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Japan’s secrecy over the true extent of Fukushima radiation

Japan Used Claims of Inaccuracy To Divert Release of Critical Radioactive Material at Fukushima Nuclear Plant, Spy Ghana 12 June 12,  Japanese officials have failed to justify why it took them over a month to disclose large-scale releases of radioactive material in mid-March at the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. Continue reading →

June 13, 2012 Posted by | Fukushima 2012, secrets,lies and civil liberties | Leave a comment

UK public kept in the dark on negotiations for nuclear power subsidy

SSE attacks secrecy of nuclear subsidy talks, Government negotiations with French energy giant EDF over subsidies for new nuclear power are being conducted in “a smoke-filled room”, the chief executive of rival company SSE claimed yesterday. Telegraph UK, By Emily Gosden  12 Jun 20122   Ian Marchant attacked the lack of transparency in the talks as he warned MPs on the energy select committee that ministers’ plans to reform the energy sector were so complex and risky as to leave consumers “paying a higher price”.

Under the proposals, companies building nuclear and renewable power generation would be guaranteed a return on their investment through contracts setting the price they will be paid for electricity…… in evidence to the committee, Mr Marchant said the Energy Secretary would
be agreeing long-term contracts “without any level of public scrutiny of what is being paid for, how much is being paid or why it is being paid at a particular level”.

“Consumers will be liable to pay for contracts, potentially for up to 40 years, which they have no visibility of, and no input into,” he warned….. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/energy/9327801/SSE-attacks-secrecy-of-nuclear-subsidy-talks.html

June 13, 2012 Posted by | secrets,lies and civil liberties, UK | Leave a comment

Decommissioning is far cheaper than radioactive fallout cleanup!

 Decommissioning is far cheaper than radioactive fallout cleanup!  Here is a quote from an Areva Executive VP, made on 3/21/11:    “Clearly we’re witnessing one of the greatest disasters in modern time”
Left unmentioned in the  article,  (How hard is it to dismantle 150 nuclear reactors? ) are these TWO Important issues:

1. The TEPCO Gang controlled Labor Middlemen are also making a killing off this Trillion Dollar Eco-Disaster, by providing disposable labors like the original 50 responders whose records seem to have vanished, while making BIG money for TEPCO… See: http://is.gd/Ljj4Ff

2. Regarding the highly radioactive material itself:
I wonder if any of the Japanese Leaders are asking (on or off the record), what happened to all the highly radioactive materials that are now missing from Fukushima and what they are doing to recover them ASAP. Since it is true that that TEPCO is using GANG supplied labor then it must be worrisome that much of this highly radioactive material may have been stolen to be later sold to terrorist organizations because of it’s dirty weapon potential for BIG money! I hope some future terrorist dirty explosion does not contain Fukushima radioactive debris, as it will give the phrase “Made in Japan” a new meaning!

A comment from Capt D on http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/post/how-hard-is-it-to-dismantle-150-nuclear-reactors-europes-about-to-find-out/2012/06/09/gJQA2EH0PV_blog.html

June 11, 2012 Posted by | Japan, secrets,lies and civil liberties | Leave a comment

Australia’s hypocrisy as it toes the USA line about Julian Assange

The Australian government has liaised closely with the US from the beginning of the US WikiLeaks investigation, which rapidly gathered steam following Bradley Manning’s arrest in Iraq in March 2010. 

the released cables showed that the Australian embassy had confirmed through US officials that the US Justice Department was conducting an ”active and vigorous inquiry into whether Julian Assange can be charged under US law, most likely the 1917 Espionage Act”. 

ever anxious to demonstrate its loyalty to the US alliance, the Australian government has not uttered any objection to the prospect that Assange may be prosecuted for espionage.

Ministers cagey over Assange, The Age, Philip Dorling, June 2, 2012, Julian Assange fears extradition to Sweden to be questioned about sexual assault allegations.
PRIME Minister Julia Gillard, Attorney-General Nicola Roxon and Foreign Minister Bob Carr all sang from the same hymn sheet this week on the continuing legal saga of WikiLeaks publisher Julian Assange. But they chose their words very carefully.

The issue was whether the United States intends to charge and extradite Assange – the Australian journalist labelled by US Vice-President Joe Biden as ”a high-tech terrorist” – with criminal offences for WikiLeaks’ publication of hundreds of thousands of secret US military and diplomatic reports…..

