The Fukushima Disaster: The hidden side of the story

Arnie Gundersen speaks of the cliché that “the solution to pollution is dilution,” but with the radiation from Fukushima being sent into the Pacific, there will be “bio-accumulation”—with vegetation absorbing radiation, little fish eating that vegetation and intensifying it and bigger fish eating the smaller fish and further bio-accumulating the radioactivity. Already, tuna off California have been found with radiation traced to Fukushima. With this planned further, and yet greater dispersal, thousands of people “in the Pacific basin will die from radiation,” he says.

Exposing the nuclear industry and its lies.  https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2023/07/08/labour-explore-ai-ban-decisions-nuclear-weapons-david-lammy/

“The Fukushima Disaster, The Hidden Side of the Story,” is a just-released film documentary, a powerful, moving, information-full film that is superbly made. Directed and edited by Philippe Carillo, it is among the strongest ever made on the deadly dangers of nuclear technology. 

It begins with the words in 1961 of U.S. President John F. Kennedy: “Every man, woman and child lives under a nuclear sword of Damocles, hanging by the slenderest of threads, capable of being cut at any moment by an accident, or miscalculation or by madness.”

It then goes to the March 2011 disaster at the Fukushima Daichi nuclear power plants in Japan after they were struck by a tsunami. Their back-up diesel generators were kicked in but  “did not run for long,” notes the documentary. That led to three of the six plants exploding—and there’s video of this—“releasing an unpreceded amount of nuclear radiation into the air.”

“Fukushima is the world’s largest ever industrial catastrophe,” says Professor John Keane of the University of Sydney in Australia. He says there was no emergency plan and, as to the owner of Fukushima, Tokyo Electric Power Company, with the accident its CEO “for five nights and days…locked himself inside his office.”

Meanwhile, from TEPCO, there was “only good news” with two Japanese government agencies also “involved in the cover-up”—the Nuclear Industry Safety Agency and Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry.

“Japanese media was ordered to censor information. The Japanese government failed to protect its people,” the documentary relates. 

Yumi Kikuchi of Fukushima, since a leader of the Fukushima Kids Project, recalls: “On TV, they said that ‘it’s under control’ and they kept saying that for two months. The nuclear power plant had already melted and even exploded but they never admitted the meltdown until May. So, people in Fukushima during that time were severely exposed to radiation.”

Arnie Gundersen, a nuclear engineer and now a principal of Fairewinds Energy Education in Burlington, Vermont, speaks of being told by Naoto Kan, the prime minister of Japan at the time of the accident, that “our existence as a sovereign nation was at stake because of the disaster at Fukushima Daichi.” 

Kan then appears in documentary and speaks of “manmade” links to the disaster.  

The documentary tells how Kan, following the accident, became “an advocate against nuclear power….ordered all nuclear power plants in Japan to shut down for safety” and for the nation “to move into renewable energy.”

But, subsequently, “a nuclear advocate,” Shinzo Abe, became Japan’s prime minister.

Yoichi Shimatsu, a former Japan Times journalist, appears in the film and speaks of “the cruelty, the cynicism of this government.” He speaks of how in the accident’s aftermath, “nearly every member of Parliament and leaders of the major political parties” along with corporate executives, “moved their relatives out of Japan”

He says “Shanghai is the largest Japanese community outside Japan now…while these same people” had been “telling the people of Fukushima go home, 10 kilometers from Fukushima, go home it’s safe, while their families are overseas in Los Angeles, in Paris, in London and in Shanghai.”

“If it’s safe, why they left?” asks Kikuchi. “They tell us it’s safe to live in Fukushima, and to eat Fukushima food to support Fukushima people. There’s a campaign by Japanese government…and people believe it.”

Gundersen says: “At Fukushima Daichi, the world is already seeing deaths from cancer related to the disaster…There’ll be many more over time.” He adds that there’s been a “huge increase in thyroid cancer in the surrounding population.”

“Unfortunately,” he goes on, “the Japanese government is not telling us al the evidence. There’s a lot of pressure on the scientists and the medical community to distort the evidence so there’s no blowback against nuclear power.”

There is a section in the documentary on the impacts of radioactivity which includes Dr. Helen Caldicott, former president of Physician for Social Responsibility, discussing the impacts of radiation on the body and how it causes cancer. She states: “There is no safe level of radiation. I repeat, there is no safe level of radiation. Each dose of radiation is cumulative and adds to your risk of getting cancer and that’s absolutely documented in the medical literature.”

“The nuclear industry says, well, there are ‘safe doses’ of radiation and even says a little bit of radiation is good for you and that is called the theory of hormesis,” notes Dr. Caldicott. “They lie and they lie and they lie.”

Maggie Gundersen, who was a reporter and then a public relations representative for the nuclear industry and, like her husband Arnie became an opponent of nuclear power, speaks of how nuclear power derives from the World War II Manhattan Project program to develop atomic weapons and post-war so-called “Atoms for Peace” push. 

Gundersen says in becoming a nuclear industry spokesperson, “the things I was taught weren’t true.” The notion, for example, that what is called a containment at a nuclear plant is untrue because radioactivity “escapes every day as a nuclear power plant operates” and in a “calamity” is released massively. 

