Protesters in Tokyo demand end to nuclear power

A protester holds an anti-nuclear power plant sign at a rally in Tokyo on Saturday. AP Photo/Itsuo Inouye

TOKYO —

By YURI KAGEYAMA

Thousands of people rallied in a Tokyo park Saturday, demanding an end to atomic power and vowing never to give up the fight, despite two years of little change after the nuclear disaster in northeastern Japan.

Gathering two days ahead of the second anniversary of the March 11 earthquake and tsunami that sent the Fukushima Daiichi plant into multiple meltdowns, demonstrators said they would never forget the nuclear catastrophe, and expressed alarm over the government’s eagerness to restart reactors.

“I can’t see what lies ahead. It looks hopeless, but if I give up now, it’s over,” said Akihiro Nakata, a 47-year-old owner of a construction company, who had a drum slung around his shoulder. “I’d rather die moving forward.”

Only two of Japan’s 50 working nuclear reactors have been put back online since the disaster, partly because of continuous protests like Saturday’s, the first time such demonstrations have popped up in this nation since the 1960s movement against the Vietnam War.

People have thronged Tokyo parks on national holidays, and have gathered outside the parliament building every Friday evening. The demonstrations have drawn people previously unseen at political rallies, such as commuter “salarymen” and housewives. Organizers said Saturday’s demonstration drew 13,000 people.

Two years after the disaster, 160,000 people have left their homes around the plant, entire sections of nearby communities are still ghost towns, and fears grow about cancer and other sicknesses the spewing radiation might bring.

Fukushima Waste waiting disposal.

But the new prime minister elected late last year, Shinzo Abe, hailing from a conservative party that fostered the pro-nuclear policies of modernizing Japan, wants to restart the reactors, and maybe even build new ones.

The protesters said they were shocked by how the government was ignoring them.

“I am going to fight against those who act as though Hiroshima, Nagasaki and Fukushima never happened,” Nobel Prize-winning writer Kenzaburo Oe told the crowd, referring to the atomic bombings preceding the end of World War II. “I am going to fight to prevent any more reactors from being restarted.”

The demonstrators applauded, waving signs and lanterns that read, “Let’s save the children” and “No nukes.” Some were handing out leaflets, pleading to save animals abandoned in the no-go zone.

Kazuko Nihei, 36, was selling trinkets and soap that mothers, like her, who had fled Fukushima had made, hoping to raise funds for children’s health check-ups and their new lives in Tokyo.

“When the government talks about recovery, they are talking about infrastructure. When we talk about recovery, we are talking about the future of our children,” she said.

Another big Tokyo rally was planned for Sunday. A concert Saturday evening featured Oscar and Grammy-winning musician Ryuichi Sakamoto, one of the most vocal opponents of nuclear power. Commemorative services will be held Monday throughout the nation to remember the nearly 19,000 people who died in the disaster.

Less under the spotlight Monday will be a class-action lawsuit being filed against the government and Tokyo Electric Power Co, the utility that operates Fukushima Daiichi, demanding all land, the natural environment and homes be restored to their state before March 11, 2011.

The lawsuit in Fukushima District Court is unusual in drawing people from all walks of life, including farmers, fishermen and housewives, because of the wording of the damage demand.

It has drawn 800 plaintiffs so far, a remarkable number in a conformist culture that frowns upon any challenge to the status quo, especially lawsuits. That number may grow as people join the lawsuit in coming months. A verdict is not expected for more than a year.

“We can’t believe the government is thinking about restarting the reactors after the horrendous damage and human pain the accident has caused,” Izutaro Managi, one of the lawyers, said by telephone. “It is tantamount to victimizing the victims one more time.”

Kazuko Ishige, a 66-year-old apartment manager who was at the rally with a friend from Fukushima, said she was sick of the government’s lies about the safety of nuclear plants.

“I am really angry,” she said. “I am going to have to keep at it until I die.”

Copyright 2013 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Russian anti-drug police find radioactive drug lab

November 1, 2012 – 13:50 AMT

PanARMENIAN.Net - Russian anti-drug police and the Federal Security Service (FSB) have raided a drug lab in Moscow that contained plutonium-contaminated soil, the Federal Drug Control Service (FSKN) said on Thursday, Nov 1.

“We have taken an underground amphetamine lab out of operation,” the FSKN said.

“During a search our special services found a small container which probably contains earth from Chernobyl, the radiation dosimeter readings were off the charts. Plutonium was also detected. Four sources of ionizing radiation were found in the car of one of those detained.” The criminals may have been part of a terrorist gang, the FSKN added.

The operation took place two weeks ago, but has only just been made public, the FSKN said, adding that staff from MosNPO Radon, a company that specializes in handling radioactive substances, were also involved, RIA Novosti reported.

ASSURING DESTRUCTION FOREVER–Assessing the Arsenal

ASSURING DESTRUCTION FOREVER

This new, groundbreaking study by Reaching Critical Will explores in-depth the nuclear weapon modernization programmes in China, France, India, Israel, Pakistan, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States, and analyzes the costs of nuclear weapons in the context of the economic crisis, austerity measures, and rising challenges in meeting human and environmental needs. 

 

soft cover • 152 pages • March 2012
PDF available online for free

 

Russia to Resume Under-Critical Nuclear Testing

Russia to Resume Under-Critical Nuclear Tests on Novaya Zemlya

 wiki

Text: Lenta.ru

Russia will resume non-nuclear explosion tests at the Matochkin Shar Range on the Novaya Zemlya islands, reports Jane’s referring to Russian state-led corporation Rosatom. Such tests are held to evaluate combat effectiveness of Russian nuclear weapons and maintain safety of its long-term storage. Tests of this kind do not transgress the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty signed by Russia in Sept 1996.

Non-nuclear explosion test also known as under-critical nuclear test is a special detonation of nuclear warheads with plutonium and uranium isotopes when nuclear energy does not release. During such experiments, a chemical explosive is detonated which blast wave envelopes samples of fissile materials having different storage period and nuclear charge fragments. Such tests make possible to study physical processes happening in nuclear charges at the instant of explosion.

Advantage of those tests is that there is neither environment contamination nor radioactive releases. Experts obtain an opportunity to determine remaining storage life of nuclear warheads and verify their reliability. The Matochkin Shar range is the most appropriate site for such tests as it is located in strait at the depth of 12 meters, has anchoring berths and abrupt coast around. In the US, analogous tests are held under the Pollux program at Nevada nuclear range.

Nuclear test range on the Novaya Zemlya islands also known as “Object 700″ was established in 1954. It comprises three assets for surface, subsurface, submarine, and air nuclear tests: Chyornaya Guba, Matochkin Shar, and D-P. The latest test with nuclear energy release took place at the range in 1990. In total, 130 nuclear explosions have been performed at the Novaya Zemlya test range.

Media Misses Horrific Nature of Consequences of Regional War In the Middle East

Op-Ed: Arab media views on war with Iran make WW3 sound very ordinary

By Paul Wallis

Sydney- Middle Eastern perceptions of the threat of a war with Iran and those of the West are very different. Exactly how different can be seen in the speculation is appearing online in the region regarding the ramifications of a US/Iran war.

Al Jazeerabelieves that a war with Iran would escalate into a regional war with Iranian “proxies” striking at the US and predicts a war which would make the last decade look “tame by comparison”. This alludes to the Taliban style-asymmetrical warfare pattern and methods similar to the insurgency in Iraq.

None of this is to suggest that the United States would not “win” a war with Iran, but given the incredibly painful costs of Iraq and Afghanistan; wars fought against weak, poorly organised enemies lacking broad influence, politicians campaigning for war with Iran are leading the American people into a battle which will be guaranteed to make the past decade of fighting look tame in comparison.

A recent study has shown that an initial US aerial assault on Iran would require hundreds of planes, ships and missiles in order to be completed; a military undertaking itself unprecedented since the first Gulf War and representative of only the first phase of what would likely be a long drawn-out war of attrition.

For a country already nursing the wounds from the casualties of far less intense conflicts and still reeling from their economic costs, the sheer battle fatigue inherent in a large-scale war with Iran would stand to greatly exacerbate these issues.

Gulf News.com feels that any attack on Iran would simply reinforce the hardline anti-Western policies of the Iranian regime:

The expectation is that the Iranian regime would retaliate — probably by seeking to block oil shipments through the Gulf, with rocket attacks on Israel by Hezbollah, and, quite possibly, with a wider campaign of terrorism. It would also throw its weight behind the Taliban in Afghanistan.

Such predictions, however, gloss over the likely impact within Iran. No one knows for sure, but diplomats privately suggest three probabilities. The first is that bombing would solidify the Iranian leadership, weaken moderate politicians and disarm dissidents. The mullahs would claim they had been right all along about the US.

There in a few paragraphs you have a condensed version of the views in circulation around the Middle East at the moment.

The overall view of the result of an attack on Iran, by Israel with or without or the US:

1. Iran could use its terror networks around the world to attack Israel, the US and its allies.

2. An Iraq-style invasion would be a massive burden for the US.

3. The US doesn’t want another war.

4. The US can’t win a war against Iran by those means.

5. There would be a massive regional conflict, uniting Moslems against the US and Israel.

6. Iran could block the Straits of Hormuz, sending oil prices skyrocketing.

7. Iran may have been passing on “dirty bomb” nuke technology to proxies.

8. Iran has previously threatened strikes on the US in the event of a conflict.

9. The US can’t win a guerrilla-style Vietnam or Afghanistan type of war.

Underselling World War 3

There you also have the seeds of World War 3. These theories work on the basis of a traditional regional limited war. You can almost hear the geniuses talking about atomic suicide bombers. They assume that the same tactics which have dragged out conflicts would be too much for the American public or politicians to stomach.

Unfortunately, this is a rather complacent viewpoint. It really does sound like “business as usual”. The world has changed since 2001. The probability is that these tactics would be more than they’d be prepared to tolerate. The mindset of the world has changed. The only real “success” of Al Qaeda in its September 11 attack was to make the rest of the world perceive radical Islam as a threat. Iran’s involvement in supporting various groups in the region and its record of supporting terrorist groups around the world makes it a credibly dangerous threat.