Well aware of successive polls that show a high level of support for WikiLeaks and Assange across the Australian political spectrum, the Australian government has been insistent this week that it has no knowledge whatsoever of any intention by the US to prosecute and extradite the WikiLeaks publisher……. Continue reading →

June 6, 2012 Posted by | AUSTRALIA, secrets,lies and civil liberties | Leave a comment

UK govt trying to sneak in subsidies for nuclear power, against EU rules

The main new nuclear subsidy will come via so-called contracts-for-difference (CFDs), which allow utilities to claim a top-up from energy bill payers if the electricity price falls below an agreed “strike” price. 

Currently, state subsidy for nuclear would contravene EC competition rules.

 “I think we’re near the end game now and I will be interested to see whether the government has the nerve to abandon nuclear completely or whether it will force through a couple of reactors to save face.”

Is there a UK nuclear power plan B? Guardian UK, Damian Carrington, 1 June 12, The government won’t say, despite ploughing on with a subsidy policy that grows more absurd with every new revelation Is the government conducting contingency planning for a scenario in which no new nuclear plants are commissioned in the UK in next few years?

You would think it is a vital question, given the nation’s binding climate change targets, all the old nuclear and coal plants that will close shortly and rising energy bills. New nuclear reactors are essential to solving all these problems, say ministers, yet utilities such as E.on, RWE and SSE have all abandoned their nuclear plans as uninvestable and the sector’s cheerleader EDF has put its plans on hold.

But the Department for Energy and Climate Change would not tell me if they were developing contingency plans. Continue reading →

June 4, 2012 Posted by | secrets,lies and civil liberties, UK | Leave a comment

UK govt secretly trying to weaken European Union’s climate regulations

Leaked documents reveal UK fight to dilute EU green energy targets Allegations of coalition hypocrisy over green issues as critics say documents show UK has caved in to fossil fuel lobbyists, Fiona Harvey, environment correspondent guardian.co.uk,   3 June 2012 The government has been trying to water down key environmental regulations in Brussels despite trumpeting its commitment to green issues at home, leaked documents show.

The papers, seen by the Guardian, reveal British officials repeatedly trying to prevent the adoption of European Union rules on energy efficiency, curtailing the proposals and making them voluntary rather than mandatory in many cases. In addition, the UK has tried repeatedly to ensure that the EU does not adopt a new target for renewable energy generation. Continue reading →

June 4, 2012 Posted by | climate change, secrets,lies and civil liberties, UK | Leave a comment

India’s Nuclear Safety Regulatory Authority (NSRA) Bill aims to hide information

Aruna Roy to Sonia: Nuclear Safety bill is anti-transparency First Post India, by FP Staff Jun 1, 2012 Refusal by the Nuclear Corporation of India (NPCIL) to abide by the Central Information Commission’s order to make public the Kudankulam nuclear plant’s safety report has been strongly criticized by leading RTI activist and national advisory council (NAC) member Aruna Roy.

NPCIL is constructing the Koodankulam Nuclear Power Plant in Tamil Nadu in collaboration with Russia.

In a strongly worded letter to NAC chairperson and Congress president Sonia Gandhi, Roy has also brought up issue of the Nuclear Safety Regulatory Authority (NSRA) Bill 2011, which seeks to amend the Right to Information Act.

“It (referring to the Bill) also permits the creation of special nuclear safety regulatory authorities which will be born vaccinated from the RTI Act. There is no rationale for safety and regulatory authorities to be outside the purview of the RTI,” says Roy in her letter. (Read full letter here ) The NSRA, 2011, which was introduced in the Lok Sabha in September, proposes two amendments to the RTI Act.

The first seeks to remove from the scope of the RTI Act sensitive information relating to nuclear and radiation safety issues. And the second seeks to shield regulatory bodies that oversee nuclear facilities established for strategic and defence purposes.

It may be recalled that earlier this year, information commissioner Shailesh Gandhi had written to the Prime Minister expressing ‘serious concern’ on the government’s proposal to amend RTI act through the Nuclear Safety Bill. PMANE to move Supreme Court

The SP Udayakumar-led People’s Movement Against Nuclear Energy (PMANE) , which has been leading the struggle against the Kudankulam nuclear plant from neighbouring Idinthakarrai village since September last year, has in a press statement today condemned the NPCIL’s refusal to follow the CIC order.

