So They’re Experimenting With Military Robots In Gaza Now

CAITLIN JOHNSTONE, MAR 4, 2024,  https://www.caitlinjohnst.one/p/so-theyre-experimenting-with-military?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=82124&post_id=142282788&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=1ise1&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email

One of the most horrifying facts about this dystopia we live in is that large-scale military operations are routinely used as testing grounds for new war machinery, using human bodies as guinea pigs for experimentation in what amount to giant blood-soaked field laboratories — all to benefit the strategic objectives of empire managers and the profit margins of the military-industrial complex.

Haaretz has a new article out titled “Gaza Becomes Israel’s Testing Ground for Military Robots”, which reports that “In an effort to avoid harming soldiers and dogs, the IDF has been experimenting with the use of robots and remote-controlled dogs in the Gaza War.”

(Yeah because my gosh, can you imagine how terrible it would be if Israeli soldiers and dogs got harmed while carrying out a genocide?)

The article’s author Sagi Cohen reports that drone-mounted robot dogs and remotely controlled bulldozers are two of the new apocalyptic horrors currently being battle-tested in Gaza, saying “defense establishment officials confirm that there has been a leap in the use and sophistication of robots on the battlefield.” Which is a pretty disconcerting sentence to read.

This news comes out at the same time as a new Public Citizen report warning of the likely imminent arrival of autonomous weapons systems which will kill people with minimal instruction from human pilots, saying “The most serious worry involving autonomous weapons is that they inherently dehumanize the people targeted and make it easier to tolerate widespread killing, including in violation of international human rights law.” 

The more normalized robots become within the world’s militaries the closer we come to this point, and steps are already being taken in that direction. As Common Dreams’ Thor Benson notes in an article about the Public Citizen report, “Israel has purchased and at times deployed self-piloting, lethal drones.”

Back in January I wrote that “Gaza is a live laboratory for the military industrial complex,” saying “Data is with absolute certainty being collected on all the newer weapons being field-tested on human bodies in Gaza (just like has been happening in Ukraine) to be used to benefit the war machine and arms industry.”

What sparked this comment at the time was reports and first-hand witness accounts we’d seen coming out about the prolific use of IDF “sniper drones” in Gaza since October, with Israeli forces frequently shooting Palestinians with quad drones armed with rifles. Copious records are most assuredly being compiled on the effectiveness of these newer weapons and tactics in ending human lives, which will then be used to help market those weapons to other states and to improve their efficiency in killing.

When I say this is most assuredly happening, I am not being hyperbolic for effect. Author and journalist Antony Loewenstein gave a lengthy interview on The Chris Hedges Report back in December about Israel’s long and extensively documented history of using Gaza as a testing ground for new weapons, spyware, surveillance and security systems, AI, drones, and tactics, which has profited scores of corporations and enabled Israel to become a player of outsized success in the global weapons industry. 

“Israel’s drones, surveillance technology including spyware, facial recognition software, and biometric gathering infrastructure, along with smart fences, experimental bombs, and AI-controlled machine guns are all tried out on the captive population in Gaza, often with lethal results,” says Hedges in introduction. “These weapons and technologies are then certified as ‘battle-tested’ and sold around the world.”

This doesn’t only happen in Gaza. This past September The Wall Street Journal published an article titled “The War in Ukraine Is Also a Giant Arms Fair,” subtitled “Arms makers are getting orders for weapons being put to the test on the battlefield.” In January of last year CNN published a report titled “How Ukraine became a testbed for Western weapons and battlefield innovation,” with one source saying that Ukraine is “absolutely a weapons lab in every sense because none of this equipment has ever actually been used in a war between two industrially developed nations.”

And of course we are also seeing this same phenomenon in Africa. In 2021 Mintpress News published a report by Scott Timcke titled “West Africa is the Latest Testing Ground for US Military Artificial Intelligence” about this very same trend. In 2020 Libya saw what is believed to have been the first time a human being has ever been killed by a fully automated drone attack — that is, killed without the machine having been told to do so by a human.

The other day we discussed how the empire’s great weakness is that it depends on normal human beings to carry out its orders and turn the gears of the machine. If you look at the facts and think about them for a moment, it’s not hard to see how the empire managers are hoping to overcome this weakness in the future.

