ALERTS!!!!

“The number of children and grandchildren with cancer in their bones, with leukemia in their blood, or with poison in their lungs might seem statistically small to some, in comparison with natural health hazards. But this is not a natural health hazard—and it is not a statistical issue. The loss of even one human life, or the malformation of even one baby—who may be born long after we are gone—should be of concern to us all. Our children and grandchildren are not merely statistics toward which we can be indifferent.”

John F. Kennedy, July 26th, 1963

Saturday, December 14, 2013

Estimate of Consequences from the Fukushima Disaster


CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD FULL REPORT


...Taking into account all other circumstances of the nuclear disaster together with the effects of the tsunami and earthquake, and including not only immediate and tangible consequences but also psychological and very long term impacts, it can be concluded that Fukushima probably is the biggest natural AND industrial nuclear (man-made) event which mankind ever experienced in its history.
  • Chernobyl 8.5E16 (85 quadrillion Bq of cesium-137)
  • Estimate from USDOE aerial survey 2.9E17 (285 quadrillion Bq of cesium-137)

Tokyo 5.5 earthquake: New stats in early quake, structures shuddering in Chiba

From: The Examiner

A Tokyo 5.5 earthquake left structures in the capitol city of Japan shuddering early this Saturday morning due to the quake. New stats on the force of nature have been provided in an updated report on the earthquake that left no serious damage, but quite a few people rattled in the Chiba prefecture. RT News offers the latest on the shaky incident near Tokyo this Saturday, Dec. 14, 2013.  
,,,“The same part of the country was devastated in 2011 by a powerful quake and tsunami, which killed thousands of people and triggered one of the world’s worst ever nuclear incidents at the Fukushima nuclear power plant. The Fukushima nuclear power plant, which was crippled by the 2011 disaster, is located about 250km north of the epicenter of Sunday’s quake.”
Even now, the heavily damaged facility leaks radioactive water, and is being closely monitored by the Japanese government and nuclear experts. A quake could mean massive amounts of radiation being exposed to the entire country, so all quakes are definite causes for concern.

Asahi: Radiation levels spike to record high in Fukushima groundwater well nearby ocean — Trench failures to blame, says Tepco — Million times more strontium/beta-ray source than cesium

From: ENE News as quoted from Asahi Shimbun

Asahi Shimbun, Dec. 14, 2013: Record radiation levels detected in well at Fukushima nuke plant [...] 1.8 million becquerels of [strontium and other] beta-ray sources per liter of water were detected at a monitoring well [...] in an area close to the sea near the No. 2 reactor building on Dec. 12. The well is located close to trenches holding highly radioactive water. TEPCO said the reading apparently spiked after highly radioactive water seeped into the surroundings through failed parts of the trenches.
Groundwater from well No. 1-16 (pg. 3), Collected Dec. 12, 2013:
  • Cs-137: 1.8 becquerels per liter (Bq/L)
  • Co-60: 0.55 Bq/L
  • All β: 1,800,000 Bq/L

Asahi: Tepco’s done nothing for over 2 years to stop highly radioactive Fukushima leak — Water above 1 sievert per hour — Admits work “has not been done to this day because of difficulties involved”

From: ENE News as quoted from Asahi  Shimbun

The operator of the crippled Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant sat on its hands for more than two years despite having pledged to seal a leaking hole in a turbine building, The Asahi Shimbun has learned.

SOURCE: Asahi Shimbun
Tokyo Electric Power Co. said in April 2011 [...] that it would block the connection between a turbine building and an underground pit to prevent radioactive water from leaking into the sea. [...]
On March 27, 2011, TEPCO workers found that radioactive water, measuring more than 1,000 millisieverts per hour, lay in an underground pit adjacent to the turbine building for No. 2 reactor. [...]
TEPCO [...] left it unattended afterward. [...]
TEPCO officials have said the turbine building remains connected with the pit, which means highly radioactive water may still be leaking.
[...] the sealing work “has not been done to this day because of the (technical) difficulties involved,” the officials added.

(ARTICLE LINK)

Latest world cancer statistics Global cancer burden rises to 14.1 million new cases in 2012:\

From: WHO Press Release 12/12/13

Lyon/Geneva, 12 December 2013 – The International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), the specialized cancer agency of the World Health Organization, today released the latest data on cancer incidence, mortality, and prevalence worldwide.1 The new version of IARC’s online database, GLOBOCAN 2012, provides the most recent estimates for 28 types of cancer in 184 countries worldwide and offers a comprehensive overview of the global cancer burden.

