Moulding Young Minds: American Schools Preaching the Virtues of a War On Iran

Global Research
Patrick Henningsen

I remember my history lessons in school. Among many things, I can recall Patton’s march through France and the Battle of the Bulge, and how we learned about the millions of deaths on, as well as off, the fields of battle throughout history.

All in all, it was a tale of battles won and lost, and as was rightly put by my junior high school teacher - a tale of caution for future generations. But as young students, we were never taught to idiosyncrasies of ‘war-gaming’ a conflict in the future.

Nor can I recall getting lessons in school about using various aspects of asymmetrical warfare to encircle an enemy, or how admirable and clever it is to deploy terrorist units to bomb a country in order to ‘soften it up’ from within.

Unbeknownst to many people, there are school teachers who are delivering pro-war propaganda, indoctrinating young children with violent globalist military stratagem selling the concept of an inevitable war on the people of Iran as well as anyone else deemed as ‘Axis’ powers in relation to western central planning.

Interestingly, and quite horrific in fact, when challenged by his young (and extremely bright) female student over the idea of western pre-emptive intervention against Iran, the teacher addressing these students laid down a nonnegotiable maxim stating:
“… one of the rules (in this discussion) – you can’t do nothing”.

The female student followed his NLP intellectual diversion by rightly pointing out to him:
“But we (the US) are the only country in the world that’s ever used nuclear weapons”.
To which the teacher replies sharply:

“That’s irrelevant.”

It appears also towards the end of the video, that the class was being monitored by the principal’s office, who then summoned the student in question to the office. Orwellian – in the extreme.

This is the generation of children who may be asked – or drafted in to fight a coming war with Iran and others – so is this part of the indoctrination of future soldiers? Maybe.
Certainly here, it’s safe to say that teachers are grooming the next generation of compliant consumer spectators.

Watch the classroom exchange recorded by the student:

Hurricane Sandy: Problems at Five Nuke Plants

ABC
Mark Schone

A cooling tower is seen at the Salem nuclear power plant known as Artificial Island. 

The nation's oldest nuclear plant declared an alert and a second plant just 40 miles from New York City was forced to shut down power as five different nuke plants in Hurricane Sandy's path experienced problems during the storm.

Indian Point in Buchanan, New York, on the Hudson River north of New York City, automatically shut power to its unit 3 on Monday night "as a result of an electrical grid disturbance," according to Entergy, the plant's operator.

The connection between the generator and the offsite grid was lost, and the unit is designed to shut down to protect itself from electrical damage. Entergy said there was no release of radioactivity, no damage to equipment, and no threat to the public health.

"At Indian Point yesterday the river level and wind had no impact on plant operation," said a spokesman. Another unit at the plant continues to operate, and the company expects unit 3 to return to service within days.

Operators also declared an alert at the nation's oldest nuclear plant, Oyster Creek in Lacey Township, New Jersey, on Monday evening after the center of Sandy made landfall, "due to water exceeding certain high water level criteria in the plant's water intake structure."

The alert level is the "the second lowest of four action levels," as defined by the NRC.

"Water level is rising in the intake structure due to a combination of a rising tide, wind direction and storm surge," the NRC said Monday. "It is anticipated water levels will begin to abate within the next several hours."

Exelon Corporation, the owner of the plant, said in a statement that there was "no threat to the public health or safety" from the situation.

The plant also lost power, which is critical to keep spent fuel rods from overheating, but "the station's two backup diesel generators activated immediately," and it has two weeks of diesel fuel on site, Exelon said.

A reactor at an Exelon facility outside Philadelphia, Limerick Generating Station, was ramped down to 91 percent power after Sandy caused a problem with its condenser.

A unit at a fourth plant 43 miles from Philadelphia, Salem Nuclear Power Plant on Delaware Bay in southern New Jersey, was manually shut down just after 1 a.m. Tuesday morning "when four of the station's six circulating water pumps were no longer available due to weather impacts from Hurricane Sandy," according to plant co-owner PSEG Nuclear.

"No issues were encountered during the Salem Unit 1 shutdown," said PSEG Nuclear, "and the plant is currently stable. In addition to the operating crews onsite, Salem has designated response teams available."

At the Nine Mile Point plant near Oswego, New York, in what operators say "is likely a storm-related event," unit 1 shut down automatically around 9 p.m. Monday because of an electrical fault, while unit 2 experienced a power loss from an incoming power line because of the same fault. An emergency diesel generator started automatically to supply power to unit 2. The NRC said that the operators are still evaluating the cause of the event. "All plant safety systems responded as designed and the shutdown was safely carried out," said the NRC. Nine Mile Point is owned by CENG, a joint venture of Exelon and a French power company.

ABC News' Brian Hartman contributed to this report.

Iran official: German firm planted bombs in parts meant for nuclear program

Haaretz

An Iranian technician works at the uranium conversion facility just outside
the city of Isfahan 410 kilometers south of the capital Tehran, Iran, Feb. 3, 2007.

Iranian lawmaker says security experts discovered the explosives in components supplied by Siemens and removed them before detonation; firm denies claims.

Iran accused Germany's Siemens on Saturday of implanting tiny explosives inside equipment the Islamic Republic purchased for its disputed nuclear program, a charge the technology giant denied.

