You are being lied to about pirates
Johann Hari: You are being lied to about pirates
Some are clearly just gangsters. But others are trying to stop illegal dumping and trawling
THE INDEPENDENT Johann Hari, Monday, 5 January 2009
“………………………………..In 1991, the government of Somalia collapsed. Its nine million people have been teetering on starvation ever since – and the ugliest forces in the Western world have seen this as a great opportunity to steal the country’s food supply and dump our nuclear waste in their seas.
Yes: nuclear waste. As soon as the government was gone, mysterious European ships started appearing off the coast of Somalia, dumping vast barrels into the ocean. The coastal population began to sicken. At first they suffered strange rashes, nausea and malformed babies. Then, after the 2005 tsunami, hundreds of the dumped and leaking barrels washed up on shore. People began to suffer from radiation sickness, and more than 300 died.
Ahmedou Ould-Abdallah, the UN envoy to Somalia, tells me: “Somebody is dumping nuclear material here. There is also lead, and heavy metals such as cadmium and mercury – you name it.” Much of it can be traced back to European hospitals and factories, who seem to be passing it on to the Italian mafia to “dispose” of cheaply. When I asked Mr Ould-Abdallah what European governments were doing about it, he said with a sigh: “Nothing. There has been no clean-up, no compensation, and no prevention.”
At the same time, other European ships have been looting Somalia’s seas of their greatest resource: seafood. We have destroyed our own fish stocks by overexploitation – and now we have moved on to theirs. More than $300m-worth of tuna, shrimp, and lobster are being stolen every year by illegal trawlers……………………………”.
Johann Hari: You are being lied to about pirates – Johann Hari, Commentators – The Independent
Deceiving a People
Families Torn Apart Deceiving a People
IslamOnLine.net Commentary from PalestineBy Samah JabrP sychiatrist, Writer – Palestine Dec. 31, 2008 – “…………………………While the occupation is being soft on settlers, the international community is also being soft on Israel. Israel has always been singled out for “special treatment” by both the EU and the US. Unlike other countries in the surrounding region, Israel was allowed to develop nuclear weapons. It has never been held to account for ignoring many resolutions of the UN Security Council.
Deceiving a People – IslamOnline.net – Family
Tags: nuclear
Years after he died, Flats worker a problem for feds : Local News : The Rocky Mountain News
Years after he died, Flats worker a problem for fedsNeutron radiation exposure occurred, state records show
By Laura Frank, Rocky Mountain News13 Decd 08
Lane Christenson has been dead for more than a decade, but he is causing problems for the federal government.
The story of what’s happened to the family of this burly, former atomic bomb builder shows how federal officials have ignored evidence and their own rules to avoid compensating the nation’s sick nuclear weapons workers…………………………
Christenson was an engineer at the top secret Rocky Flats nuclear weapons site near Denver for nearly a quarter-century. The gruff Army veteran literally withered before his family’s eyes. He died in 1997 of thyroid cancer – a type strongly linked to radiation exposure. But when Christenson’s widow applied for the compensation, she was denied.
The government told her it has no records of Christenson being exposed to neutron radiation – a particularly dangerous kind that would have made his widow automatically eligible for $150,000.
But the state of Colorado has such records. Where did Colorado get them?
From the federal government……………………How then do the officials explain that the federal government claims it has no neutron records for Christenson but Colorado has copies of federal records showing years’ worth of neutron exposure for him?
Years after he died, Flats worker a problem for feds : Local News : The Rocky Mountain News
Tags: nuclear, antinnuclear, radioactive, uranium
wfn.org | Government Spies on Taitung Church for Opposing Nuclear Waste
Government Spies on Taitung Church for Opposing Nuclear Waste Taiwan Church News by Lydia Ma 8 Dec 2008 The Presbyterian Church in Taiwan’s aboriginal presbytery in Taitung city and county joined a movement opposing nuclear waste storage in Taitung.
In recent days, church members have reported that Taitung county police department and Taitung investigation bureau have sent representatives to monitor church activities.
