Stronger Chinese Navy Worries Neighbors and US

Der Spiegel
Bernhard Zand

China and the US seem to be on a collision course in the Pacific. Beijing is significantly bolstering its navy, and Washington is shifting its military focus to the Asia-Pacific Region. Many fear it could alter the balance of power in a region rich in oil and crucial for global trade.

The best view of China's new flagship, which inspires fear in its enemies, could recently be had from a window on the fourth floor of an IKEA store in Dalian, a port city in northeastern China. Here, someone had scratched out a viewing hole in the opaque film masking the window, providing a view of the pier across the way -- and of theVaryag.

This ship, whose keel was originally built by the Soviets, is now being put into service by the China's People's Liberation Army Navy. Shipyard employees spent years working on the colossal ship, drilling and welding. Then the Varyag disappeared a total of 10 times for sea trials, leaving geostrategists and naval experts from Tokyo to Washington endlessly speculating about where the ship might be at any given moment and with what kinds of weapons and airplanes China would decide to outfit it.

Since late August, the ship has once again been docked in Dalian. On the morning of September 2, observers noticed a team of painters at work and, by the afternoon of the next day, the result of their work could be seen: an enormous number "16" emblazoned on the gray hull of the ship. This, it seems, will be the identification number of the first aircraft carrier put into service by China's naval forces, a number said to have been chosen in honor of Admiral Liu Huaqing, father of the modern Chinese navy, who was born in 1916.

One day later, on Tuesday of last week, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton paid a visit to Beijing. This was the third stop on Clinton's trip, which began in the Cook Islands, in the middle of the South Pacific Ocean, and would then take her to Indonesia, China, East Timor and Brunei along the way to the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in Vladivostok, Russia. Clinton represents a government that is paying particular attention to the actions of the Chinese navy. One of the main reasons for Clinton's trip was to remind the US' allies in the region that America is the hegemonic force in the West Pacific -- and intends to remain so.

Chinese Muscle-Flexing

Right at the start of her trip, in the Cook Islands, Clinton met with representatives from allies, including Australia, Japan, New Zealand and the Philippines, as well as ones from Vietnam, America's former enemy. "The Pacific is big enough for all of us," Clinton told them. However, some have reasons to doubt that statement because they know the US and its allies have rivals in the region, as well: North Korea and China.

North Korea, under the command of a dictator not yet 30 years old, may appear to be the more dangerous opponent. But China is the weightier one by far, challenging the US not only in industry, trade and outer space, but also in the arena where the world's major powers have played out their conflicts since as long ago as the 16th century: at sea.

Here in the West Pacific, tensions have been rising for months between China and America's partners. Beijing is in a dispute with Manila over the Scarborough Shoal, an uninhabited rocky atoll, most of which is only above sea level at low tide. This May, Washington quietly negotiated a compromise in which ships from both China and the Philippines would withdraw from the region. Since then, however, the Chinese navy has blocked off the lagoon and its excellent fishing waters and once again sent ships to patrol the area.

At the same time, China is at odds with Japan over another uninhabited island group -- known as Diaoyu in Chinese and Senkaku in Japanese -- located near a key shipping lane between Taiwan and Okinawa. In August, activists from Hong Kong hoisted a Chinese flag on one of the islands, triggering a wave of patriotic enthusiasm on the mainland.

Tension over these islands flared up once again this week after it was announced Tuesday that the government in Tokyo had purchased the islands from a Japanese family. On Friday, six Chinese maritime patrol vessels reportedly entered into Japanese-controlled waters around the islands and remained there for two hours despite warnings from a Japanese vessel. The Associated Press quotes Japan's coast guard as saying the Chinese vessel radioed: "Diaoyu is China's territory. This ship is carrying out lawful operations. We urge you to leave the waters immediately."

China also snubbed its socialist neighbor Vietnam this June by establishing a city on the Paracel Islands, which are also claimed by Hanoi, as are the Spratly Islands further to the south. At the same time, Beijing began building a military garrison on the Paracel Islands. This latest step makes it clear that China is laying claim to nearly the entire South China Sea, an area of nearly 2 million square kilometers (772,000 square miles) that American strategists refer to as the "cow's tongue" owing to its peculiar shape.