Prominent lawmaker Alaeddin Boroujerdi said Iranian security experts discovered the explosives and removed them before detonation, adding that authorities believe the booby-trapped equipment was sold to derail uranium enrichment efforts.

"The equipment was supposed to explode after being put to work, in order to dismantle all our systems," he said. "But the wisdom of our experts thwarted the enemy conspiracy."

Siemens denied the charge and said its nuclear division has had no business with Iran since the 1979 revolution that led to its current clerical state.

"Siemens rejects the allegations and stresses that we have no business ties to the Iranian nuclear program," spokesman for the Munich-based company Alexander Machowetz said.

Boroujerdi, who heads the parliamentary security committee, alleged that the explosives were implanted at a Siemens factory and demanded the company take responsibility.

Any sale of nuclear equipment to Iran is banned under U.N. sanctions, raising the possibility that if it indeed has some, it may have been acquired through third parties. Boroujerdi did not say when or how Iran obtained Siemens equipment. Despite a wide array of international sanctions, Germany remains one of Iran's most important trading partners.

The U.S. and its allies suspect Iran's nuclear work is aimed at producing weapons. Iran says it only wants to enrich uranium for peaceful purposes, and asserts it has been the target of a concerted campaign by Israel, the U.S. and their allies to undermine its nuclear efforts through covert operations.

Some Iranian officials have also suggested in the past that specific European companies may have sold faulty equipment to Iran with the knowledge of American intelligence agencies and their own governments, since the sales would have harmed, rather than helped, the country's nuclear program.

According to Iran, the alleged campaign has included the abduction of scientists, the sale of faulty equipment and the planting of a destructive computer worm known as Stuxnet, which briefly brought Iran's uranium enrichment activity to a halt in 2010.

Iran's nuclear chief, Fereidoun Abbasi, said Monday that separate attacks on Iran's centrifuges — through tiny explosives meant to disable key parts of the machines — were discovered before the blasts could go off on timers.

Abbasi also told the UN nuclear agency in Vienna that "terrorists and saboteurs" might have infiltrated the International Atomic Energy Agency, after the watchdog's inspectors arrived at the Fordo underground enrichment facility shortly after power lines were blown up through sabotage on Aug. 17.

Iran has repeatedly accused the IAEA of sending spies in the guise of inspectors to collect information about its nuclear activities, pointing to alleged leaks of information by inspectors to U.S. and other officials.

Five nuclear scientists and researchers have been killed in Iran since 2010. Tehran blames the deaths on Israel's Mossad spy agency as well as the CIA and Britain's MI-6. Washington and London have denied any roles. Israel has not commented.

Boroujerdi said the alleged leaks of nuclear information to its adversaries by the IAEA may finally push Tehran to end all cooperation with the agency.

"Iran has the right to cut its cooperation with the IAEA should such violations continue," he said.

Three Mile Island nuclear plant shuts down unexpectedly

USA Today
Michael Winter

A reactor at the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant shut down unexpectedly this afternoon because of a cooling problem, a month after it went offline because of a leak in the cooling system, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission says.

Update at 4:54 p.m. ET: The NRC says a cooling pump for Unit One stopped working at 2:16 p.m. ET, triggering the automatic shutdown, as the system is designed to do. An agency inspector was at the plant at the time.

The same unit shut down automatically Aug. 22 as it was being taken offline to fix a coolant leak.

Here's some of what the NRC's Preliminary Notification update explained when Unit One went back online Sept. 5:

The plant reached cold shutdown on August 23, 2012, and the source of RCS leakage was confirmed to be from micro-cracks in the alloy 600 diaphragm for the upper pressurizer heater bundle. This heater bundle was subsequently replaced with a bundle that contained a stainless steel, non-alloy 600 heater diaphragm. An NRC specialist inspector, who was deployed to the site, confirmed the source of the RCS leakage and monitored pressurizer heater replacement activities. The licensee subsequently conducted extent-of-condition inspections on the other two pressurizer heater bundles and no indications of leakage were identified. The inspectors determined that the licensee's post-installation and extent-of-condition inspections were acceptable.

It's not yet clear whether the same pump or part failed today.

Original post: The Three Mile Island nuclear power plant shut down unexpectedly this afternoon, releasing steam containing radiation "below detectable levels," a utility spokesman told WHTM-TV.

Exelon spokesman Ray DeSantis said that the plant shut down automatically at 2:20 p.m. ET and that the cause was not immediately known. He did not identify which of the plant's two reactors was involved.

DeSantis said the shutdown "presents no risks to public health or safety, and electric customers will not be affected," WHTM writes.

Residents near the plant, outside Harrisburg, Pa., the state capital, reported hearing a loud bang, the station says. A similar noise was heard Aug. 22, TMI's Unit One shut down automatically while being taken offline manually for to repair a heater element on the plant's pressurizer tank, Exelon said at the time.

According to a Nuclear Regulatory Commission report, the shutdown resulted from a leak of reactor coolant. Unit Two went back online Sept. 5.

The plant's March 1979 accident was the worst involving a commercial U.S. reactor. Here's background on that accident from the NRC and Wikipedia.

EU-Iran nuclear talks ‘useful and constructive,’ Iranian envoy reports

Times of Israel Saeed Jalili hopes his meeting with Catherine Ashton will ‘bring the common points closer together’ 

EU Foreign Policy chief Catherine Ashton, left, speaks
 with Iran's chief nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili during May talks in Baghdad 

Iran’s chief nuclear negotiator on Wednesday reported progress in talks aimed at restarting negotiations over Tehran’s nuclear program, calling a meeting with European foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton a day earlier “positive and fruitful.”

