Radioactive Japan's slippery slope: mafias and fascism

Two snippets of the rapidly deteriorating situation in Japan:

On one side Fukushima emergency... mentions that there was a mafioso mass dumping of radioactive materials in a river bed in Western Japan:

A huge amount of contaminated waste was found on the river bed in Shiga prefecture, western region of Japan.
According to the local authorities, among the waste include 2,300 tons of wooden tips contaminated by radiation as well as 77 sandbags filled with the same contaminated wooden tips.
The incident was came to light after an anonymous informant, possibly related to the illegal dumping, called in last month. The survey conducted by the local office shows up to 3000 becquerel per kilogram was detected.
"This is a possible illegal dumping case, though the place where they were brought from remain unknown." the authorities said.

 

Fascist repression against truth

(CC by Masaru Kamikura)

On the other side, actress (and former Miss Japan) Norika Fujiwara (pictured) has stepped forward against the implementation of fascist censorship laws that will severely punish whistleblowing and bring punishments against bloggers who expose the truth about the nuclear catastrophe, mentions EneNews, citing Japanese sources (→ Japan Times).

The new law, known as Secret Security Act, allows government to hide important information like radiation readings, to severely punish whistleblowing officials and even to exert censorship on the Internet at whim.

In a message posted on Friday, Fujiwara accused the government of covering up the truth about the crisis at the Fukushima nuclear plant, and spreading misinformation about radiation and leaks of radioactive water there.

“As a citizen I am really concerned about it,” Fujiwara wrote in another message. “Our nation has a right to know.”

Fujiwara joins the Japan Newspaper Publishers & Editors Association in opposing the bill as a violation of the right to freedom of speech that will undermine Japan’s democracy.

“Once the bill is signed, the people who will write the truth on the Internet (or through other means) will be punished,” she stressed. “When I think of all the consequences that it will lead to, it really bothers me.”

Fukushima radiation continues climbing: x30 in just a week!

I already mentioned how this Tuesday water radioactivity in the collapsed nuclear power plant had spiked x15 in three days, well now, after six days, it is x30!

→ EneNews (citing NHK).

Fukushima: radioactivity spikes x15 in just two days

In TEPCO's own words:

... tritium levels in water taken from a well close to a number of storage tanks holding irradiated water rose to 64,000 becquerels per liter on Tuesday from 4,200 becquerels/liter at the same location on Sunday.

Source: Reuters (via EneNews).

Thousands march in Romania against cyanide poisoning plans by Canadian mining company

All the last week there have been protests in the European country against the intention of Gabriel Resources, a multinational mining company with see in Canada, to exploit a gold mine in, Rosia Montana, Transylvania by means of cyanide.

The toxic corporation plans to contaminate with nothing less than 12,000 tons of cyanide per year. Naturally Romanians are outraged. 

Only this Sunday some 8000 people marched in Buchares, while 6000 did the same in Cluj against cyanide poisoning and capitalist corruption. 

Source: Webguerrillero[es].

Fukushima: reactors lose all water as soon as it goes in

This is just one of the many news I read daily on that brutal nuclear catastrophe of global implications which is Fukushima. I just can't keep up with all but the situation seems to be seriously deteriorating by the moment (or more likely it was all the time that way, just that we were not informed). 

A robot camera descending to Hell... I mean: one of the reactors of the devastated Fukushima Daiichi nuclear site, found barely "inches" of water where there should have been at least 4.5 meters. 

The video published by TEPCO shows that the 400 tons of water injected to reactor 1 go down the drain into the ground as soon as they are poured in. As the Japan Times explains:

The water used to cool the fuel eventually flows into the turbine building, where it is believed to mingle with water intruding from outside. The turbine building is also connected to an underground trench that runs toward the coast. Highly radioactive water from the trench is believed to be mixing with separate groundwater flows before entering the sea.

This does not just happen in reactor 1 but it is probably the case of the three reactors which were active when the catastrophe happened. The storage of "spent" fuel (actually more toxic than "unspent" one) in the reactors themselves, two of which violently exploded, while another collapsed almost completely because of radioactive erosion and seismic movements, only adds to the severity of the problem.

The water flow from the mountains and the tides seems to be entering freely inside the destroyed reactors, incorporating all kind or radionuclides before it goes to the sea. Then it travels quickly across the Pacific Ocean with only limited dilution to the coasts of Canada and the USA. While the Pacific Ocean is really big, it seems not to be big enough to face a single nuclear catastrophe.