Obama's Pacific 'Pivot'

It is difficult to overstate the economic and military importance of the South China Sea, which connects the Indian Ocean to the Pacific. Over half the annual tonnage of all the world's merchant navies is shipped through adjacent sea routes here, and the region sees a third of the world's maritime traffic. Eighty percent of China's crude oil imports pass through here, and the seafloor holds an estimated 130 billion barrels of crude oil and 9.3 trillion cubic meters (328 trillion cubic feet) of natural gas.

"All of the trends, demographic trends, geopolitical trends, economic trends and military trends, are shifting toward the Pacific. So our strategic challenges in the future will largely emanate out of the Pacific region," said Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Martin Dempsey when laying out the US' new defense strategy together with President Barack Obama this January.

Obama, who was born in Hawaii and raised in Indonesia, has declared a strategic "pivot" of US military strategy to the Asia-Pacific region. Indeed, the Pacific is more important to the US' future than Europe or the NATO territory along the coasts of the Atlantic. Obama traveled to Australia last year to personally announce plans for a new US Marine base there, and his administration has plans for conducting joint maneuvers with Vietnam as well as for setting up ultra-modern equipment in Japan as part of a missile defense system for Asia.

The 7th Fleet, established in 1943 and now stationed in Japan and Guam, is already the US Navy's largest and strongest force, with more than 60 warships and around 40,000 personnel. In the coming years, it will be expanded even further so that, by 2020, some 60 percent of all American warships will be stationed in the Pacific -- more than in the Atlantic and also more than in the Persian Gulf, which has been considered the US Navy's main focus in recent decades.

Playing Catch-Up

One of the primary reasons for this fundamental shift on the part of Obama's administration is China's build-up of its military forces, especially its navy. A congressional study published on August 10 suggests that the United States considers the modernization of China's navy an aggressive act. According to the study, Beijing is by no means simply trying to protect its trade routes and its citizens abroad but, rather, is determined to assert its territorial claims, push back the US' influence in the Pacific and underline its status as a global military power.

To these ends, the study continues, China has, among other things, developed ballistic anti-ship missiles that are the first capable of striking aircraft carriers that were previously considered more or less unassailable. In military jargon, these missiles are known as "carrier killers." The congressional study goes on to state that China has also launched three nuclear submarines of its own design that are capable of firing nuclear-armed intercontinental missiles, that the country also wants at least two aircraft carriers of its own construction, and that it plans to undertake "reforms and improvements in maintenance and logistics, naval doctrine, personnel quality, education, training and exercises."

Some observers consider a military conflict between China and the US "very unlikely," the study states, in part given the "significant US-Chinese economic linkages and the tremendous damage that such a conflict could cause on both sides." Yet, even in the absence of such a conflict, the balance of military power between the two nations "could nevertheless influence day-to-day choices made by other Pacific countries," including "the political evolution of the Pacific."

"It seems to me the West is simply faint-hearted," says Xu Guangyu, 78, a retired People's Liberation Army general and current senior analyst with the China Arms Control and Disarmament Association. China, he says, wants to "build up a navy that is strong enough to keep an adversary from attacking, strong enough to defend itself and strong enough to strike back."

The ascetic officer, who served in the Korean War from 1950 to 1953 and in the Sino-Vietnamese War in 1979, considers his country's military situation fundamentally misunderstood. "We're decades behind in our development," he says. "Even India is 60 years ahead of us."

Reducing Army While Expanding Navy

Over 30 percent of American military personnel serve in the US Navy, Xu claims, compared to only 15 percent for China. But these figures aren't quite accurate: The percentage for the US is actually about 20 percent. Xu also states that the Pentagon has 11 nuclear-powered aircraft carriers, while Beijing only has one, which is diesel-powered and "requires maintenance every couple weeks besides." His statements continue on is the same vein: "China has 17 soldiers for every 10,000 people, while the US has 43. We spend just $14,000 (€11,000) per year per soldier. Do you know how much Germany pays each year for each of its soldiers? $200,000."

