New research by Ipsos MORI shows that three in five global citizens (62%) oppose the use of nuclear energy – a quarter (26%) of those have been influenced by the recent nuclear disaster in Fukushima, Japan.

The latest Ipsos Global @dvisor survey shows that support for nuclear energy is far below that for solar power (97%), wind power (93%), hydroelectric power (91%) and natural gas (80%) as a source of electricity.

Just one in four (38%) adults across 24 countries support the use of nuclear energy. Support is highest in India (61%), Poland (57%) and the United States (52%).

Britons are split on the issue with half supporting (48%) and half opposing (51%) the use of nuclear energy. One in five (20%) Britons that are against the use of nuclear energy say they their opinion has been influenced by the events in Fukushima.

Managing Director of the Ipsos MORI Reputation Centre, Milorad Ajder, said:

“Nuclear energy is a controversial issue at the best of times and the disaster in Fukushima has clearly had a negative impact on the way people see its use. With mounting global opposition, some countries are already decided to scale back its use, with some abandoning it all together.”
Download the full presentation slides
Technical Note

This survey was conducted in 24 countries including Argentina, Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, Great Britain, Hungary, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Poland, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Turkey and the United States of America. An international sample of 18,787 adults aged 18-64 in the US and Canada, and age 16-64 in all other countries, were interviewed between May 6 and May 21, 2011 via the Ipsos Online Panel system.

Approximately 1000+ individuals participated on a country by country basis with the exception of Argentina, Indonesia, Mexico, Poland, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, South Korea, Sweden, Russia and Turkey, where each have a sample 500+. Weighting was then employed to balance demographics and ensure that the sample’s composition reflected that of the adult population according to the most recent country Census data and to provide results intended to approximate the sample universe.

A survey with an unweighted probability sample of this size and a 100% response rate would have an estimated margin of error of +/-3.1 percentage points for a sample of 1,000 and an estimated margin of error of +/- 4.5 percentage points for a sample of 500 19 times out of 20 per country of what the results would have been had the entire population of the specifically aged adults in that country been polled.

TOKYO—Over the last several days, evidence has emerged indicating that the situation at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant was far more dire than previously recognized. The main evidence is extensive—rather than partial—melting of the nuclear fuel in three reactors in the hours after the 11 March earthquake and tsunami. Despite that bad news, however, today plant owner Tokyo Electric Power Co. pledged it would still meet the target set 17 April to stabilize the situation by January 2012 so 100,000 residents evacuated from around the plant can return to their homes and the decade-long process of demolishing the reactors can get started.

At first, analysts from Tokyo Electric and the government believed there was only limited damage to the fuel cores. But over the last week, a combination of robotic and human inspections has led to the conclusion that the fuel assemblies in units 1, 2, and 3 were completely exposed to the air for from over 6 hours to over 14 hours and that melting was extensive if not complete. Much of the fuel is now likely at the bottom of the reactor pressure vessels.

Despite extensive melting of the fuel, “we do not believe there is massive damage to the reactor pressure vessel,” Sakae Muto, Tokyo Electric’s chief nuclear officer told reporters this evening. Last week workers found that an estimated 3000 tons of water has leaked from the unit 1 containment vessel into a basement. In its 17 April roadmap, Tokyo Electric envisioned flooding the containment vessel and building a new cooling system to lower the temperature of the core. But the containment vessel now appears to be too leaky for that scheme to work. Instead they will collect water from the basement, purify it, and inject it back into the reactor pressure vessel, from where it will leak back into the basement. It is simpler than a new cooling system, but it will also require additional measures to watch for and counter leaks of contaminated water into the environment, Muto said. They may still build new cooling systems to supplement or replace the water injection scheme.

The 17 April roadmap for containing radiation also called for wrapping the wrecked buildings in tentlike structures of polyester sheets supported on a steel framework. That part of the work is proceeding as planned.

At the same press briefing, Goshi Hosono, a member of the Japanese parliament and a special advisor to the Prime Minister Naoto Kan on the crisis, said the government had decided to establish a mechanism to track the radiation doses and manage the long-term health care of the hundreds of workers battling to bring the crippled reactors under control. “This is not only in the interests of Tokyo Electric and the government but of all the people of Japan,” he said.

Source: http://news.sciencemag.org/scienceinsider/2011/05/utility-fukushima-cores-more.html?etoc&elq=c26607bbddba4088b40dc249cc7d3ab7

A nuclear forum is being held in South Africa on the 19th of May 2011 at Emperor’s Palace, Johannesburg, aimed at once again promoting nuclear energy in South Africa. As always these “forums” are not for free and are designed that way in order to keep out NGO’s and community driven organisations who simply do not have the funds to attend them. To give you an idea the cost of attending is R2850.00 per person which most NGO’s will not be able to afford, simple as that.

