Gizmodo – Kodak may be going under, but apparently they could have started their own nuclear war if they wanted, just six years ago. Down in a basement in Rochester, NY, they had a nuclear reactor loaded with 3.5 pounds of enriched uranium—the same kind they use in atomic warheads. But why did Kodak have a hidden nuclear reactor loaded with weapons-grade uranium? Read Article
Dawn – Pakistan carried out a successful test firing of a short-range nuclear-capable ballistic missile on Thursday, the military said. The launch of the Hatf III, which has a range of up to 290 kilometres and can also carry conventional warheads, came at the end of a field training exercise, a military statement said. Two weeks ago Pakistan test-fired an intermediate range ballistic missile, seen as a response to India’s launch of its new long-range Agni V, capable of hitting targets anywhere in China. Read Article
The Guardian – Japan is shutting down its last working nuclear reactor as part of the safety drive imposed after the March 2011 tsunami triggered a meltdown at the Fukushima plant. The closure of the third reactor at the Tomari plant in Hokkaido prefecture, northern Japan, means all of the country’s 50 nuclear reactors have been taken offline, leaving the country with no nuclear-derived electricity for the first time since 1970. Read article
International News – …What appeared to be a lunch on a quiet Sunday afternoon came with a twist, however. “This one is 6 becquerels,” said Mitsuhiro Anada, 40, who was the host, referring to the level of radioactive cesium in the food. “Please feel to say no, if you don’t want to eat it. We’ve got some cesium-free items as well.” The main item was hamburger steaks and stew, both made of beef in which traces of radioactive cesium has been detected. But both items showed readings far below the government’s provisionally set limit of 500 becquerels per kilogram. Anada said, “I would like consumers to think about what safety means, by providing them with numerical data.” That was the idea behind the unusual event, according to Anada. Read article
ENE NewsPeace Philosophy Centre posted the results and Fukushima Diary has the summary translation:
In March, Fukushima government conducted thyroid test for under 18 in 13 cities and towns such as Minamisoma city, Namiemachi, Iidatemura, Tomiokamachi etc..
The result shows thyroid nodules ( 5.0mm) or cyst (20.0mm) were seen in 13,460 from 38,114 people (35.3%). Read article
From February 2012 : Gundersen: 1/3 of Fukushima kids tested positive for lumps on thyroid — Forebodes some real issues in future — We’re only 10 months into the accident here (AUDIO):
New Scientist – Japan will take its last operational nuclear reactor offline next weekend, but the country may not be nuclear-free for long. Since the earthquake and tsunami devastated the country’s Fukushima Daiichi nuclear facility on 11 March last year, all but one of Japan’s 54 reactors have been taken offline for routine maintenance or safety checks. With public opposition to nuclear power strong, none has yet restarted. Japan’s last operational reactor, on the northern island of Hokkaido – will go offline on 5 May. Read article
The Independent – Special Report day one: The phosphorus shells that devastated this city were fired in 2004. But are the victims of America’s dirty war still being born? For little Sayef, there will be no Arab Spring. He lies, just 14 months old, on a small red blanket cushioned by a cheap mattress on the floor, occasionally crying, his head twice the size it should be, blind and paralysed. Sayeffedin Abdulaziz Mohamed – his full name – has a kind face in his outsized head and they say he smiles when other children visit and when Iraqi families and neighbours come into the room. Read article
AP – New satellite imagery appears to show a train of mining carts and other preparations under way at North Korea’s nuclear test site but no indication of when a detonation might take place. Early this month, South Korean intelligence reported digging of a new tunnel at the Punggye-ri site, which it took as a sign that North Korea was covertly preparing for a third nuclear test. Read Article
The Independent – Special Report day three: Abandoned and afraid, the parents of Iraq’s suffering children wait in vain for help. “He needs multiple surgery outside Iraq. … He has no hearing in his left ear. They told me he has to be six before they can remove cartilage from his chest wall to put in his ear. All operations have to be outside Iraq to beautify the ear and give him his hearing.” … Compared to other children with birth deformities, Sayef Ala’a is lucky. He can see, breathe, walk, run, play and listen to his father and friends with his right ear. Read article
Special Report day two: The pictures flash up on a screen on an upper floor of the Fallujah General Hospital. And all at once, Nadhem Shokr al-Hadidi’s administration office becomes a little chamber of horrors. A baby with a hugely deformed mouth. A child with a defect of the spinal cord, material from the spine outside the body. A baby with a terrible, vast Cyclopean eye. Another baby with only half a head, stillborn like the rest, date of birth 17 June, 2009. Yet another picture flicks onto the screen: date of birth 6 July 2009, it shows a tiny child with half a right arm, no left leg, no genitalia. Read article
Huffington Post – Israel’s military chief said in an interview published Wednesday that Iran will ultimately decide against building a nuclear weapon – putting him at odds with Israel’s more pessimistic prime minister. Maj. Gen. Benny Gantz told the Haaretz daily that he believes that diplomatic pressure and economic sanctions, along with Israel’s determination to strike if necessary, will deter Iran from pursuing nuclear weapons. “I don’t think (Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei) will want to go the extra mile,” he said. “I think the Iranian leadership is composed of very rational people.” At the same time, he warned that Israel is moving forward with its preparations to take military action if necessary. “We are preparing for it in a credible manner. That’s my job, as a military man,” he said. Read Article
Japan Times — A decade from now, airborne radiation levels in some parts of Fukushima Prefecture are still expected to be dangerous at above 50 millisieverts a year, a government report says. The report, which contains projections through March 2032, was presented by trade minister Yukio Edano Sunday to leaders of Futaba, one of the towns that host the crippled Fukushima No. 1 power plant. Read article
YNet – IDF ready to attack Tehran’s nuclear facilities if needed, Chief of Staff Benny Gantz says; military constantly engaged in covert, high-risk operations beyond Israel’s borders, he says. Should Israel decide to strike Iran’s nuclear facilities, the IDF will be prepared to carry out the mission, Chief of Staff Benny Gantz told Yedioth Ahronoth in remarks published Sunday. “In principle, we are ready to act,” the army chief told the newspaper in a special interview ahead of Israel’s upcoming Independence Day. Read Article
Huffington Post – Spent reactor fuel, containing roughly 85 times more long-lived radioactivity than released at Chernobyl, still sits in pools vulnerable to earthquakes.