 Saeed Jalili offered few concrete details about Tuesday’s meeting with Ashton in Istanbul, but said the two had assessed some “common points” reached by technical teams looking into the issue and had discussed “what can be done for a new cooperation.”

 “We discussed common points found by the experts and technical teams … so that they may be brought closer together and that a framework for future talks can be drawn,” Jalili said. “We hope (our) talks can help bring the common points closer together.” Earlier, the EU released a brief statement saying the talks that ended early Wednesday were “useful and constructive” and “an important opportunity to stress once again to Iran the urgent need to make progress.”

The EU said Ashton would brief representatives of the US and five other world powers next week in New York about her efforts to restart negotiations that fizzled in June. “We are awaiting the result of the six powers’ assessment,” Jalili said. Efforts for a breakthrough on restarting talks over Tehran’s nuclear program have gained new urgency with fear that the failure of negotiations could prompt Israel to make good on a threat to attack Iran’s nuclear installations. Iran denies it is making nuclear weapons.

On Monday, its nuclear chief, Fereydoun Abbasi, said that “terrorists and saboteurs” might have infiltrated the International Atomic Energy Agency in an effort to derail his nation’s atomic program.

IAEA ready for talks with Iran in near future: Amano

PressTV

UN nuclear chief Yukiya Amano says the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) is ready to hold negotiations with Iran in the “near future.”

"I confirmed to Dr. Abbasi that the Agency is committed to continued dialogue with the Islamic Republic of Iran and expressed the readiness of Agency negotiators to meet with Iran in the near future," Amano said in a statement issued on Tuesday.

The brief statement was issued after a meeting between Amano and Head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI) Fereydoun Abbasi on Monday.

After the IAEA annual meeting in the Austrian capital, Vienna, Abbasi told reporters on Monday that Iran has no intention of enriching uranium above the 20 percent level.

The head of AEOI said most of Iran's enrichment activities are conducted at the 3.5 percent level, but added that in the future, Tehran will determine its uranium enrichment level according to its needs.

The United States, Israel and some of their allies have repeatedly accused Iran of pursuing non-civilian objectives in its nuclear energy program.

Iran argues that as a signatory to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and a member of IAEA, it is entitled to develop and acquire nuclear technology for peaceful purposes.

IAEA has conducted numerous inspections of Iran's nuclear facilities, but has never found any evidence indicating diversion in Tehran's nuclear energy program toward military purposes.

Daini workers needed emergency room after being at Unit 4 — Unable to decontaminate exposed people — “Plants are not safe”

ENE News

This video was taken on March 14, 2011.

• Top left:Fukushima Daiichi
• Top center: Fukushima Off-site Center
• Top right: Kashiwazaki Nuclear Power Plant

Right now [Daini's] plants are not safe, so we use emergency power supplies.

Unfortunately they refuse to supply fuel.

We said, “We supply fuel then.” Then they said we cannot let you do so…

[Daini] doesn’t have water. We don’t have enough water to decontaminate exposed people…

We prepare emergency rooms for Unit 4 of [Daini] and people from [Daiichi].

We prepare emergency rooms for each. So Head Office, please think separately. That’s all.

Iran opens nonaligned summit with calls for nuclear arms ban

Washington Post

Iran opened a world gathering of self-described nonaligned nations Sunday with a slap at the U.N. Security Council and an appeal to rid the world of nuclear weapons, even as Tehran faces Western suspicions that it is seeking its own atomic bombs.

Iran seeks to use the weeklong gathering — capped by a two-day summit of Non-Aligned Movement leaders — as a showcase of its global ties and efforts to challenge the influence of the West and its allies. Among those expected to attend include U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and the prime minister of India, Manmohan Singh, whose nation remains an important Iranian oil customer as Tehran battles Western sanctions over its nuclear

The 120-nation Non-Aligned Movement, a holdover from the Cold War’s pull between East and West, is also seen by Iran and others as an alternative forum for current world discussions. Iran says it plans talks on a peace plan to end Syria’s civil war, but no rebel factions will attend because of Tehran’s close bonds with Syrian President Bashar Assad’s regime.

Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi opened the gathering by noting commitment to a previous goal from the nonaligned group, known as NAM, to remove the world’s nuclear arsenals within 13 years.

“We believe that the timetable for ultimate removal of nuclear weapons by 2025, which was proposed by NAM, will only be realized if we follow it up decisively,” he told delegates.

Iran insists it does not seek nuclear weapons. The U.S. and allies suspect that Tehran’s uranium enrichment could eventually lead to warhead-level material. They have imposed ever-tighter sanctions on Iran’s banking and oil exports in attempt to wring concessions.

Israel has said that it would consider military options if diplomacy and economic pressures fail to curb Iran’s nuclear ambitions.

Salehi criticized Israel for remaining outside the U.N. main treaty governing the spread of nuclear technology. Israel refused to discuss the full range of its military capabilities, but it is widely believed to have a nuclear arsenal.

Iran ally North Korea has withdrawn from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. North Korean Foreign Minister Pak Ui Chun arrived in Tehran Sunday to attend the meetings.

