Moscow has suggested that Kiev’s plan was to capture the nuclear plant and then use the staff of the UN nuclear watchdog as “human shields” to maintain control over it.
Russia has been insisting on international inspectors coming to the Zaporozhye nuclear power plant as it accused Ukraine of repeatedly shelling the facility in recent weeks and of risking a disaster that could affect many countries in Europe.
The assault was attempted despite the presence of IAEA inspectors at the facility, Russian defense ministry says
Russian servicemen on the territory of the Zaporozhye nuclear power plant. Konstantin Mihalchevskiy
Russia’s defense ministry has confirmed that Ukraine has made yet another attempt to take over the Zaporozhye nuclear power plant late on Friday, revealing some details of Kiev’s operation, which failed.
Over 40 motor boats, divided into two groups and carrying over 250 Ukrainian special operations troops and foreign mercenaries, tried to land on the coast of the Kakhovka reservoir not far from Energodar, host city of the nuclear power plant, a ministry statement said on Saturday.
The attackers were quickly spotted and struck by Russia’s Su-30 jets and Ka-52 attack helicopters. Those strikes sunk some 20 boats, while the rest turned around and retreated. The remaining Ukrainian troops were than targeted by the Russian artillery as they tried getting ashore in the Ukrainian-controlled territory, the ministry said.
According to Moscow, the failed attack on the nuclear power plant saw 47 Ukrainian service personnel killed, including ten foreign mercenaries, with at least 20 others wounded.
Kiev’s special forces attempted to storm the facility despite the inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) being there, the defense ministry stressed.
Ukraine attempted a similar attack ahead of the arrival of the IAEA team at the Zaporozhye nuclear power plant on Thursday. It was also repelled by Russian troops, with the Ukrainian assault force suffering heavy losses.
Moscow has suggested that Kiev’s plan was to capture the nuclear plant and then use the staff of the UN nuclear watchdog as “human shields” to maintain control over it.
Russia has been insisting on international inspectors coming to the Zaporozhye nuclear power plant as it accused Ukraine of repeatedly shelling the facility in recent weeks and of risking a disaster that could affect many countries in Europe.
Ukraine claims that the Russian forces who have been in control of Europe’s largest nuclear power plant since March have turned it into a military base and that they’re striking the station themselves in order to pin the blame on Kiev.
IAEA chef Rafael Grossi, who headed the team of inspectors at the facility, has confirmed that the physical integrity of the plant “has been violated several times,” but added that it was impossible to determine if the damage was deliberate or accidental.
‘After 900 nuclear tests on our land, US wants to ethnically cleanse us’: meet the most bombed nation in the world — RT World News https://t.co/zpBuamE0KP
“If there is any further pushback from the US on any of these Chinese projects in Iran, then Beijing will invoke in full force the ‘nuclear option’ of selling all or a significant part of its US$1.4 trillion holding of US Treasury Bills, with a major chunk of the paper due to be sold in September on this basis. This massive holding of these bonds – through which the US finances its economy and is an important factor both in the value of the dollar and therefore in the health of US international companies especially – has been used as a bargaining chip before by China, especially when it feels threatened.”
As the trade war continues to escalate, China is becoming increasingly active in Iran and is considering retaliating with what has long been described as the country’s ‘nuclear option’.
For the first of these projects – Phase 11 of the supergiant South Pars non-associated gas field (SP11) – last week saw a statement from the chief executive officer of the Pars Oil and Gas Company (POGC) that talks had resumed with Chinese developers to advance the project. Originally the subject of an extensive contract signed by France’s Total before it pulled out due to re-imposed US sanctions on Iran, talks had been well-advanced with the China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) to take up the slack on development. As per the original contract, CNPC had been assigned Total’s 50.1 percent stake in the field when the French firm withdrew, giving it a total of 80.1 percent in the site, with Iran’s own Petropars Company holding the remainder. At the same time, Iran was desperate to increase the pace of development of the fields in its oil-rich West Karoun area, including North Azadegan, South Azadegan, North Yaran, South Yaran, and Yadavaran, in order to optimise oil flows ahead of further clampdowns on exports by the US.
China, though, which at that time was engaged in just the opening shots of the trade war with the US was loathe to completely disregard all US sensibilities when it came to Iran but equally saw itself as a longstanding partner of the Islamic Republic, not to mention always being cognisant of its need to ensure diversity of energy supply. At that point, China agreed a trade-off with the US that in exchange for it halting active development of SP11 it would be allowed to continue its activities in North Azadegan and would be able to go ahead with its development of Yadavaran – the second of China’s major Iran projects. China told the US that its continued involvement in North Azadegan could easily be justified to anyone else who might be interested – such as the mainstream media – on the basis that it had already spent billions of dollars developing the second phase of the 460 square kilometre field. Similarly, China said at the time, its ongoing activities on Yadavaran could be justified by dint of the fact that the original contract had been signed in good faith in 2007, way before the US withdrawal from the nuclear deal in May 2018 and thus, legally speaking, it had every right to go ahead.
The third of China’s major as yet unfinished projects in Iran was the build-out of the Jask oil export terminal, which – crucially, particularly in the current security situation – does not lie within the Strait of Hormuz or even in the Persian Gulf, but rather in the Gulf Of Oman. Even before the new US sanctions, the Kharg export terminal was not ideal for use by tankers as the narrowness of the Strait of Hormuz means that they have to go very slowly through it. With the new sanctions in place and tit-for-tat tanker seizures regularly occurring, China would have little choice but to put at least a couple of its own warships into the Gulf to safeguard their passage or stop buying Iranian oil entirely, neither of which Beijing particularly wants to do.
So, according to the plans, a US$2 billion or so 1,000 kilometre oil pipeline will connect Guriyeh in the Shoaybiyeh-ye Gharbi Rural District, in Khuzestan Province (south-west Iran), to Jask County, in Hormozgan Province (south Iran), with any financing required over and above that provided for Iran to be made readily available from China. Also to be constructed in Jask is an initial 20 storage tanks each capable of storing 500,000 barrels of oil, and related shipping facilities, at a cost of around US$200 million. Overall, the intention is for Jask to have the capacity to store up to 30 million barrels and export one million barrels per day of crude oil. There are adjunct plans to build a large petrochemicals and refining complex in Jask as well, with the prime market for produced petchems – including gasoline, gas oil, jet fuel, sulphur, butadiene, ethylene and propylene, and mono-ethylene glycol – again being China. According to a recent comment by the director of projects at Iran’s National Petrochemical Company, Ali Mohammad Bossaqzadeh, the project would be built and run by Bakhtar Petrochemicals Holding, although ‘other foreign companies’ may take part. In fact, according to the Iran source, China has also offered to send as many engineers and other professionals required in such a project to Iran for as long as necessary.
Having said that, and aware of the leverage that it had with Iran as one of the very few countries still willing to engage in developing its fields in the midst of increasingly vigorously-imposed sanctions, China has sought deal sweeteners from Iran, and has been given them. In order for it to reactivate its development of SP11, China will get a 17.25 percent discount for nine years on the value of all gas it recovers. “This is the value of the gas as applied to CNPC’s cost-return formula against the open market valuation, and currently the net present value of the site is US$116 billion,” the Iran source told OilPrice.com. For its part, China has agreed to increase the production from its oil fields in the West Karoun area – including North Azadegan and Yadavaran – by an additional 500,000 bpd by the end of 2020. This dovetails with Iran’s plan to increase the recovery rate from these West Karoun fields that it shares with Iraq from the current 5 percent (compared to Saudi Arabia’s 50 percent). “For every one percent increase, the recoverable reserves figure would increase by 670 million barrels, or around US$34 billion in revenues with oil even at US$50 a barrel,” the Iran source said.
If there is any further pushback from the US on any of these Chinese projects in Iran, then Beijing will invoke in full force the ‘nuclear option’ of selling all or a significant part of its US$1.4 trillion holding of US Treasury Bills, with a major chunk of the paper due to be sold in September on this basis. This massive holding of these bonds – through which the US finances its economy and is an important factor both in the value of the dollar and therefore in the health of US international companies especially – has been used as a bargaining chip before by China, especially when it feels threatened. Back in 2007, just before the great financial crisis, a number of senior Chinese figures at various state-run think tanks – through which China often signals its big geopolitical threats – stated that the large-scale selling of this massive Treasury Bill holding would trigger a dollar crash, a huge spike in bond yields, the collapse of the housing market and stock market chaos.
Such a tactic would neatly fit into China’s overall strategy to have the renminbi challenge the US dollar’s status as the key global reserve currency and the prime currency for global energy transactions. “The long-planned sequencing for this was inclusion in the SDR {Special Drawing Rights] mix, which happened in 2016, increasing use as a trading currency, which followed that, use as the key currency of an international energy trading exchange, which has occurred with the creation of the renminbi-denominated Shanghai International Energy Exchange in last year, and the calls from big oil producers and other major trading nations to use the renminbi, which has been happening over the past few years,” the head of a New York-based commodities hedge fund told OilPrice.com. Only recently, Leonid Mikhelson, chief executive officer of Russian oil major, Novatek, said that future sales to China denominated in renminbi is under consideration and that US sanctions accelerate the process of Russia trying to switch away from US dollar-centric oil and gas trading and the damage from potential sanctions that go with it. “This has been discussed for a while with Russia’s largest trading partners such as India and China, and even Arab countries are starting to think about it… If they do create difficulties for our Russian banks then all we have to do is replace dollars,” he said. “The trade war between the US and China will only accelerate the process,” he added.
The trade war with the US, though, may be the very reason why this policy is not being pushed right now by China, Rory Green, Asia economist for TS Lombard told OilPrice.com last week. “With the renminbi weakening, and set to reach 7.50 to the [US] dollar level if the US imposes 25 percent tariffs on all Chinese exports, it is more difficult for China to persuade the big oil producers like Russia, Iran, Iraq, Venezuela, to make the switch away from the dollar,” he said. “For China as well, the timing is not quite right, as its use of Eurodollar financing is currently significant, it has a lot of dollar-denominated bonds rolling over shortly, and its balance of payments needs a relatively healthy US demand profile, but China wants to get away from the dollar system and that is the overall direction of travel,” he concluded.
That’s right, Golden America, the Shining City on the Hill, is on the verge of utter, complete ruin. Put it this way: “Making a Garbage Heap Great Again” is nothing but a fool’s errand. Lamentably, there do seem to be a lot of fools running around who have not yet come to grips with that starkly brutal fact.
I have been blogging for years about precisely this salient reality, the rapidly unfolding Event Horizon that will change everything and everyone in a comparatively short period of time. In fact, the changes will be so dramatically severe that a whole series of mass mortality events of all kinds are all but baked in the cake at this point. To be blunt, large hordes of people will most likely be going bye-bye. Whether there will be a resident human population on this planet in 2050, or even in 2035, remains to be seen. What comes next will be vertiginously fast, kaleidoscopic pandemonium.
The causes of the upheaval(s), which have already begun, are and will be myriad: abrupt climate change and associated massive crop failures due to unseasonable cold, heat waves, drought or alternatively flooding/too much rain; rampant deforestation of the large tropical and boreal forests; death of the global ocean, i.e., poisoning of and industrial overfishing of the world’s seas and oceans; ongoing radioactive contamination of the environment from Chernobyl, Fukushima and 400 other nuclear power plants around the world, all of which have grave problems; plagues of dangerous pathogenic organisms, whether naturally occurring or bio-engineered; the already begun, chaotic collapse of the global economic order; profoundly-unfriendly-to-humans-and-other-living-things 5G communications technology and related A.I. and robotic technologies, including on a swarming micro- and nano-scale; major warfare employing various weapons of mass destruction, both novel and non-novel; ongoing accumulation of plastics and hundreds of other toxic substances in the global ecology; the continuing, run-away global extinction event that not one person in one hundred has yet fully grokked — but they will! they will! – though only when it is already far too late to do anything about it but weep in desperation, and the concomitant collapse of the global food chain; the already underway, confused failure of national governments all over the world; powerful geological, volcanic and seismic events, some of them impressively large; and very much more.
It goes almost without saying that ordinary politics, as we have known political affairs, are about to be completely swamped by a great tidal wave of turbulent, unpredictable change that will have much greater momentum. Think about it: the present cohort of stupid, ignorant, sleazy, lying, thieving, corrupt politicians who think they run the world, can scarcely manage the greatly degraded, declining, poorly functioning societies and political, monetary, industrial, agricultural, diplomatic and military affairs that currently fall under their purview. Imagine how that corrupt, mobbed-up, marginally competent, global political class will perform when the system(s) that they ostensibly oversee catastrophically fail.