March 4, 2024 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Could climate change release 35 swimming pools’ worth of nuclear waste? Or worse… unleash a world-ending pandemic? These are the terrifying unexpected consequences of melting ice

By ROB WAUGH FOR DAILYMAIL.COM, 2 March 2024  https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-13135571/Could-climate-change-release-35-swimming-pools-worth-nuclear-waste-worse-unleash-world-ending-pandemic-terrifying-unexpected-consequences-melting-ice.html

• Buried ‘nuclear city’ and swimming pools’ worth of nuclear waste
• Frozen viruses have already begun to infect human beings
• READ MORE As melting ice exposes new oil reserves, oil giants move in

Around the world, glaciers and permafrost are melting, and in some places the retreating ice is releasing buried secrets people hoped would remain forgotten.

Rising waters have exposed a secret Greenland nuclear base that engineers thought would never resurface as well as a radioactive ‘Tomb’ at the site of American nuclear tests.

And while it sounds far-fetched, very credible experts have warned that the next pandemic may well come from ancient pathogens buried in the ice, or even from diseases harbored by frozen dead Neanderthals.

The ‘secret nuclear city’ under Greenland’s ice

Camp Century in Greenland is a secret nuclear-powered ‘city under the ice’, where U.S. Army engineers carried out weapons research

The base has been abandoned for almost half a century, but now poses a serious concern over nuclear waste.

Powered by a portable nuclear generator, Camp Century was built in 1959, and was built to host 200 soldiers, with a plan to expand the base to hold 600 ballistic missiles.

‘Camp Century’ was abandoned in 1967, but the nuclear reactor at the base – which also had a hospital and a church in its tunnels – has long since been removed, but radioactive waste remains.

When the Army Corps of Engineers (ACE) left the base, they assumed that frigid temperatures and falling snow would keep the nuclear waste there forever.

In total, the waste is equivalent to the mass of 30 Airbus A320 airplanes – and researchers now fear that it could be released into the sea.

A 2016 study suggested that the nuclear waste could be released into the sea this century, but newer measurements at the base suggest that this will not happen until 2100.

‘Tomb’ of poison at nuclear test site

In the Marshall Islands, a huge ‘lid’ which locals know as ‘The Tomb’ covers 31 million cubic feet of nuclear waste – equivalent to the volume of 35 Olympic-sized swimming pools.

The islands were the site of American nuclear tests, but the U.S. military also shipped in waste from the mainland.

From 1946 to 1958, America conducted 67 nuclear tests in the South Pacific.

The concrete ‘lid’ officially known as the Runit Dome was built on Enewetak Atoll in the Marshall Islands to contain radioactive material from American nuclear tests in the 1950s.

Some studies have suggested that radiation levels near the site are similar to those near Chernobyl and the waters around the dome are rising every year.

Changing temperatures are causing the lid to crack, while rising waters are lapping at the atoll.

Plutonium – and a lost hydrogen bomb?

A 1968 plane crash scattered plutonium from American nuclear weapons over the ice in Greenland, which could be released by global warming.

The U.S. military assumed that the Thule air base in Greenland would be rapidly attacked in a nuclear war, so kept nuclear-armed bombers in the air to fly towards Russia in the event of an attack.

The Thule incident saw large amounts of radioactive plutonium dispersed onto the ice sheet, as a cabin fire in a B-52 bomber forced the crew to bail out.

Conventional explosives inside the four B28FI thermonuclear bombs detonated, spreading radioactive waste.

But the uranium-235 fissile core of one of the bombs was never found, despite a search with submarines.

Reports in the decades since have suggested that the lost bomb is lying under the seabed.

Frozen viruses and the next pandemic

Researchers have warned that the next pandemic could come from melting ice.

Genetic analysis of soil and lake sediment near the highest Arctic freshwater lake, Lake Hazen, suggests that the risk of ‘viral spillover’ may be high close to melting glaciers.

‘Spillover’ is where a virus infects a new host for the first time – and analysis of viruses and potential hosts in the lakebed suggests this risk may be higher near to melting glaciers.

Researchers at Ohio State University found genetic material from 33 viruses, 28 of which were unknown, in the Tibetan plateau in China, putting their age at 15,000 years old.