As to economics, she cited the claim decades ago that nuclear power would be “too cheap to meter.” The president of Fairewinds Energy Education, she says: “Atomic power is now the most expensive power there is on the planet. It is not feasible. It never has been.” Regarding the radioactive waste produced by nuclear power, she says “there is literally no technology to do that…It does not exist.”

As to international oversight, the documentary presents the final version of a “Report of the United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation” issued in 2014 which finds that the radiation doses from Fukushima “to the general public during the first year and estimated for their lifetimes are generally low or very low….The most important effect is on mental and social well-being.”

Shimatsu says it is not only in Japan but on an international level that the consequences of radioactive exposure have been completely minimized or denied. “We are all seeing a global political agreement centered in the UN organizations, tie IAEA [International Atomic Energy Agency], the World Health Organization…All the international agencies are whitewashing what is happening in Fukushima. We take dosimeters and Geiger counters in there, we see a much different story,” he says. 

In Germany, says Maggie Gunderson, “the politicians chose” to do a study to “substantiate” that no health impacts “happened around nuclear power plants….But what they found was the radiation releases cause significant numbers of childhood leukemia.” A summary of that 2008 study comes on the screen. The U.S. followed up on that research, she says, but recently “the [U.S.] Nuclear Regulatory Commission said it was not going to do that study,” that “it doesn’t have enough funding; it had to shut it down.” She said the real reason was that it was producing “data they don’t want to make public.”

Beyond the airborne releases of radiation after the Fukushima accident, now, says the documentary, there is the growing threat of radioactivity through water that has and still is leaking from the plants as well as more than a million tons of radioactive water stored in a thousand tanks built at the plant site. After the accident, TEPCO released 300,000 tons of radioactive water into the Pacific Ocean. Now there is no land for more tanks, so the Japanese government, the documentary relates, has decided that starting this year to dump massive amounts of radioactive water over a 30-year period into the Pacific. 

Arnie Gundersen speaks of the cliché that “the solution to pollution is dilution,” but with the radiation from Fukushima being sent into the Pacific, there will be “bio-accumulation”—with vegetation absorbing radiation, little fish eating that vegetation and intensifying it and bigger fish eating the smaller fish and further bio-accumulating the radioactivity. Already, tuna off California have been found with radiation traced to Fukushima. With this planned further, and yet greater dispersal, thousands of people “in the Pacific basin will die from radiation,” he says.

Andrew Napuat, a member of the Parliament of the nation of Vanuatu, an 83 island archipelago in the Pacific, says in the documentary: “We have the right to say no to the Japan solution. We can’t let them jeopardize our sustenance and livelihood.” Vanuatu along with 13 other countries has signed and ratified the South Pacific Nuclear Free Zone Treaty. 

As the documentary nears its end, Arnie Gundersen says that considering the meltdown at the Three Mile Island nuclear plant in Pennsylvania in 1979, the meltdown at the Chernobyl nuclear plant in Ukraine in 1986, and now the three Fukushima meltdowns in 2011, there has been “a meltdown every seven years roughly.” He says: “Essentially, once every decade the world needs to know that there might be an atomic meltdown somewhere.” And, he adds, the “nuclear industry is saying they want would like to build as many as 5,000 new nuclear power plants.” (There are 440 in the world today.)

Meanwhile, he says, “renewable power is no longer alternative power. It’s on our doorstep. It’s here now and it works and it’s cheaper than nuclear.” The cost of producing energy from wind, he says, is three cents a kilowatt hour, for solar five cents, and for new nuclear power plants 15 cents. Nuclear “makes no nuclear economic sense.”

Maggie Gundersen says, with tears in her eyes: “I’m a woman and I feel it’s inherent for us as women to protect our children our grandchildren, and it’s our job now to raise our voices and have this madness stop.”

Philippe Carillo, from France, who worked for 14 years in Hollywood and who since 2017 has lived in Vanuatu, has worked on several major TV documentary projects for the BBC, 20^th Century Fox and French National TV as well as doing independent productions. He says he made “The Fukushima Disaster, The Hidden Side of the Story” to “expose the nuclear industry and its lies.” His previous award-winning documentary, “Inside the Garbage of the World,” has  made changes regarding the use of plastic. 

“The Fukushima Disaster, The Hidden Side of the Story” can be viewed at Amazon, Apple TV, iTunes, Google Play and Vimeo on demand. Links are: iTunes; Apple TV; Amazon UK; USA; Google Play, and Video on demand.

July 11, 2023 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

‘Russian victory’ worse than civilian cluster-bomb deaths – says Pentagon official

A US official has defended the decision to supply Ukraine with the weapons, which are banned in more than 100 countries.

US fears of Russian success on the battlefield outweigh concerns that deliveries of cluster bombs to Ukraine could result in civilian casualties, a senior Pentagon official acknowledged on Friday.

Speaking to reporters, Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Colin Kahl defended the White House’s decision to approve another $800 million weapons package for Ukraine, including cluster munitions. The weapons are banned in more than 100 countries.

When they detonate, the munitions release many small bomblets over a wide area. A percentage of bomblets fail to detonate on impact, however, and unexploded elements pose severe risks to civilians for years after  fighting ends.