It is not a pleasant prospect, and yet, that is precisely what is on the way, as surely as night follows day.
đεŧ
I have repeatedly been shown this word or symbol inwardly, in dreaming and visionary states. The way I have rendered it is a close approximation of the way it appears, the nearest I could find in my word processing program’s special character list.
I have always seen it written or tattooed on the back of a serpent that closely resembles the copperhead pit vipers native to the eastern region of the mainland USSA.
In recent days, I have again seen this symbol or word, as well as the serpent on which it invariably appears. It is clearly written on its back, right behind the head. My subconscious deems this viper and the message that it bears to be important, because it keeps showing it to me. The serpent itself was a bit lethargic and groggy. I sensed that it was warming up, gathering itself. I had the distinct impression that it was awakening from a long period of hibernation, and was soon to be released into the wild.
đεŧAs I looked at it and wondered about the meaning of it all I was shown this:
Is. : a) venomous b) additive, cumulativeI had the certain knowing that it would be pronounced very similarly to the English word, “debt”; though it is not a mere word, but rather a living entity, an energetic archetype, if you will, of an awakening, fundamentally cold-blooded, reptilian reality, whence its serpent-like manifestation in my subconscious.
For me, the clear purport of the vision is that the heavily leveraged, debt-based, vastly criminally corrupt, global financial and economic systems are about to catastrophically unwind with deadly effect, not unlike the way a coiled pit viper unwinds when it bares its fangs and suddenly strikes its prey.
đεŧ
Debt. Death. Dead.
I don’t doubt for one second that Paul Craig Roberts is correct about the future of “America” — what is left will be a ruin.
The ground is constantly shaking in southern California right now, and this has many concerned that another large earthquake may be coming. I have been keeping my eye on Cal Tech’s recent earthquake map, and as I write this article it says that there have been 10,053 earthquakes in California and Nevada over the past 7 days. I have never seen that number so high, and southern California is being hit by yet another new earthquake every few moments. Most of the earthquakes are happening out in the Ridgecrest area where we witnessed the magnitude 6.4 earthquake that hit on July 4th and the magnitude 7.1 earthquake that hit on July 5th. But as you can see from Cal Tech’s map, there has been a tremendous amount of seismic activity along the San Andreas fault as well. As I discussed the other day, the San Andreas fault is “locked and loaded” and it is way overdue for “the Big One”. Could it be possible that all of this earthquake activity is leading up to something really big?
And it isn’t just earthquakes that we need to be concerned about. According to Fox News, “geologists are nervously eyeing eight nearby volcanoes”…
California’s uncanny “earthquake pause” is over. It should have already had several “big ones” by now. All that pressure has to go somewhere. Now geologists are nervously eyeing eight nearby volcanoes. And why has Yellowstone supervolcano been acting so weird?
The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) has warned Southern California to expect more big earthquakes to come. Some, they say, may even be more powerful than those experienced in the past few days.
“(These quakes do) not make (the Big One) less likely,” local seismologist Lucy Jones told The Los Angeles Times. “There is about a one in 20 chance that this location will be having an even bigger earthquake in the next few days, that we have not yet seen the biggest earthquake of the sequence.”
Could you imagine the chaos that would ensue if a volcano suddenly erupted in California?
For the record, I am personally far more concerned about Mt. Rainier and the other volcanoes in the Northwest. But that is a topic for another article.
One angle that hasn’t really been talked about much is what would happen to California’s nuclear reactors if “the Big One” suddenly hit the San Andreas fault.
According to Natural News, there are currently five nuclear reactors right along the San Andreas fault and another one that is located directly along the coast…
A Natural News investigation into the geolocation of nuclear power facilities in California reveals that five nuclear facilities were built in close proximity to the San Andreas fault line, with some constructed right in the middle of earthquake zones that have up to a 50% chance of a severe earthquake every 30 years.
One nuclear power plant – the Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Plant which produces 2,160 megawatts — was constructed on the coast, making it extremely vulnerable to the very same kind of ocean water surge that destroyed the Fukushima-Daiichi facility which suffered a 2011 meltdown in Japan.
Who was the genius that decided to build those reactors near the San Andreas fault?
The potential for an unprecedented nightmare is definitely there. If a magnitude 9.0 earthquake were to hit the San Andreas fault, it would be 707 times more powerful than the magnitude 7.1 earthquake that we just witnessed.
And we live at a time when our planet just continues to become even more unstable. According to NBC News, the number of “great” earthquakes between 2004 and 2014 was 265 percent higher than during the preceding ten year period…
The annual number of “great” earthquakes nearly tripled over the last decade, providing a reminder to Americans that unruptured faults like those in the northwest United States might be due for a Big One.
Between 2004 and 2014, 18 earthquakes with magnitudes of 8.0 or more rattled subduction zones around the globe. That’s an increase of 265 percent over the average rate of the previous century, which saw 71 great quakes, according to a report to the annual meeting of the Geological Society of America this week in Vancouver, British Columbia.
But despite all of the unusual shaking that we have witnessed so far this century, the state of California hasn’t seen anything remotely close to the shaking that we have witnessed over the last 7 days.
Of course seismic activity is just one element of “the perfect storm” that is starting to unfold. According to the NOAA, the 12 month period ending in June was the wettest 12 month period in all of U.S. history. In fact, for three months in a row “the past 12-month precipitation record has hit an all-time high”. We just keep setting record after record, and the flooding in the middle of the country seems like it will never end. Millions of acres of prime farmland will not be used at all this year, and tens of millions of acres of crops are in extremely poor condition right now.
Lines of thunderstorms associated with a weather system that is predicted to develop into a hurricane by Friday struck New Orleans with as much as 7 inches of rain within a three-hour period Wednesday morning, forecasters said.
The city was engulfed with water, leaving residents to contend with swampy streets, overturned garbage cans and flooded vehicles. Some even paddled their way down the street in kayaks.
But the worst is still yet to come. The storm may become a hurricane before it makes landfall, and it is going to push the Mississippi River to one of the highest levels ever…
The deluge may have just been a preview of more serious flooding situation from Tropical Storm or Hurricane Barry, which could affect the area into the weekend.
On Saturday, the Mississippi River is projected to see one of its highest crests on record in New Orleans, or the highest in seven decades.
A state of emergency has already been declared in Louisiana, and this could turn out to be the biggest disaster for the state since Hurricane Katrina.
Why is disaster after disaster suddenly pummeling the United States?
And could it be possible that this is just the beginning of our problems?
A time of great change is now upon us, and I have a feeling that what we have experienced so far is just the tip of the iceberg.
A massive concrete dome built during the Cold War to contain waste from US Nuclear testing has degraded and began leaking nuclear waste into the Pacific Ocean, UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres has confirmed. While the imposing structure at Enewetak Atoll in the Marshall Islands may look like something from a James Bond movie, Guterres described it as a “kind of coffin:” a stern reminder of the aftermath of American atomic weapons testing.
The soil irradiated by the tests and ash from the fallout were dumped into a crater which was then capped with 18 inches of concrete, measures that have proved ineffective at containing the waste in the long run. The bottom of the crater was reportedly never lined at all.
Guterres confirmed the disturbing information while speaking to students in Fiji as a part of a tour of the South Pacific focusing on climate change and environmental issues. The leakage, according to Guterres, has already begun to have its effect.
Our oceans are in serious trouble, from coral bleaching to biodiversity loss. Healthy oceans save lives and livelihoods. We need urgent #ClimateAction to protect our oceans – and our future. pic.twitter.com/vakISTezL8
— António Guterres (@antonioguterres) May 15, 2019 The consequences have been quite dramatic, in relation to health, in relation to the poisoning of waters in some areas.
Aside from being used to store the dangerous atomic waste, Guterres discussed how the Pacific had been victimized while under US administration. The islands and atolls far off the southeast coast of Japan such as Enewetak were the sites of 67 American nuclear weapons tests that took place between 1946-58.
One such test was the 1954 ‘Bravo’ hydrogen bomb, which remains the most powerful US-tested atomic weapon. Its explosion was 1,000 times bigger than the atomic bombs used on Japan.
While Guterres had no specific recommendations for how to minimize the impact, he warned that action needs to be taken soon. A powerful storm in the region could end up damaging the cover further, which would have devastating results for the environment.
I have been to Fukushima and spoken to people there and the parents are desperate to hear the truth even if it’s not good truth. And they thanked me for telling them the truth. So it’s an absolute medical catastrophe I would say, and a total cover up to protect the nuclear industry and all its ramifications.
Transcript of 8th anniversary interview with Dr. Helen Caldicott
The eight year anniversary of the triple meltdowns at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear facility passed mostly without comment in mainstream media circles. In spite of ongoing radiological contamination that will continue to spread and threaten human health for lifetimes to come, other stories dominate the international news cycle. The climate change conundrum, serious though it may be, seemingly crowds out all other clear and present environmental hazards.
As part of efforts to normalize this historic event and cover it up in its magnitude, the Japanese government has invested considerable financial, public relations and other resources into what they are billing the ‘Recovery Olympics‘ set to take place in a year’s time in Tokyo.
But Helen Caldicott warns that the dangers associated with Fukushima have not gone away and remain a cause for concern.
Dr. Helen Caldicott has been an author, physician and one of the world’s leading anti-nuclear campaigners. She helped to reinvigorate the group of Physicians for Social Responsibility, acting as president from 1978 to 1983. Since its founding in 2001 she served as president of the US based Nuclear Policy Research Institute later called Beyond Nuclear which initiates symposia and educational projects aimed at informing the public about the dangers of nuclear power, nuclear weapons, and nuclear war. And she is the editor of the 2014 book, Crisis Without End: The Medical and Ecological Consequences of the Fukushima Nuclear Catastrophe.
On the week marking the eighth anniversary of the Fukushima meltdowns, the Global Research News Hour radio program, hosted by Michael Welch, reached out to Dr.Caldicott to get her expert opinion on the health dangers posed by the most serious nuclear disaster since, at least, the 1986 Chernobyl event.
Global Research: Now the Japanese government is preparing to welcome visitors to Japan for the 2020 Olympic Games, and coverage of the 8th anniversary of the Fukushima disaster is hardly, it seems to me, registered given the significant radiological and other dangers that you cited and your authors cited in your 2014 book, Crisis Without End. Now it’s been more than four years since that book came out. I was hoping you could update our listenership on what is currently being recognized as the main health threats in 2019, perhaps not registered in the book, that you’re currently looking at in relation to the Fukushima meltdown.
Helen Caldicott: Well it’s difficult because the Japanese government has authorized really only examination of thyroid cancer. Now thyroid cancer is caused by radioactive iodine and there were many, many cases of that after Chernobyl. And already, they’ve looked at children under the age of 18 in the Fukushima prefecture at the time of the accident, and … how many children… 100…no 201 by June 18 last year… 201 had developed thyroid cancer. Some cancers had metastasized. The incidence of thyroid cancer in that population normally is 1 per million. So obviously it’s an epidemic of thyroid cancer and it’s just starting now.
What people need to understand is the latent period of carcinogenesis, ie the time after exposure to radiation when cancers develop is any time from 3 years to 80 years. And so it’s a very, very long period. Thyroid cancers appear early. Leukemia appears about 5 to 10 years later. They’re not looking for leukemia. Solid cancers of every organ, or any organ as such appear about 15 years later and continue and in fact the Hibakusha from the Hiroshima and Nagasaki who are still alive are still developing cancers in higher than normal numbers.
The Japanese government has told doctors that they are not to talk to their patients about radiation and illnesses derived thereof, and in fact if the doctors do do that, they might lose their funding from the government. The IAEA, the International Atomic Energy Agency interestingly set up a hospital – a cancer hospital – in Fukushima along with the Fukushima University for people with cancer, which tells you everything.
So there’s a huge, huge cover up. I have been to Japan twice and particularly to Fukushima and spoken to people there and the parents are desperate to hear the truth even if it’s not good truth. And they thanked me for telling them the truth. So it’s an absolute medical catastrophe I would say, and a total cover up to protect the nuclear industry and all its ramifications.
GR: Now, are we talking about some of the, the contamination that happened 8 years ago or are we talking about ongoing emissions from, for example–
HC: Well there are ongoing emissions into the air consistently, number one. Number two, a huge amount of water is being stored –over a million gallons in tanks at the site. That water is being siphoned off from the reactor cores, the damaged melted cores. Water is pumped consistently every day, every hour, to keep the cores cool in case they have another melt. And that water, of course, is extremely contaminated.
