get it yet?
Multinational corporate banks are playing one big chess game – except it’s all make-believe and there will never be a checkmate, because that would be unprofitable. Governments willingly participate – those in charge are invariably shareholders in weapons manufacturing companies or their financiers.
We are not living in some Sean Connery-era James Bond film. The world is intrinsically too financially entwined for either the East or West to ever press ‘the button’ – and to believe they would is, in my opinion, deluded.
You want a comparison of the current state of the planet and a Bond film? Try Spectre. A group of unelected corporate terrorists pulling the strings of government – or the‘military industrial complex’ if you prefer (although Eisenhower’s theory now pales in comparison with the reality).
Perhaps what sticks in the throat the most, however, is one bank I haven’t mentioned: the Royal Bank of Scotland.
The bank that we, the public, hold an 84 per cent stake in after the 2008 financial crash. A bank that invests not only in 10 companies that are involved in Trident, but is also a financier of Russia’s VEB bank. So therefore a bank which invests in Russia’s nuclear deterrent, as well as ours.
We are fundamentally providing the money to pay for both the East and the West’s nuclear weapons – and then to add insult to injury we pay for our own, again, via taxation.
The whole nuclear weapons industry, the flaccid phallic posturing, the stern, brow-furrowing arguments for maintaining it – all are a con of epic proportions. We, the public, are being deceived left, right and centre into allowing fraudulent governments to squander our money on something which merely serves to inflate the wealth of those involved.
There is no threat – except from our own foolhardiness for sleep-walking for decades and allowing this to continue happening.
The sooner we wake up, the better.
Stolen nuclear material in Iraq – risk of an Islamic State “dirty bomb”
Security firms deny responsibility for stolen nuclear material in Iraq, Islamic State dirty bomb fears linger , ABC News 19 Feb 16 Swiss inspections group SGS has denied any responsibility for security at the site in southern Iraq where radioactive material disappeared from last year, prompting fears it could be acquired by Islamic State militants……
Reuters released an exclusive report showing that Iraq is searching for “highly dangerous” radioactive material which the theft of has raised fears among Iraqi officials that it could be used to make a dirty bomb if acquired by IS militants.
A dirty bomb combines nuclear material with conventional explosives to contaminate an area with radiation, in contrast to a nuclear weapon, which uses nuclear fission to trigger a vastly more powerful blast.
“We are afraid the radioactive element will fall into the hands of Daesh,” a senior security official with knowledge of the theft, using an Arabic acronym for IS militants, said.
“They could simply attach it to explosives to make a dirty bomb.”……http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-02-19/sgs-denies-responsibility-for-missing-nuclear-material-in-iraq/7182482
UK Nuclear “Beauty Pageant” Scheme: More Than Sheer Madness; Rudd Conflict of Interest
The UK is having an architectural contest to “beautify” the proposed Moorside Nuclear reactor Site, which we choose to call a “beauty pageant”. The image of the Toshiba owned Westinghouse AP 1000 looks like a milk churn or can, as seen here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:AP1000Reactor.jpg
Milk Churn-Can and Pail https://www.gov.uk/government/news/rpa-releases-april-milk-production-figures
Cows at Moorside site on the Irish Sea, facing Sellafield Nuclear Site
Maybe they will stick a plastic cow in front of the Moorside visitors’ centre to replace the real cows, which they like to make graze near Sellafield and other nuclear sites?
While a Gothic Devil would be more appropriate,
it will not match the simplicity of the, almost 1000 year old, Old St. Bridget’s Church, seen in the distance with the Windscale chimney at Sellafield to the right.
nor the runic standing stone-crosses, which are estimated at around 900 to 1400 years old. This has been a Christian site since…
View original post 1,507 more words
Nuclear industry funded under the mask of “clean energy”
Obama’s “Clean Energy” budget is propping up nuclear energy, Enformable 12 Feb 2016 “………Cut to page 19 of the Office of Management and Budget’s Fiscal Year 2017 Budget document. Here we find “clean energy,” a phrase no longer to be trusted at face value, having been purloined into meaning at times something quite the reverse. For example, nuclear energy tends to hide beneath the “clean energy” mantel, muddling the message and undermining cause for optimism.