Outside the meeting site, Iran displayed three cars damaged by bomb blasts that Iran has blamed on agents from Britain, the U.S. and Britain. At least five members of Iranian scientific community, including nuclear experts, have been killed since early 2010 as part of a suspected covert war with its main foes.

Iran and proxies, in turn, have been linked by investigators to a series of attacks and plots on Israeli targets around the world.

Salehi also complained about the perception of the “falling” clout of the U.N.’s general membership at the expense of the “rising power of the U.N. Security Council,” led by permanent members U.S., Britain, France, Russia and China.

“Creating a more democratic Security Council should be considered an important part of U.N. reforms,” Salehi told the gathering.

Even before the first session got under way, however, a dispute flared over Palestinian envoys.

Iranian officials said a political leader of Tehran’s ally Hamas has not been invited to the meeting in Tehran, contradicting Hamas claims that Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh was asked to come by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Hamas later Sunday that Haniyeh has dropped plans to attend.

The decision appeared aimed at avoiding a confrontation among Palestinians that could embarrass Hamas’ Iranian backers. The office of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas had warned he would not attend if rival Haniyeh also takes part.

The militant Hamas controls Gaza, while Abbas’ Western-backed administration governs parts of the West Bank. Abbas’ Foreign Minister Riad Malki also plans to travel to Tehran on Monday.

Copyright 2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Israel's War Plans to Attack Iran "Before the US Elections"

Global Research
Michel Chossudovsky

Israel's Channel 10 suggests, in no uncertain terms, that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is "determined to attack Iran before the US elections" and that the "time for action is getting closer."

"Israel is now closer than ever to a strike designed to thwart Iran’s nuclear drive".

This timely report suggests that Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak firmly believe that President Obama "would have no choice but to give backing for an Israeli attack" were it to be waged before the November presidential elections:

The TV station’s military reporter Alon Ben-David, who earlier this year was given extensive access to the Israel Air Force as it trained for a possible attack, reported that, since upgraded sanctions against Iran have failed to force a suspension of the Iranian nuclear program in the past two months, “from the prime minister’s point of view, the time for action is getting ever closer.”

Asked by the news anchor in the Hebrew-language TV report how close Israel now was to “a decision and perhaps an attack,” Ben-David said: “It appears that we are closer than ever.”

He said it seemed that Netanyahu was not waiting for a much-discussed possible meeting with US President Barack Obama, after the UN General Assembly gathering in New York late next month — indeed, “it’s not clear that there’ll be a meeting.” In any case, said Ben-David, “I doubt Obama could say anything that would convince Netanyahu to delay a possible attack.”

There is considerable opposition to an Israeli strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities, the report noted — with President Shimon Peres, the army’s chief of the General Staff and top generals, the intelligence community, opposition leader Shaul Mofaz, “and of course the Americans” all lined up against Israeli action at this stage.

But, noted Ben-David, it is the Israeli government that would have to take the decision, and there Netanyahu is “almost guaranteed” a majority. Other Hebrew media reports on Tuesday also said Netanyahu had dispatched a senior official, National Security Adviser Yaakov Amidror, to update the elderly spiritual leader of the Shas ultra-Orthodox coalition party, Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, on the status of the Iranian nuclear program, in order to try to win over Shas government ministers’ support for an attack. (Times of Israel, emphasis added)

In an earlier report, Richard Silverstein provides details of a leaked military document (translated from the Hebrew) which outlines the nature of Netanyahu's proposed "shock and awe attack" on Iran:

The Israeli attack will open with a coordinated strike, including an unprecedented cyber-attack which will totally paralyze the Iranian regime and its ability to know what is happening within its borders. The internet, telephones, radio and television, communications satellites, and fiber optic cables leading to and from critical installations—including underground missile bases at Khorramabad and Isfahan—will be taken out of action. The electrical grid throughout Iran will be paralyzed and transformer stations will absorb severe damage from carbon fiber munitions which are finer than a human hair, causing electrical short circuits whose repair requires their complete removal. This would be a Sisyphean task in light of cluster munitions which would be dropped, some time-delayed and some remote-activated through the use of a satellite signal.

A barrage of tens of ballistic missiles would be launched from Israel toward Iran. 300km ballistic missiles would be launched from Israeli submarines in the vicinity of the Persian Gulf. The missiles would not be armed with unconventional warheads [WMD], but rather with high-explosive ordnance equipped with reinforced tips designed specially to penetrate hardened targets.

The missiles will strike their targets—some exploding above ground like those striking the nuclear reactor at Arak–which is intended to produce plutonium and tritium—and the nearby heavy water production facility; the nuclear fuel production facilities at Isfahan and facilities for enriching uranium-hexaflouride. Others would explode under-ground, as at the Fordo facility.

Nearly 70% of Japanese who wanted to attend hearings on nuclear power hoped to discuss its complete abolition

Japan Times
Kyoda

FUKUOKA — Around 70 percent of citizens who wished to air their views on the future of nuclear power at public hearings held by the government wanted to discuss its complete elimination, officials said Saturday.

A series of 11 hearings, each in a different city, have been staged all around the country since July 14 to give the public an opportunity to express their opinions about the government's three options regarding the role nuclear power should play in Japan's new energy policy. The final forums held Saturday in Fukuoka and Takamatsu, Kagawa Prefecture.