As per the CIC order NPCIL was directed to “provide an attested photocopy of the Safety Analysis Report and Site Evaluation Report after severing any proprietary details of designs provided by the suppliers to the appellant before 25 May, 2012.” The NPCIL was also directed to upload the two reports on its site by May 30.

PMANE has said that it will now “intensify our struggle to get all the relevant information about the KKNPP for our safety and well being and we will also take all possible legal steps to that effect.”

Pusparayan, one of the leading members of the PMANE, told Firspost they had begun the process to move Supreme Court….. Pusparayan, meanwhile, has appealed to the government to “be democratic and genuine in sharing information with the public.” http://www.firstpost.com/india/aruna-roy-to-sonia-nuclear-safety-bill-is-anti-transparency-329280.html

June 2, 2012 Posted by | civil liberties, India | Leave a comment

America’s CIA helped to ‘con’ the Japanese public into accepting nuclear power

the media mogul worked with the CIA to promote nuclear power.

Mr. Shoriki, backed by the CIA, used his influence to publish articles in the Yomiuri that extolled the virtues of nuclear power

Japan’s Nuclear Industry: The CIA Link, WSJ,  By Eleanor Warnock, June 1, 2012, “…….In the 15 months since the crisis at Fukushima Daiichi, Japan’s relationship with nuclear power has changed dramatically…….  all 50 of its plants remain offline. Restarting reactors — a step the government says is necessary to support the economy — is proving to be politically tricky as a skeptical public questions the safety of atomic energy.

Rewind almost 60 years and the government had a similar problem: how to persuade the public to support its ambition to become a nuclear nation only nine years after the U.S. dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki?

According to one Japanese university professor, that ambition was achieved with help from an unlikely source: the CIA.  Tetsuo Arima, a researcher at Waseda University in Tokyo, told JRT he discovered in the U.S. National Archives a trove of declassified CIA files that
showed how one man, Matsutaro Shoriki, was instrumental in jumpstarting Japan’s nascent nuclear industry. Continue reading →

June 1, 2012 Posted by | Japan, secrets,lies and civil liberties | Leave a comment

Ruthless and crooked – the tobacco industry’s cover-up about radiation

 The story of polonium highlights the twists and turns made by an industry that puts profits above health, and continues to push a product that kills half of all its long-term users…….  

Tobacco Firms Have Failed to Act on Radioactivity in Cigarettes – Here’s Why HUFFINGTON POST UK, By Oliver Childs,  25/05/2012 It’s a plot worthy of Hollywood – a fatal radioactive poison, secret documents, suppressed information, and drugs.

But this isn’t fiction. This is the story of the tobacco industry’s knowledge, policy and inaction around radioactive material in cigarette smoke. And how it took a painstaking search through thousands of court-ordered documents to uncover exactly why tobacco firms are unwilling to remove this deadly radioactivity, despite knowing how for more than 30 years.
By their own admission, “creating doubt about the health charge without actually denying it” is a strategy the tobacco industry has used effectively for decades, using smoke and mirrors to deflect mounting evidence of the deadly harm caused by their products. Continue reading →

May 26, 2012 Posted by | 2 WORLD, secrets,lies and civil liberties | Leave a comment

Release peaceful protestors of Koodankulam nuclear plant – Sandeep Pandey

Mr. Pandey said, “That there has been no violence so far is a unique feature of this movement and the credit goes to the fisherfolk of Tirunelveli. The government must withdraw all false cases and release two of the activists still in jail, Satish Kumar and Muhilan.”

Magsaysay awardee opposes KKNPP http://www.thehindu.com/news/states/tamil-nadu/article3433480.ece 19 May 12   Sandeep Pandey, Magsaysay award winner and a convener of the National Alliance of People’s Movements, said on Friday that Indian nuclear scientists were dealing with an unknown technology in the Kudankulam Nuclear Power Project (KKNPP) and that it should not be commissioned hastily as it was against the people’s interest. Continue reading →

May 21, 2012 Posted by | civil liberties, India | Leave a comment

In 2006 TEPCO knew of the tsunami danger to Fukushima

TEPCO knew 6 years ago about tsunami risk to Fukushima, Japan Daily Press, By Adam Westlake  /   May 16, 2012  Officials from the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency (NISA) said on Tuesday that they, and Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO), were notified in 2006 of the risks a tsunami posed to the utility’s Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant.

