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The News That Matters about the Nuclear Industry Fukushima Chernobyl Mayak Three Mile Island Atomic Testing Radiation Isotope

“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

Duqu – a new computer worm hacking into classified nuclear information

 

 

 The Duqu worm was designed primarily to steal technical documents, especially to those relating to nuclear power plants and industrial controls systems by masquerading as an image file. Security experts have warned of a similar “Stuxnet 2” attack since Duqu was discovered.      

 Japanese military contractor hacked, Foreign Policy,  By Kedar Pavgi , October 24, 2011  Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, a Japanese military contractor, confirmed today that a hacking incident from this past August released confidential information regarding classified warplanes and nuclear power plants. Continue reading →

October 25, 2011 Posted by | Japan, secrets,lies and civil liberties, technology | Leave a comment

Security violations at facility for testing laser uranium enrichment technology

NRC fines GE-Hitachi $45K over NC nuke test site, October 21, 2011 Bloomberg By EMERY P. DALESIO,  RALEIGH, N.C. The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission has fined GE-Hitachi Nuclear Energy $45,000 for multiple security violations at a North Carolina facility using classified technology to test whether lasers can be used to enrich uranium. Continue reading →

October 24, 2011 Posted by | safety, secrets,lies and civil liberties, Uranium, USA | Leave a comment

Nuclear corruption in Japan’s government, industry and universities

Japan’s ministries were never intended to regulate industry. Rather, they were intended to promote it. This is a form of government known as the “capitalist development state,” in which the state actively fosters the growth of selected industries through a partnership between industry and bureaucracy (ministries)….. 
Campaign cash from the electric power industry….Given the strong pronuclear bias of Japan’s electric power companies, this effectively guarantees Japanese government support for nuclear power…..The result is that the elite of Japan receives an education that is decidedly pronuclear, while research into the dangers of nuclear power is actively discouraged.
Corrupted academics: The Japanese nuclear industry provides generous support to academic institutions and individual professors in order to influence their views on nuclear power.
Noda, tear down this ‘nuclear village’ -HOTLINE TO NAGATACHO – CHRIS ROWTHORN Japan Times , Kyoto  Oct. 18, 2011

Dear Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda,
The Great East Japan Earthquake was a catastrophe of apocalyptic proportions. While the quake and tsunami did tremendous damage to Tohoku, the triple meltdowns at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant did even more harm to the country by threatening the health of the population, weakening Japan’s economy, and tarnishing Japan’s reputation as an efficient and safe country. Continue reading →

October 18, 2011 Posted by | Japan, secrets,lies and civil liberties | 1 Comment

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

Money talks louder than the public good, in the issue of uranium mining

Editorial: There’s green in that thar canyon The Daily Courier, 13 Oct 11,  We smell something surrounding this week’s battle to open 1 million acres near the Grand Canyon for mining, and that something is political money.

The obvious concern for mining is the environmental impact on the majestic canyon, which, according to a report this year, is the biggest tourist destination in the U.S., and is just 100 miles north of Prescott. Continue reading →

October 16, 2011 Posted by | politics, secrets,lies and civil liberties, Uranium, USA | Leave a comment

Nuclear terrorism in London – the murder of Alexander Litvinenko

Alexander Litvinenko murder was ‘London nuclear terror’, BBC News 13 Oct 11 The murder of Russian dissident Alexander Litvinenko was “an act of nuclear terrorism on the streets of London”, a coroner has heard.

Mr Litvinenko died in 2006 after he was apparently poisoned with the radioactive substance polonium-210. Ben Emmerson QC said 700 people had to be tested for radioactive poisoning.St Pancras coroner Dr Andrew Reid is holding a pre-inquest review where he will decide whether he or a top judge should hear the inquest into the death.

‘Grave suspicion’  Mr Emmerson, representing Mr Litvinenko’s family, said a number of locations were closed for several months as health agencies tried to contain the risk of contamination. He told the hearing at St Pancras coroner’s court in London that the case gave rise to the “grave suspicion” that Mr Litvinenko’s death was the result of state-directed execution by Russia.