That credibility is likely to become an own goal. Iran, in short, has become the best possible excuse for anti-Islamist hardliners to make political capital. Any attack by Iranian or Islamic groups in support of Iran in the case of a conflict would be a cause for rabble-rousing.

Worse, it would be an excuse for much more drastic types of warfare. The lessons of Afghanistan don’t quite apply in the case of a war against a nation. An enemy nation is a legitimate target. The US could simply stand off and fire its weapons, without invading, and destroy Iran. There would be no need to invade.

(Arguably, that’s exactly what the US should have done in Iraq. Simply destroying the regime’s military support, destroying the nuclear facilities beyond recovery and letting the locals argue it out among themselves would suffice. It’s a lot cheaper, too. It’s more than likely that the US would look for a simpler and less expensive option in any future Middle East war.)

Then there’s the capacity of Iran to hit targets in the West and the US. Another potential own goal, and a big one. Escalation by attacks on the West could backfire, badly. The use of “dirty bombs” or small nukes (there are quite a few ex-Soviet small “suitcase bombs” in circulation) could be a legitimate reason for the use of heavy nukes against Iran. Terror strikes in general could cause civil reprisals, as 9/11 did in the US. A dirty bomb or small nuke strike on Israel would inevitably get instant, massive retaliation.

There are no guarantees of a mere war of attrition under these circumstances. Nor is there much to be gained for the people in the region. Food prices would go up enormously as foreign imports dried up. Trade would become impossible. The black market, already thriving in Iran, would do very nicely, but the rich nations in the Gulf and elsewhere would get an entirely negative effect.

The Middle East, without trade, would become a human desert. The huge populations in this region would be at risk from multiple shortages. Iran’s very large population, without infrastructure, would be in a terrible position.

Fighting people isn’t the same thing as fighting politicians and lawyers

There’s another factor- People. In the past, guerrillas have fought politicians trying to stay in power and armies playing by rules. In a real war, those niceties aren’t in play. In 1945, massive attacks on civilian targets like Dresden, Tokyo and Eastern Europe were commonplace. The “civilized” allies weren’t very civilized at all. The hatred generated by years of war was literally translated into firestorms and massive attacks on cities.

The Middle East has never seen a war with whole countries literally obliterated from the face of the Earth. From Berlin to Moscow was one big graveyard of wrecked cities and millions of dead. About 24 million people died. People were killed simply for being German or Russian or just being in the wrong place. There were no laws in force at the time of the actual fighting. In one attack, the US Air Force burned Tokyo to the ground and killed about 100,000 people in a fire bombing raid.

That’s what a real war is like. Fighting politicians and lawyers isn’t the same thing as fighting people. The guerrilla methods of the past will be truly obsolete weapons if the sleeping but very ugly and merciless monster of vengeful human hatred is aroused. World War 3, in fact, won’t be fought so much with weapons, but with mindsets.

All involved are advised not to push those buttons. You can’t un-push them afterwards.

This opinion article was written by an independent writer. The opinions and views expressed herein are those of the author and are not necessarily intended to reflect those of DigitalJournal.com

Read more: http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/332740#ixzz26Y4P5f75

At the End of Syrian Road

“Unsurvivable” 

A dark, gruesome, but wholly true depiction of the threat of thermonuclear war, the consequences, and Obama’s deployment of a major portion of the U.S. thermonuclear capabilities in multiple theaters threatening both Russia and China.

Bibliography: UNSURVIVABLE

September 2, 2012 • 2:41PM

1. Aldridge, Robert C., First strike!: The Penatagon’s strategy for nuclear war, South End Press: 1983.

2. Chinworth, William C., and J.M. Crochet: “The Future of the Ohio Class Submarine.” Strategic Studies Institute U.S. Army War College: March 15, 2006.

3. Claremont Institute, MissileThreat.com; “The Stages of a Ballistic Missile’s Flight.” Claremont Institute, Claremont, California: Copyright: 2012.

4. Executive Intelligence Review Editors and Staff, Global Showdown Special Report, EIR Publications: June 2012.

5. Hersey, John, “Hiroshima.” The New Yorker: August 31, 1946

6. LaRouche, Lyndon H., “Edward Teller was right at Erice: The Threat Against Mankind,” Executive Intelligence Review, Vol. 39, No.34, August 31, 2012.

7. Manyin, Mark E.; Daggett, Stephen; Dolven, Ben; Lawrence, Susan V.; Martin, Michael F.; O’Rourke, Ronald, “Pivot to the Pacific? The Obama Administration’s ‘Rebalancing’ Toward Asia,” Congressional Research Service: March 28, 2012.

8. Newman, W.S., and Stipcich, S., International Seminar on Nuclear War, 3rd Session: The Technical Basis for Peace, Erice, Italy August 19-24, 1983. World Scientific Publishing Co: 1992.

9. Robock, A.; Oman, L.; Stenchikov, G.L.; Toon, O.B.; Bardeen, C.; and Turco, R.P., “Climatic Consequences of Regional Nuclear Conflicts”, Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics: April 19, 2007.

10. Robock, A.; Oman, L.; and Stenchikov, G.L., “Nuclear Winter Revisited with a Modern Climate Model and Current Nuclear Arsenals: Still Catastrophic Consequences” Journal of Geophysical Research, Vol. 112: 2007.

11. Rose, Frank A., “Missile Defense and European Security.” Speech at the 8th International Conference on Missile Defense. Paris, France: July 3, 2012.

State Dept. Formulates Guidelines for Avoiding Accidental Nuclear War In Central Asian Contest with Russia

[Many thanks to the folks at Larouche-PAC for pointing-out the following publication from our beloved State Dept.  The assembled American experts have assessed our current path and sought to define rules of engagement that would prevent a miscalculation by the Imperial planners, which would accidentally unleash thermonuclear war with Russia.  This topic is urgently relevant to the currently unfolding American co-opting of the Uzbek and Tajik governments, as well as the further division of Kyrgyzstan between East and West.

The solution proposed by these "genius" planners is to hopelessly intertwine the US and Russia, through cooperation on issues of economic trade and drug control in Central Asia ( Beneficial interdependence ), so that neither side would contemplate finding answers in a nuclear exchange.]

“Along these lines, Gen (ret.) James Cartwright has suggested the concept of ‘entanglement’ as having beneficial aspects.” 

INTERNATIONAL SECURITY ADVISORY BOARD

Report on

Mutual Assured Stability: Essential Components and Near Term Actions

 

A definition for the desired end state was developed:

A relationship among nations and international organizations (such as the European Union) in which nuclear weapons are no longer a central feature for their security, deterrence based on nuclear destruction is no longer necessary, and the likelihood of nuclear war is treated as remote because their relationship is free of major, core security issues such as ideological, territorial, or natural resource competition issues, and the benefits from peaceful integration in economic, political, and diplomatic spheres provide a counterbalance to the perceived advantages of nuclear conflict.

 

Beneficial interdependence: Interdependence in humanitarian and economic, as well as national security realms contributes to the benefits of mutual assured stability. Along these lines, Gen (ret.) James Cartwright has suggested the concept of “entanglement” as having beneficial aspects. Candidate actions are:

o Increase economic interdependence and investment. Russia agrees to measures of transparency on trade and investment from abroad (reciprocal action); specific actions include:
–Ending Jackson-Vanik restrictions;
–Finalizing WTO membership;
o Extend collaboration with Russia to stop drug trafficking from and through Afghanistan; develop collaboration on promotion of healthy lifestyles;
o Develop further collaborations with Russia on infectious disease (e.g. TB) preventive health promotion;
o Establish cooperation in science & technology (S&T) for safe, secure oil and gas transport, oil and gas exploration, and recovery; and
o Establish science and technology (S&T) cooperation in nanotechnology, pharmaceutical research, and other areas of common interest.

 

Appendix A – Summary of Recommendations
Recommendation 1. Conduct strategic stability talks with Russia to address matters of force structure, posture, and doctrine to avoid strategic surprise or misunderstanding.
Recommendation 2. Conduct talks with Russia to develop a common understanding of the essential components necessary for mutual assured stability, and a plan for building these components and achieving this new relationship.
Recommendation 3. Conduct a joint U.S.-Russia review of the requirements for national and multinational missile defense in the coming years as missile technology continues to spread, with the goal of achieving a shared understanding of each nation’s requirements for effective missile defense.
Recommendation 4. Change U.S. doctrine and posture away from defining our nuclear posture based on perception of Russia as the primary threat, toward a doctrine of general deterrence, a posture in which attacks from any direction are discouraged without singling out a particular adversary or enemy (reciprocal action required).
Recommendation 5. Continue the Nuclear Security Summit process, with its focus on securing nuclear materials and preventing nuclear smuggling.
Recommendation 6. Conduct talks with Russia for developing a mutual understanding of each other’s motivation for the possession of nuclear weapons, including tactical and hedge/reserve weapons; engage Russia via the NATO-Russia Council, particularly in dialogue on the motivations for tactical nuclear forces.
Recommendation 7. Work together with Russia on standardization of classification guidelines for nuclear-related information (to avoid conflict regarding sharing of data because of differences between U.S. and Russian classification guidelines).
A-2. Summary of Recommendations
Recommendation 8. Work jointly on the definition of a “gold standard” in technologies and best practices for nuclear materiel security, based on CTR work; the creation of a process for continuous evolution of the standard based on changes in threat, technology improvement, and changes in other circumstances; and the development of associated transparency measures for mutual assurance.
Recommendation 9. Conduct talks to define appropriate and acceptable measures useful to influence other nations toward responsible nuclear materiel security, using an appropriately tailored standard.
Recommendation 10. Develop agreements on sharing early warning data with Russia and using satellites to jointly monitor ballistic missile launches (reciprocal action required).
Recommendation 11. Develop agreement with Russia to give five-year advance notice on deployment of new nuclear systems (reciprocal action required).
Recommendation 12. Declare fissile material stocks to each other.
Recommendation 13. Develop a U.S.-Russia understanding on how each would act or not act if a nuclear weapon was used anywhere else in the world.
Recommendation 14. Increase U.S.-Russia economic interdependence and investment, including ending Jackson-Vanik restrictions; develop agreement with Russia for greater transparency on trade and investment from abroad (reciprocal action required).
Recommendation 15. Extend collaboration with Russia to stop drug trafficking from and through Afghanistan; develop collaboration on promotion of healthy lifestyles.
Recommendation 16. Develop further collaborations with Russia on infectious disease (e.g. TB) preventive health promotion.
A-3. Summary of Recommendations
Recommendation 17. Establish cooperation with Russia in science & technology (S&T) for safe, secure oil and gas transport, oil and gas exploration, and recovery.
Recommendation 18. Establish S&T cooperation with Russia in nanotechnology, pharmaceutical research, and other areas of common interest.