Viruses from Neanderthals

Other researchers have warned of viruses unleashed by melting permafrost: one-quarter of the northern hemisphere sits on top of permanently frozen ground – known as permafrost, but large areas are now melting as the world warms.

There are already examples of this – with a 2016 anthrax outbreak in Siberia attributed to melting permafrost exposing an infected reindeer carcass.

Previously researchers have warned that global warming and thawing ice might unearth diseases such as smallpox frozen into the corpses of victims, with a few infectious particles enough to revive the pathogen.

As permafrost thaws due to climate change, virologist Jean-Michel Claverie has warned that ancient viruses harbored in the long-frozen ground could be released.

Claverie explains that if an ancient pathogen eradicated Neanderthals, for instance, their frozen remains might still contain infectious viruses that could be unleashed as ice melts.

Claverie told Bloomberg News, “With climate change, we are used to thinking of dangers coming from the south.

“Now, we realize there might be some danger coming from the north as the permafrost thaws and frees microbes, bacteria and viruses.”

Claverie’s team previously revived giant viruses from up to 48,000 years ago – and the veteran scientist has warned that there could be even more ancient viruses in the ice, some of which could potentially infect humans.

Frozen poison in the ice

Polar regions have acted as a ‘chemical sink’ for the planet, locking away poisons in the ice – but melting ice could release this.

A study in Geophysical Research Letters found huge reserves of the toxic heavy metal mercury frozen in Arctic permafrost.

The amount may be 10 times higher than all the mercury pumped into the atmosphere from industry in three decades.

Paul Schuster, a U.S. Geological Survey hydrologist, “This is a complete game-changer for mercury. It’s a natural source, but some of it will be released through what we’re doing with climate change.”

Mercury is released by industry, volcanic eruptions and rock weathering – but what’s less clear is what will happen if the ‘pool’ in the Arctic is released.

March 4, 2024 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

US Refuses to Assure UK Judges That Assange Won’t Be Executed If He’s Extradited

UK law prohibits extradition to a country that may impose capital punishment.

By Marjorie Cohn , TRUTHOUT, February 27, 2024

n February 20 and 21, as nearly 1,000 supporters of Julian Assange gathered outside the London courthouse, a two-judge panel of the High Court of Justice presided over a “permission hearing.” Assange’s lawyers asked the judges to allow them to appeal the home secretary’s extradition order and raise issues that the district court judge had rejected without full consideration.

The High Court panel, Dame Victoria Sharp and Justice Jeremy Johnson, were concerned that the U.S. government could execute Assange if he is extradited to the United States, a penalty outlawed in the U.K. Although Assange faces 175 years in prison for the charges alleged in the indictment, there is nothing to prevent the U.S. from adding additional offenses which would carry the death penalty.

The Trump Administration Indicted Assange for Exposing U.S. War Crimes

Assange is charged with 17 counts of alleged violations of the Espionage Act, based on obtaining, receiving, possessing and publishing national defense information. He is accused of “recruit[ing] sources” and “soliciting” confidential documents just by maintaining the WikiLeaks website that stated it accepted such materials. Assange is also charged with one count of “conspiracy to commit computer intrusion” with intent to “facilitate [whistleblower Chelsea] Manning’s acquisition and transmission of classified information related to the national defence of the United States.”

The basis for the indictment, Assange’s lawyers told the panel, is WikiLeaks’s “exposure of criminality on the part of the U.S. government on an unprecedented scale.” Assange is charged for revealing war crimes committed by the United States in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantánamo Bay. The indictment has nothing to do with Hillary Clinton and the 2016 election or Swedish allegations of sexual misconduct, which have been dropped.

WikiLeaks revealed the “Iraq War Logs” — 400,000 field reports including 15,000 unreported deaths of Iraqi civilians, as well the as systematic rape, torture and murder after U.S. forces handed over detainees to a notorious Iraqi torture squad. The revelations also included the “Afghan War Diary” — 90,000 reports of more civilian casualties by coalition forces than the U.S. military had reported.

In addition, WikiLeaks revealed the “Guantánamo Files,” 779 secret reports with evidence that 150 innocent people had been held at Guantánamo Bay for years, and 800 men and boys had been tortured and abused, in violation of the Geneva Conventions and the Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment.

