Joined: 30 Jul 2006 Posts: 6060 Location: East London
Posted: Mon Mar 14, 2011 9:33 pm Post subject: Fukushima nuke meltdown, Japanese quake & tsunami
Bit hard to include it in a category, but essential reading for us, I believe.
Greg Palast on Tokyo Electric Power Co., and their future contract to build nuke plants in US (south coast, conveniently cleared by 'Catrina' (+ US military blowing dykes????)):
Joined: 25 Jul 2005 Posts: 18335 Location: St. Pauls, Bristol, England
Posted: Wed Mar 16, 2011 6:30 am Post subject:
Yes, essential.
three reactors have exploded - secondary containment we are told - hmmmm -
Now radiation levels are climbing dangerously and the workers are being evacuated from the site so how they gonna fix it now then?
Has anyone else noticed all the Chatham House, RIIA spokespeople rolling out onto all the UK television channels ALL playing the nuclear incident down?
And none saying "what about a SEVERE (for that is supposed to be the threat level) terror attack on a UK reactor".
Funny that - since the RIIA is a major plank of the NWO lie machine.
And here is a picture of the Radiation Map showing an Inset focused on the Fukishima Nuclear Power Plants on the northeast coast of the Island of Honshu, with Tokyo to the south for reference. One of our Network members lives in Japan in a northern suburb of Tokyo, and we have asked him to operate his station for the benefit of the Network, but so far no response.
Both this and the UK privately run Argus project gamma monitoring network were active last week, AFAIK...
A computer system that forecasts the spread of radioactivity has not been working due to malfunctioning monitoring posts around a troubled nuclear power plant in quake-hit Fukushima Prefecture.
The Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency says it does not know when the system will be back in operation.
and here's some parasites departing the host:-
"Foreign bankers flee Tokyo as nuclear crisis deepens"
http://www.cnbc.com/id/42105046 _________________ "We will lead every revolution against us!" - attrib: Theodor Herzl
"Timely Demise to All Oppressors - at their Convenience!" - 'Interesting Times', Terry Pratchett
Joined: 30 Jul 2006 Posts: 6060 Location: East London
Posted: Wed Mar 16, 2011 9:26 pm Post subject:
TonyGosling wrote:
Yes, essential.
three reactors have exploded - secondary containment we are told - hmmmm -
Now radiation levels are climbing dangerously and the workers are being evacuated from the site so how they gonna fix it now then?
Has anyone else noticed all the Chatham House, RIIA spokespeople rolling out onto all the UK television channels ALL playing the nuclear incident down?
And none saying "what about a SEVERE (for that is supposed to be the threat level) terror attack on a UK reactor".
Funny that - since the RIIA is a major plank of the NWO lie machine.
Japanese government was 'warned that nuclear plants could not withstand quake'
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1366721/Japan-earthquake-tsuna mi-Government-warned-nuclear-plants-withstand-quake.html
The government will face tough questions on whether they acted on a pledge to upgrade all their nuclear facilities to be able to withstand a quake as powerful as the one that struck last Friday.
Details of the warnings came from a US Embassy diplomatic cable that was leaked to the information website Wikileaks.
The government is said to have responded to the nuclear watchdog's concerns by building an emergency response centre at the Fukushima powerplant............
The US IAEA doesn't seem to be singing from the same hymn-sheet, re dangers in Japan:
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article27697.htm _________________ 'And he (the devil) said to him: To thee will I give all this power, and the glory of them; for to me they are delivered, and to whom I will, I give them'. Luke IV 5-7.
Let’s fight against neo-liberalism! No War, No Mass Unemployment, no negligence of local regions!
March 13, 2011
Urgent Appeal on the East Japan Huge Earthquake of JRCL-NC
The working people are severely suffering from a horrible disaster caused by the East Japan Huge Earthquake. It is no simple natural disaster but human-made. The unprecedented terrifying accident of Fukushima nuclear power plants incurred by the earthquake typically illustrates this fact. Immediately after the outbreak of the earthquake, the cooling system of the nuclear reactor stopped functioning. It made it inevitable for the reactor to have fuel rods broken and a large amount of radiation released. Actually the reactors could not be cooled any longer and the temperature of the reactors kept mounting even after the stoppage of the reactors, resulting finally meltdown of the radioactive cores, the worst outcome. We are confronting a horrible accident surpassing in its serious character the Three Mile Island Accident in the US and Chernobyl Accident in the former USSR.
In face of this serious accident, however, Kan administration has been trying to conceal the dangerous development through putting media under severe control. Even after the radiation release and the explosion of the reactor facilities were revealed, the government spokesperson kept insisting, “The nuclear reactor is in safe condition” and “Nobody’s heath is injured”. Stop lying! Many workers are forced to continue their dangerous work on the spot of the accident to settle the irregularities exposed to radiation. Don’t you know that? There is no guarantee for the evacuated inhabitants in the neighboring area of the nuclear plants to resume their life and work on the contaminated land.
It has been warned that a big earthquake could provoke a terrible disaster of the nuclear power plants since long. The authority concerned, however, boasted that the nuclear power plants were “safe and clean” and pushed forward the development of nuclear power policy at the head of imperialist big powers of the world. Kan administration, among other governments, formulated its “New Growth Strategy”, in which export of nuclear power plants occupied a major position. They have been rushing the drive to seek interests and profits of capital as the supreme goal above all. The result is the present accident.
The Tsunami disaster has the same background. Towns and villages completely disappeared and the number of the dead and the missing people amounts to several thousands or tens of thousands. The real cause of these disasters is not attributed to the dimension of the Tsunami. The areas hit by the Tsunami, centering on Sanriku-coast, was provided with the levees far lower than needed to stop the assault of Tsunami. Neo-liberal policy intentionally neglected the development of the local economy and society, and worker, farmers and fishermen were forced to suffer concentration of contradictions of the society. This caused the disaster of this scale.