While it may be true that the nuclear power fuel chain does not produce the kind of dirt that can be swept under rugs, the nuclear industry has metaphorically done exactly that by presenting itself as a “clean” energy technology. There is nothing particularly clean about an industry that contaminates the air, land and waterways with heavy metals and with radioactive isotopes that, among other things, give kids living nearby leukemia.
But let’s gerund away anyway and see what lurks beneath the section entitled, “Doubling the Investment in Clean Energy R&D.” Here we learn that the U.S. Government indeed intends to double its current $6.4 billion investment in clean energy for 2016 to arrive at $12.8 billion by 2021. A hefty chunk — $7.7 billion — will be given as discretionary funding to the Department of Energy in 2017 alone for “clean energy R&D.”
But for what, exactly? “About 76 percent of the funding is directed to DOE for critical clean energy development activities, including over $2 billion for energy efficiency and renewable energy technologies,” the Budget document reads. Just two billion dollars for energy efficiency and renewable energy combined? That leaves $5.7 billion for something else that the DOE considers “clean energy.” One of those claimants undoubtedly is nuclear power.
More clues to the likely destination of this unassigned mystery money can be found in a later section where the Budget document reveals that the $7.7 billion is actually earmarked as funding for the “first step toward the Mission Innovation doubling goal.”
The White House describes Mission Innovation, which was announced during the Paris climate talks last December, as an “all-in, all-sector approach,” which is basically the same old “all of the above” foolish compromise on energy policy that the Obama administration has held to from the beginning.
Since this strategy is roundly contradicted by what is actually happening across the country — wind and solar energy installation outpacing natural gas while coal fades and nuclear plants close — there is only one logical explanation for this “fair and balanced” energy policy nonsense: corporate captivity.
To oversimplify: Barack Obama, the Senator from Illinois, emerged from Rahm Emanuel’s clamshell, and Emanuel invented Exelon and Exelon is today the country’s leading nuclear behemoth. Exelon’s chief lobbyist in the early days was David Axelrod. Team Obama was born in the country’s nuclear cradle, then. Nevertheless, it’s high time that a U.S. president as committed to renewables as Obama, ceased tossing favors — aka our money— to his corporate nuclear cronies.
And so it goes on. Sitting on that Paris stage last December for the Mission Innovation announcement was Bill Gates, whose only energy agenda is tinkering around with nuclear unicorns, an exercise so devoid of relevance to the urgent battle to address climate change that every dime spent there is a dime wasted. OK they are his dimes, trillions of them. 
But think what he could really do for climate change if he spent his riches wisely.
Let’s follow the trail of budget breadcrumbs a little further. The OMB goes on to say: “Mission Innovation is complemented by the Breakthrough Energy Coalition, a separate, private sector-led effort whose purpose is to mobilize substantial levels of private capital to support the most cutting-edge clean energy technologies emerging from the R&D pipeline.”
The Breakthrough Energy Coalition is Bill Gates again, and loaded to the hilt with his fellow billionaires all salivating at the prospect of old nuclear pots to mend. But given the Breakthrough Coalition is entirely “separate” and “private,” what is it doing even being mentioned in a government budget rollout?