Tehreek e-Taliban Pakistan Deliver American Dialogue of Weapons To Gen. Kayani At Nation’s Largest Air Base

[Pak. Aeronautical Complex is listed as a nuclear weapons-related site by Global Security.  This latest attack was an American psychological warfare operation, plain and simple.  Every time that Washington starts hollering about "N. Waziristan operation," the TTP provide the extra physical emphasis upon America's words.  Whenever Americans start screaming about Pakistan's militants getting hold of nukes, the TTP attacks at or near a Pakistani nuclear weapons complex, such as the Minhas Air Base at Kamra (which is only twenty miles from Wah ordinance facility).]

Pak Air Force base attacked by militants

Image: A paramilitary soldier walks near the main entrance of the Minhas base in the town of Kamra Photographs: Mian Kursheed/Reuters

In the past, militants linked to the Pakistani Taliban have attacked the army’s General Headquarters in Rawalpindi and a key naval airbase in the port city of Karachi.

Several Western media reports in the past have said that nuclear weapons are located at the Kamra complex, which is home to an airbase as well as the Pakistan Aeronautical Complex that assembles JF-17 combat jets and drones.

As troops conducted a search operation within the airbase, residents of nearby areas were told to remain within their homes. Large contingents of police and army soldiers cordoned off the area.

Shortly after the attack began, Geo News channel quoted its sources as saying that the attackers could have had help from elements within the airbase.

Image: Police commandos guard near the main entrance of the Minhas base in the town of Kamra

The terrorists reportedly entered the airbase from Pind Suleman Makhan, a village adjoining the PAF facility.

The PAF sought help from the army. Troops from an elite anti-terrorism commando unit in the garrison city of Rawalpindi were dispatched to Kamra.

Witnesses told the media they had heard intense firing and several explosions from within the airbase.

Image: Security forces survey the site of a suicide bomb attack at the entrance of the Pakistan Aeronautical Complex in Kamra

A PAF spokesman said explosives were strapped to the body of one attacker. He said the attackers were engaged by two teams of commandoes.

The Kamra complex and its personnel have been targeted by terrorists several times in the past.

On October 23, 2009, seven persons were killed when a suicide bomber struck a check-post outside the airbase.

Nine persons were injured when another suicide bomber targeted a military school bus outside the Kamra airbase in December 2007.

 

 

 

 

 

Anti-nuke protesters surround Japanese parliament

Shizuo Kambayashi

Anti-nuclear protesters, wearing gas-masks, beat metal drums as they march near the Japan’s parliament complex in Tokyo, Sunday, July 29, 2012. Thousands of the protesters rallied to demand the government abandon nuclear power after the accident last year in northern Fukushima. The word on yellow drums reads

Shizuo Kambayashi

An anti-nuclear protester wearing a mask, marches near the Japan’s parliament complex in Tokyo, Sunday, July 29, 2012. Thousands of the protesters rallied to demand the government abandon nuclear power after the accident last year in northern Fukushima. (AP Photo/Shizuo Kambayashi)

Thousands of people formed “a human chain” around Japan’s parliament complex Sunday to demand the government abandon nuclear power _ the latest in a series of peaceful demonstrations here that are on a scale not seen for decades.

Also Sunday, voters went to the polls in a closely watched regional election for governor in southwestern Yamaguchi Prefecture, where an outspoken anti-nuclear candidate is running.

Protesters said they were angry the government restarted two reactors earlier this month, despite safety worries after the multiple meltdowns at Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant in March last year. They were the first to come back into operation since May when the last of Japan’s 50 working reactors went offline for routine checks.

Banging on drums and waving balloons and banners, protesters marched from a Tokyo park and lined up along the blocks around the parliament building, chanting, “Saikado hantai,” or “No to restarts,” and later lit candles.

“All these people have gotten together and are raising their voices,” said Shoji Kitano, 64, a retired math teacher, wearing a sign that said: “No to Nukes.”

Kitano said he had not seen such massive demonstrations since the 1960s. He stressed ordinary Japanese usually don’t demonstrate, but they were outraged over the restarting of nuclear power.

Similar demonstrations have been held outside the prime minister’s residence every Friday evening. The crowds have not dwindled, as people get the word out through Twitter and other online networking. A July 16 holiday rally at a Tokyo park, featuring a rock star and a Nobel laureate, drew nearly 200,000 people.

The crowd appeared to be smaller Sunday. Kyodo News service estimated it at about 10,000 people. Participants said they came from across Japan, underlining the widespread appeal of the protests.

Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda defended his decision to restart the two reactors at Ohi nuclear plant in central Japan as necessary to maintain people’s living standards. Other reactors are also expected to go back online, one by one.

Reports from government and legislative investigations have been released on the Fukushima disaster, including a recent one that blamed “the Japanese mind-set,” which it said had allowed collusion between the plant’s operator and regulators. The reports have done little to allay people’s fears.

Adding to protesters’ frustrations is the support nuclear power has gotten from regional governments, where the plants are located. They said they planned to vote anti-nuclear candidates into office to effect change.

How the anti-nuclear candidate in Yamaguchi Prefecture fares in Sunday’s election is critical in possibly signaling a break from the past. The state is home to relatively poor rural and fishing areas. Such places, far away from the capital of Tokyo, have been typically chosen to house nuclear plants, with residents won over with jobs and subsidies. There is a plan to build a nuclear plant in Yamaguchi, but doubts are growing over whether that can be carried out.

Tetsunari Iida, the Yamaguchi candidate, is against that plan and nuclear power in general.

“We can change history,” Iida wrote in an online message, criticizing “the nuclear village,” the term here that refers to the collusion between the industry and the government. “That is my choice.”

Can the Saudis Purchase Nukes from Pakistan?

[When the truth comes out, it necessarily sounds like a conspiracy theory.  In the case of the so-called "Islamic bomb," many of us so-called "conspiracy nuts" have been warning for years that the bomb being developed in Islamabad was financed by Riyadh, meaning that it was co-owned.  We have come dangerously close to the day when the Saudis will collect the deadly merchandise that Pakistan has been holding for them.  We now know why certain events have taken place, namely the promotion of Bandar to head of Saudi intelligence and the news of the $100 million Saudi "present."   (Just found out that my post of the $100 mil article was somehow moved into the trash--restored--editor).  This is what America's complex South Asian strategy has been leading up to--THE MORE NUKES THE MERRIER, when the mad American social scientists start tossing grenades into the old control room.]

Saudis ‘mull buying nukes from Pakistan’

King Abdallah of Saudi Arabia met Pakistan’s prime minister, Raja Pervez Ashraf, in Jeddah a few days ago as Riyadh began sending its Special Forces to Pakistan for training.

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia, July 25 (UPI) – King Abdallah of Saudi Arabia met Pakistani Prime Minister Raja Pervez Ashraf in Jeddah a few days ago as Riyadh began sending its Special Forces to Pakistan for training.

The Islamic countries, both dominated by the mainstream Sunni sect, have long had a particularly close relationship and these events heightened speculation Riyadh is trying to strike a secret deal with Islamabad to acquire nuclear weapons to counter Iran.

Abdallah’s surprise July 19 appointment of Prince Bandar bin Sultan, the kingdom’s ambassador in Washington in 1983-2005 and a veteran of its usually clandestine security policy, as his new intelligence chief may be part of murky mosaic linking Saudi Arabia and Pakistan.

Bandar played a key role in the clandestine arming of by the United States and Saudi Arabia, via Pakistan’s intelligence service, of the Afghan mujahedin during the 1969-79 Soviet invasion.

Bandar’s appointment as the head of Saudi Arabia’s General Intelligence Presidency, its foreign intelligence service, was one of several critical security related command changes made in recent days.

These took place as the kingdom, the world’s largest oil exporter, faces a swarm of regional challenges, the most prominent of which is nuclear wannabe Iran.

As the confrontation between the United States and Iran over Tehran nuclear program builds up in the Persian Gulf, Riyadh is increasingly looking eastward to longtime ally Pakistan, the only nuclear Muslim power, for support.

“As Iran becomes more dangerous and the United States becomes more reluctant to engage in military missions overseas, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia may find that renewed military and nuclear cooperation is the best way to secure their interests,” observed Christopher Clary and Mara E. Karlin, former U.S. Defense Department policy advisers on South Asia and the Middle East.

Writing in The American Interest, they noted: “As the United States re-examines its military posture toward South Asia and the Middle East in the context of its withdrawals from Iraq and Afghanistan, it must explicitly consider the possibility of a Saudi-Pakistan nuclear bargain.

“The failure to take such a scenario seriously could promote its occurrence.”

U.S. plans to effectively withdraw militarily from Afghanistan in mid-2013, as it did in Iraq last December, have intensified Pakistani concerns about Islamic jihadists.

This mirrors Saudi suspicions that after Iraq and Afghanistan it can no longer rely on the United States for protection.

The Saudis too face a jihadist threat, particularly from al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula that’s based in neighboring Yemen.

It’s long been believed that the Saudis bankrolled Pakistan’s nuclear program, in the 1970s and ’80s and now wants some reciprocity in the shape of readymade nuclear weapons, paid for by massive financial aid for Islamabad.