Kanadministration refuses to take responsibilities for all disastrous results and attempting to make use of the grave situation caused by the East Japan Huge Earthquake in order to find its way for political survival at the sacrifice of working people. In the name of “national emergency”, Kan is attempting to suppress struggles of working people violently to achieve “political truce” and to mobilize all workers into “national unity”. Their aim is to establish a favorable condition to carry out massive dismissal, casualization, participation in the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), enforcement of new military base construction in Henoko, Okinawa, and plunge into aggressive war on Korea. It is a sort of counter-revolutionary coup-d’Etat by Kan administration,
After the anti-labor political settlement to suppress the struggle of 1047 dismissed national railway workers on last April 9th and the de facto outbreak of the aggressive war on Korea on November 23, we are now confronting the third counter-revolutionary drive of the ruling class on the occasion of the gigantic earthquake to crack down all working people’s struggle and independent movement.
Let’s crush all these governmental attempts with the angry action of all the workers.
Down with Kan administration, which precipitates the global economic crisis, massive unemployment and war!
Stop operation of all nuclear power plants and abolish them immediately!
There is no future for capitalism.
Only proletarian revolution offers a fundamental rescue for the suffering people and to answer the sorrow and anger of the deceased.
United power of working class to fight capitalist class is the only force to overcome the tremendous disaster. Let’s revitalize labor unions now!
Join us in the anti-war rally and demonstration on March 20th and kick out Kan government!
Let’s fight in solidarity with the Egyptian revolution!
Whilst I dont buy this nature nonsense and think this one was pre-planned to crush Japan for not supporting QEII there are two paragraphs I have highlighted which are important...
Who is responsible for the nuclear catastrophe in Japan?
16 March 2011
Four nuclear reactors are in various stages of crisis and possible meltdown in the wake of the earthquake and tsunami that have devastated the northeastern coastline of Japan. The official death toll hit 3,373 Wednesday morning, Japan time, but that figure is expected to climb to more than 10,000.
Explosions have occurred in three of the reactors in the complex at Fukushima. The fourth has suffered two major fires in its cooling pool, which stores spent nuclear fuel rods. Significant radiation leaks have been reported, with measurable effects as far away as Tokyo, a metropolitan area of more than 20 million people.
The Japanese prime minister declared that the country faces its greatest disaster since Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The US and international media have used words like “catastrophe” to describe the conditions in Japan, pointing out that the Japanese nuclear breakdown could ultimately exceed Chernobyl in its long-term impact.
In a particularly chilling article, the New York Times recalled a 1997 study by the Brookhaven National Laboratory on Long Island that analyzed the potential consequences of an uncontrolled disaster involving spent fuel in a reactor cooling pool. According to the Times, “It estimated 100 quick deaths would occur within a range of 500 miles and 138,000 eventual deaths. The study also found that land over 2,170 miles would be contaminated and damages would hit $546 billion. That section of the Brookhaven study focused on boiling water reactors—the kind at the heart of the Japanese crisis.”
The 9.0 earthquake near Sendai, the worst ever to hit Japan, was a product of nature, and the tidal wave that struck the coast was its immediate and unavoidable consequence. But the ensuing nuclear events are the results of social forces, not the collision of tectonic plates. Once again, the capitalist system has brought the world to the brink of disaster, and in the process the corporate ruling elite has demonstrated its complete recklessness and irresponsibility.
As the World Socialist Web Site has pointed out (“The implications of the Japanese catastrophe”), the Japanese ruling elite made a heavy bet on nuclear power to offset the country’s dependence on imported oil, despite the obvious dangers in locating more than 50 nuclear reactors near the most active earthquake fault line in the world.
This is not merely a Japanese phenomenon. Over the past 40 years there have been repeated warnings of the danger of nuclear technology, as well as a series of incidents—Windscale, Fermi I, Three Mile Island, Chernobyl—that demonstrated the real-life consequences for millions of people. But nothing could stop the drive by the capitalist ruling elites of one country after another from investing billions in nuclear power generation.
In the United States, there are more than a dozen nuclear reactors that have a similar potential for catastrophe. Two nuclear power complexes in California, Diablo Canyon and San Onofre, are located near the San Andreas Fault. An Ohio plant was knocked out of service in 1986 by an earthquake along a spur of the New Madrid fault, and another in that state was damaged by a tornado.
There are numerous reactors in coastal parts of Texas, Louisiana, Alabama, Florida, Georgia and North Carolina, all areas that have been struck by major hurricanes.
The Waterford nuclear power plant in Louisiana was forced to declare an “unusual event” and close down during Hurricane Katrina, although it was nearly 100 miles from where the storm made landfall on the Mississippi Gulf Coast. Hurricane Gustav struck the nearby River Bend plant in St. Francisville, Louisiana.
Florida Power & Light operates the Turkey Point nuclear reactor on Biscayne Bay, just south of Miami, a site that, according to one study, “experiences tropical storms about every two years and hurricane-force winds once every seven years.” In 1992, the eye of Hurricane Andrew passed directly over the plant, causing extensive damage and cutting off outside power supplies for five days. If the storm surge had disabled the emergency power, Turkey Point would have been in the same condition as Fukushima today.
None of this diminishes the Obama administration’s enthusiasm for nuclear power. With no way of knowing the eventual scale of the worsening disaster in Japan, Energy Secretary Steven Chu on Tuesday reaffirmed to a congressional subcommittee the US commitment to provide $39 billion in loan guarantees to underwrite the construction of new nuclear power plants. This follows three decades—since Three Mile Island—in which such construction had come to a halt.
Recklessness in locating nuclear power plants is a global phenomenon. Turkey has built its Akkuyu Bay reactor near the active Ecemis fault line. China, soon to be the fourth-largest nuclear power generator, with 27 plants under construction, is one of the most seismically active countries in the world.
The densely populated countries of Western Europe are heavily reliant on nuclear power, led by France, with 58 plants. Britain has 19, Germany 17, Sweden 10, tiny Belgium 7, Switzerland 5. Canada has 18 nuclear power plants, 16 of them in southern Ontario, where a disaster would result in the radioactive contamination of the Great Lakes, the world’s largest supply of fresh water.
Both the potential for natural disaster and the dangerous proximity to large population centers have been brushed aside. Such concerns mean nothing to powerful corporate and financial interests pursuing the profits from power generation or imperialist governments seeking to ensure energy supplies in an increasingly competitive global environment.
Since the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, the US and other imperialist powers have warned incessantly of the danger of nuclear terrorism. Bush National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice famously invoked the specter of a “mushroom cloud” if the US did not immediately invade Iraq and deprive Saddam Hussein of “weapons of mass destruction.”