GLOBOCAN 2012 reveals striking patterns of cancer in women and highlights that priority should be given to cancer prevention and control measures for breast and cervical cancers globally.
Global burden rises to 14.1 million new cases and 8.2 million cancer deaths in 2012

According to GLOBOCAN 2012, an estimated 14.1 million new cancer cases and 8.2 million cancer-related deaths occurred in 2012, compared with 12.7 million and 7.6 million, respectively, in 2008. Prevalence estimates for 2012 show that there were 32.6 million people (over the age of 15 years) alive who had had a cancer diagnosed in the previous five years.

The most commonly diagnosed cancers worldwide were those of the lung (1.8 million, 13.0% of the total), breast (1.7 million, 11.9%), and colorectum (1.4 million, 9.7%). The most common causes of cancer death were cancers of the lung (1.6 million, 19.4% of the total), liver (0.8 million, 9.1%), and stomach (0.7 million, 8.8%).

Projections based on the GLOBOCAN 2012 estimates predict a substantive increase to 19.3 million new cancer cases per year by 2025, due to growth and ageing of the global population. More than half of all cancers (56.8%) and cancer deaths (64.9%) in 2012 occurred in less developed regions of the world, and these proportions will increase further by 2025.

LINK TO PRESS RELEASE

The poisoning of the Pacific: USA in danger?

From: Pravda

The alert was raised along the west coast of the USA and Canada some time ago. Now the same symptoms and massive die-offs of animals are being seen across the USA as far as the East Coast. Is there a massive cover-up of the catastrophic effects of Fukushima? How true are the rumors that huge swathes of land will soon be uninhabitable?
As the clock ticks on after the nuclear disaster of Fukushima, growing evidence is revealed of a catastrophic level of pollution in the entire Pacific Ocean - as far as the west coast of the United States of America, where a mysterious disease is affecting animal life. The symptoms are not restricted to wild animals, neither are they restricted, now, to the west coast.
The scale of the evidence is shocking. Pacific herring bleeding from their gills, eyes and bellies, sockeye salmon found off the Alaskan coastline reaching historic low levels (80% down on last year), hundreds of birds found dead, appearing to be broken apart and bleeding profusely, massive levels of fish mortality, a strange disease causing polar bears to lose their fur (alopecia) and present bleeding sores, seals and walruses displaying lethargy, oozing sores, congested lungs and bloody mucous.
The scientific community is baffled and postulates several scenarios: bad weather (causing oozing sores? Causing fish to haemorrhage?) toxins (breaking birds apart?), a virus (affecting so many different species?) and radiation. Bingo!
Looking for an answer? Start at the beginning, more precisely on March 11, 2011, with the tsunami after the Tohoku earthquake, causing equipment failure, nuclear meltdowns and release of radioactive material. Continue examining what has happened since then, with the release of 400 tons of radioactive materials into the Pacific Ocean per day, every day, since then, for one thousand and seven days, meaning four hundred and two thousand, eight hundred tonnes of radioactive waste.
Off the coast of Japan, the South-North Kuroshio current and the North-South Oyashio current meet and swing northwards up to Alaska and southwards to California. Could this be the explanation for the horrors mentioned above?
For those still in doubt, what about the strange behavior of killer whales off the British Columbia coast, presenting an unusually high mortality rate and becoming strangely silent, ceasing to communicate? What about the thousands of dead birds found in Oregon? What about the unprecedented mortality rate of barn and violet-green swallows? What about the starfish literally melting and disintegrating off California, off Alaska, off Western Canada and recently off the east coast, off Maine?
What about the same bleeding and alopecia observed in species of animals inland in the west of mainland USA, as rain carried the radiation from the ocean to farms?
What about the answers to some of these questions, based on reports drawn up by scientific organisms but without any official answer from the US authorities? What about the reports of threats and cover-ups?
If it is true that large swathes of the United States of America are becoming uninhabitable, and the US Government is either covering it up or else not releasing official data, how about the US citizens demand studies into Cesium-137 levels all along the West Coast and inland right across the United States of America? How about demanding exhaustive tests on all seafood and fish products? How about demanding exhaustive tests on all animal feed and other products made from fish and seafood derivatives? This is not hearsay or hysteria, aimed at pulling hits for this piece. It is potentially and for all the good reasons, a public health warning. Would anyone trust a Government whose strings are pulled by the corporations which control it to come clean?
Cesium has been detected in salmon, tuna have proven positive for radiation contamination. Hundreds of species are literally fleeing the sea and are coming to the coast, as if they are trying to escape: millions of anchovies, thousands of sea-lions, dolphins, orcas... 28%  of polar bears are displaying the same bleeding symptoms, up to 30% of female musk ox have died out, hundreds of deer have been seen littering roadsides, in Montana. Huge die-offs of moose in Minnesota, moose populations down by up to 70 per cent in Canada.
And now... humans. The Open Journal of Pediatrics is to publish an article on the results of a study involving new-born babies in California. The result is ominous: a rise in hyperthyroidism caused by radiation. The paper is called: Changes in confirmed plus borderline cases of congenital hypothyroidism in California as a function of environmental fallout from the Fukushima nuclear meltdown. Thyroid Stimulating Hormone (TSH) levels for the group of babies born between March 17 and December 31 2011 and during 2012 show a 21 per cent increase in TSH levels, and a further 28% increase in borderline cases, compared to those born before the disaster.
RADCON-5 alerts are already starting to be issued in several large US cities, as radiation levels spike. As everyone knows, radiation does not come and go, it increases and builds up. Some say that by 2015, Hawaii will be contaminated and uninhabitable; others claim the entire west coast of the USA will be rendered uninhabitable by 2017.
Surely it is worth finding out whether this is hype and hysteria devoid of substance, or whether there is some truth in it. Only those with the instruments to measure such things can say, and since they are keeping quiet, what is going on?
Source:  Globalresearchreport.com Agencies