Israel’s Debkafile Web site, considered close to Israeli intelligence and which sometimes posts reports considered to be disinformation, claimed in December 2010 that Pakistan has set aside two nuclear weapons for Saudi Arabia.

These, it said, are believed to be stored at Pakistan’s nuclear air base at Kamra in the north.

At least two giant Saudi transport planes sporting civilian colors and no insignia are parked permanently at Kamra with aircrews on standby,” Debka reported.

“They will fly the nuclear weapons home upon receipt of a double-coded signal from King Abdallah and the director of General Intelligence,” who now happens to be Prince Bandar, reported to be close to the monarch.

The Saudis have of late portrayed their high-tension rivalry with the Iranians as a new, menacing chapter in the 1,300-year-old struggle between Sunni and Shiite Islam.

“The stakes are enormous,” says Bruce Reidel, a former counter-terrorism specialist with the CIA wrote in the German newsmagazine Der Spiegel.

“Pakistan has the fastest growing nuclear arsenal in the world. It will soon surpass the United Kingdom as the fifth-largest nuclear arsenal.

“It’s the sixth-largest country in the world in terms of population. It will soon surpass Indonesia as the country with the largest Muslim population.”

A leading Saudi royal, Prince Turki al-Faisal, who headed the GIP in 1977-2001, warned U.S. and British military chiefs meeting outside London June 8, 2011, that Tehran’s acquisition of nuclear arms “would compel Saudi Arabia … to pursue policies which could lead to untold and possibly dramatic consequences.”

Japan probes alleged cover-up at nuclear plant

By David Guttenfelder, AP

Workers in protective suits wait to enter the crippled Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power station in Okuma, Japan, on Nov. 12.

 

TOKYO (AP) – Japanese authorities are investigating subcontractors on suspicion that they forced workers at the tsunami-hit nuclear plant to underreport the amount of radiation they were exposed to so they could stay on the job longer.

Labor officials said Sunday that an investigation had begun over the weekend following media reports of a cover-up at the Fukushima Dai-ichi plant, which suffered multiple meltdowns following the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami disasters.

A subcontractor of plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Co., or TEPCO, acknowledged having nine workers cover their dosimeters with lead plates late last year so the instrument would indicate a lower level of radiation exposure.

The investigation marks the first time the government has looked into the case, believed to be part of a widespread practice at the plant since it was hit by the worst atomic crisis since Chernobyl.

The government more than doubled the emergency radiation exposure limit soon after the accident, but lowered it back to the previous level in December. The law now sets the exposure limit at 50 millisieverts per year, or a five-year total of 100 millisieverts.

Dosimeter readings are crucial personal records that determine how much longer a worker can stay on a plant job. Work at highly contaminated areas could quickly eat up a worker’s quota.

The issue reflects a growing concern among the government and TEPCO about how to secure a continuous flow of workers to finish cleaning up the plant. Officials say it will take about 40 years to decommission the plant’s four wrecked reactors — three with melted cores and another with a spent fuel pool in a shattered building.

Labor officials made onsite inspections at the Fukushima plant to examine dosimeter readings of the workers and other records, said Yasuhiro Kishi, an official at the Fukushima Labor Bureau.

Health and Labor Ministry officials repeatedly issued warnings to TEPCO during the first few months of the crisis about the company’s lax oversight of workers’ exposures. Officials have also said TEPCO had several workers share a dosimeter not just early in the crisis when the equipment was in short supply due to tsunami damage, but even after a full stock had been regained.

Takashi Wada, president of Fukushima-based subcontractor Build-Up, acknowledged this weekend that the dosimeter falsification had taken place. He said a supervisor of the group of nine workers came up with the idea when his dosimeter alarm went off during his short preview visit to the area where the workers were assigned.

“We should have never done that,” Wada told an interview with TBS network broadcast Saturday.

Ukraine Nuclear Plant Halts Russian-Built Reactor As Power Fails

[Is India paying attention to this, as Kudankulam protests build in intensity?  Nuclear power is actually only primitive steam-generated power, utilizing a hotter and ever more dangerous power source.]

Ukraine nuclear plant halts reactor as power fails

Phys.Org

Ukrainian veterans of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster cleanup carry a mock coffin in a demonstration last November. A reactor at a nuclear power station in Ukraine has been disconnected from the grid following an electrical failure but radiation levels were not elevated, authorities said on Tuesday.

A reactor at a nuclear power station in Ukraine has been disconnected from the grid following an electrical failure but radiation levels were not elevated, authorities said on Tuesday.

The second reactor of the Yuzhno-Ukrainskaya Nuclear Power Station in the south of Ukraine was put on minimal capacity following the failure of its main transformer and the subsequent breakage of the high voltage power line late Monday, the emergencies ministry said.

“Reactor No 2 has been switched to the minimum capacity and unplugged from Ukraine’s energy grid,” the emergencies ministry said in a statement on its website.

“Radiation and fire safety levels are normal,” it said, adding that the nuclear power station’s employees were taking steps to bring the situation under control.

Repair work at the station was continuing Tuesday afternoon.

“Specialists are looking at what exactly happened. Equipment is being changed,” plant spokeswoman Vlada Tishkova told AFP by phone.

According to the current plan, the reactor will go back online Thursday.

“Everything is okay. The level of radiation is what we always have,” Tishkova said.

The nuclear plant operator said in a separate statement that scheduled repair work was also under way at the third reactor. Its first reactor was functioning in a normal mode.

Ukraine is home to the now defunct Chernobyl nuclear plant whose fourth reactor exploded in April 1986 with fallout hitting the three Soviet republics along with a large part of Europe.

The Chernobyl nuclear plant is located about 100 kilometres (60 miles) north of Kiev and close to the borders with Russia and Belarus. The explosion remains the world’s worst nuclear disaster.

(c) 2012 AFP

Kudankulam nuke plant row intensifies as activist slams govt’s atomic energy body

Criticizing the Department of Atomic Energy, anti-nuclear activist Neeraj Jain has urged the Central Government to halt operations at existing plants such as Tamil Nadu’s Kudankulam project.

“If nuclear plants around the world, not just in India, (but) around the world, are not shut down, sooner or later, another major accident is bound to happen anywhere in the world. The possibility of it happening in India is even more large because our Department of Atomic Energy is amongst the most inefficient in the world,” Jain told media here.

Jain further asked the government to explain why it was risking the lives of thousands of its citizens by refusing to shut down the Kudankulam nuclear project.

“You are playing with the lives of lakhs of people living in South India, because if there is a major accident in Kudankulam, Tamil Nadu, Kerala and South Karnataka will be contaminated for thousands of years,” he said.

Jain said: “Again, after the Fukushima (disaster), they ordered a safety review. No one knows what happened. They just declared our plants are safe. So, we are trusting the safety of these huge reactors being built in Kudankulam, in Jaitapur, in Kovada, on a department, which is known to be inefficient, where, in the small nuclear reactors, there have been numerous occasions when a Chernobyl type accident very nearly happened.”

“You see, nuclear energy is inherently very dangerous. In a nuclear reactor, during the fission reaction, more than 200 types of deadly new radioactive elements are created. The nuclear fuel which results in the reactor is a billion times more radioactive than the earlier nuclear fuel,” he added.

For the past few months, Kudankulam remained the epicentre of a wave of heated protests, with environmental activists and agitators’ voicing their ire at what they said was the government’s apathy towards the dangers posed by the plant.

Established in a joint collaboration between India and Russia, the Kudankulam nuclear power project envisaged to build two 1,000 MW VVER type reactors by December 2011.

The Kudankulam power station is one of several planned power projects that are seen as vital to plugging huge electricity shortages that have damaged economic growth.

India suffers from a peak-hour power deficit of about 12 percent that acts as a brake on an economy growing at nearly 8 percent and causes blackouts in much of the country.

About 40 percent of Indians, or 500 million people, lack electricity, as per a 2011 estimate. (ANI)

Fukushima Radioactive Seawater Passes Halfway Point To US West Coast (update: March 2012)

Radioactive Seawater Impact Map (update: March 2012)

ASR, a global coastal and marine consulting firm, is changing the way the world’s coasts and oceans are managed.

CONTACT

• enquiries@asrltd.com

 ASR’s team includes experienced Ph.D. scientists, accomplished environmental business leaders, engineers, and dedicated research and programming staff. Our combination of scientific expertise, environmental stewardship, practical business experience, and technological knowledge allows us to provide proven and effective solutions for our clients’ complex challenges.

We use a Lagrangian particles dispersal method to track where free floating material (fish larvae, algae, phytoplankton, zooplankton…) present in the sea water near the damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power station plant could have gone since the earthquake on March 11th. THIS IS NOT A REPRESENTATION OF THE RADIOACTIVE PLUME CONCENTRATION. Since we do not know exactly how much contaminated water and at what concentration was released into the ocean, it is impossible to estimate the extent and dilution of the plume. However, field monitoring by TEPCOshowed concentration of radioactive Iodine and Cesium higher than the legal limit during the next two months following the event (with a peak at more than 100 Bq/cm3 early April 2011 for I-131 as shown by the following picture).Source: TEPCO

Assuming that a part of the passive biomass could have been contaminated in the area, we are trying to track where the radionuclides are spreading as it will eventually climb up the food chain. The computer simulation presented here is obtained by continuously releasing particles at the site during the 2 months folllowing the earthquake and then by tracing the path of these particles. The dispersal model is ASR’s Pol3DD. The model is forced by hydrodynamic data from theHYCOM/NCODA system which provides on a weekly basis, daily oceanic current in the world ocean. The resolution in this part of the Pacific Ocean is around 8km x 8km cells. We are treating only the sea surface currents. The dispersal model keeps a trace of their visits in the model cells. The results here are expressed in number of visit per surface area of material which has been in contact at least once with the highly concentrated radioactive water.

US approves first nuclear plant in decades

Plant Vogtle (Southern Company)

WASHINGTON: The US approved its first new nuclear power reactors in decades on Thursday, despite objections from the country’s top regulator that safety issues raised by last year’s Fukushima meltdown were not fully addressed.