The events in Japan show that the main danger of nuclear devastation comes from the workings of the capitalist economic system, not terrorism. It is Tokyo Electric Power (TEPCO), Toshiba and General Electric whose operations are today threatening to lay waste to Japan.
TEPCO is notorious in Japan for its record of covering up safety problems at its nuclear reactors. Toshiba built the Fukushima complex from a design by General Electric that, according to the New York Times, was marketed as “cheaper and easier to build—in part because they used a comparatively smaller and less expensive containment structure.”
The last decade has seen disaster after disaster produced by the capitalist system: colonialist wars in Afghanistan and Iraq; the destruction of New Orleans when the levees failed during Hurricane Katrina; the greatest financial collapse in world history, plunging the world into economic slump; the poisoning of the Gulf of Mexico by BP. No corporate CEO or capitalist politician has been held responsible for any of these calamities.
These events reveal the intrinsic anarchy of the capitalist system and criminal irresponsibility of the capitalist class: failure to plan, failure to build or maintain necessary social infrastructure, failure to enforce safety regulations. The labor of the international working class has produced greater wealth than at any time in history, but these resources are not available to meet social needs because all of economic life is subordinated to the get-rich mania of the ruling elite.
Working people must draw the necessary conclusions from the catastrophes which the world capitalist system is producing. The vast economic resources of modern society must be taken out of the hands of the financial aristocracy and put at the disposal of the entire population. Rational planning must replace the anarchy of the market. The harmonious development of the world economy must replace the struggle of rival nation-states. This means the struggle for international socialism.
Joined: 25 Jul 2005 Posts: 18335 Location: St. Pauls, Bristol, England
Posted: Thu Mar 17, 2011 1:39 am Post subject:
Owch!
No wonder they're playing it down
conspiracy analyst wrote:
In a particularly chilling article, the New York Times recalled a 1997 study by the Brookhaven National Laboratory on Long Island that analyzed the potential consequences of an uncontrolled disaster involving spent fuel in a reactor cooling pool. According to the Times, “It estimated 100 quick deaths would occur within a range of 500 miles and 138,000 eventual deaths. The study also found that land over 2,170 miles would be contaminated and damages would hit $546 billion. That section of the Brookhaven study focused on boiling water reactors—the kind at the heart of the Japanese crisis.”
China, which had been driving a global revival of the nuclear industry, announced it was putting construction on hold, and ordered safety reviews at existing facilities.
Also in that article: heavy criticism of the Japanese Authorities and Toyko Electric Co for being too secretive and mishandling the emergency....
JPN Rail Union Doro Chiba-Stop all nuclear plants immediately! No
dismissal under the pretext of the earthquake!
By solidarity
Created 2011-03-16 19:28
JPN Rail Union Doro Chiba-Stop all nuclear plants immediately! No
dismissal under the pretext of the earthquake!
Dear our friends of the world,
Japanese government’s rescue plan has been bankrupted and capitalism
system is losing its own ruling power in face of this large-scale
disaster.
The following is an emergency appeal of Doro-Chiba (http://www.doro-
chiba.org/index.html).
Let’s give a decisive and final blow to neo-liberalism!
Let’s fight together toward revitalization of labor unions!
In Struggle and Solidarity,
International Labor Solidarity Committee of Doro-Chiba
H. Yamamoto
www.doro-chiba.org
==========
Let’s Organize Relief Activities for the Affected Area by Workers’
Unity and Solidarity!
Stop all nuclear plants immediately!
No dismissal under the pretext of the earthquake!
Let’s fight to live!
March 14, 2011
Doro-Chiba
The huge earthquake on March 11th has brought about a large-scale
disaster to Northeastern Japan and the rest of the whole area of East
Japan. We have not yet got the whole picture of what happened and what
is actually happening: how many lives are lost, how many people are
now seeking rescue, and so on. At this very moment, many lives are
being lost. Few shelters are provided with water, food, electricity,
or medical treatment. Moreover, Fukushima nuclear plants are running
out of control through fatal failure of cooling systems and are
precipitating into catastrophe after two blasts of nuclear facilities.
Government’s rescue plan has been bankrupted. Let’s organize relief
action of the affected people and area by workers’ unity and
solidarity.
Of course, the huge East Japan earthquake and ensuing Tsunami were
beyond all anticipation. It is, however, evident that enough measure
has not been taken to confront earthquake even though it had been
warned that a big earthquake would occur within 10 years with 99%
certainty. The reality was that neo-liberal agenda has been carried
out on the principle of “competition and self-responsibility” at the
sacrifice of local communities and lives of working people. Local
governments were in a critical financial difficulty and in a situation
far from preparing for possible earthquake. Expanding earthquake
disaster is an inevitable result of this.
What is happening now in Fukushima is a typical example of the
bankruptcy of local communities. Inhabitants of the area within radius
of 20 kilo meters from the nuclear plants are driven out of their
houses which are barely escaped from the earthquake, in the cold
weather under the winter sky. Numerous people are contaminated by the
blasts of nuclear facilities. The nuclear plants were built on the
“nests of earthquake” by the government and electric power
corporations, which insisted that the nuclear plants were absolutely
safe and offered clean energy. It proved to be blatant lie. Nuclear
plant meant for capitalists a miracle instrument to bring about a huge
amount of profit and for the government a vital tool for nuclear
armament. It has been exposed in the worst form what these policies
really meant.
It is reported that the troops of the Self-Defense Forces are going to
put the main roads toward the affected region under their control. The
rescue activities of a large number of people anxious about the
situation of affected inhabitants are blocked in the name of “securing
the rescue route” by the SDF. Even minimum physical distribution is
stopped: three days after the earthquake, foodstuffs have disappeared
from super markets not only in affected regions but also in the Tokyo
metropolitan area. While the SDF is dominating everywhere, rescue
activities and transportation and distribution of rescue goods are in
trouble. Surprisingly, the US nuclear aircraft carrier, Ronald Reagan,
has arrived at a harbor adjoining the affected area. Even in face of
the reality, in which tens of thousands of people are still buried
under the wreck or waiting for rescue in isolation, public security is
the priority agenda for the government and ruling class. An attempt is
under way to establish a wartime mobilization system under the slogan
of “national unity to overcome national crisis”.