Government panel says Japan should embrace nuclear power

From: JDP

“Japan should embrace nuclear power as an ‘important and fundamental’ energy source” – this is the advice given by a government panel on Friday to the Japanese central government. This idea is almost certain to be accepted by the administration of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, despite the widespread anti-nuclear sentiment after the Fukushima disaster. Abe is keen on restarting Japan’s idled nuclear reactors to cut the cost of fossil fuel imports used by power stations, which have swelled the trade deficit to a record and driven up electricity prices.

(FULL ARTICLE---LINK)

Landowners’ compensation to be reduced

From: the Japan News

The Yomiuri ShimbunWhen buying land in Fukushima Prefecture to house interim storage facilities for radiation-contaminated waste, the government has decided to calculate landowners’ compensation based on the premise that land values have dropped since evacuation orders were issued.
The amount will be finalized after taking into consideration the utility value of the sites after the evacuation instruction is lifted. The government is hoping to gain understanding from the relevant municipalities because the loss incurred by the diminished value will be complemented by separate compensation from Tokyo Electric Power Co.
The government is considering building facilities in three towns—Okuma, Naraha and Futaba—in the prefecture to store contaminated soil and other waste from decontamination work related to the crisis at TEPCO’s Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant.

Ministry unveils plan to buy 19 sq. km of land around Fukushima No. 1 for waste storage

From: Japan Times

The Environment Ministry officially announced Saturday that the government aims to buy 19 sq. km of land around the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear complex to build facilities for the long-term storage of radioactive and other waste churned up in decontamination work.
The plan was unveiled as Environment Minister Nobuteru Ishihara and reconstruction minister Takumi Nemoto visited Fukushima to ask local authorities to approve the storage sites’ construction in the four towns hosting Tokyo Electric Power Co.’s two nuclear plants in the prefecture.
Under the plan, the government will build storage and volume reduction facilities on land bought around the Fukushima No. 1 plant host towns of Futaba and Okuma, as well as a small facility in Naraha, while utilizing an existing disposal site in Tomioka. Those two towns co-host the Fukushima No. 2 power station.
Up to 28 million cu. meters of waste could be stored in the envisaged facilities, whose total cost is estimated at about ¥1 trillion, the officials said.

Cancer Rates Rise Globally After Fukushima Disaster

From: Intellihub

There is no telling how many living things will ultimately be decimated by modern catastrophes such as the Fukushima disaster as only time will tell.


(INTELLIHUB) — Interestingly enough, cancer rates have skyrocketed after the tragic 2011 disaster at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant, which still continues to spew radiation into the ocean and atmosphere to this day.
Jen Savedge reported, “Cancer rates are on the rise around the world, according to new data released by the World Health Organization, with dramatic increases in developing countries still new to a disease driven by Western lifestyles.

In a new report compiled by WHO’s International Agency for Research on Cancer, new cancer diagnoses increased from 12.7 in a previous survey in 2008 to 14 million in 2012.  Cancer deaths rose 8 percent from 7.6 million in 2008 to 8.2 million in 2012.  

Failure to Prevent Escape Cut Water Injected into Fukushima Reactors

From: Jiji Press

 Tokyo, Dec. 13 (Jiji Press)--Tokyo Electric Power Co. <9501> said Friday that its failure to prevent escape from pipes spoiled cooling water injections by fire engines to reactor cores at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant immediately after its accident on March 11, 2011. 
   Because valves on pipes connected to the reactor pressure vessels were left open, the water injected to cool the No. 1 to No. 3 reactors may have escaped and ran into other linked devices, such as condensers and storage tanks, and not have fully reached the reactor cores, TEPCO said.
   TEPCO admitted the possibility that the failure speeded up the unfolding disaster at the plant struck by the huge earthquake and tsunami but said it was difficult to close the valves at the time because of high levels of radiation.