Asked if the Pentagon has assured its allies that the munitions will not cause excessive civilian harm, Kahl replied: “I’m as concerned about the humanitarian circumstance as anybody, but the worst thing for civilians in Ukraine is for Russia to win the war. And so it’s important that they don’t.”……………………………  https://www.rt.com/news/579374-pentagon-cluster-munition-civilian-casualties/

July 11, 2023 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Daniel Kovalik: Why Russia’s intervention in Ukraine is legal under international law

One must begin this discussion by accepting the fact that there was already a war happening in Ukraine for the eight years preceding the Russian military incursion in February 2022. And, this war by the government in Kiev against the Russian-speaking peoples of the Donbass – a war which claimed the lives of around 14,000 people, many of them children, and displaced around 1.5 million more even before Russia’s military operation – has been arguably genocidal. That is, the government in Kiev, and especially its neo-Nazi battalions, carried out attacks against these peoples with the intention of destroying, at least in part, the ethnic Russians precisely because of their ethnicity.  

The argument can be made that Russia exercised its right for self-defense

10 July 23 https://www.rt.com/russia/554166-international-law-military-operation-ukraine/

Daniel Kovalik teaches International Human Rights at the University of Pittsburgh School of Law, and is author of the recently-released book Nicaragua: A History of US Intervention & Resistance.

For many years, I have studied and given much thought to the UN Charter’s prohibition against aggressive war. No one can seriously doubt that the primary purpose of the document – drafted and agreed to on the heels of the horrors of WWII – was and is to prevent war and “to maintain international peace and security,” a phrase repeated throughout. 

As the Justices at Nuremberg correctly concluded, “To initiate a war of aggression … is not only an international crime; it is the supreme international crime differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole.” That is, war is the paramount crime because all of the evils we so abhor – genocide, crimes against humanity, etc. – are the terrible fruits of the tree of war.

In light of the above, I have spent my entire adult life opposing war and foreign intervention.  Of course, as an American, I have had ample occasion to do so given that the US is, as Martin Luther King stated, “the greatest purveyor of violence in the world.”  Similarly, Jimmy Carter recently stated that the US is “the most war-like nation in the history of the world.” This is demonstrably true, of course. In my lifetime alone, the US has waged aggressive and unprovoked wars against countries such as Vietnam, Grenada, Panama, the former Yugoslavia, Iraq (twice), Afghanistan, Libya, and Somalia. And this doesn’t even count the numerous proxy wars the US has fought via surrogates (e.g., through the Contras in Nicaragua, various jihadist groups in Syria, and through Saudi Arabia and the UAE in the ongoing war against Yemen).  

Indeed, through such wars, the US has done more, and intentionally so, than any nation on earth to undermine the legal pillars prohibiting war.  It is in reaction to this, and with the express desire to try to salvage what is left of the UN Charter’s legal prohibitions against aggressive war, that a number of nations, including Russia and China, founded the Group of Friends in Defense of the UN Charter. 

In short, for the US to complain about Russia’s invasion of Ukraine as a violation of international law is, at best, the pot calling the kettle black. Still, the fact that the US is so obviously hypocritical in this regard does not necessarily mean Washington is automatically wrong. In the end, we must analyze Russia’s conduct on its own merits.  

One must begin this discussion by accepting the fact that there was already a war happening in Ukraine for the eight years preceding the Russian military incursion in February 2022. And, this war by the government in Kiev against the Russian-speaking peoples of the Donbass – a war which claimed the lives of around 14,000 people, many of them children, and displaced around 1.5 million more even before Russia’s military operation – has been arguably genocidal. That is, the government in Kiev, and especially its neo-Nazi battalions, carried out attacks against these peoples with the intention of destroying, at least in part, the ethnic Russians precisely because of their ethnicity.  

While the US government and media are trying hard to obscure these facts, they are undeniable, and were indeed reported by the mainstream Western press before it became inconvenient to do so. Thus, a commentary run by Reuters in 2018 clearly sets out how the neo-Nazis battalions have been integrated into the official Ukrainian military and police forces, and are thus state, or at least quasi-state, actors for which the Ukrainian government bears legal responsibility. As the piece relates, there are 30-some right-wing extremist groups operating in Ukraine, that “have been formally integrated into Ukraine’s armed forces,” and that “the more extreme among these groups promote an intolerant and illiberal ideology… ”  

That is, they possess and promote hatred towards ethnic Russians, the Roma peoples, and members of the LGBT community as well, and they act out this hatred by attacking, killing, and displacing these peoples. The piece cites the Western human rights group Freedom House for the proposition that “an increase in patriotic discourse supporting Ukraine in its conflict with Russia has coincided with an apparent increase in both public hate speech, sometimes by public officials and magnified by the media, as well as violence towards vulnerable groups such as the LGBT community.” And this has been accompanied by actual violence. For example, “Azov and other militias have attacked anti-fascist demonstrations, city council meetings, media outlets, art exhibitions, foreign students and Roma.”  

As reported in Newsweek, Amnesty International had been reporting on these very same extremist hate groups and their accompanying violent activities as far back as 2014.