It is evident that all essential information especially on the nuclear
accidents is manipulated and the facts are cautiously concealed. Even
the violent blasts of the unit 1 and 3 of Fukushima Daiichi nuclear
plant are described as not serious problem and we are not at all
informed of what is actually developing on the site of the accidents
while a large volume of radioactive materials are leaking from the
reactors and meltdown is imminent.
At this critical moment when all efforts should be made to prevent
meltdown of the reactor, the only concern of the government and TEPCO
(Tokyo Electric Power Company) is how to maintain their policy of
promoting nuclear power.
All political forces, governing Democratic Party of Kan
administration, Liberal Democratic Party, Komei Party and others, are
joining in “political truce” in face of the huge earthquake and going
to present rescue measures, including “tax hike for restoration”
“revision of the budget by cutting child-support allowance” “finance
for damaged corporation” “finance aids for restoration” etc. Their aim
is to overcome the present social crisis through an overall
exploitation and plundering of working people, taking opportunity of
horrifying situation of the affected people and regions.
What is desperately needed for the workers, farmers, fishermen and
small business, who have lost everything by the earthquake and
Tsunami, is not financial aids but the place to live, means to
survive, unconditional free medical treatment, etc. To be abolished is
not child-support allowance but defense budget.
In the whole area of East Japan, numerous workers have already lost
their jobs. Even in Chiba prefecture, 500 kilometer far from the
seismic center, the Bay Area is attacked by liquefaction: streets and
buildings are severely cracked. Large-scale fires are raging in the
industrial complex. Almost half of the whole Japanese land is
suffering from a severe damage and Japanese economy is hit by a
devastating blow. The result is an all-out assault on workers: massive
dismissal under the pretext of the earthquake and a large-scale
unemployment. The huge East Japan earthquake is going to effect a
total change over the Japanese society.
Workers’ situation had just arrived at a critical point when the
earthquake came. We have experienced in the past year a violent storm
of mass dismissal: dismissal by the privatization of the Social
Security Agency, JAL’s dismissal of designated workers, dismissal of
several thousands workers of irregular employment by JP (Japan Post),
etc. A large number of workers have been thrust into irregular
employment or working poor. While the social security system has been
considerably dismantled, it has become more and more difficult to
survive everyday for working people. Just at this moment, the huge
earthquake broke out, giving a fatal blow to those people who are on
the brink of existence.
The ruling classes of the whole world are horrified to witness a
critical situation, in which the collapse of economy is spreading from
Japanese to other countries in the midst of the global economic crisis
and explosion of angry voices of working class, ignited by these
developments, is shaking the entire world.
We have already begun the nationwide campaign of national railway
struggle to fight the neo-liberal offensive. This movement heralds a
great challenge for revitalization of labor movement through gathering
angry voices of workers and organizing powerful actions. Now is the
precise moment to promote this effort vigorously.
Let’s fight to live.
Organize relief action of workers’ unity and solidarity for the
affected people and areas with all of our power!
We demand enough and immediate supply of housing, foodstuffs and
medical treatment unconditionally for all the affected people!
Stop immediately all the nuclear plants!
Stop dismissal under the pretext of the earthquake!
Let’s give a decisive and final blow to neo-liberalism!
Kick out Kan administration!
Labor union shall stand in the forefront of this struggle!
Even when nuclear power plants go horribly wrong, they do less damage to the planet and its people than coal-burning stations operating normally.
Discuss, if you can do so without vomiting. He is a classic example of what I have been banging on about for years - toxic waste personified.
In response to that heart rending and revealing manifesto above:-
"Timely Demise of all Oppressors, at their convenience!!!" - 'Interesting Times', Terry Pratchett
meanwhile, back with Monbiot-droid:-
Quote:
But, as long as the following four conditions are met, I will no longer oppose atomic energy.
1. Its total emissions – from mine to dump – are taken into account, and demonstrate that it is a genuinely low-carbon option
2. We know exactly how and where the waste is to be buried
3. We know how much this will cost and who will pay
4. There is a legal guarantee that no civil nuclear materials will be diverted for military purposes ... ... ...
Look into this .pdf to see the present levels of spent rods being stored within FukUShima's GE reactors:-
Integrity Inspection of Dry Storage Casks and Spent Fuels at FukushimaDaiichi Nuclear Power Station
... ... ...TV footage showed the CH-47 Chinook helicopters dousing the No 3 reactor in an attempt to cool an overheating pool for spent fuel rods and prevent it from releasing dangerous radioactive steam.
Two helicopters, flying at less than 300 feet, dumped four loads of water on the reactor, although the footage suggested a significant quantity was missing the target. ... ... ...
_________________ "We will lead every revolution against us!" - attrib: Theodor Herzl
"Timely Demise to All Oppressors - at their Convenience!" - 'Interesting Times', Terry Pratchett
More than 285,000 people are taking refuge in quake-ravaged northern and eastern Japan as of Thursday evening.
NHK asked prefectural governments the numbers of evacuees they are hosting.
The evacuees are wide-spread in more than 2,000 shelters in 15 quake-hit prefectures.
In the northeastern region, which includes the 3 hardest-hit prefectures, 265,000 people are taking refuge at 1,900 shelters.
Among them, Miyagi Prefecture is worst hit and 166,000 people are taking refuge in 1,000 shelters. That is about 60 % of the total evacuee number.
Fukushima Prefecture and Iwate Prefecture each has around 47,000 to 48,000 evacuees.
The quake did not spare the Kanto region, Tokyo and its surrounding areas. More than 20,000 people are taking shelter at around 300 places.
One week has passed since the devastating earthquake and tsunami last Friday. But it remains unclear when the victims will be able to start rebuilding their lives, raising fears that their temporary stay at shelters may be prolonged.
Friday, March 18, 2011 05:53 +0900 (JST)
earlier from the same site came this piece, which curiously got rewritten between first reading and this version (the first was not at all 'upbeat'):-
Japan's Self-Defense Forces have sprayed water on the overheated No.3 reactor of the quake-damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant.
The forces finished the 30-minute operation on Thursday evening. Five fire engines loaded with a total of 30 tons of water were used.
But the Defense Ministry says it has not confirmed whether the water reached the storage pool housing spent fuel rods, though it reached the inside of the building that houses it.
The forces are preparing to repeat the exercise on Friday if requested by the government.
Temperatures are rising in the spent fuel rod pools of the plant's No.3 and No.4 reactors, where a massive radiation leakage is feared.