Now they say they’ve filtered out the contaminants except for the tritium which is part of the water molecule, but they haven’t. There’s strontium, cesium, and many other elements in that water – it’s highly radioactive – and because there isn’t enough room to build more tanks, they’re talking about emptying all that water into the Pacific Ocean and the fishermen are very, very upset. The fish already being caught off Fukushima, some are obviously contaminated. But this will be a disaster.
Water comes down from the mountains behind the reactors, flows underneath the reactors into the sea and always has. And when the reactors were in good shape, the water was fine, didn’t get contaminated. But now the three molten cores in contact with that water flowing under the reactors and so the water flowing into the Pacific is very radioactive and that’s a separate thing from the million gallons or more in those tanks.
They put up a refrigerated wall of frozen dirt around the reactors to prevent that water from the mountains flowing underneath the reactors, which has cut down the amount of water flowing per day from 500 tons to about a hundred and fifty. But of course, if they lose electricity, that refrigeration system is going to fail, and it’s a transient thing anyway so it’s ridiculous. In terms… So over time the Pacific is going to become more and more radioactive.
They talk about decommissioning and removing those molten cores. When robots go in and try and have a look at them, their wiring just melts and disappears. They’re extraordinarily radioactive. No human can go near them because they would die within 48 hours from the radiation exposure. They will never, and I quote never, decommission those reactors. They will never be able to stop the water coming down from the mountains. And so, the truth be known, it’s an ongoing global radiological catastrophe which no one really is addressing in full.
GR: Do we have a better reading on, for example the thyroids, but also leukemia incubation—
HC: No they’re not looking–well, leukemia they’re not looking for leukemia…
GR: Just thyroid
HC: They’re not charting it. So the only cancer they’re looking at is thyroid cancer and that’s really high, and you know it’s at 201 have already been diagnosed and some have metastasized. And a very tight lid is being kept on any other sort of radiation related illnesses and leukemia and the like. All the other cancers and the like, and leukemia is so… It’s not just a catastrophe it’s a…
GR: …a cover up
HC: Yeah. I can’t really explain how I feel medically about it. It’s just hideous.
GR: Well I have a brother who’s a physician, who was pointing to well we should maybe, the World Health Organization is a fairly authoritative body of research for all of the indicators and epidemiological aspects of this, but you seem to suggest the World Health Organization may not be that reliable in light of the fact that they are partnered with the IAEA. Is that my understanding…?
HC: Correct. They signed a document, I think in ‘59, with the IAEA that they would not report any medical effects of radiological disasters and they’ve stuck to that. So they are in effect in this area part of the International Atomic Energy Agency whose mission is to promote nuclear power. So don’t even think about the WHO. it’s really obscene.
GR: So what would… the incentive would be simply that they got funding?
HC: I don’t know. I really don’t know but they sold themselves to the devil.
GR: That’s pretty incredible. So there’s also the issue of biomagnification in the oceans, where you have radioactive debris, hundreds of tons of this radioactive water getting into the oceans and biomagnifying up through the food chain, so these radioactive particles can get inside our bodies. Could you speak to what you anticipate to see, what you would anticipate, whether it’s recorded by World Health authorities or not, what we could expect to see in the years ahead in terms of the illnesses that manifest themselves?HC: Well number one, Fukushima is a very agricultural prefecture. Beautiful, beautiful peaches, beautiful food, and lots of rice. And the radiation spread far and wide through the Fukushima prefecture, and indeed they have been plowing up millions and millions of tons of radioactive dirt and storing it in plastic bags all over the prefecture. The mountains are highly radioactive and every time it rains, down comes radiation with the water. So the radiation – the elements. And there are over 200 radioactive elements made in a nuclear reactor. Some have lives of seconds and some have lives of millions of years or lasts for millions of years will I say. So there are many many isotopes, long-lasting isotopes – cesium, strontium, tritium is another one – but many, many on the soil in Fukushima.
And what happens is – you talked about biomagnification – when the plants take up the water from the soil, they take up the cesium which is a potassium analog – it resembles potassium. Strontium 90 resembles calcium and the like. And these elements get magnified by orders of magnitude in the rice and in the plants. And so when you eat food that is grown in Fukushima, the chances are it’s going to be relatively radioactive.
They’ve been diluting radioactive rice with non-radioactive rice to make it seem a bit better. Now, into the ocean go these isotopes as well, and the algae bio-magnify them by – you know -ten to a hundred times or more. And then the crustaceans eat the algae, bio-magnify it more. The little fish eat the crustaceans, the big fish eat the little fish and the like. And tuna found in – off the coast of California some years ago contained isotopes from Fukushima. Also fish, being caught on the west coast of California contained some of these isotopes. So, it’s an ongoing bio-magnification catastrophe.
And the thing is that you can’t even taste, smell or see radioactive elements in your food. They’re invisible. And it takes a long time for cancers to occur. And you can’t identify a particular cancer caused by a particular substance or isotope. You can only identify that problem by doing epidemiological studies comparing irradiated people with non-irradiated people to see what the cancer levels are and that data comes from Hiroshima and Nagasaki and many, many, many other studies.
GR: Chernobyl as well, no?
HC: Oh, Chernobyl! Well, a wonderful book was produced by the, uh, Russians, and published by the New York Academy of Sciences, called Chernobyl with over 5000 on the ground studies of children and diseases in Belarus and the Ukraine, and all over Europe. And by now over a million people have already died from the Chernobyl disaster. And many diseases have been caused by that, including premature aging in children, microcephaly in babies, very small heads, diabetes, leukemia, I mean, I could go on and on.
Um, and those diseases which have been very well described in that wonderful book, um, which everyone should read, are not being addressed or identified or looked for in the Fukushima or Japanese population.
May I say that parts of Tokyo are extremely radioactive. People have been measuring the dirt from rooves of apartments, from the roadway, from vacuum cleaner dust. And some of these samples, they’re so radioactive that they would classify to be buried in radioactive waste facilities in America. So, that’s number one.
Number two, to have the Olympics in Fukushima just defies imagination. And uh, some of the areas where the athletes are going to be running, the dust and dirt there has been measured, and it’s highly radioactive. So, this is Abe, the Prime Minister of Japan, who set this up to – as a sort of way to obscure what Fukushima really means. And those young athletes, you know, who are – and young people are much more sensitive to radiation, developing cancers later than older people – it’s just a catastrophe waiting to happen.
GR: Dr. Caldicott…
HC:They’re calling it the radioactive Olympics!
GR: (Chuckle). Is there anything that people can do, you know, whether they live in Japan or, say, the west coast of North America to mitigate the effects that this disaster has had, and may still be having eight years later?
HC: Yes. Do not eat any Japanese food because you don’t know where it’s sourced. Do not eat fish from Japan, miso, rice, you name it. Do not eat Japanese food. Period. Um, fish caught off the west coast of Canada and America, well, they’re not testing the fish so I don’t know what you’d do. Um, I mean, most of it’s probably not radioactive but you don’t know because you can’t taste it.
Um they’ve closed down the air-borne radioactive measuring instruments off the west coast of America, uh, but that’s pretty bad, because there still could be another huge accident at those reactors.
For instance, if there’s another large earthquake, number one, all those tanks would be destroyed and the water would pour into the Pacific. Number two, there could be another meltdown, a release – huge release of radiation, um, from the damaged reactors. So, things are very tenuous, but they’re not just tenuous now. They’re going to be tenuous forever.
The original source of this article is Global Research
The Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster marks a critical turning point in human history. As of November 2018, 18,434 people are known to have died. Radioactive water has for years now been draining into the Pacific Ocean. Toxic debris spewed into the Earth’s atmosphere.
As of November 2018, 18,434 people are known to have died from the March 11, 2011 earthquake and the follow-up tsunami which struck the nuclear facility leading to the inundation of electric generators powering the circulation of coolant in the reactors. When the generators failed, three units experienced catastrophic meltdowns. [1]
Radioactive water has for years now been draining into the Pacific Ocean. Toxic debris spewed into the Earth’s atmosphere. More than 73,000 people remain evacuated, and fully 3,600 dies of illness from causes like illness and suicide linked to the aftermath of the event. [2]
The group Simplyinfo.org has been undertaking extensive ongoing research and analysis of the Fukushima disaster and its aftereffects. In its recently released annual report, Simplyinfo presented a number of astonishing and grim revelations.
The report estimated the threat of radioactive microparticles created by the meltdowns as possibly “the single largest ongoing risk to public health from the Fukushima disaster.” According to the research, these pieces of material from the nuclear fuel meltdowns are small enough to be inhaled or ingested and lodge in major organs of the human body where they continually irradiate cancer-causing levels of radiation, making them much more hazardous than the external sources of radiation being monitored by health authorities. [3]
The report also highlighted startling instances of negligence and cover-up. One notable example was the case of Dr. Shunichi Yamashita. He had downplayed the health risks in public meetings, but was discovered through an internal memo retrieved from an ‘off-site center’ set up as a central commend for the disaster to have warned of ‘a serious possibility of thyroid damage to children in the region.’ [4]
As the radioactive contamination continues to be a concern the Japanese government of Shinzō Abe is inviting the world to visit Tokyo for the 2020 Olympics. The authorities are maintaining that the situation has been contained. Officials have decided to have the city of Fukushima host baseball and softball games, and are even having the iconic torch run start in Fukushima. [5]
Efforts to normalize life in Fukushima 8 years after the meltdowns appear to be successful if trends in media consumption are any indication. Articles marking the anniversary were eclipsed by other breaking stories.[6]
This week’s instalment of the Global Research News Hour strives to impress on our listenership that the Fukushima event, if it does not constitute an extinction level event, it is certainly an ongoing health and environmental hazard deserving of at least a portion of the public attention currently directed to climate change.
Dr. Helen Caldicott appears in the first half hour of our program. She collaborated with other experts to provide a one of a kind volume detailing the medical and ecological costs of the Fukushima catastrophe. She returns to the program to update listeners on what is known about the ongoing health dangers, the lack of transparency around the casualties, and the extent of the suppression and misrepresentation of the truth by the Japanese government, the International Atomic Energy Agency, the World Health Organization and the media.
We next hear from Arnie Gundersen of Fairewinds Energy Education. The nuclear industry watchdog shares his understanding of the spread of nuclear contamination at Fukushima, the Japanese government’s bid to distract the public with heavy investment in and promotion of the 2020 Olympics, and the general tendency of governments and regulators to put the health of the industry above the safety of the public. He also addresses some of the background of the Three Mile Island incident which took place 40 years ago this month in Pennsylvania, near Harrisburg.
Arnie Gundersen is one of the directors of Fairewinds Energy Education, an information hub showcasing over 200 videos, numerous podcasts and newsletters detailing relating to nuclear energy and the entire power production paradigm. Gundersen is a nuclear engineer with over 45 years of experience in the industry. He holds a nuclear safety patent, was a licensed reactor operator, and has coordinated projects at 70 nuclear power plants in the US. He co-authored with Maggie Gundersen and barrister Reiko Okazaki the 2012 book Fukushima Daiichi: Truth And The Way Forward, which became a Japanese best-seller. His organization’s website is fairewinds.org.
It is also available on 93.9 FM cable in the communities of SFU, Burnaby, New Westminister, Coquitlam, Port Coquitlam, Port Moody, Surrey and Delta, in British Columbia, Canada. – Tune in at its new time – Wednesdays at 4pm PT.
Radio station CFUV 101.9FM based at the University of Victoria airs the Global Research News Hour every Sunday from 7 to 8am PT.
Campus and community radio CFMH 107.3fm in Saint John, N.B. airs the Global Research News Hour Fridays at 10am.
Caper Radio CJBU 107.3FM in Sydney, Cape Breton, Nova Scotia airs the Global Research News Hour starting Wednesday Morning from 8:00 to 9:00am. Find more details at www.caperradio.ca
House Democrats are accusing the Trump administration of moving toward transferring highly sensitive nuclear technology to Saudi Arabia in potential violation of U.S. law. Critics say the deal could endanger national security while enriching close allies of President Trump. Saudi Arabia is considering building as many as 16 nuclear power plants by 2030, but many critics fear the kingdom could use the technology to develop nuclear weapons and trigger a nuclear arms race in the Middle East. We speak with Democratic Congressmember Ro Khanna of California and Isaac Arnsdorf, a reporter with ProPublica. Arnsdorf first wrote about the intense and secretive lobbying effort to give nuclear technology to Saudi Arabia in 2017. His reporting was cited in the House report.