WikiLeaks also revealed the notorious 2007 “Collateral Murder Video,” in which a U.S. Army Apache attack helicopter targeted and killed 11 unarmed civilians in Baghdad, including two Reuters journalists and a man who came to rescue the wounded. Two children were injured. The video contains evidence of war crimes prohibited by the Geneva Conventions.

And WikiLeaks exposed “Cablegate” — 251,000 confidential U.S. State Department cables that “disclosed corruption, diplomatic scandals and spy affairs on an international scale.” According to The New York Times, they told “the unvarnished story of how the government makes its biggest decisions, the decisions that cost the country most heavily in lives and money.”

“These were the most important revelations of criminal U.S. state behavior in history,” Assange attorney Mark Summers argued to the High Court panel.

Assange’s Appellate Issues

Assange is asking the U.K. High Court to review issues of treaty obligations, human rights violations and political persecution.

The U.S.-U.K. Extradition Treaty would allow the U.S. to amend or add charges which could expose Assange to the death penalty, a punishment prohibited in the U.K. In response to questioning by one of the judges, the prosecutor admitted that the U.S. had not provided assurances that Assange would not be subject to the death penalty if extradited.

Article 4(1) of the extradition treaty does not allow extradition for political offenses. Espionage is the “quintessential” political offense, Assange attorney Edward Fitzgerald told the panel. “The gravamen (and defining legal characteristic) of each of the charges is thus an alleged intention to obtain or disclose US state secrets in a manner that was damaging to the security of the US state,” which makes them political offenses, Assange’s lawyers wrote. The defense claimed it was an abuse of process for the United States to pursue extradition of Assange for a political offense……………………………………………………………………………….

“The Most Important Revelation Since Abu Ghraib”

The Collateral Murder video is “the most important revelation since Abu Ghraib,” Summers told the panel. “The cables Assange published disclosed extrajudicial assassinations, rendition, torture, dark prisons and drone killings.” Summers said the Guantánamo Files revealed a “colossal criminal act.” The defense pointed out that WikiLeaks’s revelations actually saved lives. After WikiLeaks published evidence of Iraqi torture centers established by the U.S., the Iraqi government refused President Barack Obama’s request to grant immunity to U.S. troops who committed criminal and civil offenses there. As a result, Obama had to withdraw U.S. forces from Iraq.

The Obama administration, which prosecuted more whistleblowers under the Espionage Act than all prior U.S. administrations combined, considered prosecuting Assange, but feared it would violate the First Amendment. The administration was unable to distinguish what WikiLeaks did from what The New York Times and The Guardian did since they also published documents that Chelsea Manning had leaked.

But the Trump administration did indict Julian Assange. The U.K. arrested Assange and has held him in Belmarsh Prison for nearly five years pending a decision on whether he should be extradited to the U.S. to stand trial.

In January 2021, following a three-week hearing, Baraitser denied extradition after finding that Assange’s mental health was so frail there was a “substantial risk” of suicide if he was extradited to the U.S. because of the harsh conditions of confinement in which he would be held. But she rejected all other legal objections to extradition that Assange had raised.

U.S. “Assurances” That Assange Will Be Treated Humanely

After Baraitser had already ruled, the U.S. came forward with diplomatic “assurances” that Assange would be treated humanely if extradited to the United States. The Biden administration assured the court that Assange: (1) would not be subject to onerous Special Administrative Measures (SAMs) that would keep him in extreme isolation and monitor his confidential communications with his attorneys; (2) would not be housed at the notorious ADX Florence maximum security prison in Colorado; (3) would receive psychological and clinical treatment in custody; and (4) could serve any custodial sentence in Australia.

But the U.S. said the assurances wouldn’t apply if Assange committed a “future act” that “met the test” for the SAMs. That unspecified contingency would be based on a subjective determination of prison authorities with no judicial review.

Although the United States has reneged on nearly identical assurances in the past, the High Court accepted them at face value, saying it was satisfied that the U.S. was acting in good faith, and in December 2021, the High Court reversed Baraitser’s denial of extradition.

However, in a 2023 decision, the U.K. Supreme Court unanimously held that the court has an independent duty to determine the validity of assurances,

writing, “The government’s assessment of whether there is such a risk is an important element of that evidence, but the court is bound to consider the question in the light of the evidence as a whole and to reach its own conclusion.”