......................... Authorities have also enquired whether opposing nuclear waste disposal in Taitung will be discussed during church activities. According to one local pastor, Taitung city and county officials have offered all kinds of excuses to refuse renting venues to churches because of the latter’s opposition to nuclear wastes being disposed in Taitung.............……… mysterious individuals have appeared at meetings held by organizations opposing nuclear waste disposal in Taitung……………
……..Ever since President Ma took office, protests, rallies, and large group events organized by the opposition party or other organizations in Taiwan have been closely monitored by the government. .
wfn.org | Government Spies on Taitung Church for Opposing Nuclear Waste
Tags: nuclear, antinuclear, radioactive, uranium
Deep Green: Atomic renaissance interrupted | Greenpeace UK
Deep Green: Nuclear Renaissance Interrupted
Rex Weyler
Garbage dump
The allegedly safe French nuclear industry faces critical pollution and waste problems. The French reprocessing plant at La Hague retains most of its high-level spent fuel in temporary storage. The plant releases radioactive krypton, tritium, iodine, and carbon-14 into the environment of surrounding villages and some million litres of radioactive effluent into the English Channel every day. French health scientists warn of local leukemia risks, and since 1997, Greenpeace has campaigned to close the site.After a 1972 London Dumping Convention ban, the UK, France, and others nations turned to secretly dumping radioactive waste into the Sea of Biscay from ships MV Topaz and Gem. In 1979, the first voyage of Greenpeace ship Rainbow Warrior confronted and exposed this illegal dumping, winning the new ban in the 1980s.
However, after the 2004 Tsunami, massive drums of toxic and radioactive waste washed up from the Indian Ocean onto 15 beaches in Somalia. Villagers, who attempted to open the containers, were killed, burned, and contaminated by the waste. We don’t yet know if these drums came from France, the UK, the US, or elsewhere, but they represent the hidden cost of nuclear power dumped into the sea, a cost paid by the marine environment and the public.
With radioactive waste accumulating in 50 countries, the Somalia evidence demonstrates that clandestine dumping continues. Professor Geoffrey Boulton of the Royal Society in London has warned that UK waste will soon “multiply by 50 times” as existing power stations are decommissioned. Most plants worldwide, built in the 1970s and 1980s, are nearing the end of their life cycle, and no plan yet exists for processing the massive decommissioning wastes.
Port expansion permits criticized – Local / Metro – The State
Locked in a government storage room were the records Bob Guild needed to make his case against a leaking nuclear waste landfill. But when the Columbia lawyer asked to see them, he was given only a single folder. “I said, ‘Where is everything else?’ They said, ‘It’s all trade secrets,’” Guild recalled of his visit to state environmental control offices. Letting companies shield certain records from public view is wrong when people’s health and the environment are involved, Guild said.
Port expansion permits criticized – Local / Metro – The State
DHEC keeping secrets – Local / Metro – The State
DHEC keeping secretsBy SAMMY FRETWELLand JOHN MONK – sfretwell@thestate.com. jmonk@thestate.com 25 Nov 08
Locked in a government storage room are files that tell the story of a leaking nuclear waste landfill near Barnwell.
But when environmental lawyer Bob Guild asked to see the documents one day five years ago, state regulators only gave him a thin folder.
Landfill operator Chem-Nuclear had persuaded regulators to withhold many of the files, arguing the information included trade secrets. Without the records, Guild lost a court case that could have forced tougher disposal practices at the 37-year-old landfill.
“To say contamination records are trade secrets is just an outrage,” said Guild, who has appealed the court’s decision.
Guild’s troubles highlight a recurring complaint about the state Department of Health and Environmental Control: that it doesn’t inform the public well enough and, in some cases, deliberately withholds information that’s important to the public. It’s a complaint that spans the agency’s 35-year history………………State lawmakers and Attorney General Henry McMaster are among those critical of DHEC’s public information efforts in recent years.
In 2007, McMaster scolded the agency for failing to produce records related to the nuclear waste landfill. DHEC had withheld the documents not only from Guild, but from The State newspaper as well as from legislators during a public hearing…………………..
Critics say, among other things, DHEC has:
• Failed to warn the public about pollution.Failed to reveal important pollution data on its Web site.Set fines in closed-door meetings with polluters Failed to respond to public records requests…………………….The documents showed high levels of radioactive tritium contamination at dozens of places beneath the site, indicating to Guild that the leaks were more serious than people realized. “Our case would have been strengthened if we had had the information,” he said.
Changes to method of measuring Yankee’s radiation remain a controversial issue with some lawmakers: Times Argus Online
Changes to method of measuring Yankee’s radiation remain a controversial issue with some lawmakers
By Susan Smallheer Rutland Herald – Published: November 24, 2008
BRATTLEBORO — Members of the Vermont State Nuclear Advisory Panel say they feel left in the dark in a controversy over how the state has changed its measure of radiation coming from the Vermont Yankee nuclear plant.
Rep. Sarah Edwards, P-Brattleboro, and Sen. Mark MacDonald, D-Orange, faulted David O’Brien, chairman of the panel and the commissioner of the Department of Public Service, for not discussing the radiation issue back in 2005, when the owner of Vermont Yankee first started disputing the radiation levels with state regulators. Their comments came at a Thursday night hearing last week.