China's navy, Xu says, has a great deal of catching up to do. The Varyag will be put into service this year, he adds, but Beijing will need at least six to eight more "proper" aircraft carriers, while the navy's importance within China's forces as a whole needs to be considerably enhanced. Currently, Xu explains, the personnel ratio between China's army and navy is 7 to 1.5, while the desired ratio is 5 to 2.5 -- which would still be more sparing than in the US armed forces.

If the desired ratio were indeed established, China, with its enormous number of troops as a whole, would field the world's largest navy, with nearly 500,000 sailors -- although Xu Guangyu says the country's total number of soldiers will soon be reduced from its current level of 2.3 million to 2 million and, later, to 1.5 million. 

"Eventually, we also want to spend around $100,000 per soldier," Xu explains. "When it comes to ships and equipment, though, we will continue to rank third, behind the US and Russia."

Regardless of how China's strategic position may change in the coming years, Xu says, the importance of its navy will increase: "We have a couple of conflicts along our land borders, but the greatest dangers for China have always come from the sea." The "Eight-Nation Alliance" that put down the Boxer Rebellion in 1900 and laid waste to Beijing approached from the sea, he points out, as did Japan when it subjugated parts of China in the 1930s and 1940s. "And I have the impression that the Americans aren't going to come out of the skies either," Xu adds.

Ominous Precedents

Seven years ago, when the US military was still mired in Iraq's civil war, American journalist and policy thinker Robert D. Kaplan predicted that the US would eventually turn its attention from the Middle East to the Asia-Pacific Region. Now, history has proven Kaplan right as global power relations are developing in just that direction.

President Obama has clearly shifted the US military's strategic focus from CENTCOM, the command center responsible for the Middle East, to PACOM, which is responsible for the Pacific.

Kaplan also described China's desire, as an up-and-coming nation, to secure its sphere of influence beyond its own coasts as "fully legitimate." Zhu Feng, a Chinese security expert at Beijing University, further suggests that America will only "accelerate" the arms race by implementing measures such as the planned missile defense shield.

One country that could give China good advice, a country whose historians are well versed in naval policies and in arms races on the high seas, is Germany. A century ago, Berlin stood where Beijing is now, as an emerging economic power that was admired, envied and feared. At the time, Germany wanted a navy that would broadcast its self-confidence to the world, one that could rival the world's greatest naval force of the era, the British Navy.

That plan almost succeeded. But it didn't end well.

Translated from the German by Ella Ornstein

Fukushima plant “to keep contaminating the Pacific Ocean for the rest of time” if fuel can’t be removed — No good solution, must constantly pump out water from under buildings

ENENews

Title: Arnold Gundersen with another update on the unfolding effects of the Fukushima disaster
Source: KPFT Houston, If You Love This Planet Radio
Date: Aug 31, 2012
Description: This week, Dr. Caldicott brings on nuclear engineer Arnold Gundersen  [...]

At 19:00 in

Caldicott: If you put concrete on it, you know it’s going to keep going down into the water table. 

Gundersen: Right. 

Caldicott: And you know it’s going to keep contaminating the Pacific Ocean for the rest of time. 

Gundersen: Right. So the solution — there is no good solution — but the solution would be to bore holes underneath and constantly pull water out from under the buildings.

[...]

At 23:00 in

Caldicott: You are sacrificing the Pacific by leaving this stuff there for the rest of time, which will leak and drain consistently into the Pacific. 

Gundersen: You’re right. It needs to be constantly pumped out

[...]

Low-flying helicopters over Berkeley are measuring radiation levels

BerkeleySide
Tracey Taylor

Many Berkeley residents have been in touch with us today asking about the helicopters that have been flying overhead, across the city and also into Oakland. A call to Berkeley Police Department confirms that the choppers are out measuring baseline radiation levels.

The flyovers are part of research by two federal security agencies — the Department of Homeland Security and the National Nuclear Security Administration — to compare aerial and ground based mapping of radioactivity, according to a story in the Contra Costa Times.