(FULL ARTICLE---LINK)

Fire trucks' coolant water did not fully reach reactor cores: TEPCO

From: Mainichi

TOKYO (Kyodo) -- Tokyo Electric Power Co., the operator of the crisis-hit Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, said Friday it is highly likely that coolant water injected by fire trucks immediately after the accident on March 11, 2011 did not fully reach reactor cores where meltdowns occurred.
TEPCO, which has been looking into developments at the plant in the early days of the disaster, said it has confirmed that water supplied by fire trucks flowed into some pipes not leading to cores at the Nos. 1 to 3 reactors.
The utility said the amount of coolant water provided by fire trucks as an emergency measure was several times the amount needed to cool reactor cores, but part of the water was unexpectedly diverted to pipes not connected to the cores.
The company also said workers could not operate valves to keep coolant water from flowing into unintended pipes due to high dose of radiation at the plant.
TEPCO said if the prepared water was fully injected from fire trucks into reactor cores, it could at least have slowed melting of the fuel.

Friday, December 13, 2013

ALERT - FUKUSHIMA RADIATION IN USA FOOD ~ALARMING LEVELS!!

Tepco Company Admitted Security Fault in Fukushima, Japan

From: Prensa Latina News Agency

Tokyo, Dec 13 (Prensa Latina) Tokyo Electric Power Company (Tepco) admitted errors in the security system of Fukushima Nuclear Plant, destroyed by an earthquake and later a Tsunami in March 2011, reported NHK channel.
In the continuation of public reports in this regard, requested by the government, spokesmen of the company noted that the errors in the cooling system and water injection prompted the meltdown of the number 3 reactor, one of the four of this facility.

In the same way the leading board of the entity, intervened shortly after by authorities because of the financial bankruptcy, recognized that such facts were sufficiently proved and generated a strong pollution in the area and in an extension above 20 kilometres away.

Facing this situation more than 80,000 settlers were evacuated from Fukushima, which still remain in evacuation centers with very few possibilities of returning back home.

(FULL ARTICLE---LINK)

Permanent crisis at Fukushima

From: Greenpeace

Hundreds of tons of radioactively contaminated water leak from the damaged Fukushima nuclear reactors every day. That water has to go somewhere and the operator of the plant is running out of places to store it. So the suggestion has been made that it be dumped in the sea.
At the scene of the Fukushima nuclear disaster they can’t clean anything without getting something else dirty.
The plant’s operator TEPCO has a decontamination system at Fukushima called ALPS (Advanced Liquid Processing System). It takes the contaminated water and filters out most of the radioactivity except for tritium. This “tritiated” water is then stored in tanks.
The problem is that ALPS hasn’t been the most reliable of systems at Fukushima. Of the three systems in use, two had to be shut down for repairs earlier this year when it was found they were being corroded by the very water they were supposed to decontaminate. Last week one of them was found to be leaking hydrochloric and was shut down again.
It’s estimated it will take at least seven years to partially decontaminate the water already being stored.
There are currently something like 1,000 storage tanks on the Fukushima site. Some of the tanks aren’t safe – they were built by illegally hired workers who didn’t do a great job. Some of them leak. A lot.

Fukushima 2013: “Remaining Radioactive Mass”, “Dangerous Leaking Radioactive Water”, All Four Reactors are “Getting Worse”

From: Global Research

The first thing to know about the danger from the radioactive mass remaining on site in the three reactors that melted down at Fukushima is that nobody knows how much radioactive material there is, nobody knows how much uranium and plutonium it contains, and nobody knows how to make it safe — so no one knows how great the continuing danger is.

...In the Nuclear Business, Truth Has a Limited Half-Life 
To address these difficulties, TEPCO is proposing to treat its radioactive water to remove some of the radioactivity, and then release the rest into the Pacific Ocean. There is local opposition to this plan, especially from fishermen.
 In July 2012, as some officials were assuring the public that fish from the Pacific were safe to eat, the Japan Fisheries Agency compiled statistics showing the opposite. As reported by a Canadian website, Vancouver’s straight.com:
“The numbers show that far from dissipating with time, as government officials and scientists in Canada and elsewhere claimed they would, levels of radiation from Fukushima have stayed stubbornly high in fish.
“In June 2012, the average contaminated fish catch had 65 becquerels of cesium per kilo. That’s much higher than the average of five Bq/kg found in the days after the accident back in March 2011, before cesium from Fukushima had spread widely through the region’s food chain.  In some species, radiation levels are actually higher this year than last.”

