Not on Google’s ‘Top Stories’ today :
Japan Vague About N-Crisis Scope
. . . The actual data that the government is providing may well be accurate, but there is not enough of it. And the interpretation that the government puts on the data is problematic, particularly when the government says that certain levels of radiation are safe. I think people then should be very skeptical. They should also be very skeptical of the moves that the government is trying to make to raise the level of radiation that people are supposed to be able to put up with.
The standard maximum that has always been accepted is that the maximum dust people are supposed to receive in a year is 1.0 millisievert. But the government is now setting standards of, for example, radiation that was in food that would automatically expose people to greater levels than that 1.0 millisievert a year. The internal radiation exposure from food is particularly something that people are very concerned about, and the demonstrators today were to a great extent asking the government to be frank about the impacts of internal radiation exposure. These are not immediate short-term impacts at the levels we are talking about, but it is rather in terms of the long-term impact — increased rate of cancer 10 years or perhaps even a bit longer from now for example. . .
http://www.presstv.ir/detail/174148.html
‘Main threat in Japan N-crisis covered-up’
. . . Remember there has always been a large nuclear stance by a lot of people in Japan. They have been striking before, but this is big. One of the tip offs right here is they keep talking about iodine 131, which has a half life of days, but not cesium 137, which has a half life of twenty-five years.
Now that is why I think it’s so important to take a look at Chernobyl. After twenty-five years, some of Chernobyl’s radioactive substances have even migrated deeper into the ground. Although, levels of cesium 137 are slowly falling, the concentration of the damage and the active element remain very high in many areas. What is happening is we are only getting reports that this stuff is happening in Japan.
We already are getting reports that in the west coast there are higher levels of iodine. But it’s the cesium 137, which I would love to talk about. That is the one that can go right into the bone marrow. It’s the one that can go right into the food chain, and be absorbed by plants and fungi. That is the one that basically nobody is talking about, and probably purposefully because that is the most powerful one.
Note that they keep talking about iodine 131, but they don’t talk about cesium 137… You’re getting some truth but you’re not getting all the truth. So if I was living in Japan right now, I’d be taking to the streets demanding it. Remember the EPA over here is also indicating they are going to have higher levels too. . .
http://www.presstv.ir/detail/174127.html
How nuclear apologists mislead the world over radiation
By Helen Caldicott
Soon after the Fukushima accident last month, I stated publicly that a nuclear event of this size and catastrophic potential could present a medical problem of very large dimensions. Events have proven this observation to be true despite the nuclear industry’s campaign about the “minimal” health effects of so-called low-level radiation. That billions of its dollars are at stake if the Fukushima event causes the “nuclear renaissance” to slow down appears to be evident from the industry’s attacks on its critics, even in the face of an unresolved and escalating disaster at the reactor complex at Fukushima.
Proponents of nuclear power – including George Monbiot, who has had a mysterious road-to-Damascus conversion to its supposedly benign effects – accuse me and others who call attention to the potential serious medical consequences of the accident of “cherry-picking” data and overstating the health effects of radiation from the radioactive fuel in the destroyed reactors and their cooling pools. Yet by reassuring the public that things aren’t too bad, Monbiot and others at best misinform, and at worst misrepresent or distort, the scientific evidence of the harmful effects of radiation exposure . . . .
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/apr/11/nuclear-apologists-radiation
Fukushima’s Bio-Robots
In Japan’s nuclear cleanup, is human life cheaper than machines?
By William Saletan
A month into Japan’s nuclear crisis, no robots have been deployed at the Fukushima Daiichi power plant. Instead, the plant’s operator is relying on a cheaper, expendable resource: humans. . .
http://www.slate.com/id/2290932/
International conference on Chernobyl opens in Berlin
. . . . In Japan, things were happening gradually but the level of radioactivity at the six Japanese reactors was higher than that at Chernobyl. Another difference was that radiation after the Chernobyl explosion was detected at an altitude of 11-15 kilometres, which explained such a wide spread of radioactive fallouts in the Northern Hemisphere, affecting some of the regions far from the nuclear power plant more than those near it. Pflugbeil also expressed regret that Japan’s information policy in connection with the nuclear accident did not differ from that of the Soviet authorities during the Chernobyl disaster.
Trials of Globalization: And We All Melt Down
By Betsy Ross
We are now on the brink of the mother of all meltdowns in more ways than one.
Last weekend, The Times quoted Alan Hansen, a nuclear engineer and executive vice president of Areva NC, a unit of Areva, a French group that supplied reactor fuel to the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, who spoke before a private gathering at Stanford University. “Clearly,” he summarized, “we’re witnessing one of the greatest disasters in modern time.” What the on-going release of cancer-causing radioactive fragments means in terms of human health and the environment is only beginning to come to light. . .
http://www.thiscantbehappening.net/node/550
New quake affects Japan radiactive water plan
Japan on Monday expanded the evacuation zone around its crippled nuclear plant because of high levels of accumulated radiation, as a strong aftershock rattled the area one month after a quake and tsunami sparked the worst nuclear crisis since Chernobyl.
A magnitude 6.6 tremor shook buildings in Tokyo and a wide swathe of eastern Japan on Monday evening, knocking out power to 220,000 households and causing a halt to water pumping to cool three damaged reactors at Fukushima.
The epicentre of the latest quake was 88 km (56 miles) east of the plant and stopped power supply for pumping water to cool reactors No. 1, No. 2 and No. 3.
The aftershock also forced engineers to postpone plans to remove highly contaminated water from a trench at reactor No. 2. . . . .
http://www.worldbulletin.net/?aType=haber&ArticleID=72381
World goes back to pre-war condition of 1939
NATO is significantly increasing its military presence in the Black Sea basin. According to the head of the European Command of the Armed Forces U.S. Admiral James Stavridis, U.S. Marine Corps will expand its activities in the Black Sea region.
According to the official version of Stavridis, who, incidentally, at the same time holds the position of Supreme Allied Commander (OER) of NATO in Europe, the increase in the number of U.S. Marines is due to the need for training of the allied forces for their further deployment to Afghanistan. . . .
http://english.pravda.ru/world/americas/01-04-2011/117423-nato_black_sea-0/
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