The National Nuclear Security Administration agency says the project will help local, state and federal authorities’measure radiation. Radioactive sources — such as uranium, radon gas and carbon-14 — have been present in the Earth’s crust since it was formed. (Read the NNSA press release.)

While the purpose may be worthy, the low-flying choppers — they need to fly at around 300 ft — are not proving popular with everyone. “It’s driving me batty,” said Berkeleysider Emily Cohen.

Update, 6:00pm: Berkeley Police say the helicopter will be making daily flights for five days, between Aug. 27 and Sept. 1, 2012. “The helicopter will fly in a grid pattern over the locations about 300 feet above the ground,” they said in a release.

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.

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.

[...]

Nearly 36pc of Fukushima children diagnosed with abnormal thyroid growths

The Telegraph
Julian Ryall

The Sixth Report of Fukushima Prefecture Health Management Survey, released in April, included examinations of 38,114 children, of whom 35.3 percent - some 13,460 children - were found to have cysts or nodules of up to 5 mm (0.197 inches) on their thyroids.

A further 0.5 percent, totalling 186 youngsters, had nodules larger than 5.1 mm (0.2 inches).

A study by the Japan Thyroid Association in 2001 found that zero percent of children in the city of Nagasaki had nodules and only 0.8 percent had cysts on their thyroids.

"Yes, 35.8 percent of children in the study have lumps or cysts, but this is not the same as cancer," said Naomi Takagi, an associate professor at Fukushima University Medical School Hospital, which administered the tests.

"We do not know that cause of this, but it is hard to believe that is due to the effects of radiation," she said. "This is an early test and we will only see the effects of radiation exposure after four or five years."

The local authority is carrying out long-term testing of children who were under the age of 18 on March 11 last year, the day on which the magnitude-9 Great East Japan struck off the coast of north-east Japan, triggering the massive tsunami that crippled the Fukushima nuclear plant.

Thyroid examinations were first conducted in October last year and will be carried out every two years up to the age of 20 and every five years for the rest of the children's lives.

A second report has been issued by Japan's Institute of Radiological Sciences in which it found that some children living close to the plant were exposed to "lifetime" doses of radiation to their thyroid glands.

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.

“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.

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.

60 Minutes Report: Fukushima Now Radiating Everyone: Will Impact All Of Humanity

The Cry for Help over Fukushima's Spent Fuel Pool No. 4

ENENEWS

Title: Urgent Request to UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon
Source: Green Action Japan
Date: May 1, 2012

To: UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon

An Urgent Request on UN Intervention to Stabilize the Fukushima Unit 4 Spent Nuclear Fuel

Recently, former diplomats and experts both in Japan and abroad stressed the extremely risky condition of the Fukushima Daiichi Unit 4 spent nuclear fuel pool and this is being widely reported by world media. Robert Alvarez, Senior Scholar at the Institute for Policy Studies (IPS), who is one of the best-known experts on spent nuclear fuel, stated that in Unit 4 there is spent nuclear fuel which contains Cesium-137 (Cs-137) that is equivalent to 10 times the amount that was released at the time of the Chernobyl nuclear accident. Thus, if an earthquake or other event were to cause this pool to drain, this could result in a catastrophic radiological fire involving nearly 10 times the amount of Cs-137 released by the Chernobyl accident.

Nearly all of the 10,893 spent fuel assemblies at the Fukushima Daiichi plant sit in pools vulnerable to future earthquakes, with roughly 85 times more long-lived radioactivity than released at Chernobyl.
Nuclear experts from the US and Japan such as Arnie Gundersen, Robert Alvarez, Hiroaki Koide, Masashi Goto, and Mitsuhei Murata, a former Japanese ambassador to Switzerland, and, Akio Matsumura, a former UN diplomat, have continually warned against the high risk of the Fukushima Unit 4 spent nuclear fuel pool.

US Senator Roy Wyden, after his visit to the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant on 6 April, 2012, issued a press release on 16 April, pointing out the catastrophic risk of Fukushima Daiichi Unit 4, calling for urgent US government intervention. Senator Wyden also sent a letter to Ichiro Fujisaki, Japan’s Ambassador to the United States, requesting Japan to accept international assistance to tackle the crisis.