Sources: Fukushima Emergency..., Energy News.


Also for sushi-lovers, Simply Info mentions that South Korea is banning more and more fish and seafood imports from Japan because this country does not control the radiation levels of its produce. 

USA: nuclear accident in South Georgia: chemical explosions at radioactive waste site

The Perma-Fix Environmental Services plant at Valdosta (Georgia, border with Florida) suffered a series of huge chemical explosions today. The industry describes itself as "a global provider of nuclear services and radioactive waste management solutions". The profile of the residues treated in the plant are openly described as "radioactive waste".

The plume of the accident rose at least 30 meters above ground, what may imply radioactive and other unclear risk for the surrounding area. 

Source: Energy News.

USA: Hanford leaks 150 Kg (330 lbs) of uranium to the Columbia River every year

The troubled Handford facility in NW USA is leaking 330 lbs (~150 Kg) of uranium to the Columbia river per year.

The specific source is the so-called "300 Area", where uranium was milled and plutonium processed in WWII and the Cold War.

→ EneNews.

Fukushima nuclear catastrophe: nuclear fire (video)

What seems to be the remains of reactor 3 developed a fire yesterday or the day before (unsure), as it is very apparent in this security camera video:

Visually it would seem to be reactor number 3 but the automatic translation of a Japanese news site provided by Fukushima Emergency... reads:

According to the leak of TEPCO officials, current, Unit 4 and Unit 3 and Unit 2 of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, further, is that the site and its surrounding facilities, nuclear fuel and are beginning to burn.

What seems to imply that all three southern units are burning, although I cannot confirm this yet. 

Source: Fukushima Emergency... (link 1, link 2).

Greece: immigrant dies after being neglected in concentration camp

The unbearable shame of concentration camps for immigrants in Europe has become even worse with a death caused by criminal neglect. 

From From the Greek Streets:

Migrant from Afghanistan dies in Athens hospital after long-term neglect in the hands of the police

Mohammad Hassan, a migrant from Afghanistan, had been detained in the concentration camp of Corinth since September 2012. Despite the fact that he repeatedly complained about the pain he was suffering, his pleas were completely ignored and he received no medical help. Only on July 2, Mohammad was finally transferred to the Sismanogleio hospital in Athens. He died at the hospital on July 27. 

The doctors had diagnosed him with a respiratory infection, which would point at pneumonia or another similar infection.

Greece: farcical minister visit to hospital results in riot

From From the Greek Streets:

Riot Police storm Attiko Hospital to protect the minister of health from angry doctors and patients

On 19 July 2013 the new minister of health Adonios Georgiades (an extreme-Rigth MP) went to the Attiko hospital for an inspection accompanied by TV cameras. However, ministry officials passed by earlier to make sure that no patients are not to be seen in camp beds in the hospital corridors. Patients had to squeeze into rooms (8 patients in 4 bed rooms) temporarily until the minister and the TV cameras leave, so everything would look good ιν the TV. When the minister arrived doctors and patients proteσted for the ridiculous scenario and the budget cuts in health care, so riot police stormed the hospital faciltiies to protect the minister and keep the protesters away from the cameras.

Switzerland: radioactive substance found in Lake Biel (water source)

The source is a water discharge by Muehleberg nuclear plant, which is located some 20 km upstream the Aar river, some 13 years ago.

Geologists working in a unrelated project found cesium-137 at levels claimed to be not harmful but still well above what the power plant is allowed to release, especially considering that Lake Biel water is used for human consumption. 

Greenpeace demanded that the Bern Canton prosecutor acts against the culprits. They also raised the matter on how the Federal Nuclear Safety Inspectorate missed the fault or, very possibly, decided to hide the incident.

The Muehleberg plant is located not far from the Swiss capital Bern. Switzerland has already voted to gradually close all nuclear power plants in the next two decades.

Source: Fox News (via EneNews).


Update: EXSKF has more details: the radioactive releases were not just one but three: mid-1970s, early 1980s and around the year 2000. However even more important were the the atmospheric fallout from Chernobyl (1986) and widespread nuclear testing around 1963:

The full study (open access) is available at Springer Link.

The absolutely mad radiation figures of Fukushima's ongoing 'China syndrome' - growing extremely fast!