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: House Democrats are accusing the Trump administration of moving toward transferring highly sensitive nuclear technology to Saudi Arabia in potential violation of U.S. law. Critics say the deal could endanger national security while enriching close allies of President Trump. Saudi Arabia is considering building as many as 16 nuclear power plants by 2030, but many critics fear the kingdom could use the technology to develop nuclear weapons and trigger a nuclear arms race in the Middle East. During an interview with 60 Minutes last year, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman made clear that if Iran acquired nuclear weapons, Saudi Arabia would do the same.
CROWNPRINCEMOHAMMEDBINSALMAN: [translated] Saudi Arabia does not want to acquire any nuclear bomb. But without a doubt, if Iran developed a nuclear bomb, we will follow suit as soon as possible.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: On Thursday, the House Oversight Committee issued an interim report on the proposed Saudi deal, after multiple whistleblowers came forward accusing several top White House advisers and Trump allies of attempting to push through the transfer of the nuclear technology despite legal and ethical warnings. At the center of the controversy is the company IP3, which was formed to help U.S. companies build nuclear plants in Saudi Arabia and elsewhere in the region, in what they dubbed a “Middle East Marshall Plan.” Former national security adviser Michael Flynn worked as an adviser for a subsidiary of the firm before entering the White House, and reportedly continued to advocate on behalf of the company once in office. IP3 was co-founded by former Reagan official Bud McFarlane, who pleaded guilty to participating in the Iran-Contra cover-up in 1988.
AMYGOODMAN: The House report also names several other high-ranking Trump officials and allies reportedly involved in the proposed Saudi deal, including Trump’s son-in-law, his adviser Jared Kushner; Energy Secretary Rick Perry; and Trump’s billionaire friend Tom Barrack, who served as chair of Trump’s inaugural committee. According to the report by the congressional committee, the White House may still be discussing the plan.
We’re joined now by two guests. In Washington, D.C., Democratic Congressmember Ro Khanna of Silicon Valley in California joins us. He serves on the House Oversight Committee. And here in New York, Isaac Arnsdorf is with us, a reporter with ProPublica. He first wrote about the intense and secretive lobbying effort to give nuclear technology to Saudi Arabia in 2017. His reporting was cited in the House report.
We welcome you both to Democracy Now! Congressmember Ro Khanna, let’s begin with you. What are you doing on the House Oversight Committee? What is the leadership doing there?
REP. RO KHANNA: Well, it’s a very serious matter. Here’s why people should care. The Saudis have been giving arms to al-Qaeda in Yemen. There’s reports of that. And the last thing we want to do as a country is to transfer nuclear secrets to Saudi Arabia, which could lead to proliferation and a threat to our security.
And as the journalist you have on has reported, there is a lot of financial conflict of interest here. Tom Barrack, who headed up the president’s inaugural committee to raise $100 million-plus, is also pushing for this deal and has financial interest in the deal. So the Oversight Committee is going to have an investigation to see what are the financial interests that are driving this administration to potentially sell nuclear secrets to the Saudis and what laws have been violated, because, as you know, they have to come to Congress, under the Atomic Energy Act, and offer certain guidelines, which they haven’t done.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And, Congressman, this attempt by the administration is still very much alive. There was a meeting February 12th, just last week, in the White House between President Trump and some nuclear power developers. What do you know about that meeting and what came out of there?
REP. RO KHANNA: Well, we need to find out more facts. That’s why we need an investigation. We need to know who was in that meeting, what was discussed, whether they followed the law that the Atomic Energy Act requires. I mean, even when we transfer nuclear technology to allies, such as India, when George Bush did that, it requires years of process. It requires the consultation of Congress. Here you’re talking about the potential sale of nuclear secrets to the Saudis, who aren’t an ally, who have engaged in the proliferation of weapons that are being used against our own troops, and there is no process for notification of Congress. And you have extensive reporting of people who gain—stand to gain billions of dollars from these investments.
AMYGOODMAN: So, Isaac Arnsdorf, the report of the House Oversight Committee cites your reporting. You did a piece yesterday. You did a piece last year. Explain first what the “Middle East Marshall Plan” is and then the financial interests of people like, well, Trump, a close confidant, spoke at the Republican National Convention, Tom Barrack, headed the inaugural committee, Michael Flynn and others.
ISAACARNSDORF: So, the “Middle East Marshall Plan” was this idea that bubbled up in this company that you mentioned, IP3, which was that they can strengthen economic and political ties between the U.S. and Saudi Arabia by having the U.S. companies export nuclear power technology to Saudi Arabia. And they started lobbying the Trump administration, and initially the Trump transition, about how this would fit with Trump’s ideas about his approach to the Middle East and make America great, restoring American jobs in American industry.
And Tom Barrack was very receptive to this idea, because he was promoting a similar kind of economic outreach to the region. He had a lot of ties with the leaders there. And thanks to the support of Tom Barrack and also General Flynn, who was involved in the project before he was in the White House, the project, the idea, gained a lot of traction in the early days of the administration.
AMYGOODMAN: And take it through to now.
ISAACARNSDORF: So, initially, in the first three months, as detailed by the whistleblowers who spoke to the House Oversight Committee, this was really something that was happening in kind of a—kind of being rushed through the National Security Council, and that wasn’t complying with the requirements of the Atomic Energy Act, that requires all kinds of review, because, obviously, the U.S. very tightly controls this technology, because it can be misused to build nuclear weapons.
More recently, the administration has been taking steps to go through that formal process and have negotiations with the Saudis about reaching a formal agreement to share nuclear power technology. If that were to happen, Congress would not have to actually ratify the treaty, but it would have 90 days to pass a joint resolution that could block it.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Well, you would think, though, with all the stuff that’s happened in relationship to Saudi Arabia—the murder of the journalist Jamal Khashoggi, the decision by Congress to cut off military aid to the war in Yemen—that there would be some reconsideration of the Trump administration of such a controversial move. What’s your sense of what the thinking is, going on here?
ISAACARNSDORF: Well, there was already a lot of bipartisan skepticism about the idea of sharing nuclear power technology, and calls to tell Congress more about what was happening in those negotiations, or even call off those negotiations. And you’ve certainly seen an escalation, since all the things that you mentioned, of members of both parties saying, “We need to put a pause on this. We need to get some more information.”
AMYGOODMAN: Let’s turn to Energy Secretary Rick Perry speaking last year at a meeting of the House Science, Space and Technology Committee. Energy Secretary Perry was asked to respond to concerns about nuclear proliferation in light of U.S. negotiations with Saudi Arabia on nuclear energy.
ENERGYSECRETARYRICKPERRY: That goes right to the point that we tried to make with the Saudi crown prince in our conversations with him and with his team, that not only will it send a powerful message if they go into an acceptable one, two, three, with additional protocols, but that we—that they do that, because if they don’t, the message that’s sent—if the Chinese or the Russians, which don’t require any of that, not only does it send the message—I think the wrong message—by the kingdom of Saudi Arabia, but it also sends the message to the United States that we’re no longer the leader in the world when it comes to civil nuclear power—Westinghouse, best reactor builder in the world. … The second point that we tried to really drive home to the crown prince was that if you want the best reactors in the world, you have to come to the United States, and you have to use Westinghouse.
AMYGOODMAN: Congressmember Ro Khanna, the significance of the testimony of Rick Perry, the energy secretary, and his involvement here?
REP. RO KHANNA: Well, I think it’s a worldview into how the Trump administration looks at the relationship with the Saudis. It’s all about money, whether it’s selling them arms sales or selling nuclear secrets. There’s no moral consideration. I mean, Tom Barrack, as recently as a week ago, was out there defending the Khashoggi murder and defending the Saudi regime’s murder of Khashoggi. He actually said, appallingly, that the United States has done worse, which I totally disagree with. But it gives you a sense of what’s driving this. It’s financial interests. It’s selling interests into the Saudis for money, and no concern for our security and no concern for the morality of the Saudis’ policies.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And, Isaac, in that clip, the energy secretary referred to the one, two, three. A lot of people are not familiar with that. Could you talk about the legal limitations on what the administration can do or can’t do in terms of transferring nuclear power technology?
ISAACARNSDORF: So, that refers to the section of the Atomic Energy Act that requires these negotiations and these agreements before sharing this technology. And what the secretary was describing there is really a very challenging policy problem, where the Saudis want nuclear power—maybe they have a legitimate interest in diversifying their economy from oil, but, as you heard the crown prince describe in the clip that you played, maybe they also want to keep up with their neighbor Iran, with potential military implications. So, the Saudis want nuclear power. They’re pursuing it. If the U.S. doesn’t help them get it, are they going to turn around and go to Russia or China? And then there are going to be even less security assurances than they would have with the U.S. So, that’s a very real policy problem that security experts struggle with.
But what you’re seeing with the Trump administration is that they are arriving at an answer to that policy problem that, based on what we’ve seen out of the House Oversight Committee, was, to a large extent, based on people with conflicts of interest promoting this for other reasons.
AMYGOODMAN: I also want to talk about Jared Kushner’s connection to this. The House report states, “In January 2018, Brookfield Business Partners, a subsidiary of Brookfield Asset Management, announced its plans to acquire Westinghouse Electric for $4.6 billion. Westinghouse Electric is the bankrupt nuclear services company that is part of IP3’s proposed consortium to build nuclear reactors in Saudi Arabia, and which stands to benefit from the Middle East Marshall Plan. In August 2018, Brookfield Asset Management purchased a partnership stake in 666 Fifth Avenue, a building owned by Jared Kushner’s family company.” Isaac?
ISAACARNSDORF: This is especially interesting given that Jared Kushner is on his way to the region very shortly. And there’s a lot of discussion in the House Oversight Committee’s report about materials being prepared for conversations between Kushner and the president, and obviously Jared Kushner has developed a very close relationship with MBS, the crown prince, and was reportedly described as “in his pocket.”
AMYGOODMAN: Ro Khanna, would you like to add to this?
REP. RO KHANNA: Well, I would just say we need transparency. But here is one thing that the president and the administration could do to show some distance from the Saudi regime, and that is to sign the War Powers Resolution that will stop U.S. support for the Saudi war crimes in Yemen. As you know, we passed it through the House; next week, the Senate is going to take it up. And I hope that the president will sign it and at least put some distance between U.S. policy with the Saudis. But we need to understand all of the financial interests that administration officials and their friends have with the Saudis and what’s driving our policy.
AMYGOODMAN: One last thing, Congressmember Ro Khanna. You’re a leader in the Congress around the issue of Yemen. Talk about the legislation that was just passed and how getting nuclear power to Saudi Arabia, which could conceivably be turned into nuclear weapons, plays into this picture of the worst humanitarian crisis in the world.
REP. RO KHANNA: Well, I appreciate your reporting on this. There are nearly 14 million Yemenis who face the potential of famine. That is because the Saudis have been bombing the port cities, and food and medicine isn’t being allowed in. It’s being inspected, and that’s leading to hyperinflation in Yemen. People don’t have food and medicine.
We passed in the House the War Powers Resolution that would stop the U.S. support for the Saudi bombing in Yemen. It’s expected to pass the Senate next week or in the next couple weeks. That will be the first time in the history of this country that the War Powers Resolution has ever passed, since 1973. And what that will do is make it unambiguously clear that the United States doesn’t support the Saudi bombing. As it is, since we passed the House resolution, we’ve seen a temporary ceasefire in the bombing campaign, and some hopeful signs that food and medicine will go in.
I think it would be the exact wrong message for us to be selling nuclear secrets to the Saudis, especially given the reporting that the Saudis are transferring some of these weapons to al-Qaeda in Yemen. And in terms of the point that Russia or China may supply the Saudis, the United States has prevented that type of action when we want to. We prevented it in Iran. We’re trying to prevent it in other countries. There’s no reason the United States should tolerate any sale of nuclear weapons to the Saudis.
AMYGOODMAN: Well, we’re going to leave it there but continue to follow this issue. Ro Khanna, Democratic congressmember from California, member of the House Oversight Committee, that’s going to be investigating this Saudi nuclear issue. Also with us, in New York, Isaac Arnsdorf, a reporter with ProPublica, who first wrote about the intense and secretive lobbying effort to give nuclear technology to Saudi Arabia in 2017, his reporting cited in the House report. And we’ll link to your latest report, “House Panel Probes Trump Advisers’ Push for Saudi Nuclear Deal.”
This is Democracy Now! When we come back, we’ll be joined by a man whose father possibly faces the death penalty in Saudi Arabia. He’s in prison. Stay with us.
This exclusive interview for GRTV features one of the world’s leading anti-nuclear advocates, Dr. Helen Caldicott, addressing the threat of a deliberate or accidental nuclear war 73 years after the first nuclear device was used on a human population.