We Japanese civil organizations express our deepest concern that our government does not inform its citizens about the extent of risk of the Fukushima Daiichi Unit 4 spent nuclear fuel pool. Given the fact that collapse of this pool could potentially lead to catastrophic consequences with worldwide implications, what the Japanese government should be doing as a responsible member of the international community is to avoid any further disaster by mobilizing all the wisdom and the means available in order to stabilize this spent nuclear fuel. It is clearly evident that Fukushima Daiichi Unit 4 spent nuclear fuel pool is no longer a Japanese issue but an international issue with potentially serious consequences. Therefore, it is imperative for the Japanese government and the international community to work together on this crisis before it becomes too late. We are appealing to the United Nations to help Japan and the planet in order to prevent the irreversible consequences of a catastrophe that could affect generations to come. We herewith make our urgent request to you as follows:
1. The United Nations should organize a Nuclear Security Summit to take up the crucial problem of the Fukushima Daiichi Unit 4 spent nuclear fuel pool.

2. The United Nations should establish an independent assessment team on Fukushima Daiichi Unit 4 and coordinate international assistance in order to stabilize the unit’s spent nuclear fuel and prevent radiological consequences with potentially catastrophic consequences.

30 April 2012

Shut Tomari (Japan) [...]

Green Action (Japan) [...]

Endorsed by:

Hiroaki Koide Kyoto University Nuclear Reactor Research Institute (Japan)
Mitsuhei Murata Former ambassador to Switzerland and to Senegal
Board member, Global System and Ethics Society (Japan)
Akio Matsumura Former United Nations diplomat
Robert Alvarez Senior Scholar, Institute for Policy Studies, Washington, D.C. (USA)
Masashi Goto Former Nuclear Plant Engineer (Japan)
Signing organizations: 72 Japanese organizations have signed this petition (as of 30 April 2012)

Read the letter here
See also:

• Ambassador Murata writes to UN Secretary General: "It is no exaggeration to say that the fate of Japan and the whole world depends on No. 4 reactor" -- Appeals for independent assessment team
  
• New Interview: Fukushima poses lethal risk to US West Coast, says Senator -- Another bomb waiting to go off -- Extreme nuclear vulnerability, especially in Reactor No. 4

Fukushima: Hanging by a Thread

Dr. Sicus's Blog
Dr. Mark Sircus

After writing my essay “Radioactive Hell on Earth”—actually I wanted to change that title to “Fukushima on Steroids”—I see Christina Consolo’s essay “Fukushima is Falling Apart”:

Are you ready—it is becoming clear that we, our children and our entire civilization is hanging by a thread. It is a very sorry thing to report that we have literally shot ourselves in the foot with a big nuclear shotgun full of radioactive particles of the worst conceivable kind.

It has taken a year but finally “a U.S. Senator finally got off his ass and went to Japan to see what is going on over there. What he saw was horrific. Reactor No. 4 building is on the verge of collapsing.
Seismicity standards rate the building at a zero, meaning even a small earthquake could send it into a heap of rubble. And sitting at the top of the building, in a pool that is cracked, leaking, and precarious even without an earthquake, are 1,565 fuel rods.”


If an earthquake or other event were to cause this pool to drain, this could result in a catastrophic radiological fire that could wipe out most of the northern hemisphere; certainly it would be a massive civilization-breaking event.

After an onsite tour of what remains of the Fukushima Dai-Ichi nuclear facilities, U.S. Senator Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), a senior member of the U.S. Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, sent a letter to Japanese Ambassador Ichiro Fujisaki saying, “The scope of damage to the plants and to the surrounding area was far beyond what I expected.

The precarious status of the Fukushima Dai-Ichi nuclear units and the risk presented by the enormous inventory of radioactive materials and spent fuel in the event of further earthquake threats should be of concern to all and a focus of greater international support and assistance.”