Earlier in the day, police also used high-pressure water canons to douse the No.3 reactor from the ground. But the water failed to reach the target, and the operation was suspended due to high radiation levels.
Thursday, March 17, 2011 22:14 +0900 (JST)
_________________ "We will lead every revolution against us!" - attrib: Theodor Herzl
"Timely Demise to All Oppressors - at their Convenience!" - 'Interesting Times', Terry Pratchett
Priorities as the Russian government sees them
1. provide shelter for survivors
2. prevent epedemics with so many dead bodies & animals
3. provide drinking water
Russia TV was just slanted blaming American technology for the collapse in Japan, as if Chernobyl never happened.
How many nuclear power stations globally?
Quote:
As the world begins to look towards a future with dwindling petroleum supplies and uncertain energy prospects, a number of alternative energy sources are being examined. In addition to more novel sources of energy, a great deal of attention is being paid to nuclear power, and countries around the world are either resuming construction of new nuclear power plants, or beginning product of their first plants.
There are currently just under 450 nuclear power plants on earth, with another thirty or so being built at any given time, and a bit over two hundred more proposed for the next ten years. Together, these nuclear power plants produce more than 370,000 Megawatts, or just over 15% of the world’s total energy use.
Is this another angle to the issue?
Quote:
In both cases, the reactor requires careful supervision, because runaway nuclear reactions must be stopped as quickly as possible to prevent serious problems. Many nuclear power plants have extensive automated systems which help to identify potential trouble spots, and these systems can also re-route power, turn off parts of the plant, and perform other tasks which make the plant safer and cleaner.
Russia is building eight floating nuclear power stations in the Arctic to provide power for oil rigs. Each station costs $400 million US Dollars, can supply heating and electricity for communities of as many as 45,000 people and would need to be services only once every 12 years.
'One of my patients lives on the beach on Plum Island in Newburyport. Yesterday she told me that her neighbors have a flagpole imbedded in a huge cylinder of concrete. There has been very little wind the past
few days and while the flag has been essentially limp, they have been watching the concrete base and pole waving back and forth from the ground up.'
(Plum Island is in Massachussetts, not too far from Toronto). _________________ 'And he (the devil) said to him: To thee will I give all this power, and the glory of them; for to me they are delivered, and to whom I will, I give them'. Luke IV 5-7.
Did anyone buy this 'story'? I suspect a different scenario than a 'missing piece of paper'. How on earth could such a slip-up occur between two countries with cordial relations, and in an undoubted emergency situation?
I suspect that because the Japanese Govt. is trying to down-play the radiation danger to their own people, they were afraid that the Brits, who would have their own monitoring equiptment for radiation dangers, would expose the true situation, probably by refusing to go anywhere near the plants when (if) they found extremely dangerous levels of radiation. _________________ 'And he (the devil) said to him: To thee will I give all this power, and the glory of them; for to me they are delivered, and to whom I will, I give them'. Luke IV 5-7.
As you see, VT say video is unconfirmed. _________________ 'And he (the devil) said to him: To thee will I give all this power, and the glory of them; for to me they are delivered, and to whom I will, I give them'. Luke IV 5-7.
New cybervirus found in Japan / Stuxnet designed to attack off-line servers via USB memory sticksThe Yomiuri Shimbun
http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/national/T101004003493.htm
Stuxnet, a computer virus designed to attack servers isolated from the Internet, such as at power plants, has been confirmed on 63 personal computers in Japan since July, according to major security firm Symantec Corp.
The virus does not cause any damage online, but once it enters an industrial system, it can send a certain program out of control.
Symantec says the virus reaches the servers via USB memory sticks, and warns against the careless use of such devices.
Systems at power plants, gas stations and water facilities are not connected to the Internet to protect them from cyber-attacks.
A Symantec engineer who has analyzed the virus said it was made using advanced technology, and it is highly likely a well-funded organization, not an individual, produced it. The virus has spread throughout the globe via the Internet.
After Stuxnet finds its way onto an ordinary computer via the Internet, it hides there, waiting for a USB memory stick to be connected to the computer, when it transfers itself to the memory stick. When the USB device is then connected to a computer linked to an isolated server, it can enter the system and take control of it.
As computers that harbor Stuxnet do not operate strangely, the virus can be transferred to a memory stick inadvertently.
According to the security company, the virus is designed to target a German-made program often used in systems managing water, gas and oil pipelines. The program is used at public utilities around the world, including in Japan.
The virus could cause such systems to act erratically, and it could take months to restore them to normal.
The 63 infected computers found in Japan were likely infected sometime after June.
According to the company, about 60 percent of the computers that have been infected with the virus were discovered in Iran. Since September, about 30,000 computers there have been found to be infected with the virus. The country's Industry and Mines Ministry has called the virus an electronic act of war.
Some computers at the Iranian Bushehr nuclear power plant, which is scheduled to begin operation in October, have been infected with the virus.
A supervisor at the plant said the virus has not damaged the facility's main computer system and would not affect its planned opening.
In Japan, no public utilities have been affected by the virus. Nevertheless, the Cabinet Office's National Information Security Center has urged electric power companies to exercise extreme care when using USB devices, and to scan any programs that may have been tampered with. http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/national/T101004003493.htm _________________ --
'Suppression of truth, human spirit and the holy chord of justice never works long-term. Something the suppressors never get.' David Southwell
http://aangirfan.blogspot.com http://aanirfan.blogspot.com
Martin Van Creveld: Let me quote General Moshe Dayan: "Israel must be like a mad dog, too dangerous to bother."
Martin Van Creveld: I'll quote Henry Kissinger: "In campaigns like this the antiterror forces lose, because they don't win, and the rebels win by not losing."
Monbiot Goes Nuclear.
The meltdown in Japan convinces him why we have to go back to the stone age. Its called zero growth literally.
If you are dead and buried, no more CO2 emmissions...
http://savemyjapan.com reporting live from tokyo, recording froma cellphone.. about what is happening in Tokyo Japan after the M9.0 earthquake. There are no mobile lights, radio players, food, gasoline in stores... people are in total panic. help us and please think what you can do! Thank you.
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Save-MY-Japan/197892230243249?sk=info
_________________ 'Come and see the violence inherent in the system.
Help, help, I'm being repressed!'