Dr. Caldicott discusses the recent revelation of personnel responsible for safe-guarding hundreds of missiles with nuclear payloads also operating an LSD ring. She also talks about the consequences of a nuclear exchange, some close calls in the past, and what Canadians can reasonably do to eliminate or at least reduce the threat.
Dr. Helen Caldicott is an author, physician and one of the world’s leading anti-nuclear campaigners. She helped re-invigorate the group Physicians for Social Responsibility, acting as President from 1978-1983. Since its founding in 2001, she has served as President of the U.S. based Nuclear Policy Research Institute, later called Beyond Nuclear, which initiates symposia and educational projects aimed at informing the public about the dangers of nuclear power, nuclear weapons, and nuclear war. She was the subject of the 1982 Academy Award-winning documentary short ‘If You Love This Planet.‘ Her latest book: ‘Sleep-Walking to Armageddon: The Threat of Nuclear Annihiliation‘ featuring some of the world’s leading nuclear scientists and thought leaders addressing the political and scientific dimensions of today’s nuclear war threat.
More resources on how to support the movement to abolish nuclear weapons available at the site http://www.icanw.org
Transcript – Interview with Dr. Helen Caldicott, August 15, 2018
Global Research: I wanted to start our conversation with a recent article that you wrote in relation to a rather shocking incident. They found out that a number of airmen from F.E. Warren Air Force Base in Wyoming had been implicated in operating an LSD drug ring. One of the implicated personnel said that he had been feeling… had these feelings of paranoia and fear, and another one said he could not have responded in the wake of a nuclear security emergency.
So, I know that you’ve looked into the stringent protocols or the rigorous… supposedly rigorous protocols that are supposed to guard against any kind of a tragic accident resulting. I have to know, were you surprised by this incident, or is this maybe consistent with what you’d already known. Was this…something like this sooner or later going to happen?
Helen Caldicott: I was shocked, but not surprised.
There are two men in each missile silo. There are 450 missile silos, and in each missile called a Minuteman because they have minutes to decide whether to launch or not, are three hydrogen bombs. The two men are aged 17 to 26. They’re like Pavlovian dogs. Yes sir, no sir, press the button sir. Each is armed with a pistol. One shoots the other if one shows signs of deviant behaviour, one of the deviant ones shoots the other one.
There are two locks 12 feet apart, so that one man can’t turn both keys. But I worked out that if you tie a key to one string, one man can turn both locks. They’re very — oh and they run by floppy disks, if you please, and often the telephones don’t work. They get very bored down there they go to sleep down there. One of the girlfriends of the Missileers told me years ago that they take drugs before they go down there. So I was shocked at the extent at the drug-taking but not surprised. They’re fallible human beings, and the job they have is one of the most boring you can imagine except that they’re ready to blow up the Earth with a three-minute lead time.
GR: Yeah, I mean, even in a country that prides itself on its belief in their… the right to bear arms, I think that even they understand you don’t hand over to somebody who’s compromised that way a loaded gun, and these Minuteman missiles are a hell of a loaded gun. That being said, however, I feel the need to remind our viewers that these individuals were not accused of having been compromised while on duty, and there was a quote from an Air Force spokesman, Uriah L Orland, and he stated, and I quote, “There are multiple checks to ensure Airmen who report for duty are not under the influence of alcohol or drugs and are able to execute the missions safely, securely and effectively.” Now, you are in a physician in addition to being a … having studied these facilities. Should the public be reassured by these sorts of statments?
HC: Not at all. Absolutely not at all. Because drugs can hang around for many, many hours and sometimes days. So, and they’re known to take cocaine and marijuana and all sorts of other things, so, no I’m not reassured in any way. Why he said to securely carry out their mission, and their mission is to destroy life on the planet. I mean the whole thing is absolutely insane and obscene, and no one really questions what it’s all about. And we’re closer to nuclear war now according to many people in the know than we were during the height of the Cold War, particularly with Donald Trump in charge, and he gets 3 minutes to decide whether or not to destroy the Earth. And there’s always an officer walking behind him with a big suitcase called the football, and in the football are the codes to start a nuclear war.
He has three options. One is ‘counterforce’, and that is to point the missiles at all the missile silos in Russia, and hence ‘win’ the nuclear war. That’s a Pentagon term because everyone’s going to die of radiation sickness, and the missiles almost certainly will be launched in Russia before they’re attacked. Then there’s ‘countervalue’ and that is to bomb all the cities in Russia, which is just obscene. And then there’s ‘counterforce and countervalue’. So they’re the three options: cities, missiles, silos or seas plus missile silos
Because the Russians don’t want to lose a nuclear war, in other words have their missiles bombed while they’re still in their silos, they have to drop two hydrogen bombs on each missile silo within a very specified space of time, because you can get ‘fratricide’ and that is all the debris blown up by the first bomb would destroy the other incoming bomb.
The Russians don’t like this idea at all, so they’ve dug a big cave in the Ural Mountains, and they have put in there a rocket called the ‘Dead Man’. And it is to be launched, if, in fact, they see the missiles coming from America. And all this takes half an hour to go from where to go. And up goes that missile, and it sends a radio message to every single missile in Russia to launch. So nuclear war then would be in the hands of a computer only and no human.
Now, America’s plan is to fight and win a nuclear war, and that’s still a plan, and Canada is still part of that because you’re part of NATO. And the way you ‘win’ the nuclear war is first you decapitate Moscow. That means you destroy Putin so he can’t press his button. And then you land your two hydrogen bombs on each missile silo, and you’ve ‘won’ the nuclear war.
The fact is that they’ve… It only takes a thousand hydrogen bombs on a hundred cities to cause nuclear winter and the end of life on earth when a huge, huge cloud of toxic black smoke rises up to the stratosphere and circles the earth with a cloud so thick it blocks out the sun for up to 10 years and starts a new Ice Age. And everything and everyone will freeze to death in the dark. Of the 16,000 nuclear weapons in the world, Russia and America own 94 per cent. So the real terrorists in the world, the actual terrorists, are Russia and America, because only those countries can destroy life on earth.
And after all, why is America not liking Russia now? Russia is now capitalist. What’s it all about? It’s not communist. And so they interfered in American elections? America has interfered, I think, in 80 elections since the end of the second world war, including killing people and the like. So they’re such hypocrites! But Canada goes along with it. And I was able to spend a whole lunch time with Pierre Trudeau, talking about the fact that America was testing cruise missiles in Canada. And I was able to convince him, because of his intense love for his boys, to start the five continent six-nation peace initiative. So Canada has done some good things, but by God, do you need to do some, you need to stand aside like New Zealand, and get out of NATO and not be part of the American plan to blow up the world. In other words, you’re guilty.
GR: Yeah. I’d like to return to Russia just for the moment. Because, as you know, in March, Vladimir Putin, the Russian president, had announced in his State of the Federation speech a new class of weapons, a hypersonic missile, the SARMAT. They have these deep underwater drones that defy being tracked. And basically, the context of all that was saying, hey we know you’ve got these anti-ballistic missiles and other strategies, but we have the ability to overcome that. So it is essentially, what some analysts are saying, is that Mutual Assured Destruction, MAD is back, and that they’re sending the message that you can’t attack Russia. You will be obliterated. So, I wanted to get your take on that.
HC: Well, of course you’re, of course you’ll be obliterated. Because if America starts attacking Russia, and, as I say, the missiles take only 30 minutes to go from launch to land, and the Russians pick up the attack, although their satellites are not working because they’ve got a over the horizon radar which isn’t as accurate and doesn’t give them early warning, just the last few minutes, but they will launch their missiles anyway, and that will be the end of life on Earth. I mean all this sort of Pentagon-Russian jargon coming from the military analysts and the military scientists is absolute rubbish.
And what I really can’t understand is why, why the Earth, or the humans are spending so much on killing and the military when in fact, there’s no threat to anyone really at all except to be annihilated, and it’s about empire isn’t it? America’s in many countries in Africa now with military operations… And it sees itself as a policeman of the planet, well we don’t want to be policed thank you very much. But, what I don’t understand this mad lunacy of killing and death, killing and death, killing and death, except it gives the corporations who make these weapons huge amounts of money. And it was Obama who agreed to spend 1.7 trillion dollars in the next 30 years replacing every single nuclear weapon, missile, ship, plane. And rebuild them all new ones, for what reason? No reason!
It’s sheer nuclear madness. It’s nuclear lunacy! And I don’t understand why people don’t talk more about it because, you know, we could have a nuclear war tonight. We really could. By accident, by design, by people hacking into the early warning system, which is – happens quite frequently, I mean, I actually do not know how it is that we’re still here.
GR: Could we touch on what you just mentioned there: that the possibility of an accidental nuclear war? Because I think a lot of people have the belief that there’s technology in place that… fail-safes, backup systems, so that we’re not going to accidentally mistake a flock of geese for a Russian ICBM or something like that. I mean, you mentioned floppy disks earlier. What can you tell us, maybe even invoking a specific example, about that… the unreliability of this technology to prevent an accident?
HC: Well, there is no way to prevent an accident. I’ll give you an example. In 19… God…I can’t remember the exact date. But America was going to launch a weather satellite from Norway, and that’s just near where the Trident submarines roam near Russia. And they told Russia that this was going to happen. They told the Kremlin. But the Kremlin lost the data because the Russians are a bit all over the place. I know from experience. And so, this missile went up with the weather satellite, and there was Yeltsin, a hardened alcoholic, like a bottle of vodka before breakfast. Korsakoff syndrome, whatever the case encephalopathy.
A badly damaged brain sitting there, and they opened the computer or the football for the first time in history. He had three generals standing over his shoulder, and he had three minutes to decide whether or not to press the button because they were sure they were under attack and a decapitation attack was occurring to take out Moscow. And the generals were saying, “press the button Mr. President!” “Press the button!” Three seconds before that three minutes elapsed, the missile veered off course, of course, because it was a weather satellite.
Now that’s just one, one example of many, many. I got to know Robert McNamara, who was the Secretary of Defense under Jack Kennedy, and he was in the Oval Office during the Cuban Missile Crisis. And he said to me, “Helen, you don’t know how close we came. To within 3 minutes. 3 minutes.” Now there are numerous numerous examples like that.
And it’s possible for a 16-year-old brilliant boy or girl, usually a boy because their frontal lobes aren’t as developed as girls at that age, to think it might be a hell of a good thing to, you know, plug into the Pentagon, blow up the planet. Why not? And I ask the computer specialist once at a college, why hasn’t it happened yet? And he said. “well they haven’t worked it out yet.”
There are over a thousand hackers into the Pentagon everyday. Not necessarily into the early warning system but hacking. And Russia, I mean I really don’t know how we’re still here. And then there are the nuclear hot points in my new book. Sleepwalking To Armageddon. My brother, Richard Broinowski, writes about the hot points. I mean, India and Pakistan could easily start a nuclear war between each other.
And that could initiate a global holocaust. Israel’s got over 200 hydrogen bombs, but I’m sure many more. And then they’re trying to make war with Iran. China’s got only 200 bombs, and they’re not very belligerent, that’s for sure. But America is being extremely belligerent with them, going into the China Sea with their big… their ships. And then there’s France, well I don’t know about France, and then there’s England and the only reason England’s got nuclear weapons is to replace its lost empire with nuclear weapons. So you know we’re on a very tenuous situation and nobody, but nobody, is talking about it! Everybody is in a state of manic denial, or is my daughter, who is a doctor said yesterday, “people are paralysed by their comfort.”
The way we unparalysed people, if you like, during the ’80s was just to describe the medical effect of a bomb dropping on a city. And I had an agent in Hollywood who worked for me with all the film stars, and put me on television all over the place, and in Canada and America. And we were able then to educate the majority of Americans about the medical consequences of nuclear war producing the final epidemic of the human race, and we had a million people in Central Park. I mean that was the second American Revolution. But then we got… We helped bring the Cold War to an end, and we all felt… thank God that’s over. Americans started talking about a peace dividend, you know they can spend all that money, trillions of dollars, on peace and health and education.
But the corporations behind everyone’s back just got going, Lockheed Martin in particular, and took over and just started making more and more weapons, and here we are. And the reason that it’s happening is that the people are uneducated. And as President Jefferson said, an informed democracy will behave in a responsible fashion. I would suggest, Michael, that you play If You Love This Planet again on your television program because it’s only half an hour long, and that really breaks people’s psychic numbing and they get it. It’s an old fashioned film because the haircuts are different, but the data is actually still totally relevant.
