Agence France-Presse: Record High Radiation at Crippled Japan Nuke Plant

Published on Monday, August 1, 2011 by Agence France-Presse

http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5gzGzh5NrnkAitKXG3RWWammnNihQ

TOKYO — Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO) said Monday it had monitored record high radiation at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant crippled by the March 11 quake and tsunami.

TEPCO said radiation levels reached at least 10 sieverts per hour near the debris left between the number one and number two reactors of the plant at the centre of the ongoing nuclear crisis.

The previous record was three to four sieverts per hour monitored inside the number one reactor on June 3.

"Three plant workers were exposed to a dosage of four millisieverts while they were monitoring radiation," a TEPCO spokeswoman said. "We are still checking the cause of such high levels of radioactivity."

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Steve Breyman: Nuclear Power and the Nuremburg Code

http://www.opednews.com/articles/Nuclear-Power-and-the-Nure-by-Steve-Breyman-110726-310.html

July 26, 2011

By Steve Breyman

The German Parliament voted last week to phase-out nuclear power by 2022. Thus far lacking a legislative commitment, Prime Minister Naoto Kan says even resource-poor Japan should wean itself from nuclear power. Seventy percent of Japanese parliamentarians agree with him. What is it about World War II's losers and atomic electricity?

Predictable responses to the latest and possibly worst civil disaster of the Nuclear Age? The final victory for (surging) anti-nuke movements? I don't think so. There's more happening here. No Japanese government has ever been accused of over attentiveness to public preferences. Instead, they may know something the war's victors do not.

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The Guardian/UK: Melting Arctic Ice Releasing Banned Toxins, Warn Scientists

Published on Monday, July 25, 2011 by The Guardian/UK

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/jul/24/melting-arctic-ice-banned-toxins-pops

 

Unknown amount of trapped persistent organic pollutants poses threat to marine life and humans as temperatures rise

The warming of the Arctic is releasing toxic chemicals that had been trapped in the ice and cold water, scientists have discovered.

The researchers warn that the amount of the poisons in the polar region is unknown and their release could "undermine global efforts to reduce environmental and human exposure to them".

The chemicals seeping out as temperatures rise include the pesticides DDT, lindane and chlordane as well as the industrial chemicals PCBs and the fungicide hexachlorobenzene (HCB). All of these are know as persistent organic pollutants (Pops), and are banned under the 2004 Stockholm convention.

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Sue Sturgis: Startling Revelations about Three Mile Island Disaster Raise Doubts Over Nuke Safety

By Sue Sturgis

Global Research, July 24, 2011

http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=25757

This article originally appeared on Facing South, online magazine of the Institute for Southern Studies. also posted on Alternet, July 22, 2011

It was April Fool's Day, 1979 -- 30 years ago this week -- when Randall Thompson first set foot inside the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant near Middletown, Pa. Just four days earlier, in the early morning hours of March 28, a relatively minor problem in the plant's Unit 2 reactor sparked a series of mishaps that led to the meltdown of almost half the uranium fuel and uncontrolled releases of radiation into the air and surrounding Susquehanna River.

It was the single worst disaster ever to befall the U.S. nuclear power industry, and Thompson was hired as a health physics technician to go inside the plant and find out how dangerous the situation was. He spent 28 days monitoring radiation releases. 

Today, his story about what he witnessed at Three Mile Island is being brought to the public in detail for the first time -- and his version of what happened during that time, supported by a growing body of other scientific evidence, contradicts the official U.S. government story that the Three Mile Island accident posed no threat to the public. 

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"Katharine Sanderson" - Pollutants' role in birth defects becomes clearer

NATURE   18 July 2011 | Nature | doi:10.1038/news.2011.423

http://www.nature.com/news/2011/110718/full/news.2011.423.html

Levels of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons linked to neural tube defects.

Katharine Sanderson

Babies who were exposed to certain organic pollutants in the womb are at a highly increased risk of neural tube defects leading to conditions such as spina bifida, according to researchers in China.

Neural tube defects, in which the spinal cord, the brain or their coverings fail to develop completely, arise very early in pregnancy and affect more than 320,000 infants worldwide every year. They can lead not just to spina bifida, in which the spinal covering does not close completely, but also to severe cranial abnormalities such as anencephaly, which often leads to stillbirth, and other conditions.

Previous studies have linked certain pollutants, in particular polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), from sources such as indoor coal stoves, smoking and vehicle exhausts, to neural tube defects. But most of the evidence has been anecdotal, based on mothers saying they had been exposed to certain pollutants, or has relied on tests of the mother's blood alone.

Now an interdisciplinary team of researchers in China has shown the risk of a newborn or foetus having a neural tube defect is much higher when certain organic pollutants are found in the placenta, which shows what is actually reaching the foetus, rather than just what is circulating in the mother's blood stream.