It is this very type of evidence – public hate speech combined with large-scale, systemic attacks on the targets of the speech – that has been used to convict individuals of genocide, for example in the Rwandan genocide case against Jean-Paul Akayesu. 

To add to this, there are well over 500,000 residents of the Donbass region of Ukraine who are also Russian citizens. While that estimate was made in April 2021, after Vladimir Putin’s 2019 decree simplified the process of obtaining Russian citizenship for residents of the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics, this means that Russian citizens were being subjected to racialized attack by neo-Nazi groups integrated into the government of Ukraine, and right on the border of Russia.  

And lest Russia was uncertain about the Ukrainian government’s intentions regarding the Russian ethnics in the Donbass, the government in Kiev passed new language laws in 2019 which made it clear that Russian speakers were at best second-class citizens. Indeed, the usually pro-West Human Rights Watch (HRW) expressed alarm about these laws. As the HRW explained in an early-2022 report which received nearly no coverage in the Western media, the government in Kiev passed legislation which “requires print media outlets registered in Ukraine to publish in Ukrainian. Publications in other languages must also be accompanied by a Ukrainian version, equivalent in content, volume, and method of printing. Additionally, places of distribution such as newsstands must have at least half their content in Ukrainian.”  

And, according to the HRW, “Article 25, regarding print media outlets, makes exceptions for certain minority languages, English, and official EU languages, but not for Russian” (emphasis added), the justification for that being “the century of oppression of … Ukrainian in favor of Russian.” As the HRW explained, “[t]here are concerns about whether guarantees for minority languages are sufficient. The Venice Commission, the Council of Europe’s top advisory body on constitutional matters, said that several of the law’s articles, including article 25, ‘failed to strike a fair balance’ between promoting the Ukrainian language and safeguarding minorities’ linguistic rights.” Such legislation only underscored the Ukrainian government’s desire to destroy the culture, if not the very existence, of the ethnic Russians in Ukraine.

Moreover, as the Organization of World Peace reported in 2021, “according to Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council Decree no. 117/2021, Ukraine has committed to putting all options on the table to taking back control over the Russian annexed Crimea region. Signed on March 24th, President Zelensky has committed the country to pursue strategies that . . . ‘will prepare and implement measures to ensure the de-occupation and reintegration of the peninsula.’” Given that the residents of Crimea, most of whom are ethnic Russians, are quite happy with the current state of affairs under Russian governance – this, according to a 2020 Washington Post report – Zelensky’s threat in this regard was not only a threat against Russia itself but was also a threat of potentially massive bloodshed against a people who do not want to go back to Ukraine.

Without more, this situation represents a much more compelling case for justifying Russian intervention under the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) doctrine which has been advocated by such Western ‘humanitarians’ as Hillary Clinton, Samantha Power, and Susan Rice, and which was relied upon to justify the NATO interventions in countries like the former Yugoslavia and Libya. And moreover, none of the states involved in these interventions could possibly make any claims of self-defense. This is especially the case for the United States, which has been sending forces thousands of miles away to drop bombs on far-flung lands.  

Indeed, this recalls to mind the words of the great Palestinian intellectual, Edward Said, who opined years ago in his influential work, ‘Culture and Imperialism’, that it is simply unfair to try to compare the empire-building of Russia with that of the West. As Dr. Said explained, “Russia … acquired its imperial territories almost exclusively by adjacence. Unlike Britain and France, which jumped thousands of miles beyond their own borders to other continents, Russia moved to swallow whatever land or peoples stood next to its borders … but in the English and French cases, the sheer distance of attractive territories summoned the projection of far-flung interest …” This observation is doubly applicable to the United States.

Still, there is more to consider regarding Russia’s claimed justifications for intervention. Thus, not only are there radical groups on its border attacking ethnic Russians, including Russian citizens, but also, these groups have reportedly been funded and trained by the United States with the very intention of destabilizing and undermining the territorial integrity of Russia itself.  

As Yahoo News! explained in a January 2022 article:

“The CIA is overseeing a secret intensive training program in the U.S. for elite Ukrainian special operations forces and other intelligence personnel, according to five former intelligence and national security officials familiar with the initiative. The program, which started in 2015, is based at an undisclosed facility in the Southern U.S., according to some of those officials.

The program has involved ‘very specific training on skills that would enhance’ the Ukrainians’ ‘ability to push back against the Russians,’ said the former senior intelligence official.

The training, which has included ‘tactical stuff,’ is ‘going to start looking pretty offensive if Russians invade Ukraine,’ said the former official.

One person familiar with the program put it more bluntly. ‘The United States is training an insurgency,’ said a former CIA official, adding that the program has taught the Ukrainians how ‘to kill Russians.’”

(emphasis added).  

To remove any doubt that the destabilization of Russia itself has been the goal of the US in these efforts, one should examine the very telling 2019 report of the Rand Corporation – a long-time defense contractor called upon to advise the US on how to carry out its policy goals. In this report, entitled, ‘Overextending and Unbalancing Russia, Assessing the Impact of Cost-Imposing Options’, one of the many tactics listed is “Providing lethal aid to Ukraine” in order to “exploit Russia’s greatest point of external vulnerability.”