GR: Now, I… I just want to note that in addition to the big mobilization we saw in New York City, right here in our hometown, my hometown of Winnipeg, we had huge demonstrations the same day, like 15 to 20 thousand people in a city of just over half a million. It was the biggest we’d seen in several decades. Now, we’re not seeing mobilizations, as you point out, anything comparing to that. But let’s suppose, and remember you’re talking to a Can– this is a Canadian show, let’s suppose that we can get people concerned. Now a lot of those same people will say, yeah let’s get rid of the nukes, let’s disarm, but what can we do about it? Canada is not a nuclear power. We don’t have any agency over what Trump and Putin do…
HC: Yeah, but you’re part of NATO. You’re part of NATO, and… and as such you’re part of the nuclear war apparatus, for sure. Now there is a law coming up at the United Nations to ban all nuclear weapons. 122 countries signed on out of 194. Of course, nuclear nations have not. But they need 50 countries to ratify it. And I think I’ve got nearly 10 countries now to make it law such that all nuclear weapons will be banned like landmines, and cluster bombs, and chemical weapons etc. So Canada can sign on to that and give America a big kick in the bum! [Laughter] To use an Australian expression. You have enormous power, and you’re right next to America. If you mobilize like New Zealand did when it banned nuclear-armed ships coming into its harbors from America, it had a huge effect in America. So you would make news you would support the ICAN ban against nuclear weapons in the United Nations and you would be one of the leaders. So do it. And play.. Get… see if you can, Michael, get If You Love This Planet replayed on CBC and, you know, your show and everything. And I don’t mind being interviewed again after that film plays.
GR: Okay! Well, we’ll see what we can do.
HC: There’s a plan! there’s a plan.
GR: Is there anything else you’d like to say? Just assuming we can get this video, get the Prime Minister Trudeau to see this film, anything else you’d like to say to him before…
HC: Well, Prime Minister Trudeau, should because he is the son of Pierre, who was sort of a kind of friend of mine, and I convinced Pierre over a lunch at the Prime Minister’s residence to do the five continents six-nation peace initiative. I’m sure he knows who I am, Justin, and I…I wouldn’t mind seeing him, but if he, if he could see that film again, I’m sure it would have a big impact on him. He’s got children he loves, he’s a fine young man, walks in the footsteps of his father who is a wonderful man. You’ve had some very good prime ministers in the past. Lester Pearson and others. Please stand tall and do what is required of you to help save the planet, Canadians.
GR: Dr. Helen Caldicott, thank you very much for your time.
HC: Thank you, Michael
The original source of this article is Global Research
Behrouz Kamalvandi, the spokesman for the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (Photo by YJC)
The spokesman for the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI) says the country will soon start re-building the Arak heavy water reactor once China finishes examining the last phase of the re-designing process.
China and Iran “have had several contracts that are now operational and various steps of conceptual, basic and detailed designing are completed and after that the construction phase will begin,” Behrouz Kamalvandi said in an interview with the Young Journalists’ Club (YJC) published on Wednesday.
“According to the timetable, we have fortunately made good progress, and the detailed stage has been completed on our part and delivered to the Chinese side, which, after their approval, will enter the next stage within 2 to 3 months, that is, we’ll start the next phase of building and [installing the reactor’s] equipment,” he added.
Kamalvandi said the US withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal would not affect the re-designing process and noted that the Chinese side has reaffirmed its commitment to the JCPOA, and the Arak reactor re-designing.
In April 2017, Iran and China signed the final version of a contract to redesign and modernize the Arak heavy water reactor in central Iran, an important step in line with the implementation of the JCPOA.
According to the agreement, China undertook to review the new design of the Arak reactor made by the Iranian experts and confirm its compliance with the international safety standards of the International Atomic Energy Agency.
Iran is redesigning the 40-megawatt Arak research reactor to sharply cut its potential output of plutonium.
Elsewhere in his interview, Kamalvandi said Iran might begin uranium enrichment at Fordow facility and install new nuclear equipment at Natanz site if the JCPOA collapses.
He said that new work would begin on the nuclear program on the orders of Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei.
“Currently the Leader has ordered that the programs be carried out within the framework of the JCPOA. Once he gives the order we will announce the programs outside of the JCPOA for reviving Fordow,” he added.
Regarding activities at Natanz nuclear facility after any collapse of the JCPOA, Kamalvandi said new advanced centrifuge machines would be installed at the site.
Under the JCPOA, the Fordow plant was to stop enriching uranium and be converted into a nuclear, physics and technology center.
Last week, the head of the AEOI, Ali Akbar Salehi, said the country has begun work to prepare the infrastructure for building advanced centrifuges at the Natanz enrichment facility, while respecting its commitments under 2015 nuclear deal.
On May 8, US President Donald Trump announced Washington’s pullout from the nuclear deal, vowing to reinstate nuclear sanctions on Iran and impose “the highest level” of economic bans on the Islamic Republic.
Iran has said it will remain committed to the deal for the time being, pending negotiations with other signatories to the JCPOA to see if Iran’s interests would still be protected under an accord without the US.
‘We gave you uranium, you repaid us by bombing Belgrade’
When we talk about the Hillary Clinton and Russian company Uranium One transaction, we mostly meant to expose the hypocrisy behind the Deep State Democrat faction’s RussiaGate “election meddling.” It turns out, there’s something more.
Russia was actually helping the US obtain fuel for the latter’s nuclear power stations, as part of the nuclear disarmament treaties that both countries signed, about 3 decades ago.
In short, the Uranium One-Clinton transaction was actually part of a peaceful engagement by the Russians towards the West, so that the world will experience the peaceful use of nuclear power, as both China and Russia are now helping other countries to have their own nuclear energy programs, too.
For Putin to expose these details could only mean one thing, i.e. he’s really going all the way now, sans standard intergovernmental protocols. Disrespect begets disrespect. The multiple diplomatic assassinations and embassy raids in the US have finally broken the camel’s back.
Vladimir Putin has criticized the US for failing to keep their end of the bargain in a host of international disarmament agreements. He says Moscow will not exit any existing treaties, but promised an “instant, symmetrical response” if Washington decides to quit first.
‘US decided to do away with international law’
Speaking during a Q & A session at the Valdai Discussion Club in Sochi, an annual meeting with international journalists and Russia experts, Putin began by recalling the Megatons to Megawatts program, which ran between 1993 and 2013, and saw Russia downblend enriched uranium from the equivalent of about 20,000 of its nuclear warheads into low-enriched uranium to be used as fuel by US power stations.
Putin said that as part of what he called “one of the most effective disarmament efforts in history,” US officials made 170 visits to top secret Russian facilities, and “set up permanent workplaces in them adorned with American flags.”
“From the Russian side unprecedented openness and trust were demonstrated,” said Putin, saying that through the 1990s, about 100 US officials were entitled to carry out surprise inspections of Russian nuclear facilities, as part of Gorbachev and Yeltsin-era agreements.
“What we got in return is well-known – a complete disregard for our national interests, support for separatism in the Caucasus, a circumvention of the UN Security Council, the bombing of Yugoslavia, the invasion of Iraq, and so on. The US must have seen the state of our nuclear weapons and economy and decided to do away with international law.”
‘They have no money for disarmament, but we do?’
Putin said that Washington’s hostile policies “are returning the relationship between the two countries to the 1950s” though noted that at least during the Cold War “there was at least more mutual respect” between the two superpowers.
“We can’t actively participate in several international treaties, because the US is not doing anything itself. We can’t just do it unilaterally,” said Putin, citing the 1993 Chemical Weapons Convention, as an example of the US taking advantage.
Last month, Russia declared that all its chemical weapons stockpiles had been disposed of – news that Western media “decided to stay silent on,” according to Putin – while the US has persistently delayed its own destruction schedule, and now plans to complete the process in 2023 at the earliest.
“We destroyed everything, and then our American partners said – ‘Not yet, we don’t have money.’ So, they have a dollar printing press, yet they don’t have money. But we, on the other hand, do?” said Putin with heavy sarcasm.
‘We will fulfill our obligations’
Putin dated a key point in the breakdown of the post-Soviet world order to the US decision to withdraw from the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty (ABM) in 2002, during George W. Bush’s first term in office, to pave the way for the construction of the missile defense shield, to which the Kremlin continues to object vehemently.
“This treaty was the cornerstone of the entire international security framework in the area of strategic weapons. But despite spending years trying to persuade our colleagues otherwise, we weren’t able to hold our partners inside the agreement,” said Putin.
US President Donald Trump has criticized another treaty between Russia and the US that is still in force – New START. Signed in 2011 through to 2021, it stipulates that both sides are allowed to have up to 1,550 active nuclear warheads. Trump called it out as poor Obama-era deal in his campaign, and reportedly was annoyed with the Russian president for bringing it up in a phone conversation earlier this year.
“We are hearing that the other side is also not pleased with New START,” Putin said. “We are not going to quit it. Maybe we are ourselves dissatisfied with certain aspects of it, but there is always an element of compromise. So, we are going to fulfil our obligations.”
‘Instant and symmetrical response’
The treaty under the biggest threat is the INF, signed in 1987, which bans land-based missiles – both nuclear and conventional – with ranges between 500-5,500 km. The US has said that several of the latest Russian rockets violate the agreement.
Putin bemoaned that by not banning air-based and naval launchers the treaty allowed a loophole beneficial predominantly to NATO states, and said that it represented “another case of Russia making unilateral concessions.”
“Nonetheless, we are going to comply with its terms providing our partners do so,” Putin said. “If they decide to abandon it, however, our response will be instant and symmetrical.”
‘Others talk about nuclear disarmament when they develop newer weapons’
While Putin insisted that Russia “still wants and will pursue” new agreements with the US to achieve nuclear disarmament, these may be harder to negotiate in an era of more diverse weapons systems, being produced more states than ever before.
“Countries’ readiness to talk about getting rid of nuclear weapons is in direct proportion to their advances in other weapons systems,” said Putin, noting that both conventional and high-tech weapons delivered with modern targeting systems “offer almost as much damage, with far superior accuracy.”
“We are carefully monitoring what is happening around the world, just as our own country is acquiring these non-nuclear weapons system,” Putin said.
The US ambassador to the UN has called for inspection of the Iranian military sites to verify Tehran’s compliance with the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), but the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has underlined that there is no need for such monitoring.
To discuss the issue, Press TV has interviewed Jim W. Dean, managing editor and columnist of Veterans Today from Atlanta, and Jim Walsh, research associate with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology from Boston.
Jim Dean said the US authorities are trying to find a way out of the 2015 nuclear agreement in a bid to impose more sanctions on Iran and undermine its economy.
“The US wants to destroy and recoil those deals by being able to put banking sanctions in place which will kill a lot of financing, because they don’t want Iran to become an economic power,” the analyst said on Friday night.
He also said the US government is upset that Iran is absorbing foreign investments in the face of US-imposed sanctions.
“Israel and the US don’t want Iran to become a big economic power and neither do the Persian Gulf states, neither do Israel and many of the Arab states,” Dean added.
US President Donald “Trump is going to do everything he can to bust the Iran deal by finding Iran in noncompliance,” he noted.
However, he emphasized that “Iran is not about to do anything to risk ruining the nuclear deal and to put [foreign] investments at risk.”
The nuclear deal was reached between Iran and the P5+1 countries — namely the US, Russia, China, France, Britain, and Germany — in July 2015 and took effect in January 2016. Unlike America, other signatories to the JCPOA have stood by the accord, which called on Iran to cap on its nuclear activities in return for the removal of nuclear-related sanctions.
Jim Walsh, the other contributor on the panel, said US Ambassador to the UN, Nikki Haley, is “acting on her own” to push forward her own position because she may have “larger ambitions” to become next secretary of state after Rex Tillerson.
“If the US pulls out of the deal, the US would be blamed for that and then Iran would have lots of strategic choices and options,” the researcher warned.
Elsewhere, he said, “Iran is playing wisely,” because the Iranians continue to stay committed to the nuclear agreement and they could have their relationship with Europe, China and Russia.
On March 21, 2017, European Foreign Policy Chief Federica Mogherini strongly supported the nuclear deal, warning the Trump administration that renegotiation of the July 2015 agreement is not possible.
Dear hypocritical USA, in the light of this you surely must be planning an invasion of Ukraine, or at least inflict crippling sanctions to this rogue government created by you.
The United States has intelligence that the engines that power North Korean ballistic missiles allegedly came from Ukraine. In an interview with Sputnik, Polish journalist Janusz Niedzwiedzki said that US media reports to this effect “sound quite reasonable.”