After the 2004 tsunami that devastated Indonesia, a session was held by NISA and several of Japan’s utility companies to look at the state of the country’s nuclear reactors and
how prepared they were for earthquakes or tsunamis…

.. In August of 2006, their research culminated in a report that showed the utility companies in attendance, which included TEPCO, that the Fukushima facility had a high risk of losing power, and taking on sea water, in the event of a 14 meter (45.9 feet) tsunami. …. http://japandailypress.com/tepco-knew-6-years-ago-about-tsunami-risk-to-fukushima-162237

May 17, 2012 Posted by | Japan, secrets,lies and civil liberties | Leave a comment

Allegations of data suppression at Nuclear Regulatory Commission

Probe to Look Into Allegations at NRC, WSJ,  By KEITH JOHNSON, May 10, 2012, The Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s inspector general will open an investigation into allegations that a regional supervisor sought to squelch some nuclear inspectors’ safety findings, according to an internal memo issued Thursday that defended the agency’s safety
record.

The investigation was prompted by an April 24 letter from anonymous staff in the NRC’s Western region to Rep. Ed Markey (D., Mass.), ranking member of the House energy committee. The letter said one of the region’s deputy directors had created a “corrosive environment which inhibits the ability of inspectors to identify safety-significant issues.”…. Continue reading →

May 11, 2012 Posted by | secrets,lies and civil liberties, USA | Leave a comment

Why is mainstream media not covering Fukushima radiation?

 the lack of the U.S. government to inform people of how serious the Fukushima situation is, and that after the accident stopped monitoring radiation levels in the U.S. On April 17, 2011 an independent journalist reported what we now now are facts about Fukushima. This story  should have been on mainstream news. Truth matters.

Fifty four reactors shut down, and guess what? The power is still on, so is the nuclear industry hoax? Was nuclear power ever really needed in this world? 

N. America’s radiation threat: another mainstream news blackout Digital Journal 5 May 2012 By Mindy Allan  It is odd that neither the Canadian nor the American mainstream news, nor any government agencies are speaking about the radiation that continues to flow into North America by way of the jet stream.

 News that should be a priority isn’t, and has been left up to the independent journalists of the world to report, like North America’s radiation problem from Fukushima that continually is left out of mainstream news. Why?

Fukushima is not just a problem for the Japanese, but for the whole world that no one in charge wants to address. North America was the first continent to receive the first waves of radiation from the meltdown, and explosion at Fukushima. The Canadian government said no worries and that the Canadian Food Inspection Agency would not be testing the food, or milk, according to Vancouver Late Night  in April of 2011. Continue reading →

May 7, 2012 Posted by | Canada, media, secrets,lies and civil liberties, USA | 1 Comment

Japan’s nuclear corruption

All 50 reactors have been suspended, but the nation still has power to heat toilet seats, light garish neon signs and run the ubiquitous vending machines despite the government’s repeated warnings of a possible power crunch.

the nation’s long-standing problem – excessively cozy ties between government officials and private enterprise.

 the tip of the iceberg in Japan’s corrupt power structure. Behind collusive ties between bureaucrats and power companies, “the public has been little short of becoming the guinea pig of radiation contamination,”

The media also have collusive ties with the power company as is often the case with Japanese newspapers and broadcasters.

Japan’s nuclear reactors run on corrupt structure, critics say http://www.brecorder.com/articles-a-letters/187/1186708/ MAY 07, 2012 TAKEHIKO KAMBAYASHI None of Japan’s 50 nuclear reactors is in operation after the last running unit was shut down Saturday.

With no power outages reported, some wonder why so much atomic power was needed in the earthquake-prone country to begin with. Continue reading →

May 7, 2012 Posted by | Japan, secrets,lies and civil liberties | Leave a comment

Nuclear physicist plotted terrorist attack

Nuclear researcher sentenced in France for plotting attack  (Reuters) 4 May 12, – A Paris court sentenced a Franco-Algerian nuclear physicist to five years in prison on Friday on charges of helping to plot an attack in France in 2009 with an al Qaeda militant in Algeria.

Adlene Hicheur, 35, a former researcher at the prestigious CERN physics lab in Geneva, was found guilty of providing logistical advice to Mustapha Debchi, a militant for al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), using encrypted messages sent via the Internet.

Hicheur said he had been charged over his opinions rather than his acts, but prosecutors called him a “technical attack adviser” and said he had provided Debchi with a terrorist manual….. http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/05/04/us-france-crime-idUSBRE8431CK20120504

May 5, 2012 Posted by | France, safety, secrets,lies and civil liberties | Leave a comment

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