What happens with all these events is that 99% of the attendees are already pro nuclear so one wonders what’s the fricking point??

If the nuclear industry really wants to enter into debate with the South African public WHICH THEY DO NOT, they would make attendance for NGO’s and community driven organisations FREE but they DO NOT want to debate anything. They have an agenda and they will stick with it no matter what. In 5 years we have never been able to get anyone inside the highly secretive South African Nuclear Industry to debate anything, they cannot even answer the simplest of questions posed to them.

What is most annoying is an email promoting this event which was circulated by the company managing the event, namely Siyenza Managament (Pty) Ltd. In this email the author one Mabel Modipa spits out the biggest bunch of bogus unscientific garbage we’ve seen yet.

The email reads as follows:

Africa Needs Nuclear Power

In the wake of the Fukushima nuclear power plant incident, resulting from the recent massive Japanese earthquake and tsunami, and following the anniversary of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant accident in the former Soviet Union, there has been much public debate internationally concerning nuclear power.

Much of the information projected to the public is misguided and inaccurate which leads to a public fear which in turn affects the formulation of government policy internationally. This in turn affects the costs of construction of nuclear power stations because, at times, unrealistic requirements are put in place, which then tend to drive costs up.  The mystique surrounding the subject of nuclear power tends to confuse matters further, in the public mind.  A confused public cannot make informed energy decisions relating to nuclear power.

In Fukushima province the first person to die as a result of the Fukushima nuclear incident has just been reported.  He was a 64 year old farmer from Sukagama, 65km from the reactor.  He hanged himself because the authorities would not let him sell his produce.  To receive any meaningful radiation dose from his spinage a person would have to eat many tons of it, which would be impossible.  It is sad that misguided policy caused his death.

Issues of nuclear construction costs and public perceptions of nuclear power will be discussed at the forthcoming nuclear power conference; Nuclear Forum 3, on 19 May 2011 at Emperor’s Palace, Johannesburg.

The conference will be opened by the Minister of Energy, The Hon Dipuo Peters.

A lot of debate around the use of nuclear as an alternate energy source has been debated this week at the Africa World Economic Forum in Cape Town.  South Africa will be taking the lead in Africa, with the proposed implementation of nuclear as a reliable source of power for the country.  This will no doubt raise the nuclear debate in the rest of the African continent.

ENDS
5 May 2011
Issued by: Siyenza Management
+27 11 463 9184

Mike Kantey, the chairperson of the National Coalition Against Nuclear Energy duly responded to Miss Modipa with the following response.

Dear Mabel

As the National Chairperson of the Coalition Against Nuclear Energy (see www.cane.org.za) and on behalf of the African Uranium Alliance, I take the strongest objection to the unscientific and emotional language employed in your press release appended below.

If this is the quality of business “intelligence” that is sold at high expense to political, investment, and business leaders in Africa, may Heaven help us over the next century.

Not only does the recently Integrated Resource Plan (IRP2010) for South Africa make it abundantly clear at Table 18 on page 43 that a non-nuclear future is perfectly and affordably obtainable, but the respected International Atomic Energy Agency (the IAEA) declared the Fukushima Dai-ichi accident at its highest level of INES-7, equivalent to the worst accident ever at Chernobyl.

To trivialise and minimise this horrendous accident as your misguided “press release” appears to do makes a mockery of those Japanese citizens within a 20-km radius who have been forced to evacuate their lands and their homes, probably forever, and the risk to all those who are forced to consume foodstuffs and liquids with traces of Strontium-90 and Cesium-137. Unlike your ill-informed and disgraceful mockery of an old man’s death by suicide (an understandable response in Japanese society), as well as your simple ignorance of the basic rules of English spelling (“spinach” not “spinage”, which is what you appear to be practising), the smallest, micro-quantity of Cesium-137 or Strontium-90 will be sufficient to trigger a cancer or genetic defect, once it has been inhaled or swallowed.

I trust that your conference will not be another exercise in pulling radioactive wool over your monied classes, but an honest assessment of what really is in the best interests of the African masses.

Sincerely

Mike Kantey
National Chairperson
Coalition Against Nuclear Energy
www.cane.org.za

Source: http://www.environment.co.za

Canadians go to the polls on Monday May 2 to elect new representatives
for the House of Commons, Canada’s elected Parliament

Jack Layton is the leader of the New Democratic Party (NDP), which has
received a very dramatic surge in popular support in recent days, a surge
which is mainly felt in the province of Quebec but which is also being
noticed across Canada.

Here is a brief statement from Mr. Layton on the subject of nuclear power.