Under the three options, the percentage of electricity to be generated through nuclear power by 2030 was set at zero, 15 percent, and 20 to 25 percent.

The government said Saturday that of the 1,542 citizens who wanted to take part in the hearings after being contacted by its officials, some 1,447 hoped to voice their thoughts about atomic energy.

Of the 1,447, some 983 people, or 68 percent, wanted to speak either for or against the complete abolition of nuclear power by 2030, according to the organizer of the hearings, the industry ministry's Agency for Natural Resources and Energy.

The majority wished to speak in support of scrapping all atomic energy generation, while 11 percent wanted to talk about the 15 percent option and 16 percent of them about the 20 to 25 percent option, the agency said. Five percent wanted to challenge all three options.

The 1,447 did not include anyone from the city of Fukushima, even though it was one of the 11 venues selected for the hearings. The prefecture hosts the crippled Fukushima No. 1 power plant, which suffered three catastrophic reactor meltdowns in March 2011.

Meanwhile, the government on Saturday began a two-day public survey in Tokyo on the country's new nuclear energy policy.

The government said it will take into account the results of both the public hearings and the Tokyo survey while formulating its energy and environmental policies, although it has yet to explain exactly how it intends to incorporate the findings.

Genetic mutations from radiation exposure are up to 100 times higher than anything we have encountered in the animal kingdom -Dr. Fernex, Former WHO Consultant

EneNews

Dr. Michel Fernex

• Emeritus Professor, Basel Faculty of Medecine
• Former Consultant, World Health Organization

“What should WHO have done after Chernobyl ?” asked Dr Nabarro in 2002 when he was Acting Director-General of the World Health Organization. I replied immediately, and then confirmed it in writing: “Convene a Scientific Working Group on Ionising Radiation and Genetics” like the one in 1956, and add the words “and Genomic Instability”.

[...] 

Since 1959, an agreement signed between WHO and the International Atomic Energy Agency, and then a number of additional legal texts, prohibit WHO from intervening in nuclear accidents.

[...] 

What genetic damage has been done to the population following the accident at Fukushima? Are the alterations already recorded in the cells of those workers who have exhausted themselves, over the last year, in an effort to reduce the dissemination of radionuclides into the environment. What about people who inhaled radioactive material and ate contaminated food ? Has this induced genomic instability? And the children that have been born since, or who will be born to fathers or mothers who have been irradiated. Have they inherited the fragile genomes of their parents? Are they, perhaps, going to be even worse affected than their parents ? 

In fact, researchers have been surprised to find that genetic damage, and above all perigenetic damage, which is responsible for genomic instability, to descendants is far worse than to parents; and this risk increases from one generation to the next. R.J.Baker and his colleagues, studying the DNA of genes transmitted from mother voles to their babies, found levels of mutation, from generation to generation, reaching 100 times higher than anything we have previously encountered up to now in the animal kingdom. The area in which these rodents live has seen its level of radioactivity decrease, because Caesium 137 is carried in rainwater and infiltrates deep into the soil, where it can be recycled by plants.

One might think that in forests far away from Chernobyl that these rodents would react positively to these improved radiological conditions. But the mutations and the genome fragility have increased over 22 generations in populations of voles studied by Goncharova and Ryabokon in Belarus. These geneticists have observed the opposite of an adaptation to radioactivity: an increase in genomic instability in all populations studied, from 30 to 300 kilometres away from the stricken reactor. In the least contaminated zones, near Minsk, the genomic instability is slow, but it will persist and worsen up to 22 generations later.

The genetic effects observed in both humans and rodents has led Professor Hillis, at the University of Texas, to conclude in his editorial in the review Nature, 25th April 1996: « We know today that the mutagenic effect of a nuclear accident can be far more serious than we ever suspected, and the eucaryotic genome can present levels of mutation that, up to now, would not have been considered possible. » 

At Fukushima, genomic instability needs to be followed up over generations, starting with grandparents and parents, then the children and grand children. After a year, the damage caused by the mixture of internal and external radiation to children should be measured, by comparison with data from before 2011 in the same areas, or by comparing data with communities further away, that were spared the radioactive fallout. Birthweight, incidence of stillbirth, perinatal mortality up to 28 days, birth deformities (heart problems should be investigated later), and among the genetic diseases, Down’s syndrome, should all be studied. Brain damage with tumours, and developmental retardation which, like decreases in IQ, will become evident at school age.

[...] 

In order to achieve its objectives, the IAEA cannot admit that these serious and common illnesses were caused by ionising radiation, because once known, it would prevent the development of the nuclear industry throughout the world.

[...] 

It was almost incomprehensible that at Fukushima there was no distribution of stable iodine to the population that would soon be under threat. Such a preventive measure would have been welcomed, as Keith Baverstock showed in Poland after Chernobyl.

The first victims of a serious nuclear accident are and will be children, with an increase in allergies and an aggravation of infectious diseases, which become chronic and involve serious complications.

[...] 

In equal doses, external radiation is ten to a hundred times less damaging than chronic internal radiation, which essentially results from the oral absorption of radionuclides. These concentrate in organs like the thymus, the endocrine glands, the spleen, the bone surfaces and the heart.

[...]

Fukushima Panel: Information on Radiation Release Suppressed

Global Research

NHK [Japanese Public Television] has learned that a government panel of experts will say it has been unable to specify exactly how the radioactive release occurred at a reactor of the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant.