Commissioners of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission voted 4-1 to approve the construction of two 1,100 megawatt Westinghouse-Toshiba AP1000 at power generator Southern Co.’s existing nuclear facility in Vogtle, Georgia.

The dissenter was the NRC chairman, Gregory Jaczko, who argued for the need for “binding commitments” that the builders would implement design fixes to fully address risks exposed by the crisis at Japan’s Fukushima nuclear plant after the March 11 earthquake-tsunami disaster.

“I cannot support issuing this license as if Fukushima has never happened… In my view that is what we are doing,” he said.

But other commissioners said such a commitment was not necessary and that the safety concerns Jaczko had would be addressed.

The approval gave the go-ahead for the $14 billion project near Waynesboro, Georgia, seven years after Southern Co. first applied for permission.

Construction at the site is well under way, and Southern said the first reactor could be running by 2016 and the second a year later.

“Today is an historic day,” Southern Co.’s president Thomas Fanning said after the decision.

“These two new units will set the standard for safety and efficiency in the nuclear industry.”

The design of the Westinghouse reactor was approved in December after lengthy delays to address risks of terror attacks post September 11, 2001 and to address some concerns about meltdowns like those at Fukushima.

The design is supposed to be able to withstand the impact of a large aircraft being crashed into it.

It also is required to have passive shutdown capabilities in case of disaster. In Fukushima the reactors failed to shut down, and evacuated workers could not manually stop them, after a loss of external power prevented the reactors’ cooling system from working.

The result was the worst disaster in the nuclear industry since Chernobyl in 1986, with blasts, fires and reactor meltdowns sending radiation levels in the surrounding region to extremely dangerous levels.

It also raised safety concerns over nuclear energy around the world, causing countries like Germany to begin turning away from nuclear energy.

High costs and safety worries have stifled expansion of the US nuclear power industry since Chernobyl.

The last NRC construction approval for a plant was in 1978; the last reactor to start up was in 1996.

NRC commissioner Kristine Svinicki insisted that the lessons of Fukushima were not being ignored in the approval Thursday.

“There is no amnesia, individually or collectively,” she said.

The commitments Jaczko wanted “would not improve our systematic regulatory approach to these events… Nor would it make in our view any difference in the operational safety of the new reactors.”

Fanning said that the company would meet Jaczko’s concerns.

“The lessons of Fukushima are taken into account every day and will be taken into account for years to come,” he told reporters.

“Anything that we learn from Fukushima I assure you we will bring to bear on our operations here.”

He added that unlike in Fukushima the Vogtle plant was located far away from the coastline and not vulnerable to tsunamis.

“We are not in a seismically sensitive area,” he added.

-AFP/ac

German police clash with thousands blocking nuclear train

DANNENBERG: German police battled thousands of anti-nuclear protestors Sunday, many chained to railroad tracks, who have caused delays as they try to block a train carrying radioactive waste.

The convoy taking the German waste on a 1,200-kilometre (750-mile) journey from a reprocessing centre in northwestern France to a storage facility in northern Germany was stopped for 18 hours, including overnight, amid mass demonstrations.

Thousands of activists swarmed the tracks along the route near the train’s final destination in Dannenberg and boasted that the odyssey’s duration had now topped the 92-hour record set during a shipment one year ago.

Police said they detained about 1,300 people, including some who had chained themselves to the railway, requiring tricky and time-consuming operations to free them before the train could slowly rumble on.

Some 150 people were injured in clashes, most of them demonstrators, according to security forces quoted by German news agency DPA.

The waste, produced in German reactors several years ago and then sent to France for reprocessing, began its journey in a yard operated by French nuclear company Areva in Valognes, Normandy Wednesday.

The protestors argue that the shipment by train of spent fuel rods is hazardous and note that Germany, like the rest of Europe, has no permanent storage site for the waste, which will remain dangerous for thousands of years.

They are also angry that a pledged German phase-out of nuclear power, hastily agreed this year in the wake of the Fukushima disaster in Japan, will take another decade to implement.

“It’s like a friend telling you that he will stop smoking in 10 years,” said Jochen Stay, spokesman for the anti-nuclear body Ausgestrahlt (Radiated), which has mobilised protesters against the shipment. “You are not going to congratulate them just yet.”

At the train’s final destination of Dannenberg, the 11 containers of waste are due to be unloaded onto trucks for the final 20-kilometre leg of the journey by road to the Gorleben storage facility on the River Elbe.

Organisers said about 23,000 protestors had gathered in Dannenberg, while police put the number at 8,000. About 20,000 police have been deployed along the train’s German route.

The demonstrators had travelled from across Germany as well as from Belgium, the Netherlands, France and Italy, organisers said.

The train’s disputed load represents “44 times Fukushima”, according to ecology group Greenpeace, which said a single container could unleash “four times the radioactivity released” by the stricken Japanese nuclear reactor. The bulk of the protests have been peaceful. (AFP)

The US/India/Australian Pact To Cut Pakistan’s Throat

[(SEE:  Australia says no plans to sell uranium to Pakistan).  If Pakistan's leaders cannot see at this point that they have been cut completely out of the equation, meaning that the US has abandoned its former partnership with Pakistan, in favor of a strategic partnership with India, then they are either blind or collaborators in America's deadly schemes.  At the same time, Pakistan has been persuaded, or intimidated into falling for American "sucker's bait," by lowering its guard in compromising its security interests in relation to prudent concerns about India, and signing-on to the delusionary American TAPI project, which cannot ever be achieved without Pakistan as a full partner.  The enormous hypocrisy of the American approach is one of seducing Nations to become partners in their own destruction and enslavement, offering impossible economic promises which can never be realized as promised rewards (Committing Treason for a Piece of the Pie ).]

Obama Denies Asking Australia to Sell Uranium to India

Melbourne, Nov 16 (IANS): Visiting US President Barak Obama has denied speculations that America influenced Australia to overturn its policy of not selling uranium to India. “We have not had any influence, I suspect, on Australia’s decision to explore what its relationship in terms of the peaceful use of nuclear energy in India might be,” the US President said at a press conference on his arrival in the Australian capital of Canberra Wednesday. Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard had announced her plan to lift the ban on uranium exports to India in a newspaper article Tuesday. “I don’t think Julia or anybody else needs my advice in figuring that out,” said Obama. Obama said Gillard’s decision to overturn the uranium export ban seemed to be compatible with international law. “I will watch with interest what’s determined. “But this is not something between the US and Australia… this is something between India and Australia,” the US president said. Gillard said in an article published in The Age newspaper Tuesday that “it is time for (ruling) Labor to modernise our platform and enable us to strengthen our connection with dynamic, democratic India”. Gillard, who met Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh at the G20 summit at Cannes, has been urging, along with a number of her senior party colleagues, the lifting of the ban on uranium exports to India as the South Asian country has shown remarkable nuclear compliance. “We will not sell India uranium for peaceful purposes – though Canada is preparing to – while policy allows us to export it to countries such as China, Japan and the United States,” Gillard wrote. She, however, added that “we must, of course, expect of India the same standards we do of all countries for uranium export”. Australia has not been exporting the crucial nuclear fuel to India as the latter has not signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). Obama, who was given a rousing welcome in Canberra Wednesday afternoon, also endorsed the growing ties between the two Indian Ocean Rim countries Australia and India. “India is a big player and the Australia-India relationship is one that should be cultivated,” he said. The Australian prime minister once again defended her plan to lift the uranium export ban on India, saying that her country cannot afford to miss out on the jobs and trade benefits expected from the deal.

Truck Carrying Nuclear Fuel Rods Wrecks on I-40 Near Memphis

[Video on site]

Truck With Uranium Fuel Rods Wrecks on I-40

Natasha Chen10:51 p.m. CST, November 15, 2011

FAST FACTS:

• A truck carrying uranium fuel rods was rear-ended on I-40 near U.S. Highway 64.
• Emergency crews responded quickly to assess possible radiation exposure.
• No injuries and no spill was reported.

natasha.chen@wreg.com

(Memphis, TN 11/15/11) A truck carrying uranium fuel rods was rear-ended on I-40 westbound near U.S. Highway 64 Tuesday night.

Hazmat crews, Tennessee Highway Patrol, Memphis police and Memphis fire personnel responded quickly.

The wreck happened at 7:50 p.m., and the scene was stabilized at 8:21 p.m.

At one point, crews blocked a 500 sq. ft. distance around the vehicle, and two right lanes were blocked.

No fuel rods fell off the truck. The Emergency Management Agency said that their staff also used small devices to monitor the level of radiation in the area. An alarm would sound at the detection of radiation, and the device provides a read on the level of radiation present.

The EMA was not able to say what type of fuel rods were being transported on the truck. Often time, uranium rods are used for nuclear power plants or for hospital radiation therapy.

The EMA also said that vehicles carrying such rods is not unusual in the area. Since Memphis is a distribution hub, many hazardous materials may be transported by rail or by interstate every day.

Emergency crews were relieved no one was hurt and that no spill occurred, but they took every safety precaution necessary, as they would in a more serious spill.

Disposal of quake debris begins

Kyodo

Work to dispose of debris from the quake-ravaged city of Miyako, Iwate Prefecture, began Thursday in Tokyo with about 30 tons arriving on a train at Tokyo Freight Terminal, the first load from Iwate to be accepted by a local government outside the Tohoku region.

Put to the test: Workers check the radiation levels of tsunami debris from Iwate Prefecture that arrived in Tokyo on Thursday morning. Officials said the results were well below the legal limit of 0.01 microsievert per hour. KYODO PHOTO

The Tokyo Metropolitan Government plans to accept a total of 11,000 tons of debris from Miyako by next March, as part of plans to dispose of a combined 500,000 tons of debris from both Iwate and Miyagi prefectures, the areas hit hardest by the March 11 earthquake and tsunami, by fiscal 2013.

At the terminal in Shinagawa Ward, debris containers were transshipped onto trucks to be carried to a crushing facility in Ota Ward, from where combustibles will be taken to an incinerator in Koto Ward.