MacDonald, who also sits on the Legislative Committee on Administrative Rules, told the panel that committee had recently determined the Department of Health had violated state law when it changed the way it calculated the radiation coming from Vermont Yankee and didn’t hold the required public hearings about the change, or hold public hearings about Yankee’s potential violation of state law, which was first noted in 2004…………………….The Legislative Committee on Administrative Rules found that the Health Department adopted the changes without following state law on how to do it.
10 major miscues – News Extras – The State
10 major miscues
The StateNov. 16, 2008 – “………………when the Department of Health and Environmental Control missteps, South Carolinians’ lives and property can be at risk…………
NUCLEAR WASTE, SECRECY: BARNWELL
It was common knowledge that radioactive chemicals had leaked into groundwater from the 235-acre landfill where much of the nation had long sent its low-level nuclear waste. But at the request of operator Chem-Nuclear, DHEC for years kept secret details about the contamination. Only in 2007, after a legislative debate on the contamination’s severity prompted The State newspaper to challenge the secrecy, did DHEC release the information. The unsealed data showed radioactive tritium levels rivaling some at the nearby Savannah River Site, a repository not for low-level nuclear waste but deadly, high-level waste. Lawmakers voted to close the landfill to all but three states.
10 major miscues – News Extras – The State
Tags: nuclear, antinuclear, radioactive, uranium
10 major miscues – News Extras – The State
10 major miscues
The StateNov. 16, 2008 – “………………when the Department of Health and Environmental Control missteps, South Carolinians’ lives and property can be at risk…………
NUCLEAR WASTE, SECRECY: BARNWELL
It was common knowledge that radioactive chemicals had leaked into groundwater from the 235-acre landfill where much of the nation had long sent its low-level nuclear waste. But at the request of operator Chem-Nuclear, DHEC for years kept secret details about the contamination. Only in 2007, after a legislative debate on the contamination’s severity prompted The State newspaper to challenge the secrecy, did DHEC release the information. The unsealed data showed radioactive tritium levels rivaling some at the nearby Savannah River Site, a repository not for low-level nuclear waste but deadly, high-level waste. Lawmakers voted to close the landfill to all but three states.
MP accuses Government of nuclear cover-up – WalesOnline
MP accuses Government of nuclear cover-up
WalesOnline Oct 24 2008 by Martin Shipton, Western MailA WELSH Labour MP has accused the UK Government of covering up a deal that will land taxpayers with a multi-billion- pound liability in the event of a nuclear accident while a private consortium will reap the profits………………………………The MP said: “Here is a clear example of how the Government’s own policy that all forms of energy should be treated on an equal basis is being broken. Nuclear energy has always been very expensive, largely because of the cost of dealing with the waste. The latest estimate is that it will cost £93bn to clean up the waste from existing nuclear power stations.”The Government has decided to privatise the future management of the waste, and a consortium called Nuclear Management Partners consisting of an American company (URS Washington), a French company (Areva) and a British company (Amec) has been awarded the contract at Sellafield.
Yet it has now emerged that the liability in the event of a nuclear accident is to remain with taxpayers. ……………….Mr Flynn said ” It is completely unacceptable that a contract of this kind should be entered into by the Government without any kind of parliamentary scrutiny.”
MP accuses Government of nuclear cover-up – WalesOnline
Tags: nuclear, antinuclear, radioactive, uranium
Public cut out of Yankee info: Rutland Herald Online
Public cut out of Yankee info
RUTLAND HERALD October 16, 2008By REP. SARAH EDWARDS In the midst of all the events occurring at Entergy Nuclear-Vermont Yankee over the past several months, you may be wondering why there have been no meetings or comments coming from the Vermont State Nuclear Advisory Panel (VSNAP). I can say that as an appointed legislative member of the panel, I am also concerned about this situation.One of the statutory obligations (Title 18,Ch.34, 1700) of the panel is to hold regular public meetings for the purpose of discussing issues relating to the present and future use of nuclear power, and advising the Legislature and the governor………………………………………There has been little or no communication from the department to VSNAP. The types of communiqués VSNAP has received from the department over the past several months are forwarded generic Nuclear Regulatory Commission messages such as “NRC Names New Resident Inspector at Palisades Nuclear Power Plant” and “NRC Schedules Meeting in Lynchburg To Discuss BWXT Nuclear Fuel Plant Performance.” Rarely, if ever, do we receive any update related to Vermont Yankee.