1,565 fuel rods translates into 460 tons of nuclear fuel stored in pool in a barely intact building on its third and fourth floors. If the storage pool breaks and runs dry, the nuclear fuel inside will overheat and explode.

The worst-case scenario drawn up by the government includes not only the collapse of the No. 4 reactor pool, but also the disintegration of spent-fuel rods from all the plant’s other reactors.
The wall of the south side is falling apart at reactor No. 4 and Dr. Helen Caldicott said she would evacuate her family from Boston if it did.

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.

Quivering Heart

Mark Sircus

We now have the 49th volcano erupting this year and the year is young. Ecuador’s Sangay volcano unleashed a 2 km ash cloud the other day and if you don’t believe in global cooling it’s a good time to start because of the enormous amounts of ash and gaseous chemicals being spewed into the atmosphere. Since starting this essay, as you will see below, we have had another eruption making a grand total of 50 for the year. Perhaps before this is published it will be 51.

My heart was quivering the other day for the one I love most in this world is traveling for the next two weeks and I have a sinking feeling that something catastrophic is going to happen in the world and that we will be apart when that happens. When I say catastrophic I am not playing around with that word.

Somewhere, or perhaps even in many places at once, we are going to see the earth ripped asunder in a way that will probably make Fukushima look like a picnic. Unfortunately it’s not just my heart that is quivering; it is the crust of our planet that has suddenly become unsettled, throwing us into the rapids of the unknown.

My wife of course thinks I am being dramatic because I have been sitting in anticipation of these types of events for the past two years. But what has been happening this past week is pushing the line into the red zone and we literally have volcanoes all over the world blowing their stacks. Two days later I am calm but wish I could say the same for our planet.

You think I am crying or worrying too much? We just had an earthquake scientist warning that the planet could be cracking up after a series of massive quakes in just 48 hours.

 Gheorghe Marmureanu—from Romania’s National Institute of Earth Physics—says 39 quakes had hit the globe within two days.The series started with two massive quakes in Indonesia measuring 8.6 and 8.2 on the Richter scale rapidly followed within hours by three more in Mexico only slightly smaller. “There is no doubt that something is seriously wrong. There have been too many strong earthquakes,” said Marmureanu.

He added: “The quakes are a surprise that cannot be easily explained by current scientific knowledge. With the Indonesian quake for example, statistically, there should be one big earthquake in this part of Asia every 500 years. However, since 2004, there have already been three quakes with a magnitude of over 8, which is not normal.”

A fierce earthquake from the Nicobar Islands[1] could strike over Songkran, sending a tsunami crashing into the Andaman Coast, an expert warned yesterday after finding that the 8.6-magnitude Sumatran tremor three days ago was exceptionally deep. “Whenever there is a quake rooted in the [Earth’s] mantle, a following quake will be likely in the next few days,” said Professor Thanawat Jaruphongsakul, a senior seismologist at Chulalongkorn University. Click here for a complete list of earthquakes occurring between April 11, 2012 and April 16, 2012 throughout the planet.

April 19, 2012 – PAPUA NEW GUINEA – Mount Lamington is a stratovolcano in the Oro Province of Papua New Guinea and it just woke up yesterday. Local community of Popendetta reported smoke and ash emission on March 25. After a long quiescent period, the volcano sprang suddenly to life in 1951, producing a powerful explosive eruption during which devastating pyroclastic flows and surges swept all sides of the volcano, killing nearly 3,000 people.

Fukushima Updated: What They Won’t Tell You

Larry Flynt
Karl Grossman

The “whole world” is being “exposed to the radiation from Fukushima,” explains nuclear physicist Dr. Michio Kaku, professor of physics at the City University of New York. The still-ongoing catastrophe at the sixreactor Fukushima Daiichi power plant in Japan has caused radioactivity to be “circulating around the entire Earth.”

Major health impacts can be expected in Japan, of course, but also wherever the Fukushima radioactivity has fallen or will fall, including in the United States, say toxicologist Janette D. Sherman, M.D., and epidemiologist Joseph Mangano of the Radiation and Public Health Project. Already, they’ve discovered that infant mortality in parts of the United States has increased substantially as a result of Fukushima fallout.