“Since Maidan, Ukraine’s economy has been in tatters and corruption is rampant like nowhere else in the other post-Soviet states or the EU. Small wonder that some people working at Ukraine’s rocket engine enterprises could have sold the know-how to the North Koreans. I don’t think the Ukrainian government knew about this, though,” Janusz Niedzwiedzki told Sputnik Poland.
He said he was worried by the prospect of Ukraine getting lethal weapons from the US, which he fears would mean that Washington is trying to stoke up the armed conflict in Donbass.
“If President Trump decides to supply such weapons to Kiev, it could then use this as a factor in talks with Russia about Ukraine’s future. This could lead to a new escalation of the conflict,” Janusz Niedzwiedzki added.Experts believe that if Pyongyang obtains advanced rocket engine technology from Ukraine’s Yuzhmash plant this would give a boost to the country’s missile program. However, North Korea has been working on its own such rocket technologies and has achieved impressive results in this area.
The New York Times earlier cited a team of US experts as saying that North Korea could have obtained modified RD-250 high-performance liquid-propellant engines for its ballistic missiles in Ukraine.
Despite Kiev’s quick denial that these engines are actually produced in Ukraine, Washington is absolutely convinced that Pyongyang purchased their engines from Ukraine.
Russian pranksters Lexus and Vovan later got in touch with the director of the Yuzhmash plant posing as the head of Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council.
During the exchange the unsuspecting Yuzhmash director admitted that their rocket engines might have found their way to North Korea via China.
“We don’t know for sure if [Yuzhmash technology] actually got to North Korea, but if it did, this would have clearly sped up the country’s development of means of delivery of nuclear warheads,” independent military expert Vladimir Novikov said during a Moscow-Beijing video link organized by Russia Segodnya news agency.
He added that if true, this technology transfer could have been a multi-stage operation.
“If [Ukraine] did sell [this know-how], this could have been done via third and fourth countries. If this is what really happened, it will help the North to develop medium- and long-range ballistic missiles and even intercontinental ones capable of flying up to 11,000 kilometers [6,800 miles] away,” Novikov continued.
He also said that it wouldn’t take long for North Korean specialists to adapt this new know-how “after decades of successful work on their missile and nuclear program.”
Yang Danzhi, the assistant director the Chinese Social Sciences Academy’s Regional Security Center, said that Pyongyang has long been at work honing its missile technology.
“There has been much talk going on about missile technology. [The North Koreans] have used foreign know-how, but they keep improving their own technology and they are making good progress too,” Yang said.He also mentioned numerous channels now existing in the world which countries can use to obtain technology.
“What is really important here is that North Korea has come a long way in this area and has accumulated a wealth of its own technological solutions. That’s why, sooner or later, they were bound to make a breakthrough and this is exactly what we can see happening now,” Yang Danzhi concluded.
Meanwhile, Ukraine’s former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko said that if the reports about rocket engine technology transfers to North Korea are confirmed, this would “mean a catastrophe for Ukraine.”
Tensions around Pyongyang’s missile program have flared up in the recent weeks, following the adoption of the UN Security Council sanctions, which led to North Korea trading threats and warnings with the United States.
Most notably, Pyongyang said it might consider an attack on the area near the US territory of Guam in the Western Pacific.
Is it possible that an advanced civilization once possessed nuclear power on Earth over a million years ago?
OKLO, Africa (INTELLIHUB) — In 1972 a French factory, Pierrelatte uranium enrichment facility, was importing a rare uranium ore from an area of the Gabon Republic which experts say was home to a large-scale functioning nuclear reactor some 1.8 million years ago.
According to experts, the reactor is believed to have functioned for about 500,000 years in perpetuity and is likely man-made. A material found in the uranium ore from the area called U-234 is simply not a natural element. Not to mention the fact that a cyclic water pattern regulated the nuclear reactions, similar to a geyser.
The Defense Ministry in Seoul proposed to talk at the border village of Panmunjom, while the Red Cross proposed separate talks to discuss family reunions.
So South Korean President Moon Jae-in has made up his mind — after his inauguration on May 10 and Pyongyang’s ICBM test on July 3.Pyongyang may also be inclined to talk — as it had already indicated. But there may be preconditions, as in the suspension of those provocative, annual US-South Korean military drills. The US will say no. Once again, it’s all about Washington.
It’s unclear whether US intelligence has 100% proof that Pyongyang, apart from the ICBM, is on the path to soon achieve other technological breaks, such as building a guidance system and a miniaturized, functional nuclear weapon capable of surviving both the missile launch and re-entry into the atmosphere.
Now for some crude, hard facts. Kim Jong-un very well knows that nuclear weapons are absolutely essential for the survival of the Kim dynasty. Beijing not only knows it — but also calculates that Pyongyang does not exactly see it as a trustful ally. During the Korean War — whose memory is pervasive all across the North — Mao’s key concern was to protect China’s borders, not the safety of its neighbor.
The open secret though is that a nuclear North Korea may represent a perennial dissuasion against the US, much more than a threat, but not against China. So that frames the case, once again, as a Washington-Pyongyang drama.Beijing’s margin of maneuver against Pyongyang is rather limited — something that President Trump as well as the US deep state still do not understand. And North Korea is not a Chinese national security priority — unless the regime would collapse and there would be an uncontrollable influx of refugees.
The only thing that matters for the Chinese leadership is — what else — trade. And as far as China-South Korean trade is concerned, business is booming anyway.
Feverish speculation in the US about a “strike” against Pyongyang is idle. Anyone with minimum knowledge of the Korean Peninsula knows that the response would be Pyongyang virtually wiping Seoul off the map. Not to mention that US intel is clueless on where all the dispersed North Korean nuclear and missile development sites are.
A minimally competent US “attack” would requires a lot of infiltrated US Special Forces, as in boots on the ground, with no guarantee of success. In a nutshell; Washington, realistically, is incapable of eliminating North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs.
So what to do? The only logical strategy would be to admit — just as with India and Pakistan in the late 1990s — that North Korea is a de facto nuclear power.Pyongyang’s strategy, after all, is actually a small marvel; you imprint the feeling you’re a totally unpredictable actor, and you scare the living daylights out of everyone while preventing any attempt at destabilization. As much as wishful thinking prevails, that a US surgical strike would be able to paralyze the North Korean political/military/command/communication structure, US intel is clueless when it comes to predicting Pyongyang’s actions.
A Western intel source familiar with the high stakes in the Korean peninsula adds a few stark observations; “The point that is not even touched upon is that South Korea already is within the range of North Korean nuclear bombs even if the United States is not, and can be liquidated by North Korea. We have to examine the nature of the defense alliance with South Korea. Does it mean that we can and will attack North Korea to protect ourselves when we cannot protect South Korea, triggering their destruction in our self-defense?”
The point is that if South Korea is virtually destroyed by Pyongyang’s response to American strikes, “then our allies around the world will have the uneasy feeling that they too would be sacrificed as allies should they get in the way. I would say that would be the end of the entire US alliance structure, which actually is already imaginary.”
The informed source is convinced that “the South Koreans have forced the United States to agree to forbear on any strike on North Korea, as to support such a strike would be national suicide for South Korea. The United States will do nothing.”
All this is happening just as what Seoul really wants is to do business — in a Korean variant of the China-driven New Silk Roads, renamed Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). Seoul wants to build a Trans-Korean Railway, and go even beyond, connecting it with the Trans-Siberian and, what else, the Chinese-built Eurasian land bridge. That happens to be the so-called Iron Silk Road concept, which South Korea has been dreaming about since an Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM) summit in 2004.
“Overcoming the land divide between Asia and Europe”, connected to the vast trans-Eurasia network, means the fifth-largest export economy in the world would be getting even more business. Handicapped by North Korea’s isolation, South Korea is de facto physically cut off from Eurasia. The answer to all this trouble? The Trans-Korean Railway. If only President Moon could entice Kim Jong-un towards a connectivity dream — and make him forget his nuclear toys.
The views expressed in this article are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Sputnik.
The Clintons actually did business with the Russians and the media is ignoring it
(INTELLIHUB) — At least $2.85 million dollars flowed to the Clinton Family through a series of five Russian-backed donations after a massive uranium deal was signed off by the State Department and other agencies during Hillary’s tenure.
Shockingly, between the years of 2009-2013 Russian-backed interests assumed control of one-fifth (20%) of the U.S. uranium supply along with several highly-lucrative mines in Kazakhstan through a secret backdoor deal with the Clintons, as reported by Joe Becker and Mike McIntire in April of 2015.
The report was groundbreaking. And if you think about it, the report should have triggered the real Russian narrative. You know, the one where the Clinton’s sold America’s most strategic asset (i.e. uranium: used to produce nuclear fuel and weapons of mass destruction). Of course, such a narrative never came to pass because to the contrary the fake Trump-Russia narrative was born, sidetracking the general public from what’s really going on.
According to Becker and McIntire: “Uranium One’s chairman used his family foundation to make four donations totaling $2.35 million. Those contributions were not publicly disclosed by the Clintons, despite an agreement Mrs. Clinton had struck with the Obama White House to publicly identify all donors. Other people with ties to the company made donations as well.”
And if that’s not enough, Mr. Clinton received an additional $500,000 from a Russian investment bank with ties to Uranium One, bringing the grand total influx from Russia to $2,800,000. To top it off, the donations went unreported by the Clinton Foundation.
Ladies and gentlemen, the Clintons actually did shady business with the Russians against the best interest of the United States of America and personally benefited from doing so. They must be held accountable.
Please share this powerful report with everyone you know. Get the truth out!
Contamination has now spread to outside of a demo zone at the Hanford Site in Washington State. Officials at Hanford say the ‘low-level’ contamination has been detected on sidewalks, a vehicle gate and also an area where workers keep their protective breathing equipment. This is a heads up for anyone down wind of this site. The air monitors did go off and they have released workers from the facility.
“Hanford is home to 60% (by volume) of all of the high level radioactive waste stored in the United States. Nearly 80% of the Department of Energy’s inventory of spent nuclear fuel rods are stored just 400 yards away from the Columbia River.”
“There are many people who say they will not eat fish from the Pacific Ocean, or eat food from Japan. At the same time, there is no discussion about eating Salmon from the Columbia River, drinking wines from the Columbia Valley, or fruit from the orchards that fill the downwind area around Hanford. The amount of radiation in the Hanford area dwarfs the amount arriving on the West Coast of the United States on a scale that is mindboggling.”
There is a dangerous radiological threat to the West Coast of the United States that puts the health of millions of Americans at risk. It includes dangers to public health, dangers to the food supply, and dangers to future generations from long-lived radionuclides, including some of the most toxic material in the world. It is not Fukushima, it is Hanford. While radiation from the Fukushima nuclear meltdowns is reaching the West Coast, carried across the ocean from Japan, the radiation from Hanford is already there, has been there for 70 years, and is in serious risk of catastrophe that could dwarf the effects of Fukushima even on Japan.
Hanford, on the Columbia River in Eastern Washington State, is the site where the United States produced the majority of its plutonium for nuclear weapons during the Cold War. These tens of thousands of American nuclear weapons were built as an end product of the high levels of plutonium production at Hanford. The first three nuclear reactors on Earth were built at Hanford, with a total of nine nuclear power plants being built there eventually. Nuclear power plants operated for ten years in this world before they were ever used to generate electricity. Electricity is a secondary purpose for nuclear power plants, they were designed and built as plutonium manufacturing plants.
Hanford was the first of these plutonium production sites. The two worst radiological disasters (besides nuclear weapon detonations) in the first four decades of the Atomic Age were accidents at the plutonium production sites of the United Kingdom and the Soviet Union, both in 1957. Military plutonium production sites remain among the most contaminated sites on Earth. During the period of operation more than 67 metric tons of plutonium were manufactured at Hanford. Hanford is home to 60% (by volume) of all of the high level radioactive waste stored in the United States. Nearly 80% of the Department of Energy’s inventory of spent nuclear fuel rods are stored just 400 yards away from the Columbia River. (Statistics taken from Physicians for Social Responsibility webpage)
Here is a very brief review of some of the worst impacts and dangers at the Hanford Site.
The Green Run
In December 1949 the United States deliberately released an immense amount of radiation into populated areas at the Hanford Site during the notorious Green Run. It was the largest intentional release of radiation conducted by the U.S. government. While nuclear testing in Nevada exposed many people to significant amounts of radiation, this was a byproduct of the desire to test weapons. In the Green Run the intention was specifically to release the radiation into the Hanford area. The Green Run was conducted in reaction to the test of the first Soviet nuclear weapon in Kazakhstan several months earlier. The first indications that the Soviets had successfully tested a nuclear weapon came when sensors at Hanford picked up the radiation several days later. It was decided to release radiation “similar” to that of the Soviet test to develop and hone detection equipment and better analysis of the Soviet program.