“The more you tighten your grip, the more Star Systems will slip through your fingers.”
Not from me unfortunately only just keeping my head above water ;( _________________ 'Come and see the violence inherent in the system.
Help, help, I'm being repressed!'
“The more you tighten your grip, the more Star Systems will slip through your fingers.”
BERLIN (AFP) - An estimated 200,000 people took to the streets around Germany Saturday to protest against nuclear power, upping the pressure on Chancellor Angela Merkel on the eve of a critical state election.
One of the organisers Ausgestrahlt said 250,000 people took part in demonstrations in four major cities marching under the banner "
Fukushima Means: No More Nuclear Power Stations.".
Marches took place in Hamburg, Cologne, Munich and the capital Berlin ahead of the vote in wealthy Baden-Wuerttemberg state on Sunday at which nuclear energy is set to be a key issue.
Police said more than 100,000 took part in Berlin alone. Organisers claimed 20,000 more.
In a rainy Munich, police spoke of 30,000 participants, while organisers said there were 40,000. The marches in Hamburg and Cologne attracted 50,000 and 40,000 respectively, organisers said.
Hailing the protests as "Germany's biggest ever demonstration against nuclear power," Ausgestrahlt said, "the government's answer must be to turn the reactors off."
Curd Knuefer, 26, a Berlin student, said that in a context where majority public opinion had long been hostile to nuclear energy the Fukushima accident had been a wake-up call.
"We need to learn the lessons of Japan: nothing is impossible," said one placard.
"Today's demonstrations are just the prelude to a new, strong anti-nuclear movement. We're not going to let up until the plants are finally mothballed," said Jochen Stay, an Ausgestrahlt spokesman.
Merkel decided on March 14, in light of the nuclear crisis in Japan, to observe a three-month moratorium on extending the lifetimes of Germany's 17 reactors and to shut off the oldest seven temporarily, pending safety checks.
Voters believed she was merely electioneering, despite her protests to the contrary, and reported comments from the economy minister seemingly confirming this have added to Merkel's woes ahead of Sunday's must-win election.
Her conservative CDU party has braced for a tight result in the southwestern state they have held for 58 years.
Polls show the ecologist Greens, spurred by anti-nuclear sentiment in the country, could make history and garner enough votes with the opposition Social Democrats (SPD) to govern with Germany's first-ever Green state premier.
Fukushima Reactors Catastrophe: Radiation Exposure, Lies and Cover-up
by Dr. Ilya Sandra Perlingieri
Global Research, March 26, 2011
Fukushima Reactor # 4
“Should the public discover the true health cost[s] of nuclear pollution, a cry would rise from all parts of the world and people would refuse to cooperate passively with their own death.” Dr. Rosalie Bertell. “No Immediate Danger,” xiii.
I write this article not just as a long-time environmental writer and author, but also as a survivor of the horrific 2003 1-million-acre Southern California FIRESTORM that took many lives (both human and millions of animals) during the three-and-a-half-weeks of out-of-control blazes and 400-foot-high walls of flames throughout San Diego and Orange counties. This nightmare blanketed a vast area from over the border into Tijuana up to just south of Los Angeles. Many “back county” areas and national and state parks were also destroyed. Hundreds of thousands of us could not evacuate because planes were grounded and the flames crossed over many freeways. Death and destruction continued for many years after. Many of my friends have died since then, due to fire-related illnesses, as the entire area was blanketed with a spew of toxins. As with the tragedy of September 11th, when Christy Todd Whitman said New York’s air was okay, our local “public” officials refused to monitor the air. Finally, unable to breathe, even with a high-tech respirator, I called the county with warnings. San Diego air “quality” samples were posted for only three days and then conveniently disappeared. Toxins were off the scale.
We had just 15 minutes to evacuate, when the helicopter flew overhead at 7 a.m. My entire neighborhood of 2,000 was destroyed, as well as 90 percent of all the wildlife! It was deliberately torched, and people and animals died. When we were finally allowed “home,” all that was left was burn, ash, skeletons of trees, and hot soil. I know what it means, day-to-day, to just barely survive a countywide catastrophe. I know what deep trauma is all about. I know how everyone in charge lies and deceives those of us in extremis. I know that when a place in the US is declared a “Federal Disaster” area, this quite literally means: “tough, you are on your own. There will be no help.” My heart aches for the people in Japan who are directly in harm’s way, while their government continues to make nuclear corporate profits the priority over the safety of millions of Japanese. It is criminal; and it happens all over.
During and for years after the FIRESTORM, public officials lied and deceived us. Insurance companies refused to honor thousands of policies, and many of us had to take them to court…but even the “justice” system is rigged. From the mayor and fire officials to the governor and a so-called “Blue Ribbon Commission,” the 14 arson fires and their causes were all covered-up. No one was held accountable. No one told us the truth. Further, we barely had any real help in clean-up or recovery –even if we had insurance. Knee-deep in warm ash, I shoveled it myself over seven-and-a-half months, with only 5 days of help. Thousands of us had to do it ourselves…even to getting our own Relief Center set up –again, because officials gave us the run-around.
A week-and-a-half into the Fukushima nuclear disaster, this is what is happening:
1. There are 4 reactors in various stages of collapse, releasing untold amount of dangerous radiation. Two more reactors may also be at risk.
2. The public generally has not been told that, in addition, there are 40 years of spent fuel rods on this already contaminated site. See:
3. Other fuel rods are fully exposed (meaning, unknown amounts of release of radiation) because they are no longer covered with the necessary 45-feet of water.