In June 2023, a single High Court judge, Jonathan Swift, refused Assange permission to appeal in a cursory three-page ruling. The hearing on February 20 and 21 was an effort by Assange’s legal team to reverse that decision so that the High Court will entertain his appeal.

Assange Redacted Names of Informants to Protect Them

…………………… Several witnesses testified at the 2020 extradition hearing that Assange took great care to ensure that the names were redacted. Other outlets published the unredacted cables before WikiLeaks with no adverse consequences. 

………………….Moreover, Brig. Gen. Robert Carr testified at Manning’s court martial that no one was harmed by the WikiLeaks releases. Summers told the panel that Baraitser never balanced the public interest in the disclosures against the fact that no harm came from them.

Conviction of Assange Would Chill Investigate Journalists From Exposing Government Secrets

In November 2022, The New York Times, The Guardian, Le Monde, DER SPIEGEL and El País signed a joint open letter calling on the Biden administration to drop the Espionage Act charges against Assange. They wrote, “Publishing is not a crime,” noting that Assange is the first publisher to be charged under the Espionage Act for revealing government secrets.

The indictment would punish conduct that national security journalists routinely engage in, including cultivating and communicating confidentially with sources and soliciting information from them, shielding their identities from disclosure, and publishing classified information. If Assange is prosecuted and convicted, it will discourage journalists both in the U.S. and abroad from publishing evidence of government wrongdoing.

No publisher has ever been prosecuted under the Espionage Act for disclosing government secrets. The U.S. government has never prosecuted a publisher for publishing classified information, which constitutes an essential tool of investigative journalism.

But rather than dropping Trump’s prosecution of Assange consistent with the position of the Obama-Biden administration, Joe Biden has zealously pursued extradition and prosecution.

Pending House Resolution Would Call for Dismissal of All Charges Against Assange.

On December 13, 2023, House Resolution 934 was introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives by Rep. Paul A. Gosar (R-Arizona), with cosponsors from both political parties. It would express “the sense of the House of Representatives that regular journalistic activities are protected under the First Amendment, and that the United States ought to drop all charges against and attempts to extradite Julian Assange.” The resolution states that the WikiLeaks disclosures “promoted public transparency through the exposure of the hiring of child prostitutes by Defence Department contractors, friendly fire incidents, human rights abuses, civilian killings, and United States use of psychological warfare.”

…………… The conviction of Assange under the Espionage Act, the resolution continues, “would set a precedent allowing the United States to prosecute and imprison journalists for First Amendment protected activities, including the obtainment and publication of information, something that occurs on a regular basis.”

…………..

At the conclusion of the two-day hearing, the High Court panel set a due date of March 4 for further written submissions from the parties. If the court agrees to review at least one of Assange’s appellate issues, there will be a full hearing. Meanwhile, Assange, who is in poor physical and emotional health, remains in prison.

If the High Court denies his right to appeal, Assange can ask the European Court of Human Rights to hear his case. If that court finds “exceptional circumstances” and an “imminent risk of irreparable harm,” it can order provisional measures, including a stay of execution while the case is pending in the European court. But there is a danger that the U.K. could immediately extradite Assange to the United States before the European Court of Human Rights has a chance to consider Assange’s petition.

 https://truthout.org/articles/us-refuses-to-assure-uk-judges-that-assange-wont-be-executed-if-hes-extradited/—

March 3, 2024 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Nuclear boondoggle | The West Report

News Corp and their boy Peter Dutton won’t give up spruiking nuclear energy, though it’s too expensive and could never arrive on time. Why?

by Michael West | Mar 2, 2024 | The West Report

March 2, 2024 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

TODAY, Nuclear power stopping climate change? IT’S THE OTHER WAY AROUND!

Climate change makes the nuclear industry EVEN MORE DANGEROUS!

Bad enough that nuclear facilities run the risk of catastrophic nuclear meltdown. Admittedly, that is a risk for some, but not all nuclear facilities, and it is a very rare event.

But while the probability of such an event is rare, the consequences of such an event are severe. That is why nuclear facilities can’t get insurance

Bad enough that nuclear facilities, even when running well, release low level ionising radiation, which increases the risk of cancer for millions of people. Bad enough that nuclear workers have a higher risk and rate of cancer and other radiation-associated diseases.

Bad enough that the nuclear industry’s only real raison d’etre is to produce nuclear weapons, thus endangering the whole world.