After the end of World War Two the U.S. method of processing the plutonium from the spent nuclear fuel rods involved “maturing” the rods, or letting them cool for approximately 100 days to allow short-lived nuclear isotopes (like iodine-131) to decay. Kate Brown has a detailed discussion of the decisions that eventually led to extending this maturing period at Hanford during this time in her pivotal book, Plutopia. The U.S. assumed that in their rush to produce nuclear weapons as quickly as possible the Soviets were “short-cooling” their plutonium being manufactured at the Mayak Complex, and thus processing the plutonium before these short-lived radionuclides had decayed. The Green Run was a plan to mimic this and process plutonium that had not cooled for 100 days, but instead had cooled only a few weeks and was, hence, “green.” To increase the ability of the radiation detection equipment in the area, and on the airplanes that participated, the filters at the plutonium processing plants that specifically filtered out iodine-131 were turned off for the 12-hour duration of the Green Run.
As bad as this deliberate release of radiation into the downwind communities was, things did not go as planned. The intended amount of iodine-131 to be released was dwarfed by the actual release, which was double what was anticipated. While scientists imagined they would then be tracking a coherent cloud as it moved away from the site, the resulting radiation dispersed throughout a vast area stretching across much of Washington State and into Southern Oregon. Concentrations were found in valleys and lowlands as the radiation distributed irregularly. Internalizing iodine-131 is a direct cause of thyroid cancer.
EPA map of iodine-131 distribution following the Green Run showing both heavy dose area and total distribution
The Tank Farms
Few things pose as great a threat to public health at Hanford than the Tank Farms. The Tank Farms are 177 single and double shelled waste storage tanks sited at two different locations on the Hanford complex. In the early days at Hanford, when plutonium for nuclear weapons was separated from the spent nuclear fuel, the leftover uranium from the process was stored in these tanks. Over the years a wide range of the highest level radioactive and chemical wastes were dumped into these tanks. According to the State of Washington the 177 tanks hold 53 million gallons of the highest level radioactive waste existing in the United States. 67 of the single shelled tanks have leaked over 1 million gallons of this highly radioactive waste which is migrating through the soil and groundwater into the Columbia River. In 2011 the Department of Energy emptied the contents of many of the leaking single shelled tanks into double shelled tanks, however the design of the double shelled tanks was found to be flawed, resulting in further leaks.
A section of the Tank Farms at Hanford. Photo: D0E.
Dealing with the 53 million gallons of highly radioactive waste is a multi-billion-dollar effort designed to manage the waste by 2050, or roughly 100 years after it was first manufactured. Currently almost nothing has yet been accomplished towards this goal besides the paying out of the contracts to design plans and begin the construction of the “Vitrification Plant” that is intended to encase the waste in glass. In recent years’ numerous whistleblowers have come forward from among Hanford employees to describe the flawed design and safety protocols of the Vit Plant. Most of these whistleblowers have been fired by the contractors running the Hanford cleanup. One, Walter Tamosaitis, the research and technology manager of the Vit Plant, was vindicated and awarded $4.3M to settle his wrongful termination suit, however other whistleblowers have been dismissed from their positions since that award. While the liquid waste has been extracted from the tanks the remaining high level waste in the tanks remains largely untreated.
Hanford employees who work maintaining the Tank Farms have suffered serious and unexplained health problems in recent years. Each year numerous workers have been exposed to “vapors” and have become sick or lost consciousness and required hospitalization. Many have suffered ongoing health problems as a result of these exposures. In 2014 over 40 workers suffered from such exposures including a two-week period in late March that saw 26 workers hospitalized. According to KGW news in Portland, a 1997 study conducted by the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory warned that workers exposed to vapors from specific tanks would have significantly increase risk of cancers and other serious diseases, but the conclusions of this report “were never made public, shared with Hanford workers or members of the federally chartered Hanford Advisory Board.”
On 29 September 1957 a tank containing waste similar to the waste in the Hanford Tank Farms exploded at the Mayak plutonium production site in the former Soviet Union, known as the Kyshtym Disaster. The cooling system for one of the tanks at the Mayak site failed and the temperature inside the tank rose eventually causing a chemical explosion that sent a radioactive cloud for over 350 km downwind and heavily contaminated an area near the plant with catastrophic levels of cesium-137 and strontium-90. This was one of the worst radiological disasters in human history at the time, and remained so, along with the fire three weeks later inside a nuclear reactor core at the Windscale facility (now called Sellafield) in Cumbria in the United Kingdom, until the Chernobyl meltdown and explosion in 1987. The Kyshtym Disaster, which a Soviet study concluded resulted directly in 8,000 deaths (not to mention illnesses) was the consequence of an explosion in one tank. At Hanford there are currently 177 such tanks, each containing similar disastrous potential, and located beside one another.
Contaminations and Dangers
The EPA has identified between 1,500-1,200 specific sites on the Hanford grounds where toxic or radioactive chemicals have been dumped. The ambiguity of that number speaks volumes about the lack of record keeping and functional data for addressing these problems. If plans for remediation of the waste in the Tank Farms at the Hanford Site are carried out as intended, there remains massive contamination of the soil and groundwater under the site, leeching into the Columbia River and surrounding countryside. That is if things go well. Things could go badly. The Kyshtym Disaster shows the dangers of an explosion in one of the tanks storing waste such as that stored in the 177 tanks at the Hanford Tank Farms. An incident in which multiple tanks experience problems could be catastrophic beyond our imagination. What’s more, there is not effective containment or security at the Tank Farms to face the threats of current times. While the countries around the world worry about the dangers of flying airplanes or drones into nuclear power plants, or of cyber attacks on the power supplies to such plants, those sites have at least some effective containment around the toxic materials they hold. The Tank Farms are open air and unshielded. The amount of deadly radiological materials contained in these tanks is far beyond that contained at any single nuclear site in the United States.
Hanford is Here, Fukushima is There
The triple meltdown at Fukushima Daiichi was a horrible disaster that has released massive amounts of radiation into the environment. The daily passage of tons of water through the watershed below the plants where the melted nuclear cores (corium) sit smoldering will continue to release radiation into the ocean for decades to come. The health toll that this will take, especially on the children of Northern Japan is horrifying. Already a much higher than expected incidence of thyroid cancers have been reported in area youth. This is the first of the cancers to present and is the tip of the iceberg of health impacts on those in the area. The release of long lived radionuclides such as cesium-137 and uranium into the ecosystem presents dangers to people all around the world as these particles cycle through the biosphere. But the largest and most tragic impacts of Fukushima will be on people in Japan. The plumes from the explosions of March 2011 deposited the bulk of their fallout within a few hundred kilometers of the plants. Radiation from the regular releases of contaminated water into the ocean, and the passage of groundwater across the corium will continue to bring radioactive particles into the Pacific Ocean where they will work their way up the food chain much as the fallout deposited by atmospheric nuclear testing did in the Pacific during the 1940s and 1950s. Some of that radiation is reaching the West Coast of the U.S., and this will continue as long as the site hemorrhages contaminated water into the ocean, which will likely be for some decades. This disaster should not be discounted. But it should also be remembered that it is the people of Japan, and specifically the children of Japan who live in the areas where the fallout plumes deposited that face the direst of these consequences.
There is currently a great deal of awareness about the arrival of Fukushima radiation on the West Coast. There are many people who say they will not eat fish from the Pacific Ocean, or eat food from Japan. At the same time, there is no discussion about eating Salmon from the Columbia River, drinking wines from the Columbia Valley, or fruit from the orchards that fill the downwind area around Hanford. The amount of radiation in the Hanford area dwarfs the amount arriving on the West Coast of the United States on a scale that is mindboggling. What is arriving from Fukushima is the result of the meltdowns of three nuclear cores, and it is crossing an ocean. What is stored at Hanford and leeching into the Columbia is resultant from 2/3rds of the high level nuclear waste of the United States, and is from production that began decades before Fukushima was built. This is not just contamination that is arriving today, or this year, it has been saturating the groundwater and ecosystem of the Northwest for more than 70 years.
Furthermore, the impacts from Hanford are not only what may happen, but what has already happened. Hanford downwinders have suffered generations of cancers and other diseases across a wide area of Eastern Washington and beyond. There is a legacy of death and illness that spans generations downwind from Hanford, and the source of those diseases percolates away in the tanks and waste sites that sit along the Columbia River, spreading deeper into the surrounding ecosystem. The radiation from Fukushima may slowly seep across the vast Pacific, while at Hanford we have the threat of a radiological explosion or terrorist act that could release volumes more radiation than was released by Fukushima and deposited in Japan any day of any week, and spread radiation across the West Coast and mountain west.
By all means we should be vigilant and monitor the levels of Fukushima radiation that arrives on the West Coast of the United States, while remembering that the most profound victims of Fukushima are children living near the site. But we should turn our attention and concerns to the radioactive wound that seeps radiation into the ecosystem of the American and Canadian West every day and threatens it with a radiological disaster that would dwarf the worst that Fukushima has done even in Japan. Stand up for Hanford whistleblowers. Demand transparency on waste management practices and plans at Hanford. Stand up for the health of Hanford workers who are being exposed to dangerous vapors in their workplace. And demand support and compensation for the downwind families and workers whose health and wellbeing has been devastated by the most radioactive site in the United States.
Robert Jacobs is a historian of nuclear technologies and radiation technopolitics at the Hiroshima Peace Institute of Hiroshima City University. @bojacobs.
The tank is known as AZ 101 and was put into service in 1976. The tank’s life was expected to be 20 years. Now it has been holding hot, boiling radioactive and chemically contaminated waste for 41 years.
As King5 reports, a seven-person crew was undertaking a routine job around 7 p.m. Thursday night. They had deployed a remote-controlled device into the safety space of what is known as a double shell tank. The device is used to evaluate structural integrity of the aging tanks. Normally, equipment lowered in this two-foot wide outer shell of the tank comes up clean. But not this time. A radiation specialist on the crew detected higher than expected readings.
“Radiological monitoring showed contamination on the unit that was three times the planned limit. Workers immediately stopped working and exited the area according to procedure,” said Rob Roxburgh, deputy manager of WRPS Communications & Public Relations, the government contractor in charge of all 177 underground storage tanks at the nuclear site.
“Everybody was freaked, shocked, surprised,” said a veteran worker, who is in direct contact with crew members. “(The contamination) was not expected. They’re not supposed to find contamination in the annulus (safety perimeter) of the double shell tanks.”
“We are of course concerned it might be a leak,” a Washington state Department of Ecology spokesperson said.
The AZ 101 contamination event comes just 10 days after a tunnel collapse at Hanford that caused a site wide emergency. On May 9, workers found a 20 by 20 foot cave in of a tunnel used to store highly radioactive and chemically contaminated equipment from the Cold War-era.
Worse still, as The Wall Street Journal reports, a worker’s clothing was exposed to radioactive contamination at the site late Thursday, in what Gov. Jay Inslee called an “alarming incident” that should prompt federal officials to expedite their cleanup of the decommissioned facility. Detection equipment was then used to check for contamination that might have become airborne and adhered to the workers.
They found radioactive material on one worker in three spots: on one shoe, on his shirt, and on his pants in the knee area. According to workers in the field, the contaminated items were removed, bagged and appropriately disposed of.
Governor Jay Inslee called on the federal government to investigate after the contamination was discovered.”This comes on the heels of last week’s tunnel collapse. It is another urgent reminder that Congress needs to act, and they need to act quickly.”
“The May 9th incident should serve as an urgent reminder of the challenges in cleaning up the Hanford site that require a re-dedication of attention and resources in order to ensure progress continues moving forward,” the governors said in their letter to the Republican president.
“The longer it takes to clean up the facilities and structures that store mixed chemical and radioactive waste, the farther and farther they get past their useful lives – causing degradation and more risk of failing.”
“Our citizens should know the urgent facts…but they don’t because our media serves imperial, not popular interests. They lie, deceive, connive and suppress what everyone needs to know, substituting managed news misinformation and rubbish for hard truths…”—Oliver Stone
Dr. Helen Caldicott has been an author, physician and one of the world’s leading anti-nuclear campaigners. She helped to reinvigorate the group of Physicians for Social Responsibility, acting as president from 1978 to 1983. Since its founding in 2001 she served as president of the US based Nuclear Policy Research Institute later called Beyond Nuclear which initiates symposia and educational projects aimed at informing the public about the dangers of nuclear power, nuclear weapons, and nuclear war. And she is the editor of the 2014 book, 
Tales from the Conspiratum 