In short, there is no doubt that Russia has been threatened, and in a quite profound way, with concrete destabilizing efforts by the US, NATO and their extremist surrogates in Ukraine.  Russia has been so threatened for a full eight years. And Russia has witnessed what such destabilizing efforts have meant for other countries, from Iraq to Afghanistan to Syria to Libya – that is, nearly a total annihilation of the country as a functioning nation-state.  

It is hard to conceive of a more pressing case for the need to act in defense of the nation. While the UN Charter prohibits unilateral acts of war, it also provides, in Article 51, that “[n]othing in the present Charter shall impair the inherent right of individual or collective self-defense… ”  And this right of self-defense has been interpreted to permit countries to respond, not only to actual armed attacks, but also to the threat of imminent attack.  

In light of the above, it is my assessment that this right has been triggered in the instant case, and that Russia had a right to act in its own self-defense by intervening in Ukraine, which had become a proxy of the US and NATO for an assault – not only on Russian ethnics within Ukraine – but also upon Russia itself. A contrary conclusion would simply ignore the dire realities facing Russia.

July 10, 2023 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

New Book -The Path to a Sustainable Civilisation

 In this radical new book Prof. Mark Diesendorf and Rod Taylor, who are
based in Australia, say that major changes have to be made in order the
move to a sustainable future.

They claim that we have allowed large
corporations, the military and other vested interests to capture
governments and influence public opinion and markets excessively. The
result will be social, economic and environmental disaster.

They argue that the way forward is to build social movements to apply overwhelming pressure on government and big business, weaken the power of vested interests and
strengthen democratic decision-making.

This, they say, must be done simultaneously with action on the specific issues of climate, energy, natural resources & social justice, so as to transition to a truly
sustainable civilisation. That may sound Utopia, but the book takes us
through the practical technology options and explores how the transition to
their use might come about globally. However, it goes well beyond just
offering technical and social fixes, challenging the idea that
technological changes alone will be sufficient to transition to ecological
sustainability. It says that a sustainable civilisation needs ‘an
economic system that fosters ecological sustainability and social
justice’, whereas ‘the current dominant system, neoclassical economic
theory together neoliberalism practice, is based on numerous myths. Its
practitioners claim it’s a science although it does not stand up to
scientific scrutiny’.

 Renew Extra 8th July 2023

https://renewextraweekly.blogspot.com/2023/07/the-path-to-sustainable-civilisation.html

July 10, 2023 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Cluster Bombs – US sends banned weapons to Ukraine.

July 10, 2023 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

” The future of nuclear as an alternative energy source relies on the success of the Fukushima release” – Rafael Grossi.

“more broadly, the future of nuclear as an alternative energy source relies on the success of the Fukushima release,” he said. Though there has been heightened public alarm toward nuclear plants recently – for instance, regarding the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia plant in Ukraine – “the problem there is war, the problem is not nuclear energy,” Grossi said.

AEA chief ‘completely convinced’ it’s safe to release treated Fukushima nuclear wastewater .

By Jessie Yeung, Marc Stewart and Emiko Jozuka, Tokyo CNN, 7 July 23

Japan’s plan to release treated radioactive water into the ocean is safe and there is no better option to deal with the massive buildup of wastewater collected since the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster, the head of the United Nations’ nuclear watchdog told CNN.

Japan will release the wastewater sometime this summer, a controversial move 12 years after the Fukushima nuclear plant meltdown. Japanese authorities and the IAEA have insisted the plan follows international safety standards – the water will first be treated to remove the most harmful pollutants, and be released gradually over many years in highly diluted quantities.

But public anxiety remains high, including in nearby countries like South Korea, China and the Pacific Islands, which have voiced concern about potential harm to the environment or people’s health. On Friday, Chinese customs officials announced they would maintain a ban on food imports from 10 Japanese prefectures including Fukushima, and strengthen inspections to monitor for “radioactive substances, to ensure the safety of Japanese food imports to China.”……………………..

On Tuesday, Grossi formally presented the IAEA’s safety review to Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida. The report found the wastewater release plan will have a “negligible” impact on people and the environment, adding that it was an “independent and transparent review,” not a recommendation or endorsement……………………….

The 2011 disaster caused the plant’s reactor cores to overheat and contaminate water within the facility with highly radioactive material. Since then, new water has been pumped in to cool fuel debris in the reactors. At the same time, ground and rainwater have leaked in, creating more radioactive wastewater that now needs to be stored and treated.

That wastewater now measures 1.32 million metric tons – enough to fill more than 500 Olympic-sized swimming pools.

Japan has previously said there were “no other options” as space runs out – a sentiment Grossi echoed on Friday. When asked whether there were better alternatives to dispose of the wastewater, the IAEA chief answered succinctly: “No.”

It’s not that there are no other methods, he added – Japan had considered five total options, including hydrogen release, underground burial and vapor release, which would have seen wastewater boiled and released into the atmosphere………………………………………

International skepticism

But some critics have cast doubt on the IAEA’s findings, with China recently arguing that the group’s assessment “is not proof of the legality and legitimacy” of the wastewater release.