4. Last week the US refused to post online whatever radiation levels they were monitoring as radiation hits the West Coast and comes East. Then there were several reports that their monitors [all of them?] went off line, or crashed. It is doubtful that any official will report the truth. See:
Realistically, the Japanese catastrophe could last months or years, given the half-life of many radioactive particles. We don’t know, because no official or agency is reporting the truth, while we all are in danger of radiation exposure. How much? For how long? What kind (cesium, iodine, plutonium, strontium, uranium, all radioactive and each with different half life)? I think this catastrophe will turn out to be far worse than Chernobyl because again profits taken precedence over safety. See:
I URGE EVERYONE who has access to a good Geiger counter or other monitoring technology to monitor radiation levels –most especially on the West Coast; and all other US states, as it comes East on the Jet Stream. Some radiation has already been reported in Washington state. One website is already monitoring the situation in real time in Santa Monica (near Los Angeles), CA:
But we need much more collecting and reporting of radiation data. This is extremely urgent! Remember, for the past 12-15 years, our weather and air have been altered and deliberately manipulated. All along the Pacific Coast, from San Diego, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Portland, Seattle, and Vancouver, we need real-time radiation figures. This goes for Canada, too. We can post these results on this website and others, so we can have an accurate collective picture of the on-going radiation dangers we may be facing throughout North America. This is a highly dangerous, yet invisible and real threat to our safety and wellbeing –most especially for children who are most vulnerable! [I also remind readers that the ENTIRE Gulf of Mexico, and its nearby southern states, continues to be poisoned daily in an unmitigated crisis!]
From the very beginning, nuclear energy has been totally unsafe. Even early on in the 1950s, when there were nuclear tests in Nevada, citizens were never warned about the extreme toxicity and dangers to which they were exposed. For our entire lives, the nuclear industry has done decades-long media campaigns to give us misinformation and lies. It’s all about greed, but never about our safety or well-being. The US government has indemnified these companies, just as they have done with the pharmaceutical companies and their dangerous drugs. We are all expendable, except as uninformed consumers to buy their toxic products, and then for the next generation to repeat this insanity. With each new generation that is less well educated (dumbed-down, and often on prescription drugs from an early age), there is less information, no accountability, but millions more people who now are far more ill from an environment rife with thousands of poisons that surround our every move.
Some of the Nuclear Dangers include:
1. The reactors have design flaws, as does Fukushima’s Mark 1, built by GE. There are many of these same-designed reactors here in the US. On March 16, the NY Times reported some of these flaws. But, it is just the tip of the proverbial iceberg:
2. For radioactive nuclear waste, there is no safe or secure storage anywhere on this planet. There are 1,623 hazardous Superfund sites all over the US (such as Hanford Nuclear Reservation, built in 1942, near Richland, WA, and the now highly polluted Columbia River) leaking radioactive poisons on a daily basis for decades. There is another working nuclear facility, San Onofre, located between San Diego and Los Angeles along the beach right on the Pacific Ocean. This facility was built on the San Andreas fault, an active earthquake zone. The nuclear contamination is enormous and, every day, this puts us all at risk. Dr. Rosalie Bertell, one of the world’s leading authorities who has written extensively about the spectacular flaws and true costs of nuclear energy, notes: “The problem of secure storage of nuclear waste…remains dangerous for millennia.” [See also her quote at the beginning of this article.]
3. The half-life of many radioactive elements is thousands of years. There is no safe level of exposure! It’s all Orwellian media hype and corporate lies. The plutonium fuel used at Fukushima Unit 3 reactor uses MOX [mixed oxide], a plutonium-uranium fuel mixture. A single milligram of MOX is 2-million times more deadly that enriched uranium. NOTE: Plutonium-239 has a half-life of 24,000 years; and Uranium-235 has a half-life of 700-million years.
4. Hiroshima and Nagasaki Atomic bomb survivors are still being monitored. Birth defects, cancers, and miscarriages are high, just as these continue to be so at Chernobyl. This April 25, it will be 25 years since Chernobyl’s nuclear catastrophe. Sterility figures (for human and all other life) continue to increase. Nothing is healed. Nothing is fixed for millions of people. The children are most vulnerable, and suffer enormously.
5. The horrific on-going crisis in Iraq [an ancient culture was illegally invaded and destroyed!] is also greatly exacerbated due to US bombings of Depleted (Radioactive) Uranium, poisoning the entire population. Now, illness and birth defects are common throughout the entire Iraqi population. It is all for control of their oil. Afghanis were also illegally bombed with DU. Is Libya next with yet another illegal invasion and DU bombings? None of the real and tragic stories are ever reported by the mainstream corporate-controlled media. This is in violation of international law and the Geneva Conventions. This is heinous! However, it all is irrelevant how much harm is perpetrated on innocent civilian populations when criminals are in charge. War is big business, while the rest of our economy is in a state of deliberately orchestrated collapse.
Connecting the Dots of Harm
The new report (#53) from GEAB [Global Europe Assessment Bulletin] published on March 17 from Brussels also is important news not generally reported. GEAB has been quite accurate in their evaluations, as the US economy (everything but military expenditures) continues to be intentionally destroyed:
Last week world-renowned author Dr. Helen Caldicott, co-founder of Physicians for Social Responsibility, gave a lecture in Montreal on the dangers of the nuclear age. Dr. Caldicott has spent almost 40 years educating the public about the serious medical dangers surrounding this topic and the now very urgently needed changes in human behavior to stop the extensive environmental devastation. Although the lecture has not been posted online, here is a recent interview (March 12):
Finally, there are other enormous concerns regarding our safety and well-being, because there is absolutely NO PRECAUTIONARY PRINCIPLE in place. That is the elite insider’s plan: grave harm! We MUST address these vital issues on a grassroots level, because those in charge are the ones causing us such extreme injury. We will need the help of independent scientists and health-care providers. It is a given that we no longer have any real air “quality.” What we are breathing with every single breath is a hazardous, now plasma-state, spew.(1) This impacts our immune system at the celluar DNA level. How will the thousands of tons of aerosolized poisons in Chemtrails, sprayed around the world, interact with radioactive materials (especially those with a long half life)? What might be the detrimental synergistic interaction(s) among the nano-Morgellons-fibers (that Clifford Carnicom has been researching microscopically for a decade(2), found in human, animals, and environmental samples), the nano-particles of fiber-coated aluminum, and now-unknown quantities of various radioactive particles?
How might all of this also interact with possibly thousands of tons of deadly Corexit 9500 dispersant sprayed (on land and over water for many months) and the unconscionable release of “Synthia,” a genetically modified synthetic genome bacteria now replicating exponentially throughout the Gulf of Mexico.(3) Tragically, the Gulf is now a biological and chemical war zone. However, it is all happening on an invisible level. This hazardous Gulf spew is in addition to what is heading our way from Japan to North America and thence to Europe and Asia. We must wake up. There is much we can do! Will YOU help?
NOTES:
1. Clifford Carnicom discusses the plasma state and other vital environmental issues in a recent web interview:
Dr. Rosalie Bertell. “No Immediate Danger” and “ Planet Earth: The Latest Weapon of War.”