British authorities had abandoned the search for truth in order to maintain trade relations with the Russian government, he added. The prime suspect for Mr Litvinenko’s death is ex-KGB officer Andrei Lugovoi who was represented in court. His legal team says he denies any involvement.The family of former Russian spy Mr Litvinenko has called for a senior High Court judge to be appointed to conduct the inquest. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-15293395

October 14, 2011 Posted by | Legal, secrets,lies and civil liberties, UK | Leave a comment

Shroud of secrecy over USA nuclear loan guarantee program

 Of particular concern: the amount of taxpayer-backed obligations for the proposed Vogtle reactors is roughly 15 times greater than the failed Solyndra loan guarantee, which is receiving extensive Congressional scrutiny. Though the Vogtle project poses a much greater risk to taxpayers if default occurs, most in Congress havepaid little attention. 
Nuclear Secrecy – Plant Vogtle Federal Loan Guarantee History Clean Energy.org   October 13th, 2011   Sara Barczak  After more than a year and a half of stonewalling by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy (SACE) continues to press ahead with our Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) litigation so that U.S. taxpayers can learn the full extent of the risks to which they are exposed in the massive commitment of$8.33 billion in conditional federal loan guarantees to Southern Company and their utility partners for two proposed new nuclear reactors at Plant Vogtle in Georgia. Continue reading →

October 14, 2011 Posted by | Legal, secrets,lies and civil liberties, USA | 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

TEPCO hides nuclear information from politicians and public

Tepco fights to keep nuclear emergency procedures secret, FT.com By Jonathan Soble in Tokyo, October 4, 2011  Six months after the meltdowns at Fukushima Daiichi nuclear station, the Japanese utility that owns the plant is fighting to keep its pre-disaster emergency-response procedures a secret from politicians and the public, arguing they contain valuable trade information. Tokyo Electric Power angered members parliamentary committee last month when it handed over manuals outlining steps that its nuclear plant operators are meant to follow in the case of accidents.

All but a few words of the texts were redacted with black ink.

The storm of controversy that followed – one newspaper columnist compared it to wartime censorship – seems not to have softened the company’s stance. This week it asked Japan’s nuclear safety regulator, which had ordered it to resubmit the manuals without redaction, to allow it to keep much of the material secret. So far only the regulator, the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency (Nisa), has seen the originals, which run to thousands of pages. It has not passed them on to the lawmakers who originally requested them.

Tepco has told Nisa that if the manuals are to be made public, 90 per cent of the content related to “severe accidents” such as that at Fukushima should be kept under black ink. “The manuals contain knowhow that we have built up over a long period of operation,” a company spokesman said on Tuesday…. http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/2dc211b0-ee78-11e0-a2ed-00144feab49a.html#axzz1a2EVqNGT

October 6, 2011 Posted by | Japan, secrets,lies and civil liberties | Leave a comment

Japan’s nuclear conspiracies to manipulate public opinion

Japan nuke companies stacked public meetings, ABC Radio 774 North Asia correspondent Mark Willacy, October 03, 2011  An independent investigation in Japan has revealed a long history of nuclear power companies conspiring with governments to manipulate public opinion in favour of nuclear energy. Continue reading →

October 3, 2011 Posted by | Japan, secrets,lies and civil liberties | Leave a comment

Secret negotiations over Mongolia becoming repositary for nuclear waste

the idea has become a political lightning rod, with the opposition Green Party charging that a waste facility could become an environmental and safety nightmare….

the draft agreement, which has not been released but reportedly included a passage referring to Mongolia as a future destination for spent fuel……

“Mongolia is not an awfully democratic state,”

Senior U.S. Official Denies Talk of Foreign Nuclear Waste Site in Mongolia, NTI Global Security Newswire, Sept. 30, 2011, By Elaine M. Grossman WASHINGTON — A senior U.S. Energy Department official on Wednesday disputed reports that the Obama administration has sought Mongolian support for construction of a storage site for international spent nuclear fuel in the Central Asian nation (see GSN, March 30).

The assertion — made by a high-ranking official who asked not to be named in addressing a diplomatically sensitive issue — directly countered remarks offered last spring by a veteran State Department official who leads U.S. nuclear trade pact negotiations. Continue reading →

October 1, 2011 Posted by | ASIA, secrets,lies and civil liberties, wastes | Leave a comment

Coverup of ionising radiation as cause of lung cancer

Karagueuzian and his team replicated the calculations that tobacco company scientists described in these documents and found that the levels of radiation in cigarettes would account for up to 138 deaths for every 1,000 smokers over a period of 25 years.

Tobacco Companies Knew of Radiation in Cigarettes, Covered It Up, By CARRIE GANN, ABC News Medical Unit, Sept. 29, 2011 Tobacco companies knew that cigarettes contained a radioactive substance called polonium-210, but hid that knowledge from the public for over four decades, a new study of historical documents revealed. Continue reading →

September 30, 2011 Posted by | 2 WORLD, secrets,lies and civil liberties | Leave a comment

Nuclear plant crew supervisor falsified safety records

2nd man charged for fake records at TVA nuke plant, Bloomberg, By BILL POOVEY, CHATTANOOGA, TENN. 28 Sept 11,  A second contractor employee at the Tennessee Valley Authority’s Watts Bar Nuclear Plant has been charged with falsifying electrical cable inspection records … Continue reading →

September 30, 2011 Posted by | secrets,lies and civil liberties, USA | Leave a comment

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