Gordon Edwards.

http://www.cleanairalliance.org/files/active/0/NDP response.pdf

April 8, 2011

Mr. Jack Gibbons
Chair, Ontario Clean Air Alliance
Suite 402 -625 Church Street
Toronto, ON M4Y 2G1

Dear Mr. Gibbons,

Thank you for your letter of March 29, 2011 asking about New Democrat’s position
on subsidizing the construction of new nuclear reactors in Ontario.

Jack Layton and New Democrats advocate ending public subsidies for nuclear energy
industry. New Democrats believe in halting nuclear expansion and upgrading the safety
and security of current nuclear energy and waste management facilities. We believe in
promoting clean, renewable energy to mitigate the negative effect of non-renewable
energy such as fossil fuel.

The Canadian Nuclear Industry regularly describes itself as a mature industry,
particularly concerning government regulation. As a mature industry it should be able
to operate without major subsidies from government.

It was for this reason that Canada’s New Democrats opposed the minor increase to
Canada’s Nuclear Liability Act the Harper Conservatives have tried several times to
drive through the House of Commons. It is our position that these legislated maximum
liability levels are a hidden subsidy for this industry. New Democrats feel the industry
must either accept at a minimum a liability level of $10 billion dollars rather than the few
hundred million the Harper Conservatives have in mind.

While there may be a need for government support of nuclear research New Democrats
does not see the need for government subsidies of a mature industry just as we oppose
subsidies for the tar sand. As it stands, Canadians would be better off investing in clean
energy technologies rather than nuclear considering the major risks associated with this
technology.

Sincerely,

Jack Layton, Leader
Canada’s New Democrats

http://www.cleanairalliance.org/files/active/0/NDP response.pdf

As a hibakusha survivor of the 1945 atomic bombing of Hiroshima,
Keijiro Matsushima, 82, has been speaking publicly about his personal
experience in English for foreign audiences. Soon after the accident at
Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant triggered by the March 11 massive
earthquake and tsunami, he was asked to give an interview with the U.S.
cable TV news channel CNN.

While reports of radioactive leaks were making headlines, he thought
how best to describe what was happening and what went through his
mind.

Atomic bombs release intense heat and blasts in addition to radiation.
Their destructive power is incomparably greater than nuclear power plant
accidents, which do not lead to nuclear explosions. People who
underwent atomic bombings may see the Fukushima accident differently,
depending on their experiences.

After much thought, Matsushima made up his mind to speak frankly without
hesitation about how he felt.

“It’s like the third atomic bomb attack on Japan. But this time, we made it
ourselves,” he told CNN.

It is true the accident was triggered by a mega-earthquake. But even though Japan
experienced atomic bombs, didn’t it underestimate the horror of nuclear energy
once it got out of control? Every time Matsushima heard news about the accident,
he could not help asking himself this.

The accident evoked images of nuclear weapons in Matsushima. But he is not the
only one.

Actually, in the past, a nuclear accident prompted the leader of a major power to
take steps toward nuclear disarmament. It is Mikhail Gorbachev, who was the
Soviet Union leader at the time of the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear power plant disaster.

Faced with the accident, Gorbachev felt he experienced virtual nuclear warfare. In
terms of levels of radioactivity, an explosion of even the smallest nuclear warhead
is equivalent to three Chernobyl-class accidents, he said in a speech. Even if a very
small part of accumulated nuclear warheads explode, it would lead to a catastrophe,
he said, expressing his determination to put an end to a nuclear arms race. Twenty
months after the accident, the Soviet Union and the United States signed a treaty to
cut down on nuclear warheads in their possessions for the first time ever.

What about the Fukushima accident? How will it influence the nuclear issues?

Many U.S. experts share the view that the accident caused their wariness against
terrorism targeting nuclear power plants to grow stronger. It is a nightmarish scenario
that combines “9.11″ and “3.11.”

For example, Allison Macfarlane, associate professor of environmental science and
policy at George Mason University, has concerns about the vulnerability of spent fuel
pools. The Fukushima accident made it clear in everyone’s eyes that the loss of
cooling water at pools can result in a radioactive leak crisis.

“If pools were damaged by a terrorist attack and water was lost, the scenario would
be the same as what occurred at the Fukushima plant,” said Macfarlane, who is also
a member of the Blue Ribbon Commission, a U.S. government advisory panel on
nuclear waste.

Charles Ferguson, president of the Federation of American Scientists, points out the
risk of cyber terrorism to nuclear power plants. Having served as a consultant with
the National Nuclear Security Administration and National Laboratories, he worries
about a possible cyber attack that could instantly kill a regional grid that provides
electricity to nuclear power plants and on-site backup electrical systems, resulting in
a Fukushima-type disaster. He is planning to form an experts group to study how to
prevent such cyber terrorism.