RADIOACTIVE SEAS

From: Surfer Magazine

The head of Japan’s Nuclear Regulatory Agency (NRA) recently confirmed that contaminated water from the Number 3 nuclear power reactor at Fukushima has likely been leaking into the ocean for the past two years. In March of 2011, a massive earthquake and deadly tsunami ravaged much of Japan and three of the six nuclear reactors in Fukushima melted down. In a recent statement, Shunichi Tanaka, the head of the NRA, said he believes that groundwater near the plant is leaking into the basement of the damaged reactors, becoming contaminated, and eventually making its way out to sea. Neither the NRA nor TEPCO (the organization that runs the Fukushima plant) have been able to detect where the leak is coming from or been able to stop it.
“I think contamination of the sea is continuing to a greater or lesser extent,” Tanaka told a reporter from Reuters recently. “It was contaminated at the time of the accident, but I think it has been continuing for the last two years. Coming up with countermeasures against all possible scenarios is a top priority. We’ve seen for a fact that levels of radioactivity in the seawater remain high, and contamination continues—I don’t think anyone can deny that. We must take action as soon as possible.”
In the past, TEPCO has been vocal in stating that contaminated water had not been leaking into the ocean. But recently, they switched positions, stating that contaminated water had indeed leaked into the sea and apologizing to the people of Fukushima. A recent radiation test conducted by TEPCO showed a soaring amount of radioactive cesium in an observation well near the damaged plant. According to TEPCO, over the course of three days this month the radiation levels in the well increased 90 fold, which brought the levels to more than 150 times Japan’s safety standard. However, recent tests of seawater were reported as normal.

Atomic Mafia? Yakuza cleans up Fukushima, neglects basic workers' rights

Naoto Kan: "What light can the former PM shed on the future of the anti-...

Thursday, December 12, 2013

Nuclear Experts Explain Worst-Case Scenario at Fukushima Power Plant (From March 12,2011--Second Day of the Crisis)

From: Scientific American

..."So there's some advantages to the BWR in terms of severe accidents. But one of the disadvantages is that the containment structure is a lightbulb-shaped steel shell that's only about 30 or 40 feet [nine to 12 meters] across—thick steel, but relatively small compared to large, dry containments like TMI. And it doesn't provide as much of an extra layer of defense from reactor accidents as containments like TMI [do]. So there is a great deal of concern that if the core does melt, the containment will not be able to survive. And if the containment doesn't survive, we have a worst-case situation." ...

(FULL ARTICLE---LINK)

Note: The containment on three reactors did not survive and we have now much worse than what was anticipated as a "worst case scenario".

General Electric-designed reactors in Fukushima have 23 sisters in U.S.

From: NBC News --3/13/11

The General Electric-designed nuclear reactors involved in the Japanese emergency are very similar to 23 reactors in use in the United States, according to Nuclear Regulatory Commission records.
The NRC database of nuclear power plants shows that 23 of the 104 nuclear plants in the U.S. are GE boiling-water reactors with GE's Mark I systems for containing radioactivity, the same containment system used by the reactors in trouble at the Fukushima Dai-ichi plant. The U.S. reactors are in Alabama, Georgia, Illinois, Iowa, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Nebraska, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Vermont.

Fukushima: General Electric Knew Its Nuclear Reactor Design Was Unsafe … So Why Isn’t GE Getting Any Heat for Fukushima?

From: Global Research

GE Engineers and American Government Officials Warned of Dangerous Nuclear Design
5 of the 6 nuclear reactors at Fukushima are General Electric Mark 1 reactors.
GE knew decades ago that the design was faulty.
ABC News reported in 2011:
Thirty-five years ago, Dale G. Bridenbaugh and two of his colleagues at General Electric resigned from their jobs after becoming increasingly convinced that the nuclear reactor design they were reviewing — the Mark 1 — was so flawed it could lead to a devastating accident.
Questions persisted for decades about the ability of the Mark 1 to handle the immense pressures that would result if the reactor lost cooling power, and today that design is being put to the ultimate test in Japan. Five of the six reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi plant, which has been wracked since Friday’s earthquake with explosions and radiation leaks, are Mark 1s.
“The problems we identified in 1975 were that, in doing the design of the containment, they did not take into account the dynamic loads that could be experienced with a loss of coolant,” Bridenbaugh told ABC News in an interview. “The impact loads the containment would receive by this very rapid release of energy could tear the containment apart and create an uncontrolled release.” ...
...As we noted last year, the spent fuel pool at Fukushima reactor number 3 is in a heap of rubble (spent fuel pool designated as “SFP”  in the lower left):


...Postscript:  Unfortunately, there are 23 virtually-identical GE Mark 1 reactors in the U.S.
This is not to say that Tepco and the Japanese government are not to blame also.  They are.
But GE and the American government are largely responsible as well.