On March 15th, 4 days after the breakdown of the Fukushima Daiichi plant, its No. 2 reactor appeared to release the largest amount of radioactive substances since the start of the disaster.

The panel investigating the accident at Fukushima Daiichi will present a new observation in its final report later this month.

The report will say pressure in the suppression chamber of the No. 2 reactor was falling gradually between 1:30 pm to 6:00 pm on March 14th.

It will say this suggests that the suppression chamber collapsed at the time.

The plant operator, Tokyo Electric Power Company, has insisted that the suppression chamber was destroyed during the morning hours of March 15th, when pressure was falling rapidly, instead of the previous day.

The panel will take issue with TEPCO's view, saying their analysis probably does not reflect what actually happened.

It will conclude that it has been unable to specify the details of how the radioactive release occurred because the panel's on-site investigation and time were limited.

The panel will also propose that TEPCO continue its investigation to determine how the reactor was damaged.

Noting that an investigation using robots has just begun in the No.2 reactor, Professor Koji Okamoto at the University of Tokyo Graduate School says available information is still insufficient.

He also says the investigation should be continued with help from experts from abroad.

Fukushima was ‘man-made’ disaster: Japanese probe

HuluPlus
Majid Siddique

TOKYO: Last year’s nuclear accident at Fukushima was a man-made catastrophe and not only due to the tsunami that hit the plant, a Japanese parliamentary panel said Thursday in its final report on the disaster.

“The TEPCO Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant accident was the result of collusion between the government, the regulators and (plant operator) TEPCO, and the lack of governance by said parties,” said the report by the Diet’s Fukushima Nuclear Accident Independent Investigation Commission.

“They effectively betrayed the nation’s right to be safe from nuclear accidents. Therefore, we conclude that the accident was clearly ‘man-made’.

“We believe that the root causes were the organisational and regulatory systems that supported faulty rationales for decisions and actions, rather than issues relating to the competency of any specific individual.”

The probe is the third of its kind in Japan since the world’s worst nuclear crisis in a generation.

An earlier report by plant operator Tokyo Electric Power (TEPCO) had all but cleared the huge utility, saying the size of the earthquake and tsunami was beyond all expectations and could not reasonably have been foreseen.

But an independent group of scholars and journalists, who reported their findings in February, said TEPCO could and should have done more.

It also said that had the company had its way, its staff would have been evacuated from the crippled plant and the catastrophe could have spiralled even further out of control.

The findings published on Thursday call for further investigation into the impact of the 9.0 magnitude earthquake — as opposed to the towering tsunami — on the reactors at Fukushima.

“As for direct cause of the accident, the commission reached the conclusion that we cannot definitely say any devices that were important for safety were not damaged by the earthquake,” it said.
“We cannot rule out the possibility that a small-scale LOCA (loss-of-coolant accident) occurred at the reactor No. 1 in particular.”

Although many scientists and activists have questioned the dominant narrative that cooling systems were knocked out by the rising waters, the government and TEPCO have been unwilling to say the reactors were damaged by the initial earthquake.

Tectonically-volatile Japan has a network of nuclear reactors that, until Fukushima, had supplied around a third of the nation’s electricity.

The nuclear industry has long boasted of its many safeguards against earthquakes, but much recent public opposition to atomic power has focused on the vulnerability of plants, especially those that sit near seismic faults.

The report said “it is considered that TEPCO management knew about delays in anti-quake works and postponement of tsunami measures and were aware that the Fukushima Daiichi (number one plant) was vulnerable.”

TEPCO also failed to act promptly in the early stages of the disaster, the panel concluded, but added: “This should not be attributed to individuals… at the plant but the structural problems of TEPCO.”

The administration of then premier Naoto Kan hampered operations as the disaster unfolded, the report said, and did not use a logical chain of command.

“The prime minister’s office was supposed to contact the plant operator through an on-the-spot taskforce. But… issued direct instructions to TEPCO head office and the accident site, confusing the command line.”

Japan’s nuclear watchdog was remiss because it did not force TEPCO to act, even when it knew things were going wrong, the report said.

“The Nuclear Industrial Safety Agency (NISA) knew TEPCO was postponing taking measures but did not give clear instructions,” it said, adding NISA “was unprepared for a disaster whose scale exceeded past accidents.” AFP

Atomic Energy Agency Dangerously Weak, Warns Report

InterPressService
Mauro Tedon

Subject to politicization

Jun 25 2012- The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) is “significantly underfunded”, warns a new report released here on Monday.


The agency is labouring under a three-decade-old budget cap that, the report says, is significantly hampering the organisation’s ability to function at the necessary level.

Under several of its mandates, the IAEA is the only organisation in the world tasked with such oversight. It remains entirely funded by voluntary contributions from its member states.

“In spite of (a) well-deserved reputation and its apparently starry prospects, the Agency remains relatively undernourished, its powers significantly hedged and its technical achievements often overshadowed by political controversy,” warns the report, released by the Centre for International Governance Innovation (CIGI), a Canadian think tank.

Currently, the IAEA’s regular budget stands at 321 million euros (around 400 million dollars), which pays for a staff of around 2,300.

“This is tiny, considering what it does,” the report’s author, Trevor Findlay, said on Monday at the Washington offices of the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute.