But now we’ve got climate change.

This week’s news carries not only the wildfire danger to nuclear facilities, but also some of the drastic risks of sea level rise- Buried Nuclear Waste From the Cold War Could Resurface as Ice Sheets Melt. And that’s only one of the “water effects” of global heating.

On the one hand – there’s the danger of sea surges, rising sea levels, floods. On the other hand – the shortage of water when nuclear reactors require continuous huge amounts of water for cooling. ( Do they think of this as they bound into the Artificial Intelligence Age, with its plans for huge data farms powered by nuclear?)

It sure is time, as a global human community, that we really took global heating seriously.

It’s also time to put a stop to this nefarious nuclear industry – before climate change puts a stop to it, in a very nasty way.

February 29, 2024 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

‘I was a guinea pig during secret Christmas Island nuclear tests’

By Nicola Haseler & Lewis Adams. BBC News, Bedfordshire. 28 Feb 24

A former Royal Engineer who witnessed several atomic and hydrogen bomb explosions as part of the UK’s nuclear tests said he was a “guinea pig”.

Brian Cantle, from Bedfordshire, was 21 when he was sent to Christmas Island as part of his national service in 1957.

He and the other soldiers were not told what they were going to do there – due to the covert nature of the programme.

Mr Cantle, now 87, has been awarded a Nuclear Test Medal for his work on the Pacific Ocean island.

The veteran, from Whipsnade, witnessed several atomic and hydrogen bomb explosions during his 12 months on the island.

He was one of 22,000 British servicemen who participated in the British and United States’ nuclear tests and clean-ups between 1952 and 1965……………………………………………

On the days when bombs were tested, Mr Cantle said troops would have to put on brown overalls and face the other way to the bomb going off.

He added: “It was just a big flash and then we were told we could turn round and see it. It was an enormous explosion.”

‘We were guinea pigs’

In the decades that have followed the tests, calls have been made for the men who witnessed a nuclear test to receive an apology for the health risks they were exposed to.

“We were guinea pigs, we were just told what to do and did it,” Mr Cantle said………

The Grapple H-bomb nuclear test series was intended to show that the British had the technology to influence the Cold War, following the development of the atomic bomb by U.S. scientist Robert Oppenheimer.

The hydrogen bombs, which were much more powerful than atomic bombs, were detonated every three months…….  https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-beds-bucks-herts-68415338

February 29, 2024 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Texas: Disaster declaration issued and nuclear weapons plant shut down as wildfires spread

Sky News, Reemul Balla, 28 Feb 24

A disaster declaration has been issued for dozens of counties in northern Texas as raging wildfires forced evacuations in several towns and a nuclear weapons plant to shut down.

Republican governor Greg Abbott proclaimed 60 counties were in a state of disaster and called for extra emergency services to support local firefighters in tackling the blazes………………………………………………………………………….

Pantex nuclear facility paused operations until further notice due to an out-of-control fire approaching its Panhandle site near Amarillo.

Its 16,000-acre site is home to the plant that builds and disassembles America’s nuclear weapons.

“The fire near Pantex is not contained,” the company said. “Response efforts have shifted to evacuations.”

Pantex confirmed there was no fire on the site as emergency services continued to monitor the situation.

It added “all employees” had been accounted for and “non-essential personnel” were no longer on site………………………………………………………………………………………. more https://news.sky.com/story/texas-disaster-declaration-issued-and-nuclear-weapons-plant-shut-down-as-wildfires-spread-13082651

February 29, 2024 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Release of fourth batch of Fukushima treated radioactive water begins

Japan Times, 28 Feb 24

The operator of the crippled Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant on Wednesday started releasing a fourth batch of treated radioactive water into the sea, in what will be the last discharge for the fiscal year ending March.

As in previous rounds, Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings (Tepco) will discharge 7,800 metric tons of treated water over about 17 days, having confirmed that the radioactivity level of the latest batch of water meets the standards set by the government and the utility.

China, which opposes the water release, has banned Japanese seafood imports since the first discharge in late August. The two countries have engaged in informal discussions to resolve the matter, but no substantial progress has been made……………………….. more https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2024/02/28/japan/society/fukushima-radioactive-water-fourth-release/

February 29, 2024 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Uncategorized | Leave a comment