(FULL ARTICLE---LINK)

Former Japanese leader firm on nuclear energy

From: DW

Naoto Kan, who was Japanese PM when the March 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake hit and crippled the Fukushima nuclear plant, remains in politics but has only one aim now: to see every last atomic energy plant shut down.

(FULL ARTICLE---LINK)

Law mulled to guarantee Fukushima not final waste site

From: The Japan Times

The Environment Ministry is considering a law that would force the government to dispose of radioactive waste from decontamination work in Fukushima outside the prefecture within 30 years, according to government sources.
The move is intended to make it easier for Fukushima Prefecture to accept a central government request to host “interim” waste storage facilities, which in turn would accelerate the sluggish effort to scrub the area of radioactive fallout from the nuclear crisis.
The government has promised that such waste will be disposed of outside Fukushima after keeping it in the planned interim storage facilities for up to 30 years.

TOXIC WATER ISSUE AT FUKUSHIMA TO BE SOLVED IN MORE THAN 5 YEARS

From: The Tokyo Times

Fixing the radioactive water leaks at Fukushima crippled power plant, together with ocean contamination, could take more than five years, said a report by a government advisory body.
The repairing process includes building stronger storage tanks at the site to prevent leaks of radioactive water, covering areas with impermeable coating to stop groundwater contamination and building underground walls to block subsurface inflow.
The efforts might end only in March 2019, according to the report.

STORIES OF BETRAYAL FROM SICK FUKUSHIMA RADIATED NAVAL SERVICEMEN!

Over 70 Sailors aboard USS Ronald Regan during Fukushima have cancers and diseases...

From: AllHipHop.com

People are always asking "where are all the cancers and the bodies" and stuff like this... Well here you go. These soldiers have thyroid cancer, testicular cancer, leukemia, gynecological problems, people with tumors in their brain, people going blind...

(FULL ARTICLE WITH VIDEOS)

Japan Group Seeks International Input on Removing Fukushima Fuel Debris

From: Nuclear Energy Institute

Dec. 12, 2013—The Japanese International Research Institute for Nuclear Decommissioning has announced its intention to request information from nuclear experts on technologies that could assist in the eventual removal of fuel debris from the damaged Fukushima Daiichi reactors 1 through 3.

Note: The technology to clean up Fukushima Daichi does not exist and this area of the plant will be so high in radioactivity for a long long time only robots will be able to complete this work. The soonest that will begin is in several DECADES. The report concedes that this is a very difficult task and the reactors will leak for years and years and years. 

SLIDESHOW OF REPORT

The Rage of Exile: In the Wake of Fukushima

From: The Asia Pacific Journal

Shoji Masahiko, 2013.3.10 (Sunday)
...All of a sudden two years have passed since that once-in-a-thousand-years calamity, the Great East Japan Earthquake, and the explosions that followed at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant – and nothing has changed. All that has happened is that our houses are crumbling, our fields are running to weeds, and our village is drifting back to a primitive state. Today I am thinking, I am worrying, and I am starting to feel resentment. “For us, in this reality, in this situation, what really matters? The village we were living in? To defend, to inherit, and to pass on to generations the home-place we were living in, the land our forefathers built upon, our property? Ah, but now what really matters is human health. That’s where it all starts” – with such words I question myself, then question once again. The national government and the village mayor insist now as ever that they will decontaminate the village, that they will enable us to go home, to return to the village as soon as humanly possible, that their plans will be executed swiftly, that the living environment will be getting the top priority as they open up the road to recovery, and no-one wants to abandon their homeland. But why, when human life and health should be the top priority, should that be reason to choose return, return to the village, as a higher priority than the people’s health, our children’s health, our grandchildren’s health? – That is something I cannot fathom.
For my part I have actually started to think that we are being used as the world’s first human guinea-pigs, in an experiment to demonstrate to the world that “here in Japan, in the prefecture of Fukushima, in the village of Iitate, in an area of particularly high radiation, the people have come home, the village has been repopulated, and we have succeeded in restoring life as it was before the Great East Japan Disaster, and before the nuclear accident.” 

Fukushima forum at SUNY New Paltz claims nuke industry is reckless

NEW PALTZ – One more goof at Fukushima Dachaii means destruction for Japan, anti-nuclear activists maintain. The three nuclear reactors which melted down following an earthquake in 2011 remain uncontrolled, constantly spewing deadly radiation worldwide, they claim, and another mishap may evacuate the Pacific island for centuries, millennia or even worse, eons.

They say a powerful earthquake there would probably irradiate the entire planet -- fatally. These and many other alarming topics were discussed Thursday night at a SUNY New Paltz forum hosted by Hudson Valley Fukushima Awareness Network. Experts, officials and activists condemned nuclear power as reckless and unacceptable.