Dr. Sherman and Mangano cross-checked data on infant mortality from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention with records of fallout from the EPA and found that infant mortality had spiked by an average of 35% in eight cities west of the Rocky Mountains and by 48% in Philadelphia during a tenweek span immediately following the March 11, 2011, Fukushima accident. While Philadelphia and cities in Washington (Seattle), Oregon (Portland), Idaho (Boise) and northern California (Sacramento, San Francisco, Santa Cruz, San Jose and Berkeley) reported drastic increases, infant mortality nationwide in this period rose 2.3%. Infant mortality—defined as the death of children from birth to one year old—is considered an early measure of radiation effects because there is rapid growth and cell division at this stage, increasing the impacts of radioactivity.

Cancer is a consequence of radiation that often takes years to manifest. “A global increase in cancer can be expected from the Fukushima discharges,” Dr. Sherman predicts. The radioactive iodine released will produce thyroid cancer, she notes, and “thyroid irregularities” have already been found in children evacuated from the Fukushima area. Cesium-137—another poison discharged in large quantities from Fukushima—will cause cancer in “soft tissues in the body, notably the breast tissue and the pancreas.” And strontium-90, yet another poison released in large amounts, “goes to the bone to cause leukemia.”

Dr. Helen Caldicott: What We Learned From Fukushima

Editor's Note: Dr. Helen Caldicott may subscribe to catastrophic anthropogenic global warming (a probably errant position), but she is devastating in her critique of nuclear power.

Few people know that the Pacific Northwest got whacked hard by fallout from the Fukushima disaster with radiation rates hundreds of thousands of times higher than normal background radiation.  The damage from this is not something that the corporate media or the government is talking about.  It mysteriously disappeared from the radar almost immediately.  Dr. Caldicott referred to this as a process of “cover-up and psychic numbing.”  Looks like it may be working.  The Nuclear Regulatory Commission just approved two new nuclear power plants this week (4/2/12) in South Carolina in addition to the two approved earlier this year in Georgia. Dr. Caldicott talks about the dangers and hidden costs of nuclear power then tells the awful truth in minute detail about the actual scale of the Fukushima disaster and compares it to the nuclear disasters of Chernobyl and Three Mile Island.  Recent studies estimated that a million people have died so far from Chernobyl. Dr. Helen Caldicott is a physician, Nobel Peace Prize winner, noted author, anti-nuclear power advocate and has founded numerous national and international groups which oppose nuclear power & weapons, including Physicians for Social Responsibility.
  See also: www.helencaldicott.com    

More information about this show available at: Seattle Community Media

19 Things That The Talking Heads On Television Are Being Strangely Silent About

The End of the American Dream

 If the talking heads on television don't tell us about something that happens, does it make that event any less real?  Of course the answer to that question is quite obvious, but unfortunately way too many Americans allow their realities to be defined by what they hear from the mainstream media.  Way too many people use phrases such as "if that was true I would have heard about it on television" to deflect conversations that are starting to become uncomfortable.  Critical thinking is a skill that is in short supply in America today, and most Americans seem content to let their televisions do their thinking for them.  Sadly, the pretty people on television do not spend a lot of time talking about the things that are truly important.  Instead, they love to talk about the latest celebrity scandal and they love to divide people into groups and get them fighting with one another.  In this day and age, it is absolutely critical that we all learn to think for ourselves.  The talking heads on television are concerned with keeping their bosses happy and with keeping the ratings up.  Most of them are not really concerned about what happens to you.  They just want you to keep watching them so that they can continue to earn their inflated salaries.

Unfortunately, most Americans seem perfectly content with the "infotainment" that they are getting from the major news networks, so major changes to the mainstream media are not likely to happen any time soon.

For those wanting something different, you will have to seek out alternative sources of news (such as this website) that are willing to discuss the truly earth shattering events that are continually taking place all over the globe.

So what are some of the things that the mainstream media has been ignoring?
The following are 19 things that the talking heads on television have been strangely silent about....