Resulting ash and incombustibles are to be used as landfill in Tokyo Bay.

In light of radiation fears among residents, the metropolitan government plans to monitor and release data weekly on radiation levels in the air at the edge of the crushing premises and once a month on crushed waste, ash and exhaust gas, it said.

Its four crushing facilities, incinerator and landfill site are all located in an industrial zone facing Tokyo Bay.

Miyako is located 260 km north of the crippled Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant, while Tokyo is roughly 220 km southwest of the plant.

Tepco denies criticality

Tokyo Electric Power Co. said Thursday the detection of radioactive xenon at its stricken Fukushima No. 1 power plant, indicating recent nuclear fission, was not the result of a sustained nuclear chain reaction known as a criticality, as feared, but a case of “spontaneous” fission.

When it revealed Wednesday that it had detected at its crisis-hit No. 2 reactor xenon-133 and xenon-135, which are typically generated by nuclear fission and have relatively short half-lives, it touched on the possibility that melted fuel inside the reactor may have temporarily gone critical.

Tepco has been analyzing the phenomenon, which did not raise the reactor’s temperature or pressure, with support from the Japan Atomic Energy Agency.

The nuclear crisis at the plant, the world’s worst in 25 years, erupted in the wake of the March 11 earthquake and tsunami, and resulted in the meltdown of nuclear fuel in the six-reactor power complex’s reactors 1, 2 and 3.

Is US Trying To Arm Japan with Nuclear Arsenal?

[SEE:  Was Fukushima Stuxnet Attack?]

Secret US-Israeli Nuke Transfers Led To Fukushima Blasts

By Yoichi Shimatsu
A Rense World Exclusive
Copyright 2001 – All Rights Reserved

Sixteen tons and what you get is a nuclear catastrophe. The explosions that rocked the Fukushima No.1 nuclear plant were more powerful than the combustion of hydrogen gas, as claimed by the Tokyo Electric Power Company. The actual cause of the blasts, according to intelligence sources in Washington, was nuclear fission of. warhead cores illegally taken from America’s sole nuclear-weapons assembly facility. Evaporation in the cooling pools used for spent fuel rods led to the detonation of stored weapons-grade plutonium and uranium.

The facts about clandestine American and Israeli support for Japan’s nuclear armament are being suppressed in the biggest official cover-up in recent history. The timeline of events indicates the theft from America’s strategic arsenal was authorized at the highest level under a three-way deal between the Bush-Cheney team, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and Elhud Olmert’s government in Tel Aviv.

Tokyo’s Strangelove

In early 2007, Vice President Dick Cheney flew to Tokyo with his closest aides. Newspaper editorials noted the secrecy surrounding his visit – no press conferences, no handshakes with ordinary folks and, as diplomatic cables suggest, no briefing for U.S. Embassy staffers in Tokyo.

Cheney snubbed Defense Minister Fumio Kyuma, who was shut out of confidential talks. The pretext was his criticism of President George Bush for claiming Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction. The more immediate concern was that the defense minister might disclose bilateral secrets to the Pentagon. The Joint Chiefs of Staff were sure to oppose White House approval of Japan’s nuclear program.

An unannounced reason for Cheney’s visit was to promote a quadrilateral alliance in the Asia-Pacific region. The four cornerstones – the US, Japan, Australia and India – were being called on to contain and confront China and its allies North Korea and Russia.. From a Japanese perspective, this grand alliance was flawed by asymmetry: The three adversaries were nuclear powers, while the U.S. was the only one in the Quad group.

To further his own nuclear ambitions, Abe was playing the Russian card. As mentioned in a U.S. Embassy cable (dated 9/22), the Yomiuri Shimbun gave top play to this challenge to the White House : “It was learned yesterday that the government and domestic utility companies have entered final talks with Russia in order to relegate uranium enrichment for use at nuclear power facilities to Atomprom, the state-owned nuclear monopoly.” If Washington refused to accept a nuclear-armed Japan, Tokyo would turn to Moscow.

Since the Liberal Democratic Party selected him as prime minister in September 2006, the hawkish Abe repeatedly called for Japan to move beyond the postwar formula of a strictly defensive posture and non-nuclear principles. Advocacy of a nuclear-armed Japan arose from his family tradition. His grandfather Nobusuke Kishi nurtured the wartime atomic bomb project and, as postwar prime minister, enacted the civilian nuclear program. His father Shintaro Abe, a former foreign minister, had played the Russian card in the 1980s, sponsoring the Russo-Japan College, run by the Aum Shinrikyo sect (a front for foreign intelligence), to recruit weapons scientists from a collapsing Soviet Union.

The chief obstacle to American acceptance of a nuclear-armed Japan was the Pentagon, where Pearl Harbor and Hiroshima remain as iconic symbols justifying American military supremacy.The only feasible channel for bilateral transfers then was through the civilian-run Department of Energy (DoE), which supervises the production of nuclear weapons.

Camp David Go-Ahead

The deal was sealed on Abe’s subsequent visit to Washington. Wary of the eavesdropping that led to Richard Nixon’s fall from grace, Bush preferred the privacy afforded at Camp David. There, in a rustic lodge on April 27, Bush and Abe huddled for 45 minutes. What transpired has never been revealed, not even in vague outline.

As his Russian card suggested, Abe was shopping for enriched uranium. At 99.9 percent purity, American-made uranium and plutonium is the world’s finest nuclear material. The lack of mineral contaminants means that it cannot be traced back to its origin. In contrast, material from Chinese and Russian labs can be identified by impurities introduced during the enrichment process.

Abe has wide knowledge of esoteric technologies. His first job in the early 1980s was as a manager at Kobe Steel. One of the researchers there was astrophysicist Hideo Murai, who adapted Soviet electromagnetic technology to “cold mold” steel. Murai later became chief scientist for the Aum Shinrikyo sect, which recruited Soviet weapons technicians under the program initiated by Abe’s father. After entering government service, Abe was posted to the U.S. branch of JETRO (Japan External Trade Organization). Its New York offices hosted computers used to crack databases at the Pentagon and major defense contractors to pilfer advanced technology. The hacker team was led by Tokyo University’s top gamer, who had been recruited into Aum.

After the Tokyo subway gassing in 1995, Abe distanced himself from his father’s Frankenstein cult with a publics-relations campaign. Fast forward a dozen years and Abe is at Camp David. After the successful talks with Bush, Abe flew to India to sell Cheney’s quadrilateral pact to a Delhi skeptical about a new Cold War. Presumably, Cheney fulfilled his end of the deal. Soon thereafter Hurricane Katrina struck, wiping away the Abe visit from the public memory.

The Texas Job

BWXT Pantex, America’s nuclear warhead facility, sprawls over 16,000 acres of the Texas Panhandle outside Amarillo. Run by the DoE and Babcock & Wilson, the site also serves as a storage facility for warheads past their expiration date. The 1989 shutdown of Rocky Flats, under community pressure in Colorado, forced the removal of those nuclear stockpiles to Pantex. Security clearances are required to enter since it is an obvious target for would-be nuclear thieves.

In June 2004, a server at the Albuquerque office of the National Nuclear Security System was hacked. Personal information and security-clearance data for 11 federal employees and 177 contractors at Pantex were lifted. NNSA did not inform Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman or his deputy Clay Sell until three months after the security breach, indicating investigators suspected an inside job.

While Bush and Abe met at Camp David, 500 unionized security guards at Pantex launched a 45-day strike. Scabs were hired, but many failed to pass the entry exam, according to the Inspector General’s office at DoE. The IG report cited witnesses who said: “BWXT officials gave passing grades to some replacement guards even though they actually flunked tests,” and “contractor officials gave correct answers to those that failed the tests.” Although the scene was nearly as comical as the heist in “Ocean’s Eleven”, Pantex is not some Vegas casino. At stake was nuclear Armageddon.

At an opportune moment during the two-month strike, trucks loaded with warhead cores rolled out of the gates. Some 16 metric tons of nuclear cores packed in caskets were hauled away in refrigerated containers to prevent fission. At the port of Houston, the dangerous cargo was loaded aboard vessels operated by an Israeli state-owned shipping line. The radioactive material was detected by port inspector Roland Carnaby, a private contractor working under the federal program to interdict weapons of mass destruction.

The intelligence community is still buzzing about his shooting death. On April 29, 2008, Houston police officers pursued Carnaby on a highway chase and gunned him down. His port monitoring contract was later awarded to the Israel-based security firm NICE (Neptune Intelligence Computer Engineering), owned by former Israeli Defense Force officers.

Throughout the Pantex caper, from the data theft to smuggling operation, Bush and Cheney’s point man for nuclear issues was DoE Deputy Director Clay Sell, a lawyer born in Amarillo and former aide to Panhandle district Congressman Mac Thornberry. Sell served on the Bush-Cheney transition team and became the top adviser to the President on nuclear issues. At DoE, Sell was directly in charge of the U.S. nuclear weapons complex, which includes 17 national laboratories and the Pantex plant. (Another alarm bell: Sell was also staff director for the Senate Energy subcommittee under the late Sen. Ted Stevens of Alaska, who died in a 2010 plane crash.)

An Israeli Double-Cross

The nuclear shipments to Japan required a third-party cutout for plausible deniability by the White House. Israel acted less like an agent and more like a broker in demanding additional payment from Tokyo, according to intelligence sources. Adding injury to insult, the Israelis skimmed off the newer warhead cores for their own arsenal and delivered older ones. Since deteriorated cores require enrichment, the Japanese were furious and demanded a refund, which the Israelis refused. Tokyo had no recourse since by late 2008 principals Abe had resigned the previous autumn and Bush was a lame duck.

The Japanese nuclear developers, under the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, had no choice but to enrich the uranium cores at Fukushima No.1, a location remote enough to evade detection by nonproliferation inspectors. Hitachi and GE had developed a laser extraction process for plutonium, which requires vast amounts of electrical power. This meant one reactor had to make unscheduled runs, as was the case when the March earthquake struck.

Tokyo dealt a slap on the wrist to Tel Aviv by backing Palestinian rights at the UN. Not to be bullied, the Israeli secret service launched the Stuxnet virus against Japan’s nuclear facilities.