Government and media were not spared harsh criticism, as speaker after speaker exposed what they said was a worldwide scandal of rising radiation counts, shifting safety levels, and mainstream media news blackouts. Japan this week enacted a gag law preventing journalists from obtaining timely information about the ongoing nuclear disaster.

Fukushima: General Electric Knew Its Nuclear Reactor Design Was Unsafe … So Why Isn’t GE Getting Any Heat for Fukushima?

From: Global Research
GE Engineers and American Government Officials Warned of Dangerous Nuclear Design
5 of the 6 nuclear reactors at Fukushima are General Electric Mark 1 reactors.
GE knew decades ago that the design was faulty.
ABC News reported in 2011:
Thirty-five years ago, Dale G. Bridenbaugh and two of his colleagues at General Electric resigned from their jobs after becoming increasingly convinced that the nuclear reactor design they were reviewing — the Mark 1 — was so flawed it could lead to a devastating accident.

(FULL ARTICLE---LINK) 

Another 20 Navy Sailors: USS Ronald Reagan crew with thyroid cancers, leukemia, brain tumors, bleeding, blindness after Fukushima disaster — Young kids developing problems — Gov’t and Tepco involved in major conspiracy

From: Nuclear Hotseat

Sample:
Charles Bonner, attorney representing sailors from the USS Ronald Reagan: They’re not only going to the rescue by jumping into the water and rescuing people out of the water, but they were drinking desalinated sea water, bathing in it, until finally the captain of the USS Ronald Reagan alarmed people that they were encountering high levels of radiation. As a result of this exposure, the 51 sailors that we represent right now have come down with a host of medical problems, including cancers and leukemias, all kinds of gynecological problems 
...people who are going blind, pilots who had perfect eyesight but now have tumors on the brain. These service men and women are young people 21, 22, 23 years old and no one in their family had ever (inaudible) any of these kinds of illnesses before.

FULL INTERVIEW CAN BE FOUND HERE

Wednesday, December 11, 2013

Water woe solution: pave over No.1 land?

From: Japan Times

The government and Tokyo Electric Power Co. should take more measures to mitigate the radioactive water accumulating at the Fukushima No. 1 plant, including paving the land to block rainwater from seeping into the ground, a new report recommends.
If preventive and multilayer steps can be introduced, most of the risks posed by the tainted water can be taken care of by the end of fiscal 2020, says the report, which a panel submitted to the government Tuesday.
The panel, which consists of experts and Tepco and government officials, stresses the need to come up with additional measures in case steps already planned don’t work.

Japan’s Deadly New ‘Fukushima Fascism’

From: Thursday, 12 December 2013, 9:12 am Press Release: Ecowatch

Fukushima continues to spew out radiation. The quantities seem to be rising, as do the impacts.
The site has been infiltrated by organized crime. There are horrifying signs of ecological disaster in the Pacific and human health impacts in the U.S.
But within Japan, a new State Secrets Act makes such talk punishable by up to ten years in prison.
Taro Yamamoto, a Japanese legislator, says the law “represents a coup d’etat” leading to “the recreation of a fascist state.” The powerful Asahi Shimbun newspaper compares it to “conspiracy” laws passed by totalitarian Japan in the lead-up to Pearl Harbor, and warns it could end independent reporting on Fukushima.
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has been leading Japan in an increasingly militaristic direction. Tensions have increased with China. Massive demonstrations have been renounced with talk of “treason.”
But it’s Fukushima that hangs most heavily over the nation and the world.

Fukushima Fallout Damaged the Thyroids of California Babies

From: Counterpunch

A new study of the effects of tiny quantities of radioactive fallout from Fukushima on the health of babies born in California shows a significant excess of hypothyroidism caused by the radioactive contamination travelling 5,000 miles across the Pacific. The article will be published next week in the peer-reviewed journal Open Journal of Pediatrics.
Congenital hypothyroidism is a rare but serious condition normally affecting about one child in 2,000, and one that demands clinical intervention – the growth of children suffering from the condition is affected if they are left untreated. All babies born in California are monitored at birth for Thyroid Stimulating Hormone (TSH) levels in blood, since high levels indicate hypothyroidism.
Joe Mangano and Janette Sherman of the Radiation and Public Health Project in New York, and Christopher Busby, guest researcher at Jacobs University, Bremen, examined congenital hypothyroidism (CH) rates in newborns using data obtained from the State of California over the period of the Fukushima explosions.
Their results are published in their paper Changes in confirmed plus borderline cases of congenital hypothyroidism in California as a function of environmental fallout from the Fukushima nuclear meltdown. The researchers compared data for babies exposed to radioactive Iodine-131 and born between March 17th and Dec 31st 2011 with unexposed babies born in 2011 before the exposures plus those born in 2012.
Confirmed cases of hypothyroidism, defined as those with TSH level greater than 29 units increased by 21% in the group of babies that were exposed to excess radioactive Iodine in the womb [*]. The same group of children had a 27% increase in ‘borderline cases’ [**].
Contrary to many reports, the explosion of the reactors and spent fuel pools at Fukushima produced levels of radioactive contamination which were comparable with the Chernobyl releases in 1986. Using estimates made by the Norwegian Air Laboratory it is possible to estimate that more than 250PBq (200 x 1015) Bq of Iodine-131 (half life 8 days) were released at Fukushima.