#1 Strange Things Happening On The Sun

A lot of really weird things have been happening on the sun lately.  For example, recently there was a tornado on the sun that was five times larger than the earth.  The following is how this solar tornado was described by a recent Wired article....

Over the course of three hours, this behemoth reached up from the sun’s surface to a height of 125,000 miles, or roughly half the distance between the Earth and the moon. The hot gases were whipped up to nearly 186,000 miles per hour. In comparison, the wind speed of terrestrial tornadoes generally reaches a paltry 100 miles per hour.

#2 Fukushima

Fukushima has turned out to be the worst nuclear disaster in human history and it is far from over.  In fact, there is still the potential that an earthquake or an explosion could cause the crisis at Fukushima to become far more dangerous than ever.  In fact, some officials have even discussed the possibility of evacuating Tokyo if a worst case scenario plays out.

Mitsuhei Murata, a former Japanese ambassador to Switzerland, wrote the following in a March 25th letter to UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon....

I was asked to make a statement at the public hearing of the Budgetary Committee of the House of Councilors on March 23. I raised the crucial problem of N0.4 reactor of Fukushima containing 1535 fuel rods. It could be fatally damaged by continuing aftershocks. Moreover, 50 meters away from it exists a common cooling pool for 6 reactors containing 6375 fuel rods!
It is no exaggeration to say that the fate of Japan and the whole world depends on NO.4 reactor. This is confirmed by most reliable experts like Dr. Arnie Gundersen or Dr. Fumiaki Koide.
Please allow me to inform you of an initiative being taken by a former UN official who is endeavoring to have the Nuclear Security Summit take up the crucial problem of N0.4 reactor of Fukushima. He is pursuing the establishment of an independent assessment team. I think his efforts are very significant, because it is indispensable to draw the attention of world leaders to this vital issue.

So just how serious is the threat posed by the spent fuel pool at reactor number 4?
Well, just check out the following assessment from a Japanese news source....

One of the biggest issues that we face is the possibility that the spent nuclear fuel pool of the No. 4 reactor at the stricken Fukushima No. 1 Nuclear Power Plant will collapse.
The storage pool in the No. 4 reactor building has a total of 1,535 fuel rods, or 460 tons of nuclear fuel, in it and the storage pools are barely intact on the building’s third and fourth floors. If the storage pool breaks and runs dry, the nuclear fuel inside will overheat and explode, causing a massive amount of radioactive substances to spread over a wide area.
The worse-case scenario drawn up by the government includes not only the collapse of the No. 4 reactor pool, but the disintegration of spent fuel rods from all the plant’s other reactors. If this were to happen, residents in the Tokyo metropolitan area would be forced to evacuate.

#3 Mount Fuji In Japan About To Erupt?

Mount Fuji in Japan had been dormant for about 300 years, but in recent months there have been a lot of signs that the volcano is waking up.  If Mount Fuji were to experience a full-blown major eruption, millions of Japanese could potentially die and the Japanese economy would immediately collapse.
The following is from an article that was recently posted on The Extinction Protocol....

Reports are appearing about unrest and signs of a possible awakening of Mt Fuji volcano in Japan. According to a report which includes an unclear photo of the area, a row of new craters, the largest 50 m in diameter, has appeared on the eastern flank of the volcano at 2200 m elevation. Steam was observed erupting from these vents. The observation joins other signs suggesting a gradual reawakening: A swarm of earthquakes including 4 of magnitude 5 have occurred northeast of Mt Fuji on and after 28 January. An earlier 6.4M quake occurred under the volcano on 15 March 2011. The report also mentions increased activity from a fumarole vent at 1500 m elevation and hot spring areas at the eastern flank observed since 2003. These locations seem to be aligned geographically, and are probably connected. Dr. Masaaki Kimura of Ryukyu University is quoted to admit that there is an increased risk of an eruption on the eastern flank and that the status of the volcano should be closely monitored.

#4 Stunning Rise In Volcanic Activity Around The World

All over the world major volcanoes are showing signs of awakening.  We are especially seeing a rise in volcanic activity along the "Ring of Fire" that encircles the Pacific Ocean.