William Boardman at Dissident Voice explains that we do not need to know what exactly is a measure such as Bequerel/liter (Bq/l), we just need to know that the Japanese Nuclear Regulatory Authority (NRA) considers 10 Bq/l the highest safe limit in regular drinking water (60 Bq/l for nuclear plants' drinking water).

Probably because the corium has reached the water table under the collapsed Fukushima Daiichi NPP, the radiation levels are spiking like crazy these days:

On July 5, radiation levels at Fukushima were what passes for “normal,” which means elevated and dangerous, but stable, according to measurements by the owner, the Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO).

On July 8, radiation levels had jumped about 90 times higher, as typically reported. TEPCO had no explanation for the increase.

On July 9, radiation levels were up again from the previous day, but at a slower rate, about 22 per cent. TEPCO still had no explanation.

On July 10, Japan’s Nuclear Regulation Authority (NRA) issued a statement saying that the NRA strongly suspects the radioactive water is coming from Fukushima’s Reactor #1 and is going into the Pacific.

Then he provides some truly scary TEPCO (official) figures for July 8th:

9,000 becquerels per liter — On July 8, according to TEPCO, the company measured radioactive Cesium-134 at 9,000 becquerels per liter. Since TEPCO characterized this as 90 times higher than on July 5, the implication is that the earlier reading (about 100) was less than twice as toxic as the allowable limit and only 10 times more toxic than drinking water for civilians.

11,000 becquerels per liter – TEPCO’s measurement of Cesium-134 on July 9.

18,000 becquerels per liter — TEPCO measurement of Cesium-137 on July 8.

22,000 becquerels per liter – TEPCO’s measurement of Cesium-137 on July 9.

900,000 becquerels per liter – TEPCO’s measurement of the total radioactivity in the water leaking from Reactor #1. This radiation load includes both Cesium isotopes, as well as Tritium, Strontium and other beta emitters. There are more that 60 radioactive substances that have been identified at the Fukushima site. 

So, from almost safe levels (with many question marks because of the usual TEPCO obscurantism) on July 5th, the radiation being leaked to the Pacific Ocean had jumped a week ago (Jul 8-9) to 90,000 times the safe level. In just few days!

The latest official figure (from July 11th) is mirrored at Fukushima Diary, and is much worse (of course): 150,000,000 Bq/l, i.e. 15 million times the safe level!!!

Let's chew on these amazingly horrifying figures:

1. July 5th: ~100 Bq/l (x10 safe level)
2. July 8th: 900,000 Bq/l (x90,000 safe level: grew an average of almost 30,000 Bq/l per day)
3. July 11th: 150 million Bq/l (x15,000,000 safe level: grew an average of almost 50 million Bq/l per day)
4. If this explosive rhythm continues, today it should be like what?!

I honestly have no idea if and when this "spike" will reach its limit and what will happen afterwards (not declining surely), what I know is that this situation is totally out of control and is absolutely unprecedented. Humankind and all Earth is suffering the most ridiculously crazy radioactive pollution ever. 

And I also know that this is not in the first page of all newspapers as it should. Just by not looking at it the problem is not going to be solved at all! It may not even have any solution but whatever the case it must be talked about because, at the very least, the survivors (if there are any, an I'm beginning to doubt it) must learn from this cruel lesson. 

Japan: massive demo against restarting of nuclear plants

Tokyo:

Source: Fukushima Emergency, what can we do? (also → video).

China: protests succeed against nuclear plant project near Guangzhou

The planned Heshan uranium-processing plant was canceled after hundreds of protesters wearing anti-nuclear t-shirts "walked" through Jiangmen, the prefectural capital. 

"I need life, not nukes", reads the banner

It is the first nuclear energy project canceled by Beijing. However there are fears that the authorities are just trying to win some time and the project may be restarted in the near future.

Environmental concerns seem able to mobilize the citizenry in China: last year a copper industry in Sichuan was canceled after large clashes. 

Source: EXSKF.

Brazil: demands of the protesters

Today July 11 is a day of national mobilization across Brazil.

The Platform of Working Class Organizations has issued the following demands:

1. Weekly working hours limited to 40 by law.
2. Abandonment of the constitutional reform project that would demolish worker rights.
3. A progressive tax reform, so the wealthy pay more. 
4. Priority of public investment in quality health, education and transport services, instead of debt payment and primary surplus.
5. Suspension of oil and mining exploitation auctions, which only benefit multinational corporations.
6. Zero tariff in public transport for all the population. 

The popular mobilization in Brazil, far from receding is growing, affecting to all kinds of popular sectors. Notably worker mobilization is increasing dramatically across the country. 