Firewalls kept Stuxnet at bay until the Tohoku earthquake. The seismic activity felled an electricity tower behind Reactor 6. The power cut disrupted the control system, momentarily taking down the firewall. As the computer came online again, Stuxnet infiltrated to shut down the back-up generators. During the 20-minute interval between quake and tsunami, the pumps and valves at Fukushima No.1 were immobilized, exposing the turbine rooms to flood damage.

The flow of coolant water into the storage pools ceased, quickening evaporation. Fission of the overheated cores led to blasts and mushroom-clouds. Residents in mountaintop Iitate village overlooking the seaside plant saw plumes of smoke and could “taste the metal” in their throats.

Guilty as Charged

The Tohoku earthquake and tsunami were powerful enough to damage
Fukushima No.1. The natural disaster, however, was vastly amplified by two external factors: release of the Stuxnet virus, which shut down control systems in the critical 20 minutes prior to the tsunami; and presence of weapons-grade nuclear materials that devastated the nuclear facility and contaminated the entire region.

Of the three parties involved, which bears the greatest guilt? All three are guilty of mass murder, injury and destruction of property on a regional scale, and as such are liable for criminal prosecution and damages under international law and in each respective jurisdiction.

The White House, specifically Bush, Cheney and their co-conspirators in the DoE, hold responsibility for ordering the illegal removal and shipment of warheads without safeguards.

The state of Israel is implicated in theft from U.S. strategic stockpiles, fraud and extortion against the Japanese government, and a computer attack against critical infrastructure with deadly consequences, tantamount to an act of war.

Prime Minister Abe and his Economy Ministry sourced weapons-grade nuclear material in violation of constitutional law and in reckless disregard of the risks of unregulated storage, enrichment and extraction. Had Abe not requested enriched uranium and plutonium in the first place, the other parties would not now be implicated. Japan, thus, bears the onus of the crime.

The International Criminal Court has sufficient grounds for taking up a case that involves the health of millions of people in Japan, Canada, the United States, Russia, the Koreas, Mongolia, China and possibly the entire Northern Hemisphere. The Fukushima disaster is more than an human-rights charge against a petty dictator, it is a crime against humanity on par with the indictments at the Nuremberg and Tokyo tribunals. Failure to prosecute is complicity.

If there is a silver lining to every dark cloud, it’s that the Tohoku earthquake and tsunami saved the world from even greater folly by halting the drive to World War III.

Airborne cesium contamination maps published to beyond 250 km from Fukushima

Fukushima Getting Worse – Tokyo Becoming Uninhabitable?

By Tom Burnett
The radiation coming out of that hell-hole is still INCREASING.  As I have said for months, there is no way to stop it.  The only solution is to hide it and pretend it doesn’t exist.

As of today, the people who were evacuated from the dead zone can apply for compensation to get a home somewhere else.  The instructions are 160 pages long and the application itself is 60 pages and requires various proofs and documents.  Merely having to leave a zone of deadly radiation is not proof of anything to the Japanese government, even though they ordered the evacuation.

In addition, the instructions are incomprehensible, even to a Japanese lawyer.  A typical farmer or lay person could never complete the application.

Moving right along…the Japanese are gearing up to restart all of the nuclear plants that are now offline.  They have no other sources of energy and winter is approaching – so all the plants that were shut down because they were – and still are – unsafe are going to be put back on line before winter.  I absolutely guarantee you that there will be another Fukushima-type accident in the near future because of these unsafe plants.  Japan will not only kill off it’s own citizens, but everyone else as well.

That’s not rhetoric.  Tokyo is rapidly becoming uninhabitable. As my VERY FIRST POST said back in March, when the cores hit groundwater, it will get very serious.  Now it is happening.  The entire northern half of Japan is effectively uninhabitable, although the Japanese government is simply ignoring the problem.

I am continuing to monitor radiation levels in East Hawaii and I have been invited back on the Rense program (9 PM Pacific, 9-26-11) because every one of my predictions and observations have been proven correct. It now appears that we are going to have an earth-shattering event.  Not just Japan.  The entire world is in danger, right now.

US To Spend $700 Billion On New Nukes and Modernization In Next Ten Years

What We Spend on Nuclear Weapons

BY JOEL RUBIN

The United States is projected to spend over $700 billion on nuclear weapons and related programs during the next ten years. As federal budgets tighten and officials address the most pressing national security needs of the 21st century, the substantial cost of nuclear weapons must be fully examined. By understanding these costs and setting effective national security priorities, policymakers can reduce nuclear budget excesses incurred by the active stockpile of approximately 5,000 nuclear weapons.

Ploughshares Fund has written a working paper (http://ploughshares.org/sites/default/files/resources/What%20We%20Spend%20on%20Nuclear%20Weapons_0.pdf) to address the magnitude of this complex issue. As a result of this analysis, we are convinced that the current projected expenditures on nuclear weapons are mismatched for both the fiscal and physical threats we face as a country, and must therefore come down. This working paper should be viewed as a living document that, as the budget picture for nuclear weapons spending becomes clearer, will be adjusted to match the changing policy environment.

We hope that this working paper will contribute to the overall national debate about defense spending, both for the sake of our national security and our country’s fiscal health. It is our view that these projected investments are oriented towards fighting last century’s wars, thereby creating significant financial waste while undercutting our country’s ability to address the threats we all face. In an era of tight federal budgets, limited defense dollars must be spent wisely to address the security needs of today and the anticipated security needs of tomorrow. Our projected nuclear weapons spending, as outlined in this paper, does not meet this standard.

Ultimately, the United States must find a bipartisan path forward for reducing the nuclear budget burden that we all face. We should not saddle our children and grandchildren with hundreds of billions of dollars of unnecessary future expenditures for weapons systems that we neither need nor can afford.

ORIGINAL POSTING LINK: http://www.ploughshares.org/blog/2011-09-14/what-we-spend-nuclear-weapons

Saint Louis Radioactive Rainfall 133x Greater Than Background Radiation

[ALERT] Saint Louis Radioactive Rainfall @133x …, posted with vodpod

Breaking News: We are running out of time

Posted by Mochizuki

Within the 30km zone surrounding the Fukushima dai-ichi power plant, there is a certain amount of despair setting in regarding the question of whether or not residents will ever be able to return to their homes. Serious problems remain. “In reactor three, which suffered a meltdown, fuel rods containing plutonium perforated the bottom of the containment and embedded themselves in the basement of the building. Just where and how far the plutonium travelled, no one quite knows”. (political commentator Jirou Honzawa)

On the tenth of August, LDP party and Diet member Seiichi Murakami posed the question of the whereabouts of the plutonium to the budget steering committee of the lower house, but neither Minister of health, Labour and Welfare Ritsuo Hosokawa nor his fellow ministers were able to provide an answer.

The day after the question, Jirou Honzawa interviewed the member Murakami. “The plutonium is certainly buried deep within the basement, but where exactly is anyone’s guess, and no one is able to pin it down. Obviously, the ocean is right next to the facility, so there’s no question that underground water is flowing into the sea. TEPCO is absolutely avoiding checking this out, and the government and the mass media are keeping a tight lid on this whole stinking mess.

Immediately after the accident, when it was announced that low-level contaminated water was to be discharged into the ocean, Murakami raised the possibility than contaminants might be carried far past the Alutian archipelago and possibly reach as far as San Francisco. however the government was unable to provide a compelling rebuttal. “Contamination of the ocean is continuing steadily. The scary thing is that unlike cesium, plutonium has a half life of 24,000 years, longer than anyone can fully comprehend. That’s how long this pollution of the ocean will continue, and if we don’t come to grips with this one way or another, we are going to fall afoul of international law. Those countries affected by the oceanic contamination are going to demand damages, aren’t they? But of course the government is preoccupied with short-term concerns, and are failing to get a handle on the situation.” (Honzawa)

Explosion at French nuclear plant of Marcoule

One person has been killed and four injured, one seriously, by an explosion at the southern French nuclear plant of Marcoule.

There were no radioactive leaks after the blast, caused by a fire near a furnace in a radioactive waste storage site, a French nuclear official said.

A security perimeter has been set up because of the risk of leakage.

The plant produces MOX fuel, which recycles plutonium from nuclear weapons, but does not include reactors.

It is a major site involved with the decommissioning of nuclear facilities.

The Centraco treatment centre belongs to a subsidiary of national electricity provider EDF.

The explosion hit the plant at 1145 local time (0945 GMT).

“For the time being nothing has made it outside,” said a spokesman for France’s Atomic Energy Commission (CEA).

Marcoule, one of France’s oldest nuclear plants, is located in the Gard department in Languedoc-Roussillon region, near France’s Mediterranean coast.

Nuclear energy provides more than 70% of France’s energy needs.

All the country’s 58 nuclear reactors have been put through stress tests in recent months, following the disaster at Japan’s Fukushima nuclear plant which was hit by an earthquake and tsunami.

EDF’s share prices fell by more than 6% as news of the blast emerged.

Fukushima Crisis Is Still Hazy

Chaos and bureaucracy hamper assessment of nuclear crisis

By David Cyranoski, Geoff Brumfiel and Nature magazine

Scientific American

Schools such as this one in Fukushima City are a high priority for clean-up effortsImage: REUTERS/N. HAYASHI/GREENPEACE

Tatsuhiko Kodama began his 27 July testimony to Japan’s parliament with what he knew. In a firm, clear voice, he said that the Radioisotope Center of the University of Tokyo, which he heads, had detected elevated radiation levels in the days following the meltdown of three reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear powerstation. But when it came to what wasn’t known, he became angry. “There is no definite report from the Tokyo Electric Power Company or the government as to exactly how much radioactive material has been released from Fukushima!” he shouted.