Theo Colburn et al. “Our Stolen Future.”
Pierpaolo Mittica et al. “Chernobyl. The Hidden Legacy.” London: Trolley, Ltd., 2007. There is a section in this book written by Dr. Bertell.
Educator and environmental writer Dr. Ilya Sandra Perlingieri is the author of the highly acclaimed book, “The Uterine Crisis.” London’s “The Ecologist” calls this book “an inspiration.” She is an Associate of the Carnicom Institute.
Ilya Sandra Perlingieri is a frequent contributor to Global Research. Global Research Articles by Ilya Sandra Perlingieri
Japan's Nuclear Rescuers: 'Inevitable Some of Them May Die Within Weeks'
March 14: A Red Cross rescue worker, in red, is scanned for signs of radiation upon returning from Fukushima to his hospital in Nagahama, Shiga Prefecture.
Workers at the disaster-stricken Fukushima nuclear plant in Japan say they expect to die from radiation sickness as a result of their efforts to bring the reactors under control, the mother of one of the men tells Fox News.
The so-called Fukushima 50, the team of brave plant workers struggling to prevent a meltdown to four reactors critically damaged by the March 11 earthquake and tsunami, are being repeatedly exposed to dangerously high radioactive levels as they attempt to bring vital cooling systems back online.
Speaking tearfully through an interpreter by phone, the mother of a 32-year-old worker said: “My son and his colleagues have discussed it at length and they have committed themselves to die if necessary to save the nation.
“He told me they have accepted they will all probably die from radiation sickness in the short term or cancer in the long-term.”
Nuclear's green cheerleaders forget Chernobyl at our peril
Pundits who downplay the risks of radiation are ignoring the casualities of the past. Fukushima's meltdown may be worse
*
* John Vidal
*
o John Vidal
o guardian.co.uk, Friday 1 April 2011 20.00 BST
Every day there are more setbacks to solving the Japanese nuclear crisis and it's pretty clear that the industry and governments are telling us little; have no idea how long it will take to control; or what the real risk of cumulative contamination may be.
The authorities reassure us by saying there is no immediate danger and a few absolutist environmentalists obsessed with nuclear power because of the urgency to limit emissions repeat the industry mantra that only a few people died at Chernobyl – the worst nuclear accident in history. Those who disagree are smeared and put in the same camp as climate change deniers.
I prefer the words of Alexey Yablokov, member of the Russian academy of sciences, and adviser to President Gorbachev at the time of Chernobyl: "When you hear 'no immediate danger' [from nuclear radiation] then you should run away as far and as fast as you can."
Five years ago I visited the still highly contaminated areas of Ukraine and the Belarus border where much of the radioactive plume from Chernobyl descended on 26 April 1986. I challenge chief scientist John Beddington and environmentalists like George Monbiot or any of the pundits now downplaying the risks of radiation to talk to the doctors, the scientists, the mothers, children and villagers who have been left with the consequences of a major nuclear accident.
It was grim. We went from hospital to hospital and from one contaminated village to another. We found deformed and genetically mutated babies in the wards; pitifully sick children in the homes; adolescents with stunted growth and dwarf torsos; foetuses without thighs or fingers and villagers who told us every member of their family was sick.
This was 20 years after the accident but we heard of many unusual clusters of people with rare bone cancers. One doctor, in tears, told us that one in three pregnancies in some places was malformed and that she was overwhelmed by people with immune and endocrine system disorders. Others said they still saw caesium and strontium in the breast milk of mothers living far from the areas thought to be most affected, and significant radiation still in the food chain. Villages testified that "the Chernobyl necklace" – thyroid cancer – was so common as to be unremarkable; many showed signs of accelerated ageing.
The doctors and scientists who have dealt directly with the catastrophe said that the UN International Atomic Energy Agency's "official" toll, through its Chernobyl Forum, of 50 dead and perhaps 4,000 eventual fatalities was insulting and grossly simplistic. The Ukrainian Scientific Centre for Radiation, which estimated that infant mortality increased 20 to 30% after the accident, said their data had not been accepted by the UN because it had not been published in a major scientific journal.
Konstantin Tatuyan, one of the "liquidators" who had helped clean up the plant, told us that nearly all his colleagues had died or had cancers of one sort or another, but that no one had ever asked him for evidence. There was burning resentment at the way the UN, the industry and ill-informed pundits had played down the catastrophe.
While there have been thousands of east European studies into the health effects of radiation from Chernobyl, only a very few have been accepted by the UN, and there have been just a handful of international studies trying to gauge an overall figure. They range from the UN's Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation study (57 direct deaths and 4,000 cancers expected) to the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War (IPPNW), who estimated that more than 10,000 people had been affected by thyroid cancer alone and a further 50,000 cases could be expected.
Moving up the scale, a 2006 report for Green MEPs suggested up to 60,000 possible deaths; Greenpeace took the evidence of 52 scientists and estimated the deaths and illnesses to be 93,000 terminal cancers already and perhaps 140,000 more in time. Using other data, the Russian Academy of Medical Sciences declared in 2006 that 212,000 people had died as a direct consequence of Chernobyl.
At the end of 2006, Yablokov and two colleagues, factoring in the worldwide drop in births and increase in cancers seen after the accident, estimated in a study published in the annals of the New York Academy of Sciences that 985,000 people had so far died and the environment had been devastated. Their findings were met with almost complete silence by the World Health Organisation and the industry.
So who can we trust when the estimates swing so wildly? Should we believe the empirical evidence of the doctors; or governments and industrialists backed by their PR companies? So politicised has nuclear energy become, that you can now pick and choose your data, rubbish your opponents, and ignore anything you do not like. The fact is we may never know the truth about Chernobyl because the records are lost, thousands of people from 24 countries who cleaned up the site have dispersed across the vast former Soviet Union, and many people have died.
Fukushima is not Chernobyl, but it is potentially worse. It is a multiple reactor catastrophe happening within 150 miles of a metropolis of 30 million people. If it happened at Sellafield, there would be panic in every major city in Britain. We still don't know the final outcome but to hear experts claiming that nuclear radiation is not that serious, or that this accident proves the need for nuclear power, is nothing short of disgraceful.
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only just keeping my head above water ;(