The several farm worker organizations have also presented their own list of demands:

1. Recovery of national sovereignty over the land. The government should declare null the sold farmlands and/or expropriate the ones already ceded to foreign capitalists.
2. Speed up the agrarian reform, settling in thousands of farmer families now living at the roadsides.
3. Public policies of support, stimulation and credit for cheap, healthy and ecological food produce. Structural programs for rural youth and women.
4. Grant the rights of rural peoples by acknowledging and delimiting the indigenous lands, as well as the rights of people affected by reservoirs, fishing demarcations, etc.
5. Ban immediately the pesticides and other agrotoxics already banned elsewhere on Earth, ban of air fumigation. Deep revision of the policies towards GMOs and social control.
6. Government policy of control of deforestation, support for the recovery of degraded areas and reforestation by the locals. 
7. Suppression of privatization of natural resources such as water, energy, forests, rivers, minerals and the sea. Immediate abandonment of the the Mining Bill project and an ample and democratic debate for a new such law.
8. Immediate implementation of programs to eradicate illiteracy and grant access to school to all rural communities.
9. Suspension of auctions of irrigated zones in the NE and their destination to agrarian reform instead, as well as democratization of access and management of water resources.
10. End of the Kandir Law, which leaves untaxed the big agricultural and mineral exporters.

Source: LINyM[es].

Japan: scattered "mystery black substance" is concentrated radioactive fuel

Since the Fukushima Daiichi catastrophe more than two years ago, we have been reading of a mysterious "black substance" that tends to show up in roadsides and other random places and shows very high levels of radioactive emission. Believe it or not, nobody until now had studied it with anything else than a geiger counter. 

In an interview at Fairewinds (Dr. Gundersen's site), Prof. Marco Kaltofen, President of the Boston Chemical Data Corp., explains that his team took samples to analyze, detecting high amounts of cesium isotopes but also of radium-226, a product of uranium disintegration. They do not have the means to detect the uranium directly but they strongly suspect its presence in the "black substance":

... this particle contains not only fission waste products from the reactor but very likely contains a concentrated unburned nuclear fuel. And that’s unusual. This sample had by far the highest level of uranium daughters that we’ve seen in a dust or soil sample.  We’re actually seeing material that might well have come from inside a failed fuel assembly.

Gundersen interprets it as being clear evidence of the containment being breached in the explosions of March 2011. 

There is a high risk of ingestion, especially among children and agricultural workers. 

Source: EneNews.

Fukushima: corium hitting the water table

I guess it was inevitable as the process of China syndrome goes on that the  corium (amorphous mass of nuclear-reacting material from the destroyed reactors) would eventually reach the water table, which is not far under the foundations of the seaside destroyed facility.

China syndrome process, from Roundtree7 (good article)

Unlike what happened in Chernobyl, where this process was at least delayed by means of the construction of a new underground floor at the risk of the lives of many workers, in Fukushima that has not been attempted at all, plausibly because the water table was simply too shallow. The whole consequences of the interaction of this extreme heat source with the water table are not yet known (will it explode?) but one thing is clear: the radiation levels are climbing fast, especially in the water:

Water sampled from the well Monday contained 9,000 becquerels of cesium-134 per liter and 18,000 becquerels of cesium-137, both about 90 times the levels found Friday, Tepco said. The well is near the turbine building for reactor 2 and about 25 meters from the plant’s harbor.

TEPCO is dissimulating these developments by means of not updating their English language site, although the scary data is anyhow available in Japanese (still not really reliable, as Mochizuki points out). 

Whatever they admit to, what is clear is that two years after the initial catastrophe the situation is not under control and looks like it will never be, releasing more and more radiation to the Pacific Ocean and the atmosphere in a destruction spiral that threatens all Humankind.

Chad: children used to test "vaccine" suffer horrible consequences

On December 2012 five hundred children from Gouro, Chad, were rounded up at school and forced to be administered an injection said to be a vaccine against meningitis A, under the threat that otherwise they will not get access to superior education. The children were injected without their parents' knowledge.

This "vaccine" seems to be an untested drug, still in process of experimentation, and this experimentation in humans was surely the goal that the fake charity wanted to achieve. 

Soon the children suffered headaches, vomits, convulsions and even severe paralysis. The fake vaccinators run away from the village then. A physician took five days to arrive and when he did, there was nothing he could do. Finally some 50 children were moved to hospitals in Faya and Djamena, where some children from other villages also arrived.