Many countries have openly opposed the plan; Chinese officials have warned that it could cause “unpredictable harm,” and accused Japan of treating the ocean as a “sewer.” The Secretary General of the Pacific Islands Forum, an inter-governmental group of Pacific island nations that includes Australia and New Zealand, also published an op-ed in January voicing “grave concerns,” saying more data was needed.

And in South Korea, residents have taken to the streets to protest the plan. Many shoppers have stockpiled salt and seafood for fear these products will be contaminated once the wastewater is released – even though Seoul has already banned imports of seafood and food items from the Fukushima region.

International scientists have also expressed concern to CNN that there is insufficient evidence of long-term safety, arguing that the release could cause tritium – a radioactive hydrogen isotope that cannot be removed from the wastewater – to gradually build up in marine ecosystems and food chains, a process called bioaccumulation…………………………………

more broadly, the future of nuclear as an alternative energy source relies on the success of the Fukushima release, he said. Though there has been heightened public alarm toward nuclear plants recently – for instance, regarding the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia plant in Ukraine – “the problem there is war, the problem is not nuclear energy,” Grossi said………..  https://edition.cnn.com/2023/07/06/asia/japan-fukushima-water-iaea-chief-interview-intl-hnk/index.html

July 9, 2023 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Ukraine great ‘testing ground’ for Western weapons: Kiev

Thursday, 06 July 2023, https://www.presstv.ir/Detail/2023/07/06/706584/Ukraine-Russia-western-weapons-Reznikov-US-cluster-munitions-

Kiev says Ukraine is a great “testing ground” for the military industry of the West, which is constantly pouring advanced arms and military equipment in the ex-Soviet republic despite repeated warnings by Russia that such a flow of arms will only prolong the war.

In a an interview with Financial Times published on Wednesday, Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov said his country is an ideal “testing ground” for Western weaponry so that Kiev’s allies can see how their weapons work in real war and to see whether they are efficient or need upgrades.

“For the military industry of the world, you can’t invent a better testing ground,” he said, claiming that American officials became very happy when Ukraine’s military reported that a US Patriot missile system managed to down a Kinzhal, a Russian hypersonic missile.

An American official called the news “fantastic,” Reznikov said.

“The Russians come up with a countermeasure, we inform our partners and they make a new countermeasure against this countermeasure,” the Ukrainian defense minister said.

Reznikov claimed many countries are closely watching the developments in the Ukraine-Russia war, including those that are already armed with Russian weapons.

“Everyone is watching closely. And not only India. China too …  Everyone, even those who bought weapons from [Russia], will watch carefully,” he said.

In July 2022, Reznikov made similar comments when he was asking for the United States and NATO to send more weapons to Ukraine.

“We are interested in testing modern systems in the fight against the enemy and we are inviting arms manufacturers to test the new products here,” he said at the time.

The US may reportedly decide later this week to send such internationally-banned cluster munitions to Ukraine.

Cluster bombs are banned under the Convention on Cluster Munitions (CCM), an international treaty that addresses the humanitarian consequences and unacceptable harm caused to civilians by cluster munitions through a categorical prohibition and a framework for action.

The weapons can contain dozens of smaller bomblets, dispersing over vast areas, often killing and maiming civilians. The CCMs are banned because unexploded bomblets can pose a risk to civilians for years after the fighting is over.

Cluster munitions generally eject submunitions that can cover five times as much area as conventional bombs.

The CCM, which took effect in 2010, bans all use, production, transfer and stockpiling of cluster bombs. More than 100 countries have signed the treaty, but the United States, Russia and Ukraine have not.

Russia sees the flooding of Ukraine with weapons from the West as a futile effort to change the outcome of the war. Moscow says supplying Kiev with more weapons will only add to the death and destruction and prolong the conflict.  

July 9, 2023 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

UN report on Japan’s Fukushima water plans fails to placate opponents

“The concern is not over external exposure,” Burnie said. “It is internal exposure to organically bound tritium that is the problem – when it gets inside fish, seafood, and then humans. When tritium gets inside cells, it can do damage.

“Tepco and the Japanese government are making a conscious decision to increase marine pollution with radioactivity, and they have no idea where that will lead.”

While South Korea offers official support, China and other voices in region continue to express concerns over discharge from nuclear plant

Justin McCurry in Tokyo, 7 July 23  https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/jul/07/un-report-on-japans-fukushima-water-plans-fails-to-placate-opponents

The publication this week of the UN nuclear watchdog’s positive assessment of Japanese plans to pump more than 1m tonnes of water from the wrecked Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant into the ocean has failed to placate opponents.

China is fiercely opposed to the plans, despite a report by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) backing the scheme, while the support of the government of South Korea has failed to quell widespread public opposition to the idea in the country.

The government in Seoul said on Friday that it “respected the IAEA’s review of plans by Japan and the plant’s operator, Tokyo Electric Power (Tepco), to pump water from the plant into the Pacific over the next 30 to 40 years”.

The discharge would have “negligible consequences” for South Korea, it said in an attempt to win over a deeply sceptical public. The country’s ban on food and seafood products from the Fukushima region will remain in place, however.

But South Korea, whose conservative president, Yoon Suk Yeol, is attempting to mend diplomatic fences with Japan over the countries’ wartime legacy, is a lone voice of support in the region.