What comes out of the Clean Energy R&D pipeline rather depends on what goes into it. It would be good if that turned out to be a true renewable energy revolution and not more deadly radioactive effluent from an obsolete fleet of new nuclear power plants. http://enformable.com/2016/02/obamas-clean-energy-budget-is-propping-up-nuclear-energy/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Enformable+%28Enformable%29
Nuclear crooks prosper in USA
13 Feb 16 The article on the criminality of GE/Hitachi suggests that the old adage: “crooks never prosper,” is accurate. However, in December 2015, the double-tongued NRC and DoE > the federally owned Tennessee Valley Authority rewarded GE Hitachi Nuclear Energy with a contract worth more than $70 million to provide outage services for units 1, 2 and 3 of the Browns Ferry nuclear power plant.
http://www.world-nuclear-news.org/C-GEH-wins-70-million-contract-to-service-Browns-Ferry-4121501.html
In October 2014, corporate felons, GE Hitachi Nuclear Energy (partnering with ANL) were rewarded with a DoE multi-million dollar grant for “development and modernization of next-generation probabilistic risk assessment methodologies” on the PRISM reactor. http://gehitachiprism.com/ge-hitachi-selected-by-u-s-department-of-energy-to-lead-advanced-reactor-research-and-development-project/
This is despite the fact that in September 2014, GE was hit with a “consent agreement” totalling $24 million to clean up its PCB contamination of the Hudson River. The Hudson River PCB Superfund (hazardous waste site) is located in New York and consists of 200 miles of the river. The Site is one of the largest Superfund Sites in the country thanks to GE.
The EPA estimated that GE dumped approximately 1.3 million pounds of PCBs into the river.
GE knew of the deadly health and environmental hazards of PCBs as early as 1937 when employees were sickened – some dying of liver disease yet it continued contaminating the river until the tardy EPA banned PCBs in 1977.
http://malibuunites.com/the-history-of-pcbs/
http://www.epa.gov/enforcement/case-summary-ge-agrees-further-investigate-upper-hudson-river-floodplain-comprehensive
The nuclear behemoth is a magnet for corporate thugs who hide beneath Obama’s “clean energy” mantle muddling the message whilst fouling the biosphere with impunity. The nuclear industry relies on Joe Public’s apathy.
Conclusion: The old adage: “crooks never prosper” incubates in the bowels of mythology.
UN ruling on Julian Assange, and Constitutional Law
Whether or not you believe Mr. Assange is guilty of a sexual offence, whether or not you think he is a self-publicist deliberately resisting arrest, the fact remains that the authorities could use less restrictive means without compromising the initial investigation into the allegations regarding his sexual conduct in Sweden
Liora Lazarus: Is the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention Decision on Assange ‘So Wrong’?UK Constitutional Law Association 13 Feb 16 The United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention handed down its decision on Julian Assange on Friday 5 February 2015 (A/HRC/WGAD/2015/54). It has been met with almost universal ridicule from a line of British officials, legal academics and the press. The decision has been described as ‘ridiculous’ by the UK Foreign Secretary, Phillip Hammond, and former Director of Public Prosecution Ken MacDonald argues that describing Assange’s conditions as ‘arbitrary detention’ is ‘ludicrous’. The press is equally incredulous. ………
Factual background
Mr. Assange is wanted for questioning in Sweden to answer allegations of sexual assault. The Swedish prosecutorial authorities have issued a European Arrest Warrant (EAW) which the UK authorities are bound to implement. Mr. Assange, after arrest of 10 days and house arrest thereafter, was granted asylum by Ecuador after his appeal against the EAW failed. This is when he took up residence in the Ecuadorian Embassy in 2012. Assange argues that he fears ultimate extradition from Sweden to the USA on the grounds of his involvement in Wikileaks.
This is obviously no small fear, given the sentencing and treatment of Chelsea Manning in the USA, and the decision of Edward Snowden to take up asylum in Russia. The Swedish authorities refuse to grant Assange any guarantee of non-refoulement to the US, and his right to asylum has also not been recognized by the UK or Sweden. ……..
Mr. Assange argues that he is not free to leave the Embassy; he would have to accept the conditions of his immediate arrest, his extradition to Sweden and his subsequent questioning there. He would have to undertake the risk that he would be extradited to the US, and the subsequent risks to his rights were that to happen.