After Meltdown, Nine Months Of Drift For Fukushima Survivors

From: NPR

"Atomic energy makes our town and society prosperous," reads a sign photographed by filmmaker Atsushi Funahashi for Nuclear Nation. By the time he shows this small-town civic motto, the irony is unmistakable: Japan's nuclear-power industry may have enriched society, but it has left this particular city desolate.

The place in question is Futaba, which borders the Fukushima Daiichi nuke plant. Funahashi shows Futaba mostly in exile; after four of the six reactors failed on March 12, 2011, the town's residents were evacuated. As of April 2011, 1,415 of them were living in an abandoned high school in Saitama, the prefecture that holds much of Tokyo's northern sprawl.

Over the nine months the movie chronicles, about half the refugees leave the school building. Many return to the Fukushima area, but none to Futaba, which is still radioactive and officially off-limits. When a bus trip is organized so former residents can retrieve treasured belongings — for one, that means Mad Max and Planet of the Apes DVDs — the visitors are allowed only two hours within the hot zone.

(FULL ARTICLE---LINK)

Japan's post-Fukushima 'secrecy' clampdown

From: Ecologist
Japan's new secrecy law is yet another disturbing symptom of the country's rising militarism, broadening the government's power to classify state secrets amidst increased belligerence in the region.
As if it ever needed repeating, the people of Japan were once again treated to a reminder of how secretive and arbitrary their government can be during the nuclear disaster in Fukushima 2011.

300k Fukushima refugees still living 'in cages' in makeshift camps

From: RT

Over two years after an earthquake and tsunami devastated areas in and around the Japanese city of Fukushima, many residents have been left to live in impromptu residential camps with no hope of returning to their previous ways of life.
The March 2011 tsunami forced hundreds of thousands in the Fukushima area to flee at a moment’s notice. RT’s Aleksey Yaroshevsky reports that many refugees living in quickly-erected 30-square-meter homes in Koriyama were initially promised that conditions would eventually improve, yet most seem to have long abandoned any semblance of better prospects or redeeming what once was.
“When the tsunami hit, we were told to pack only the necessary things and run away,” one refugee told RT. “They said it would be only for two, three days. Now, living in this cage of a house, returning to our old house is a dream which we know won’t ever come true. We are being fed with promises of a bigger house, but that’s as far as it gets: promises.”


Tuesday, December 10, 2013

Are nuclear regulators making the industry safer?

From: Enformable Nuclear News

In Japan, like the United States, utilities have a lot of influence in politics and regulations, and lobby to delay legislation which affects the bottom line of their nuclear facilities.  At Fukushima Daiichi, we have also repeatedly seen the negative effects of constant financially-based decisions both before and after a nuclear disaster.
In the wake of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster it has become clear that national nuclear programs still need drastic changes to encourage the sharing of information which can prevent or help mitigate against nuclear accidents.
The nuclear industry also needs to focus energy and manpower on the creation of a common international language and globally standardized approach to prevent nuclear disasters and investigating them.
The IAEA is about as able to provide this role as the now-defunct NISA was in Japan before the March 11th earthquake and tsunami.  The IAEA is more focused on the promotion of nuclear power then its regulation and oversight.

Japan's Black Dust, with Marco Kaltofen

University researchers assess impact of Fukushima plume on U.S.; Some models show near straight line to West Coast — Experts: Radionuclides didn’t dilute offshore as officials had claimed, “cause for serious alarm”

From: ENE News

The amount of radiation released in the nuclear accident has threatened the coastal environment with potential impacts on the Pacific Ocean. An international research team was established with the aim of [...] assessing the impact of radionuclides on the surrounding countries around the Pacific. [...] The ocean model used for this activity is the global-coastal nested FVCOM model system. FVCOM is an unstructured grid Finite Volume Community Ocean Model (FVCOM) [...] At 50 m, particles spread over a large region and reach the western US coast after 5 years. [...] At 200 m, particles stay in the narrow region and move eastward. >> Watch all 16 forecast models on the university’s website here (Bottom of page)

(FULL ARTICLE AND FURTHER LINKS)