More than a year after the Fukushima nuclear power disaster began, the news media is just beginning to grasp that the dangers to Japan and the rest of the world are far from over. After repeated warnings by former senior Japanese officials, nuclear experts, and now a U.S. Senator, it’s sinking in that the irradiated nuclear fuel stored in spent fuel pools amidst the reactor ruins pose far greater dangers than the molten cores. Read article
Nuclear power produces around 11% of the world’s energy needs, and produces huge amounts of energy from small amounts of fuel, without the pollution that is so often associated with other fuel production techniques. However, the dark side of nuclear is well documented; from radioactive fallout to the terrible consequences of nuclear weapons. For a comprehensive view of the news on all things Nuclear, read our archive of 1,024 articles CLICK HERE
BBC – The French news agency AFP says the decision is not expected to have a big impact. Last year France bought only 3% of its oil – 58,000 barrels per day (b/d) – from Iran and the UK imported even less Iranian oil. A UK government official told the BBC there would be “no impact on UK energy security”. Read article
The Guardian – Energy minister Charles Hendry will today set out the government’s support for new nuclear power, in the face of opposition from the Tories’ coalition partners, the Liberal Democrats. Hendry will tell the Nuclear Industry Forum that there is a role for new nuclear plants, provided they do not require public subsidies. In one of the key differences between the two coalition parties, the Tories back a new generation of private sector-funded nuclear power stations while the Lib Dems have long opposed new nuclear build. Read Article
ZeeNews – China has been a “key supplier” of nuclear arms and missile technologies to Pakistan and Iran, a US Congressional report said. China has been a “key supplier” of technology, particularly PRC (Peoples Republic of China) entities providing nuclear and missile-related technology to Pakistan and missile-related technology to Iran, said a recent report of the Congressional Research Service (CRS). The report ‘China and Proliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction and Missiles: Policy Issues’ was prepared by CRS, an independent research wing of the US Congress ? for its lawmakers. A copy of the report was obtained by an agency. Read Article
NY Times – India said Thursday that it had successfully launched a missile with nuclear capability and a range of 3,100 miles, giving it the ability to strike Beijing and Shanghai and heightening fears of an Asian arms race. With the launching of the missile, called the Agni 5, India joins a small group of countries with long-range nuclear missile capability, including China, Britain, France, Russia, Israel and the United States. Agni is the Hindi word for fire. Read Article
Reuters – Japan, with assistance from the U.S. government, needs to do more to move spent fuel rods out of harm’s way at the tsunami-stricken Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, said U.S. Senator Ron Wyden on Monday. Wyden, a senior Democratic senator on the Senate Energy committee, toured the ruined Fukushima plant on April 6, and said the damage was far worse than he expected. Read article
NYtimes – Testing Iran’s willingness to negotiate seriously on its nuclear program was the purpose of this meeting, European and American officials said. That was a low bar to hurdle and represented no real breakthrough, and there were no negotiations here on specific steps or proposals. The lack of concrete detail is likely to lead to political criticism of President Obama as the presidential election campaign unfolds and will make the meeting in Iraq even more important. Read article
Business Insider – Three years ago, Timm Suess had the opportunity to visit what he calls “ground zero of the 1986 accident”, the town of Pripyat, which along with its inhabitants was the main victim of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster. “Chernobyl is a more lively place than you might imagine: Nowadays it is repopulated with 500 people, many of them scientists,” wrote Suess after his trip in March 2009. That’s about one percent of what Pripyat’s pre-disaster population used to be at 50,000. Besides scientists, he encountered looters and nuclear workers who still work at the plants, which are to be completely decommissioned by 2020. Read article
Related article: In Ukraine, Scars Of Chernobyl Disaster Remain Raw
TS – A new report from Richard Sale of ISSSource claims that the Stuxnet worm that crippled Iran’s nuclear program at the Natanz facility was planted by an Israeli “proxy”, essentially an Iranian that was working for Israel. The report further indicates that similar proxies have been used to assassinate scientists enlisted to help Iran build a nuclear program, although officials have said that the US never indulged in targeted killings. Read article
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HurroyetDailyNews – The agreements, announced at a ceremony attended by Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao and Turkish Prime Minsiter Recep Tayyip Erdo?an, pave the way for deeper nuclear cooperation between the two countries, but few concrete details of their contents were made available. One of the accords signed is a letter of intent between China’s National Energy Administration and the Turkish Energy Ministry for further nuclear cooperation, but no other information was given. The second is the “Cooperation Agreement on the Peaceful Use of Nuclear Power.” Read article
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