On the same day, China announced a ban on food imports from 10 of Japan’s prefectures over “safety concerns”, and said it would conduct stringent radiation tests on food from the rest of the country.

“The Japanese side still has many problems in the legitimacy of sea discharge, the reliability of purification equipment and the perfection of monitoring programmes,” Chinese customs said.

Japan’s top government spokesperson, Hirokazu Matsuno, responded to criticism of the plan by saying that Fukushima Daiichi would pump far less tritium into the ocean than Chinese and South Korean nuclear facilities.

Japan’s standard for the release of tritium, at below 22tn becquerels a year, is far stricter than that of its neighbours, Matsuno said.

According to Japan’s trade and industry ministry, the Yangjiang nuclear plant in China discharged about 112tn becquerels of tritium in 2021, while the Kori power station in South Korea released about 49tn becquerels.

That is unlikely to placate opponents in Fukushima, where fishing communities have warned the water discharge will undo more than a decade of work to repair the damage the meltdown inflicted on the reputation of the region’s seafood, which is subject to one of the world’s strictest radiation testing regimes.

“We here in Fukushima have done absolutely nothing wrong, so why do they have to mess up our ocean?” said Haruo Ono, a fisher in Shinchimachi, 34 miles north of Fukushima Daiichi. “The ocean doesn’t belong to only us humans – and it isn’t a rubbish tip.

“It’s been 12 years [since the meltdown] and fish prices are rising, so we were finally hoping to really get down to business. Now they’re talking about releasing the water and we’re going to have to go back to square one again. It’s unbearable.”

Fisheries cooperatives in three prefectures were due to submit a petition with 33,000 signatures on Friday expressing their opposition to the water discharge.

While their government has given Japan breathing room, many South Koreans remain sceptical of Tokyo’s safety assurances. Some are panic-buying salt amid contamination fears, while a Gallup poll conducted in June found 78% of South Koreans were either “very worried” or “somewhat worried” about potential harm to the marine environment.

“It’s much more difficult to make sales now, as customers are asking more questions as they worry a lot,” said Jin Wol-sun, a stallholder at Seoul’s Noryangjin market, where market officials carried out random radiation tests on seafood in an attempt to reassure shoppers.

Rafael Grossi, the head of the IAEA, conceded there had been a lack of unanimity among the IAEA scientists, who come from 11 countries, including China, involved in the safety review. One or two “may have expressed concerns” over the plan, he said in an interview with Reuters. “I heard that being said … but again, what we have published is scientifically impeccable.”

China’s state-run Global Times newspaper on Thursday said Liu Senlin, a Chinese expert in the IAEA’s technical working group, was disappointed with the “hasty” report and had said the input from experts was limited and only used for reference.

Other experts openly voiced concerns about the impact the discharge could have on marine and human life, and accused Tepco and the IAEA of cutting corners.

“We have repeatedly pointed out to Tepco and IAEA substantive concerns we have with Japan’s approach and flaws in their methodology,” said Ferenc Dalnoki-Veress, an adjunct professor at Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey in the US.

Dalnoki-Veress, a member of a panel of scientists that advised the Pacific Islands Forum, cited Tepco’s controlled tritium-exposure experiments on fish, which he said included only three species that were being fed on commercial fish pellets rather than exposed smaller fish, which would normally be their food source.

“We have repeatedly offered to help advise on how to conduct these experiments, but each time Tepco rejected them,” he said. “We take as proof that they are not truly interested in collecting relevant data that may demonstrate and confirm concerns regarding their present plans.”

The “dumping” of treated water into the ocean, he said, would cause potentially irreversible damage to the local fishing industry.

“When we think about the effect of radiation we can’t just think about the effect on the environment, we have to consider the effect on cultures, societies and peoples who suffer psychological effects, a sense of fear, and reputational damage. Trust has been broken, and it will be difficult to repair.”

Shaun Burnie, a senior nuclear specialist with Greenpeace who regularly visits Fukushima, said claims that tritium posed no risk to human health were “scientifically bankrupt”.

“The concern is not over external exposure,” Burnie said. “It is internal exposure to organically bound tritium that is the problem – when it gets inside fish, seafood, and then humans. When tritium gets inside cells, it can do damage.

“Tepco and the Japanese government are making a conscious decision to increase marine pollution with radioactivity, and they have no idea where that will lead.”

July 9, 2023 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Huge protest against Rafael Grossi at Gimpo airport, Seoul, South Korea

Sung-Hee Choi , 7 July 23

Most western mainstream media says that the [right wing] South Korea government agrees with the IAEA draft that the Japanese government’s decision to discharge nuclear contaminated water into the ocean fits to standard.

However, it does seldom say that just last night(July 7/8), Grossi, the director-general of the IAEA was hugely unwelcomed, stranded for hours in the Gimpo airport, Seoul, thanks to protestors with the signs including the one which read, “Did you leak the draft for 1 million euroes?”  Around 280 policemen were mobilized to fence Grossi from the righteously angry South Korean protesters.