The mandate of the UN WGAD and the test for ‘deprivation of liberty’
In order to establish its competence, and to decide upon the case, the UN WGAD has to decide whether there is a ‘deprivation of liberty’ under Article 9 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR). This involves a more severe restriction of motion within a narrower space than mere interference with liberty of movement. (This is explained in General Comment 35 by the UN Human Rights Committee, para. 5……..
The UN WGAD is given a very specific mandate by the United Nations and its Members to decide on these very issues. ……..
The European Arrest Warrant and the Swedish investigation
As easy as it might be in the press to simplify the issues surrounding this case, it is worth elaborating on some key technicalities. The UK authorities are acting pursuant to the conditions of a EAW issued by Sweden who are asking to question Mr. Assange on allegations of sexual assault in order to decide whether to charge him.
The prosecutorial authorities in Sweden re-opened the case against Assange, despite an earlier preliminary investigation (in which Assange had co-operated while in Sweden) that decided there was no case against him in respect of the alleged rape. There is to date no charge against Mr. Assange. The EAW has been at the core of Sweden’s approach, and there had been no attempt by Swedish prosecutors to make use of ‘mutual assistance protocols’ in which Mr. Assange could be interviewed by video-conference (a procedure available under Article 9 of Second Additional Procotol on ‘mutual assistance’)………
Assange’s lawyers have offered co-operation on this alternative a number of times. The Swedish prosecutorial authorities have refused to explore these alternatives, relying instead on the EAW they have issued. They have also failed to disclose the full case against Assange.
Assange has tried but failed to challenge the European Arrest Warrant against him in Sweden and in the UK. In a judgment handed down on 11 May 2015, the majority of the Swedish Supreme Court held that the EAW was valid, but a dissent in this case by Justice Svante Johansson also argued that the arrest warrant was ‘in violation of the principle of proportionality’, as the reasons for continued detention did not ‘outweigh the intrusion and inconvenience’ caused to Assange. According to the Guardian coverage of this case, the ‘Swedish Supreme court also stated … that the investigating authorities “must examine what alternative investigative opportunities are available to drive the investigation forward”. Former Legal Counsel to the United Nations and Legal Adviser to the Swedish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Hans Corell, has stated that he “does not understand why the prosecutor had not questioned Julian Assange during all the years he has been at the Ecuadorian Embassy”………….
The main arguments of Assange’s lawyers
The central argument of Assange’s lawyers’ proceed on the basis that his confinement in the Ecuadorian embassy ‘cannot … be characterized as volitional’ (para 13). He is not free to leave, because he is protecting himself from the violation of other human rights: ‘the only way for Mr. Assange to enjoy his right to asylum was to be in detention’ (para 11). If Assange were to leave he would be arrested in the UK and extradited pursuant to a European Arrest Warrant (EAW) issued by Sweden. Consequently, he would expose himself to the risk of a ‘well founded fear of persecution’ were he to be extradited to the US from Sweden (para 12).
In the UK, Assange’s challenge goes to the validity of the EAW under UK law……….
Evaluation
In essence, the UN WGAD had to decide two questions. Firstly, whether there was a ‘deprivation of liberty’ as opposed to a ‘restriction of liberty’. Secondly, assuming the answer to the first question is in the affirmative, whether that deprivation of liberty was ‘arbitrary’.
In response to the first question, the UN WGAD clearly accepted the argument that Assange’s conditions are not volitional, or self-imposed……..
the UN WGAD was persuaded that the confinement was arbitrary. The most compelling grounds were those based on proportionality. In short, there could have been another, less restrictive way of proceeding. Before issuing a European Arrest Warrant, the Swedish authorities could have followed the normal practice of interviewing Assange in a British police interview room. After Assange, sought asylum in the Ecuadorian embassy they could have questioned Assange by video link. He could have been provided the chance to respond to the allegations against him, or provided with an assurance related to his refoulment to the US. But his conditions currently are based on the legitimacy of an EAW which two UK Supreme Court justices consider invalid under UK law, and which one Swedish Supreme Court judge considers disproportionate……….