What that budget currently does, according to Findlay’s research, is oversee nuclear safeguards at 949 facilities in 175 countries, as of 2010. That same year alone, the organisation engaged in more than 2,100 on-site inspections.

Indeed, the IAEA has garnered surprisingly widespread accolades since its creation in 1953. At the same time, much of this praise has inherently acknowledged the agency’s relative budgetary limitations, choosing to laud its efficiency.

In 2006, the U.S. government office tasked with assisting the president create the federal budget gave the IAEA a perfect score in terms of its value for money. In 2004, a U.N. panel cited the agency as an “extraordinary bargain”.

Yet while Findlay notes that the IAEA has repeatedly been called out as “one of the better-run agencies in the U.N. system”, he warns that the organisation’s capped budget is having negative ramifications across its several mandates.

Zero real growth

The funding problems stem from a United Nations-wide policy instituted during the mid-1980s called zero real growth, which halted budgets from growing beyond the median rate of inflation. This came about due to pressure from the so-called Geneva Group, comprised of the largest contributing countries to the U.N.

In the IAEA’s case, this policy essentially froze the budget until 2003, when small though incremental increases were made to the agency’s budget, particularly as a result of U.S. pressure.

“Saikado Hantai!”: "We oppose the restart!"

Thousands protest restart of nuclear power plants in Japan.

As the person who shot the video states:

“11,000 public citizens gathered in front of the Prime Minister’s official residence today to  protest against the restart of Oi nuclear power plant.  I videotaped from the middle of the crowd all the way to the end of the line.
I was so moved by the power and energy of 11,000 people that you can hear me sobbing from part of the way.  Please watch it!  You will feel the power!”

Indiana Radiation Spike Triggers Elevated Levels In Other States, Media Stays Silent

Elevated Indiana radiation levels — specifically near the border of Indiana and Michigan — have prompted explosions, military helicopters, thousands of eyewitness accounts, but where is the mainstream media coverage? Now independent radiation experts are reporting increased levels in some other states, with one particular station noticing an increase since just around 11:45am mountain time on Thursday.

This coincides with community board posts created just around the same time in a number of locations, even before the incident hit the public. In one such posting on a law enforcement website discussing the radiation increase, an individual from Chicago states “We’ve been encountering some high readings at the labs here.”

Independent radiation monitoring station owner Joey Stanford has uploaded a video showing spiked radiation levels as far as Colorado. Some individuals are questioning the actual source of the increased radiation, stating that it could be solar-based.

Stanford created the video in response to the growing concerns over elevated radiation levels stemming from Indiana. Indiana radiation levels normally hover around 5 and 6 counts per minute (CPM), but the levels drastically increased to as much as 7,139 CPM without warning. Afterwards, the EPA disabled the online measurement tool. Here is the screenshot of the tool showing the skyrocketing levels.

Joey’s report echoes what many stations are finding, with live Twitter updates reporting a consistently increased amount of radiation since the initial event around 11:45 AM on Thursday. Some Twitter updates from last night’s Radiation Monitor, Joey’s own station all the way in Colorado, read:

252 CPM, 2.0462 uSv/h, 1.9820 AVG uSv/h, 7 time(s) over natural radiation

324 CPM, 2.6309 uSv/h, 2.1884 AVG uSv/h, 8 time(s) over natural radiation

222 CPM, 1.8026 uSv/h, 1.7459 AVG uSv/h, 6 time(s) over natural radiation

Once again, this is nothing compared to the 7,139 CPM reported near Indiana, however it shows that there is a possibility of correlation. While the answer as to what is going on is not clear, it is clear that it has piqued the interest of government officials. Military helicopters, aircraft, and Department of Homeland Security hazmat fleets have reportedly been dispersed towards the area based on eyewitness photos and accounts.

Confirmed: US and Israel created Stuxnet, lost control of it

arstechnica
Nate Anderson

In 2011, the US government rolled out its "International Strategy for Cyberspace," which reminded us that "interconnected networks link nations more closely, so an attack on one nation’s networks may have impact far beyond its borders." An in-depth report today from the New York Times confirms the truth of that statement as it finally lays bare the history and development of the Stuxnet virus—and how it accidentally escaped from the Iranian nuclear facility that was its target.

The article is adapted from journalist David Sanger's forthcoming book, Confront and Conceal: Obama’s Secret Wars and Surprising Use of American Power, and it confirms that both the US and Israeli governments developed and deployed Stuxnet. The goal of the worm was to break Iranian nuclear centrifuge equipment by issuing specific commands to the industrial control hardware responsible for their spin rate. By doing so, both governments hoped to set back the Iranian research program—and the US hoped to keep Israel from launching a pre-emptive military attack.

The code was only supposed to work within Iran's Natanz refining facility, which was air-gapped from outside networks and thus difficult to penetrate. But computers and memory cards could be carried between the public Internet and the private Natanz network, and a preliminary bit of "beacon" code was used to map out all the network connections within the plant and report them back to the NSA.
That program, first authorized by George W. Bush, worked well enough to provide a digital map of Natanz and its industrial control hardware. Soon, US national labs were testing different bits of the plan to sabotage Natanz (apparently without knowing what the work was for) using similar centrifuges that had come from Libya's Qadaffi regime. When the coders found the right sets of commands to literally shake the centrifuges apart, they knew that Stuxnet could work.
When ready, Stuxnet was introduced to Natanz, perhaps by a double agent.