See the photos

https://www.kukinews.com/newsView/kuk202307080001?skin=news

Please watch the videos

https://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/en/news/20230708_04/. (English)

https://www.ytn.co.kr/_ln/0101_202307080504347351

“More than 80 percent of respondents in 11 countries in the Asia-Pacific region except for Japan said Japan’s plan of dumping nuclear-contaminated water into the sea is “irresponsible” and nearly 90 percent of respondents showed negative sentiments such as worries and shock toward the plan, and 94 percent of them deemed such move will have a negative effect not only on Japan and Pacific Rim countries but also the whole world, a survey conducted by the Global Times Research Center found.”

https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202307/1293659.shtml?fbclid=IwAR1ts1-B_IXJTqQDZMH-46dx-ah3FRxBgU-PtBoMMbWFkQG67_dV2ETw-V0See also

https://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/en/news/20230630_20/?fbclid=IwAR3CNvbsTp_

July 9, 2023 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

The ultimate technocratic fantasy: “a winnable nuclear war.”

The Era of Nukes and No Diplomacy: ‘Crossing a Rubicon to Armageddon’ byEDITORJuly 7, 2023,  https://scheerpost.com/2023/07/07/the-era-of-nukes-and-no-diplomacy-crossing-a-rubicon-to-armageddon/

Professor Jackson Lears warns the Ukraine war has wrought “the ultimate technocratic fantasy: a winnable nuclear war.”

he Doomsday Clock continues to tick toward nuclear war, but at its fastest pace ever. Professor Jackson Lears, a former naval officer serving on a U.S cruiser carrying tactical nuclear weapons, considers the current moment more frightening than at any time during the Cold War. Then, there was intense alarm for the fate of the earth and the survival of the human race. Today, rather than diplomacy or negotiation, talk revolves around new weapons shipments, disappointment in Ukraine’s counteroffensive failures, and even drone strikes in Moscow. But far less attention has been paid to the prospect of nuclear war between Russia and the U.S that threatens to end all life on this planet as we know it. That is the alarm sounded by cultural historian and author Jackson Lears who joins host Robert Scheer to discuss Lears’s essay for Harper’s Magazine, “Behind the Veil of Indifference.”

Lears’s piece warns that despite the public indifference, a “winnable nuclear war” has entered the minds of American strategists and politicians once again, undermining years of work towards nuclear disarmament. Lears tells Scheer that it is similar to the attitudes from the Cold War, yet this time, there is an eerie disinterest from the American side about even talking to someone like Vladimir Putin. “[T]his is, in a sense, a return to the worst kind of confrontations of the early 1960s but there’s a big difference because even Kennedy and even Reagan, cold warriors that they were, were eager to create common ground ultimately between the U.S. and the Soviet Union. And that common ground no longer exists between the U.S. and Russia, and there is no interest in diplomacy at all,” Lears said.

Scheer and Lears highlight a critical factor in shaping public perception: the Russiagate controversy and the media’s role in complying with government demands for secrecy, beginning in  the late 1970s, while also promoting narratives that fostered consent for war with Russia. Scheer said, “if you even dare suggest there’s some complexity to this issue, or that the other side might have a point of view, or there’s something even worth negotiating about, you’re now considered unpatriotic.” Lears agreed: “We have former directors of the CIA who have perjured themselves before Congress, now posing as professional wise men and professional truth tellers on MSNBC and CNN.”

Wrapping up the discussion, Lears gives an insight into his latest book, Animal Spirits: The American Pursuit of Vitality from Camp Meeting to Wall Street. In it, Lears explores the history behind thinkers in America who honed in on vitalism rather than the restrictive nature of traditional cultures involving religion, science and commercialization.

July 9, 2023 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

TODAY. No real research into the effects of releasing nuclear waste-water into rivers and seas. Oh goody! That means its OK, (doesn’t it?

it has become clear that regulation of tritium in the United States is grossly insufficient to the current risk from tritium contamination, not to mention future risks that could arise if tritium production, use, and associated leakage rise

tritium “easily can cross the placenta and irradiate developing fetuses in utero, thereby raising the risk of birth defects, miscarriages, and other problems.”

 the dangers this pernicious contaminant will pose in the future, absent more effective regulation that includes lower limits for human tritium exposure.  https://thebulletin.org/2023/06/exploring-tritiums-danger-a-book-review/

There is no way to separate tritium from contaminated water. Tritium, a soft beta emitter, is a potent carcinogen which remains radioactive for over 100 years. It concentrates in aquatic organisms including algae, seaweed, crustaceans and fish. Because it is tasteless, odorless and invisible, it will inevitably be ingested in food, including seafood, over many decades. It combines in the DNA molecule – the gene – where it can induce mutations that later lead to cancer. It causes brain tumors, birth deformities, and cancers of many organs. The situation is dire because there is no way to contain this radioactive water permanently and it will inevitable leak into the Pacific Ocean for over 50 years or longer along with many other very dangerous isotopes including cesium 137 which lasts for 300 years and causes very malignant muscle cancers –rhabdomyosarcomas, strontium 90 which also is radioactive for 300 years and causes bone cancers and leukemia, amongst many other radioactive elements.  http://akiomatsumura.com/2013/06/experts-explain-effects-of-radioactive-water-at-fukushima.htm

July 8, 2023 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Uncategorized | Leave a comment