Public cut out of Yankee info: Rutland Herald Online
Tags: nuclear, antinuclear, radioactive, uranium
Former officer hired to spy | theage.com.au
Former officer hired to spy
The Age Richard Baker and Nick McKenzie October 17, 2008 THE owners of Australia’s biggest uranium mines paid a former undercover Victoria Police officer to infiltrate environment and Aboriginal groups in Melbourne.The former police intelligence unit officer, known as Mehmet, was hired by North Ltd — before its takeover by Rio Tinto in late 2000 — and US nuclear and defence giant General Atomics to spy on Friends of the Earth, Jabiluka Action Group, Nuclear Free Australia, radio station 3CR and radical Melbourne bookstore Barricade Books.
Mehmet first infiltrated the Jabiluka Action Group and Friends of the Earth in 1998 as part of an undercover police operation. It is not known why police chose to infiltrate and monitor the groups, though both were involved in anti-uranium protests………………………………..Deputy Police Commissioner Simon Overland told The Age it was a breach of the Police Regulations Act for an officer to use a covert identity after leaving the force or to use information gathered in the course of official duties for private gain.
“It’s a criminal offence and we would take that very seriously………………………….
Friends of the Earth spokesman Cam Walker said there was no justification for police infiltration of the group in the late 1990s, especially as it was already holding regular meetings with the police intelligence unit at the time to discuss its campaigns.
Mr Walker said it was unethical for mining companies to pay the former undercover officer to continue to spy on groups opposed to uranium mining.
Former officer hired to spy | theage.com.au
Tags: nuclear, antinuclear, radioactive, uranium
NRC gets earful in hearing on VY problems – Boston.com
NRC gets earful in hearing on VY problems
boston.com October 14, 2008 BRATTLEBORO, Vt.—Officials from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission tried on Tuesday to reassure local residents that recent problems with the cooling towers at the Vermont Yankee nuclear plant are not symptomatic of the rest of the plant…………………..
NRC officials held a press briefing followed by a public meeting Tuesday to share their findings about sagging and leaking that occurred in the cooling towers in July. The session followed last week’s release of an NRC inspection report giving Vermont Yankee a mild scolding for how it had responded to earlier problems in the towers………………….The NRC drew the same sort of skepticism from Rep. Sarah Edwards, P-Brattleboro, who attended Tuesday’s session.
“I felt it was important to show up because I don’t feel that what the public says has much impact or really has been heard,” she said. She complained that when they come to public hearings in Vermont, federal regulators often seem to be going through the motions. “It’s a box they have to check off.”
NRC gets earful in hearing on VY problems – Boston.com
Tags: nuclear
Nuclear energy has many pitfalls
Nuclear energy has many pitfalls Calgary Herald October 08, 2008 – “………………..If the costs aren’t astronomical enough to make Albertans think twice about nuclear power, perhaps the health safety concerns that preoccupy Dr. Helen Caldicott might prove a major source of consternation.The Nobel Prize nominee was in Calgary this week to raise awareness about the medical issues around nuclear, specifically the untold genetic damage that can take generations to unfold. Unfortunately, the renowned physician was refused a meeting with the government-appointed expert panel preparing an “unbiased” examination for the province,…………
It’s important people such as Caldicott are heard. If the Alberta government is to develop a safe and responsible policy for nuclear energy, all sides of this contentious issue must be fully debated.
Let’s start with the costs. Nuclear is the only energy technology that has the double whammy of high up-front and back-end capital costs. That price tag is a big unknown as industry and governments struggle to figure out how to decommission a plant, and deal with its highly radioactive waste over the very long term.
Nuclear energy has many pitfalls
Tags: nuclear, antinuclear, radioactive, uranium
1 This Month
26 April – Chernobyl: Inside the Meltdown airs on National Geographic on Sunday 26th April from 4pm
29 April – Nuclear Expert Webinar #1 – Radiation Impacts on Families with Mary Olson and Cindy Folkers
- 12:15 PM MT – 1:45 PM MT
- Location: Virtual – REGISTER TODAY
4 May -West Suburban Peace Coalition to discuss Iran war at May Educational Forum
Monday, May 4, 7:00 – 8:00 PM Central Standard Time
Title: : How Trump’s Narrative Tries to Shape the Reality of the War on Iran.
Contact Walt Zlotow, zlotow@hotmail.com 630 442 3045 for further information
14 May – online event From Bombs to Data Centres: the Face of Nuclear Colonialism
Pine Ridge Uranium is the real threat, not Tehran- Tell Burgum: Stop the Extraction.
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
To see nuclear-related stories in greater depth and intensity – go to https://nuclearinformation.wordpress.com
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