But the children were soon brought back to their villages without even a single document being filled. Informally the families were given a payment said to amount to more than €1000 and verbally told that their children did not suffer any harm from the vaccine.

However at least 40 children have become paralyzed. Seven children were flown to Tunis, along with some other 20 patients whose data is not known. The doctors there reported that the adverse reaction from the vaccine was without consequences. Still one child had to be attended for amygdalitis, while others were reported to have other illnesses.

That was the official version. The parents tell a very different and rather horrific story: children keep suffering violent uncontrolled convulsions, falling unexpectedly to the ground. Prior to the "vaccination" the children were in good health and there had never been any meningitis case in the region. 

Sources: WG[es], Vactruth. 

Greece: bourgeois camp clearly heading to outright fascism

Two news snippets from I can't relax in Greece evidence how the conservative party (ND) in government (with necessary support from the so-called "moderate left") is clearly paving the way for the worst kind of fascism in the European country. 

Compulsory and arbitrary arrests for HIV tests

On one side the new Minister of Health, Adonis Georgiadis, has re-issued a decree allowing police to arbitrarily arrest people to have them made forced HIV tests. The measure was in place previously for several months until it was suspended because of popular outcry. 

However in the time it was in place many people, mostly women, were arbitrarily arrested and those who tested positive saw their names and personal data published by the government, who accused them without evidence of being "prostitutes" and "a time bomb". 

The 17 women were not just publicly defamed but kept in jail for months and subjected to a mock trial in which they were accused of "intended bodily injury". They were finally acquitted and released in March.

This is the kind of human rights abuses one would expect of a Nazi regime, right? Exactly like the massive concentration camps for immigrants, allowing police to be penetrated to the marrow by the Nazi Party (Golden Dawn) or tolerating Nazi thugs to scare the hell out of the judge who was going to try one of them. 

Forming government with the Nazis

But is looks like it will get worse: after next elections, if maths allow, they will join forces directly with the Nazis. 

That is at least what Vryonas Polydoras declared this week when asked if they would join forces with Golden Dawn to form government: "of course". 

Polydoras, who used to be minister and speaker in Parliament, added:

We demonstrate sensitivity towards Golden Dawn, which got 600,000 votes [in the last election], will get one million [votes in the next] and we have memories of the Weimar constitution. We remember the Weimar constitution.

One wonders what he means with the references to Weimar, probably that the bourgeois collaboration of parties like his own or like PASOK in the rise of Hitler was "right".  Probably the guy thinks that anything is valid against socialism and he is surely ready to burn the Greek Parliament and blame the commies, exactly as the Nazis did with the Reichstag eighty years ago.


Update: example of highly unequal treatment to Anarchist and Fascists for the same crime

“DEMOCRACY FACTS: 

Sakkas K. He was arrested and is held in pre-trial detention for 30 months without trial. Accusation: Anarchist and possessing illegally a weapon (pistol)

Chaidas A. & Drakos P. Golden Dawn members who were arrested and were released immediately. Accusation: Possessing illegally a weapon (pistol, knifes, metal stick)

THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN A FIGHTER AND PARA-STATE”

Notice that pre-trial detention beyond 18 months is illegal and therefore Kostas Sakkas is in hunger strike for his rights.

Source: From the Greek Streets. 

One in three women is victim of sexist violence at home

That is what Al Jazeera reports based on a WHO report. The figure of ~37% is similar across Asia and Africa, being somewhat lower but still very worrisome in the First World (~23%). 

Domestic violence leaves a dramatic legacy in survivors and children alike:

Women with a violent partner were twice as likely to suffer from depression and develop an alcohol problem, compared to women who did not experience abuse.

Victims of violence were also found to be far more likely to contract a range of sexually-transmitted diseases, from syphilis to HIV.

The study also flagged the higher likelihood of abused women having an unwanted pregnancy, an abortion, or an underweight baby - and their children were more likely to become abusers or victims in adulthood.

In the USA a major issue is that victims of domestic violence can be fired for their aggressors' behavior. Only six states have laws against it and real cases of such workplace repercussions of domestic violence are not uncommon at all (~70% of sexist violence victims are harassed or attacked at work by their "partners", being murder at their aggressor's hands a major cause of death in the workplace among women, and many of them have lost their jobs as result of their aggressor's violence spilling into the victim's job) → TP.