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"Peter Foster" - Nike, Adidas, Puma 'Using Suppliers Pouring Toxic Chemicals into China's Rivers'

Published on Wednesday, July 13, 2011 by The Telegraph/UK

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/china/8634343/Nike-Adidas-Puma-using-suppliers-pouring-toxic-chemicals-into-Chinas-rivers.html

Some of the world's most famous clothing brands, including Nike, Adidas Puma, and H&M are using suppliers that pour toxic chemicals into China's rivers, the environmental pressure group Greenpeace has claimed.

by Peter Foster in Beijing

In a year-long investigation, undercover activists collected water samples from discharge pipes at factories belonging to two of China's largest textile manufacturers which tested positive for dangerous chemicals, including hormone-disrupting alkylphenols that are banned in Europe.

The organisation named a host of international brands in a 115-page report titled "Dirty Laundry", including Abercrombie & Fitch, Converse, Lacoste, Calvin Klein and Chinese sports giant Li Ning, as having business links with the two textile processing plants.

More than 70 per cent of China's rivers and lakes are polluted as a result of China's three decades of economic boom, and Greenpeace campaigners called on major brands to use their influence to force the industry to clean up its act.

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“Mizuho Aoki and Takahiro Fukada” - Fukushima: Citizens' Radiation Fears Beyond Crisis Zone Mount

http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2011/07/09-1

Published on Saturday, July 9, 2011 by The Japan Times

by Mizuho Aoki and Takahiro Fukada

Reiko Nakamura, a 37-year-old mother of three children, said she has been checking radiation levels outside her house in Meguro Ward, Tokyo, every day since she bought a dosimeter in May.

Based on her readings, she decides whether to open the windows or leave them shut tight.

Trying to protect her children from radioactive materials spewing from the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant, Nakamura has been buying produce grown in west Japan since mid-March.

"I'm buying produce on the Internet. Also we've been drinking water delivered from Yakushima (in Kagoshima Prefecture)," said Nakamura, who was at a gathering organized by Setagaya Kodomo Mamoru Kai (The Group to Protect Children in Setagaya) in late June. Nearly 30 mothers discussed ways to prevent radiation exposure.

"I'm not bothered about us adults. But thinking of my children's future health, I've been taking protective measures based on experts' opinion that I thought was the most conservative," Nakamura said.

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Gary Null Guest on July 7, 2011 - "Dr. Hildegarde Staninger" - PROJECT FMM - FIBERS, METEORITE & MORGELLONS

Read the complete report right here:

PROJECT FMM.docxPROJECT FMM.docx 

PROJECT FMM.docx

“Susan Casey-Lefkowitz” - Yellowstone River Spill Shows Dangers of Even Riskier Keystone XL Tar Sands Oil Pipeline

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/07/06-13

Published on Wednesday, July 6, 2011 by NRDC Blog

by Susan Casey-Lefkowitz

Once again this weekend, we saw a clear example of how water and oil don’t mix when an Exxon oil pipeline spewed around 40,000 gallons into the wild Yellowstone River in Montana. The mess is likely a wakeup call for officials in Montana. And is yet another reminder for pipeline regulators around the country that we have a problem. It’s been a bad year with spills in Michigan, some big messes in Canada, spills all along first Keystone tar sands oil pipeline in the Great Plains, a spill in downtown Salt Lake City and now in the longest undammed river in the lower 48 states. As these spills take a toll on American waters, landscapes, and communities. I wonder when we will get focused on fixing our faulty infrastructure to stop these messes---and if we can afford to build another mega-pipeline across our most sensitive water resources without fixing the problem.

Montana’s Governor Schweitzer is rightly focused on making sure the cleanup of this spill happens quickly and thoroughly. As a next step Montana should also be questioning the safety of proposed new pipelines such as TransCanada’s Keystone XL tar sands pipeline that would also cross the wild Yellowstone River. Tar sands oil from Canada is more corrosive, more prone to spills, and more difficult to clean up than conventional oil. The Exxon oil pipeline spill is another indicator that we should not be transporting even more dangerous and dirty tar sands oil endangering our precious rivers, agricultural lands, communities and wildlife.

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War and Planet Earth: Toward a Sustainable Peace

Toward the end of Homer's Iliad, a formative work for the military ethic of the West that was to extend its influence for nearly three thousand years to the present day, the gods hold council to respond to a shocking event taking place on the plains of Troy: the hero Achilles has tied the body of Hector, his most recent victim, to the back of his chariot and is dragging him around the walls of the city. In the course of this debate the god Apollo delivers a famous line: "For he [Achilles] is torturing the mute Earth in his fury." (Il. 24:54)

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