In March of 2011, the aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan rushed to Japan to help after the disastrous tsunami. Since then, many sailors from that ship have fallen ill, possibly as a result of exposure to radiation from the Fukushima nuclear meltdown. They will soon have their day in court.
The organisation set up to verify the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT) has a global network of air samplers that monitor and trace the origin of around a dozen radionuclides, the radioactive elements released by atomic bomb blasts – and nuclea
Tomas Kåberger 25.10.:" Den dåvarande japanska premiärministern Kan berättar i en intervju att kärnkraftbolagets anställda var på väg att lämna hela kraftverket dygnet efter olyckan. Premiärministern själv flög till kraftverket i helikopter för att förklara för personalen att det var uteslutet att de lämnade verket. Kan trodde att deras flykt skulle leda till spontan utrymning av Tokyo, en utrymning som i sig kunde få katastrofala följder. Denna rädsla var också skälet till att Japanska myndigheter inte ansåg det lämpligt att berätta allt och att ljuga om olyckans dignitet enligt den så kallade Ines-skalan. Verklighetsanknytningen kan också ifrågasättas när man nu talar om att få reaktorerna sluta läcka och vara i ”kallt, avstängt läge” före årsskiftet. Vad betyder det när man inte ens vet hur mycket av bränslet som ligger kvar i den trasiga inneslutningen eller kanske tiotals meter ner i berget?"
By HIROKO TABUCHI Published: December 16, 2011 TOKYO — Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda of Japan has declared an end to the world’s worst nuclear crisis since Chernobyl, saying technicians have regained control of reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. "But even before Mr. Noda’s announcement, some experts called the news premature, an attempt to quell continuing public anger over the accident and paper over remaining threats to the plant. The experts argue that the devastated plant remains vulnerable to large aftershocks, which could knock out the jury-rigged cooling system that helped workers bring the reactors into a relatively stable state known as a “cold shutdown.” "
Conditions at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant are far worse than its operator or the government has admitted, according to freelance journalist Tomohiko Suzuki, who spent more than a month working undercover at the power station. A book by Tomohiko Suzuki detailing many of his experiences at the plant and connections between yakuza crime syndicates and the nuclear industry, titled "Yakuza to genpatsu" (the yakuza and nuclear power), was published by Bungei Shunju on Dec. 15.
New York Times By MARTIN FACKLER Published: January 21, 2012 Quotation: “If the government treated us like adults, there would be no need for Mamorukai,” said Sachiko Sato, a network founder. “Japan must build an entirely new food-monitoring system that we average people can really trust.”
Press Release 11.03.2012: "...the Fukushima catastrophe was more serious in terms of its releases of these two nuclides than Chernobyl. This is not surprising since there were three reactors breached at Fukushima to one at Chernobyl of equivalent capacity, said Busby. Total Fukushima releases exceeded 2 x 1019 Bq (20EBq) and were overall more than twice the releases from Chernobyl. The high population density of the area contaminated makes this a more serious issue for health than the Chernobyl releases. These findings support the early assessment made by Prof Busby in March and later in August 2011 and the many statements he made to the BBC, ITV, and Russia Today and show that those many pro nuclear experts who talked down the seriousness of the catastrophe were wrong."
Nuclear power will not go away, but its role may never be more than marginal, says Oliver Morton Mar 10th 2012 | from the print edition "But if nuclear power teaches one lesson, it is to doubt all stories of technological determinism. It is not the essential nature of a technology that matters but its capacity to fit into the social, political and economic conditions of the day."
By Monique Sené, physicist, Honorary Research Director at the CNRS, member of the Higher Committee for Transparency and Information on Nuclear Safety, and President of the GSIEN Raymond Sené, physicist, GSIEN member Dominique Leglu, physicist, editor-in-chief of Sciences et Avenir
Heart disease and depression are likely to claim more lives than radiation after the earthquake, tsunami and nuclear accident, experts say By Katherine Harmon | March 2, 2012 |
Chris Busby: "...the late Professor John Gofman, a senior figure in the US Atomic Energy Commission until he saw what was happening and resigned, famously said: "the nuclear industry is waging a war against humanity." This war has now entered an endgame which will decide the survival of the human race. Not from sudden nuclear war. But from the on-going and incremental nuclear war which began with the releases to the biosphere in the 60s of all the atmospheric test fallout, and which has continued inexorably since then through Windscale, Kyshtym, 3-Mile Island, Chernobyl, Hanford, Sellafield, La Hague, Iraq and now Fukushima, accompanied by parallel increases in cancer rates and fertility loss to the human race.