Getting the worm into Natanz, however, was no easy trick. The United States and Israel would have to rely on engineers, maintenance workers and others—both spies and unwitting accomplices—with physical access to the plant. “That was our holy grail,” one of the architects of the plan said. “It turns out there is always an idiot around who doesn’t think much about the thumb drive in their hand.”
In fact, thumb drives turned out to be critical in spreading the first variants of the computer worm; later, more sophisticated methods were developed to deliver the malicious code.

Fukushima Reactor 4 Release Would Doom Western USA

Technorati
Stephen Alexander

If Reactor 4 at Fukushima becomes unstable and releases 10 times the amount of Cesium-137 (CS-137) released at the time of the Chernobyl nuclear accident, then the prevailing winds could carry it all the way to the Western USA – that means California.

On April 30, 2012, 72 NGO organizations sent a request to the United Nations and the Japanese government urging fast-action to stabilize the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Plant Unit 4 spent nuclear fuel. Experts in the nuclear field from both Japan and the world endorsed the letter.

The letter contained warnings that the damaged Unit 4 spent nuclear fuel pool contains Cesium-137. If that pool were exposed to an earthquake or other event that drained that pool, then the result could be a catastrophic radiological fire. The letter urged the United Nations to create a Nuclear Safety Summit to find a solution to the problem of the Fukushima Daiichi Unit 4 spent nuclear fuel pool. The proposal stated that the United Nations should create an independent assessment team on Fukushima Daiichi Unit 4 and organize international assistance to stabilize the unit's spent nuclear fuel and prevent the impending catastrophe. The letters were delivered to both the UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda. The second letter asked that Japan officially ask for the United Nations' help.

Numbering in excess of 10,000, the spent fuel assemblies at the Fukushima Daiichi plant lie in pools vulnerable to future earthquakes. The radioactivity is around 85-times more long-lived than the radioactivity released at Chernobyl.

Tokyo Soil Samples Would Be Considered Nuclear Waste In The US

While traveling in Japan several weeks ago, Fairewinds’ Arnie Gundersen took soil samples in Tokyo public parks, playgrounds, and rooftop gardens. All the samples would be considered nuclear waste if found here in the US. This level of contamination is currently being discovered throughout Japan. At the US NRC Regulatory Information Conference in Washington, DC March 13 to March 15, the NRC's Chairman, Dr. Gregory Jaczko emphasized his concern that the NRC and the nuclear industry presently do not consider the costs of mass evacuations and radioactive contamination in their cost benefit analysis used to license nuclear power plants. Furthermore, Fairewinds believes that evacuation costs near a US nuclear plant could easily exceed one trillion dollars and contaminated land would be uninhabitable for generations.

Russia Stunned After Japanese Plan to Evacuate 40 Million Revealed

Reader Supported News

new report circulating in the Kremlin today prepared by the Foreign Ministry on the planned re-opening of talks with Japan over the disputed Kuril Islands during the next fortnight states that Russian diplomats were “stunned” after being told by their Japanese counterparts that upwards of 40 million of their peoples were in “extreme danger” of life threatening radiation poisoning and could very well likely be faced with forced evacuations away from their countries eastern most located cities… including the world’s largest one, Tokyo.

The Kuril Islands are located in Russia's Sakhalin Oblast region and stretch approximately 1,300 km (810 miles) northeast from Hokkaido-, Japan, to Kamchatka, Russia, separating the Sea of Okhotsk from the North Pacific Ocean. There are 56 islands and many more minor rocks. It consists of Greater Kuril Ridge and Lesser Kuril Ridge, all of which were captured by Soviet Forces in the closing days of World War II from the Japanese.

The “extreme danger” facing tens of millions of the Japanese peoples is the result of the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Disaster that was a series of equipment failures, nuclear meltdowns, and releases of radioactive materials at the Fukushima I Nuclear Power Plant, following the To-hoku earthquake and tsunami on 11 March 2011.

According to this report, Japanese diplomats have signaled to their Russian counterparts that the returning of the Kuril Islands to Japan is “critical” as they have no other place to resettle so many people that would, in essence, become the largest migration of human beings since the 1930’s when Soviet leader Stalin forced tens of millions to resettle Russia’s far eastern regions.

Important to note, this report continues, are that Japanese diplomats told their Russian counterparts that they were, also, “seriously considering” an offer by China to relocate tens of millions of their citizens to the Chinese mainland to inhabit what are called the “ghost cities,” built for reasons still unknown and described, in part, by London’s Daily Mail News Service in their 18 December 2010 article titled: “The Ghost Towns Of China: Amazing Satellite Images Show Cities Meant To Be Home To Millions Lying Deserted” that says:

“These amazing satellite images show sprawling cities built in remote parts of China that have been left completely abandoned, sometimes years after their construction. Elaborate public buildings and open spaces are completely unused, with the exception of a few government vehicles near communist authority offices. Some estimates put the number of empty homes at as many as 64 million, with up to 20 new cities being built every year in the country's vast swathes of free land.”

Foreign Ministry experts in this report note that should Japan accept China’s offer, the combined power of these two Asian peoples would make them the largest super-power in human history with an economy larger than that of the United States and European Union combined and able to field a combined military force of over 200 million.