There is still no charge against Mr. Assange. He has, under international, European, and domestic law, the right to be presumed innocent until proven guilty. He has offered to respond to the process in other ways, and would co-operate fully if he had a further guarantee of non-refoulment.
Whether or not you believe Mr. Assange is guilty of a sexual offence, whether or not you think he is a self-publicist deliberately resisting arrest, the fact remains that the authorities could use less restrictive means without compromising the initial investigation into the allegations regarding his sexual conduct in Sweden. ……….
Reasonable (and even judicial) minds have clearly differed on these issues, which suggests that the UN WGAD decision cannot fairly be described as ‘ridiculous’, ‘ludicrous’, or ‘so wrong’. No doubt views on this may be coloured by our particular position on the integrity of Assange’s himself. But human rights are not meant to favour the popular amongst us; they are meant to favour us all.
Liora Lazarus is a Fellow of St. Anne’s College and an Associate Professor in Law at Oxford University. https://ukconstitutionallaw.org/2016/02/09/liora-lazarus-is-the-united-nations-working-group-on-arbitrary-detention-decision-on-assange-so-wrong/
The very secretive Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP)
WHAT I DIDN’T READ IN THE TTIP READING ROOM , War On Want, 7 February 2016 Katja Kipping was one of the first German MPs to gain access to the new TTIP reading room opened in Berlin this week, and she has written up a report of her experience. We thought it was well worth translating from the original, ‘The Opposite of Transparency’.
TTIP, the EU-US free trade deal, has secrecy written all over it. Those responsible for it live in dread of any public scrutiny. If it was up to me, I would give everyone who’s interested the chance to make up their own minds on the text of the agreement in its current form. Sigmar Gabriel, Minister for Economic Affairs and a top cheerleader for TTIP, has now set up a reading room in his ministry where since the beginning of February German MPs can each spend two hours looking at those texts on which consensus has already been reached.
A political friend of mine asked me the day before whether she could come with me into the reading room. I had to say no. After a long, tough struggle with the government, at least MPs are able to read the text, but they are the only ones. We are not even allowed to take security-cleared specialists with us into the reading room. As for members of the public, who will ultimately have to bear the brunt of TTIP, they are to have no access whatsoever to the secret text. Not what transparency looks like in my book!
Access ‘granted’
Even the registration procedure for the reading room speaks volumes. Once I’d registered, I was sent the instructions on how to use the room. The first thing that I noticed was that the terms and conditions had already been the subject of negotiations between the European Commission and the USA. Get your head round that: TTIP isn’t even signed yet, and already individual countries have lost the right to decide who gets to read the texts, and on what terms.
The following extract from the rulebook for MPs who, like me, want to use the reading room reveals the attitude towards democracy that lurks behind TTIP: “You recognise and accept that in being granted access to the TTIP texts you are being extended an exceptional degree of trust.”
Now I’d always thought that elected MPs have a right to information. Yet the TTIP negotiators (and who gave them their legitimacy?) reckon they are GRANTING us access out of the goodness of their hearts. Access as a sign of exceptional trust. Whoever wrote that – did they really think that we MPs would feel flattered? To me it smacks more of totalitarianism. ‘Granting access’ and ‘extending trust’ is not the language you use if you really believe in democracy. ………
I read nothing to alleviate my concern that the US side wishes to make life more difficult for public and community enterprises and to secure better terms for transnational corporations in the battle for public tenders. I also read nothing to calm my fears that EU negotiators are prepared to sacrifice our social and environmental standards for the prospect of winning lucrative contracts for big European firms.