Kodama’s impassioned speech was posted on YouTube in late July and has received nearly 600,000 views, transforming him into one of Japan’s most visible critics of the government. But he is not alone. Almost six months after an earthquake and tsunami triggered the meltdowns, other researchers say that crucial data for understanding the crisis are still missing, and funding snags and bureaucracy are hampering efforts to collect more. Some researchers warn that, without better coordination, clean-up efforts will be delayed, and the opportunity to measure the effects of the worst nuclear accident in decades could be lost. Kodama and a handful of Japanese scientists have become so frustrated that they are beginning grassroots campaigns to collect information and speed the clean-up.

Since the crisis began, the Tokyo Electric Power Company and the Japanese government have churned out reams of radiation measurements, but only recently has a full picture of Fukushima’s fallout begun to emerge. On 30 August, the science ministry released a map showing contamination over a 100-kilometer radius around the plant. The survey of 2,200 locations shows a roughly 35-kilometer-long strip northwest of the plant where levels of caesium-137 contamination seem to exceed 1,000 kilobecquerels per square metre. (After the 1986 Chernobyl disaster in Ukraine, areas with more than 1,480 kilobecquerels per square metre were permanently evacuated by the Soviet authorities. In Japan, the high-radiation strip extends beyond the original forced evacuation zone, but falls within a larger ‘planned evacuation zone’ that has not yet been completely cleared.)

Exposure estimates
Japan’s Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency has also published new estimates of the total radiation released in the accident, based on models that combine measurements with what is known about the damage to the reactors. The latest figures, reported to the International Atomic Energy Agency in June, suggest that the total airborne release of caesium-137 amounts to 17% of the release from Chernobyl (see map). The government estimates that the total radiation released is 7.7 × 10¹⁷ becquerels, 5–6% of the total from Chernobyl.

Yet “there are still more questions than definite answers”, says Gerald Kirchner, a physicist at Germany’s Federal Office for Radiation Protection in Berlin. High radiation levels make it impossible to directly measure damage to the melted reactor cores. Perhaps the greatest uncertainty is exactly how much radiation was released in the first ten days after the accident, when power outages hampered measurements. Those data, combined with meteorological information, would allow scientists to model the plume and make better predictions about human exposure, Kirchner says.

Several measurements suggest that some evacuees received an unusually high dose. Five days after the crisis began, Shinji Tokonami, a radiation health expert at Hirosaki University, and his colleagues drove several hundred kilometres from Hirosaki to Fukushima City, taking radiation measurements along the way. The results indicate that evacuees from Namie, a town some 9 kilometres north of the plant, received at least 68 millisieverts of radiation as they fled, more than three times the government’s annual limit (http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/srep00087).

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Sounding the Alarm About Dirty Bomb Material Falling Into Libyan “Al Qaida” Hands

[I watched the headline change from "IAEA Official" to the current title.]

Nuclear experts warn of Libya “dirty bomb” material

By Fredrik Dahl

VIENNA | Wed Aug 24, 2011 8:59am EDT

(Reuters) – A research center near Tripoli has stocksof nuclear material that could be used to make a “dirty bomb,” a former senior U.N. inspector said on Wednesday, warning of possible looting during turmoil in Libya.

Seeking to mend ties with the West, Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi agreed in 2003 to abandon efforts to acquire nuclear, chemical and biological weapons — a move that brought him in from the cold and helped end decades of Libyan isolation.

A six-month popular insurgency has now forced Gaddafi to abandon his stronghold in the Libyan capital but continued gunfire suggests the rebels have not completely triumphed yet.

Olli Heinonen, head of U.N. nuclear safeguards inspections worldwide until last year, pointed to substantial looting that took place at Iraq’s Tuwaitha atomic research facility near Baghdad after Saddam Hussein was toppled in 2003.

In Iraq, “most likely due to pure luck, the story did not end in a radiological disaster,” Heinonen said.

In Libya, “nuclear security concerns still linger,” the former deputy director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said in an online commentary.

Libya’s uranium enrichment program was dismantled after Gaddafi renounced weapons of mass destruction eight years ago. Sensitive material and documentation including nuclear weapons design information were confiscated.

But the country’s Tajoura research center continues to stock large quantities of radioisotopes, radioactive waste and low-enriched uranium fuel after three decades of nuclear research and radioisotope production, Heinonen said.

Refined uranium can have civilian as well as military purposes, if enriched much further.

“DANGEROUS” MATERIAL

“While we can be thankful that the highly enriched uranium stocks are no longer in Libya, the remaining material in Tajoura could, if it ended up in the wrong hands, be used as ingredients for dirty bombs,” Heinonen, now at Harvard University, said.

“The situation at Tajoura today is unclear. We know that during times of regime collapse, lawlessness and looting reign.”

A so-called dirty bomb can combine conventional explosives such as dynamite with radioactive material.

Experts describe the threat of a crude fissile nuclear bomb, which is technically difficult to manufacture and requires hard-to-obtain bomb-grade uranium or plutonium, as a “low probability, high consequence act” — unlikely but with the potential to cause large-scale harm to life and property.

But a “dirty bomb,” where conventional explosives are used to disperse radiation from a radioactive source, is a “high probability, low consequence act” with more potential to terrorize than cause large loss of life.

“There are a number of nuclear and radiological materials at Tajoura that could be used by terrorists to create a dirty bomb,” said Mark Fitzpatrick, a director at the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies think-tank.

There was no immediate comment from the IAEA on the Tajoura facility. A document posted on the IAEA’s website said it was a 10 megawatt reactor located 34 km (20 miles) east of the Libyan capital.

The Vienna-based U.N. agency has been involved in technical aid projects in Libya, including at Tajoura.

Heinonen said Libya’s rebel Transitional National Council would need to be aware of the material at Tajoura. Once a transition takes place it should “take the necessary steps to secure these potentially dangerous radioactive sources.”

Fitzpatrick said the looting that occurred at Iraq’s Tuwaitha center “should stand as a lesson for the need for nuclear security precautions in the situation today in Libya.”

(Editing by Mark Heinrich)

Tokyo Radiation Hot Spots

Our Nationwide Soil Testing Project has begun!

As our first work of our Nationwide Soil Testing Project, we tested soil samples from 150 areas in the Tokyo metropolitan area. This project is the first unified investigation on the diffusion of radioactive particles in the metropolitan area including Tokyo, Chiba, Saitama, Kanagawa, and Ibaraki prefectures, whereas the national and local governments are separately performing their investigations.

Local participants of this project collected soil samples from their preferred locations, and sent them to the same laboratory to test radioactive particles (Iodine-131, Cesium-134, and Cesium-137.) As a result, we discovered that the radioactive fallout in the metropolitan area was quite significant. Some of the extremely high numbers show that there are severely contaminated “hotspots” within the city.

We would be continuing our soil testing project on a nationwide level, to then bring actual ideas and actions to prevent the various effects of radiation.

Nationwide Soil Testing Project(PDF)
Nationwide Soil Testing Project Map(PDF)

Belarus calls off joint nuclear fuel swap programs with USA

Belarus calls off joint nuclear fuel swap programs with USA

© RIA Novosti. Ruslan Krivobok

MINSK. August 19 (RIA Novosti)

Belarus has suspended a joint program for exchange of highly enriched nuclear fuel with the U.S. in response to additional economic sanctions imposed by Washington, Belarusian Foreign Affairs Ministry spokesman Andrey Savinykh said on Friday.

The additional economic sanctions imposed by the USA are out of tune with our cooperation,” he said. “Belarus has decided to put a halt to the joint programs for the exchange of highly- enriched nuclear fuel. These programs were created at the initiative of the American Energy Ministry whose goal was to reduce global threats. The creation of an MBA program at Belarus State university will be stopped as well” Savinykh said.

“We could take other response actions as well,” Savinykh said, adding Belarus will be maintain material fuel security in accordance with its international non-proliferation obligations.

“We can reestablish cooperation if the USA stops imposing economic sanctions on Belarus and restore bilateral relations,” Savinykh said.

Belarus regards the U.S. sanctions as groundless and illegal. “These politically motivated actions,” he said.

The U.S. and the EU imposed sanctions against Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, as well as other officials and companies over the crackdown on the opposition following presidential elections last December.

On August 11, the U.S. imposed additional sanctions against four major Belarusian state-owned enterprises.

Lukashenko granted pardons on August 11 to nine of several dozen people convicted of taking part in the mass anti-government protests, but the list of pardoned protesters does not include six former presidential candidates serving jail terms from two to five and a half years.

Giant Circus Tent Being Erected At Fukushima As Barrier From Future Leaks or “Blasts”?

Giant tent to go up over Japan nuclear reactor

By ERIC TALMADGE

TOKYO — The operator of Japan’s damaged Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant is building a huge tent to cover one of the worst-hit reactors, officials said Friday.

Officials hope the cover will keep radioactive materials that have already leaked from spreading, prevent rainwater seepage and offer a barrier from possible leaks or blasts in the future.

The tent is being erected to provide a temporary replacement for the No. 1 reactor’s outer housing shell, which was destroyed in an explosion caused by high pressure the day after Japan’s deadly earthquake and tsunami on March 11.

Construction of the tent and its foundation began this week, Koji Watanabe, a spokesman for the power utility, said Friday.

The work couldn’t begin until now because the location was too dangerous for workers to operate in.

The tent is made up of airtight polyester. It will stand 177 feet (54 meters) tall and stretch 154 feet (47 meters) in length. It is held up by a metal frame.

Tokyo Electric Power Co. officials have struggled to come up with ways to mitigate the dangers from the plant since the disaster struck five months ago, sending reactors into meltdowns, releasing radiative particles into the environment and causing the world’s world nuclear crisis since Chernobyl in 1986.

Work at the plant has been hindered by the continuing threat of radiation to workers.

Earlier this month, TEPCO said an area where potentially lethal levels of radiation were detected near Unit 1 has been sealed.

It said radiation exceeded 10 sieverts — 40 times the highest level allowed for an emergency workers to be exposed to — at two locations near a duct connected to a ventilation stack. The area required no immediate work and was closed off.

If the tent over reactor No. 1 proves successful, similar coverings will be constructed over other reactors on the plant. The areas around the other reactors are also highly risky to work in.

The tent is expected to be completed by the end of September, Watanabe said.