I read nothing that would lead me to reconsider my previous criticism that consumer protection plays no part in TTIP other than to proclaim free market competition to be the highest form of consumer protection that exists………
It is revealing in itself that the Ministry for Economic Affairs is prepared to go to such lengths in order to keep the text of TTIP under wraps. And they have every reason for doing so. Anyone who was going into these negotiations to enhance environmental protection, consumer protection and labour standards would have nothing to fear from transparency. Anyone who’s engaged in selling out democracy, on the other hand, is obviously going to want to avoid public scrutiny. If Sigmar Gabriel and the negotiators are really so convinced of the benefits of TTIP, why don’t they just make the text available to everyone online? http://www.waronwant.org/media/what-i-didn%E2%80%99t-read-ttip-reading-room
Arbitrary detention of Julian Assange – United Nations finding
Julian Assange arbitrarily detained by Sweden and the UK, UN expert panel finds United Nations Human Rights Office GENEVA (5 February 2016) – WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has been arbitrarily detained by Sweden and the United Kingdom since his arrest in London on 7 December 2010, as a result of the legal action against him by both Governments, the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention said today.
In a public statement, the expert panel called on the Swedish and British authorities to end Mr. Assange’s deprivation of liberty, respect his physical integrity and freedom of movement, and afford him the right to compensation (Check the statement: http://www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID=17012&LangID=E)
Mr. Assange, detained first in prison then under house arrest, took refuge in Ecuador’s London embassy in 2012 after losing his appeal to the UK’s Supreme Court against extradition to Sweden, where a judicial investigation was initiated against him in connection with allegations of sexual misconduct. However, he was not formally charged.
“The Working Group on Arbitrary Detention considers that the various forms of deprivation of liberty to which Julian Assange has been subjected constitute a form of arbitrary detention,” said Seong-Phil Hong, who currently heads the expert panel.
– See more at: http://www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID=17013&LangID=E#sthash.oPdlDR4g.dpuf
The experts also found that the detention was arbitrary because Mr. Assange was held in isolation at Wandsworth Prison, and because a lack of diligence by the Swedish Prosecutor’s Office in its investigations resulted in his lengthy loss of liberty.
The Working Group established that this detention violates Articles 9 and 10 of the Universal Declaration on Human Rights, and Articles 7, 9(1), 9(3), 9(4), 10 and 14 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.
Check the Working Group’s Opinion on Julian Assange’s case (No. 54/2015), adopted in December: http://www.ohchr.org/Documents/Issues/Detention/A.HRC.WGAD.2015.docx
NOTE TO EDITORS:
The Opinions of the Working Group on Arbitrary Detention are legally-binding to the extent that they are based on binding international human rights law, such as the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR). The WGAD has a mandate to investigate allegations of individuals being deprived of their liberty in an arbitrary way or inconsistently with international human rights standards, and to recommend remedies such as release from detention and compensation, when appropriate.
The binding nature of its opinions derives from the collaboration by States in the procedure, the adversarial nature of is findings and also by the authority given to the WGAD by the UN Human Rights Council. The Opinions of the WGAD are also considered as authoritative by prominent international and regional judicial institutions, including the European Court of Human Rights.
……… http://www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID=17013&LangID=E#sthash.oPdlDR4g.dpuf http://www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID=17013&LangID=E
Armed transport ships spotted in Panama Canal, headed for secret mission to later transport plutonium
UK-Flagged Ships Set to Transport Plutonium from Japan to US Located in Panama Canal http://www.srswatch.org/uploads/2/7/5/8/27584045/srsw_news_on_plutonim_ships_in_canal_feb_6_2016.pdf Ships on Secret Mission to Carry 331 Kilograms of Plutonium to US DOE’s Savannah River Site in South Carolina as Part of Nuclear Security Summit Preparation; Plutonium to be Stranded at SRS
1 This Month
23 April – WEBINAR – Why new nuclear reactors are the wrong tools for decarbonization Thursday, April 23 • 1 AM – 2 AM AEST
World Nuclear Power. Reactors 1951-2026, 75 Years of Nuclear Power.
Interactive Map– https://dv.worldnuclearreport.org/
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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