National defense concerns have also surfaced. Let us presume one country has
numbers of nuclear power plants in operation. If those plants were attacked by
conventional missiles and their huge inventories of radioactive materials were
released into the atmosphere, society in the targeted country would be in turmoil.
Princeton University professor Frank von Hippel believes that the Fukushima
accident impressed on security policymakers the potential threat of attack on
nuclear power plants.

Several days after the crisis began on March 11, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin
Netanyahu said that the expanding threat of a nuclear catastrophe in Japan had
changed his thinking on the safety of nuclear power.

“It certainly caused me to reconsider the projects of building civil nuclear power
plants” in Israel, he said. Von Hippel’s interpretation of this comment is that c
onsidering the instability in the Middle East today, Netanyahu’s new position reflects,
at least to some extent, security concerns about the potential use of nuclear power
plants as “radioactive bombs” if they are targeted for attack.

Be that as it may, the growing concern about the danger of nuclear power plants
has its upside. Why not make the most of the situation to prevent nuclear
proliferation? Such views were exchanged at an international conference of
experts on the nuclear issues recently held in Washington.

Newly emerging and developing countries are accelerating moves to introduce and
expand nuclear power generation in recent years. Naturally, there is growing interest
toward ensuring safety of nuclear power plants. At the same time, nations share
anxieties about the current situation where more countries are turning to nuclear
energy for power under the existing framework of nuclear nonproliferation, which is
starting to develop rifts.

If so, why not slow down the expansion of nuclear power use by intensifying debate
on safety and strengthen the nuclear nonproliferation system in the meantime, a
German researcher suggested.

How many times did I hear the name Fukushima mentioned outside Japan? Japan
has added a negative legacy to its name as Fukushima became as common a word
as Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

As the only nation that underwent atomic bombings and radioactive pollution caused
by a nuclear power plant, how should Japan face nuclear energy? This is a question
it must squarely address itself.

While calling for peace, safety and security, can we coexist with nuclear energy? If we
can, what conditions must be met? Is the goal achievable with the power we now
possess?

Unexpected situations could happen and we must not simply dismiss them as “outside
the scope of assumptions.” This lesson from the Fukushima accident weighs extremely
heavily in this age of nuclear weapons and energy.

Radiation readings at Japan’s Fukushima Dai-Ichi station rose to the highest since an earthquake and tsunami knocked out cooling systems, impeding efforts to contain the worst nuclear crisis since Chernobyl.

Two robots sent into the reactor No. 1 building at the plant yesterday took readings as high as 1,120 millisierverts of radiation per hour, Junichi Matsumoto, a general manager at Tokyo Electric Power Co., said today.

That’s more than four times the annual dose permitted to nuclear workers at the stricken plant.

[Note: these are measurements of the penetrating gamma radiation only; they do not include the less-penetrating beta and alpha radiation. (GE)]

Radiation from the station, where four of six reactors have been damaged by explosions, has forced the evacuation of tens of thousands of people and contaminated farmland and drinking water.

A plan to flood the containment vessel of reactor No. 1 with more water to speed up emergency cooling efforts announced yesterday by the utility known as Tepco may not be possible now.

“Tepco must figure out the source of high radiation,” said Hironobu Unesaki, a nuclear engineering professor at Kyoto University. “If it’s from contaminated water leaking from inside the reactor, Tepco’s so-called ‘water tomb’ may be jeopardized because flooding the containment vessel will result in more radiation in the building.”

[Note: This is not clearly stated.  If the containment vessel is flooded while it is leaking, there will be more radioactive material "flushed out" from the damaged core, leading to an increase in penetrating gamma radiation  levels outside the vessel but still inside the containment building. (GE)]

Decontaminating Robots

Tepco plans to decontaminate the two iRobot Corp. Packbot robots before sending them into a building tomorrow or later to further investigate the damage, spokesman Takeo Iwamoto said. High radiation in the reactor buildings prevents engineers from working inside them, Iwamoto said.

The cores in reactors 1, 2 and 3 and the spent fuels rods in reactor 4 have been damaged. Tepco has been using fire trucks, concrete pumps and other emergency measures for nearly seven weeks to pour millions of liters of water to cool the units after the accident.

Tepco started moving the radioactive water, which leaked to the basements and trenches, to a waste storage facility on April 19. Tepco transferred 1.89 million liters of the water from the trenches near reactor No. 2 as of 7 a.m. today, Iwamoto said. The utility plans to install a second pump after transferring 2.5 million liters.

Tepco shares fell 3.3 percent to 412 yen today in Tokyo. The shares are down about 80 percent since the quake and tsunami struck on March 11, leaving almost 26,000 people dead or missing.

Less Damage

Reactors 1 and 2 are less damaged than estimated, Tepco said in a statement today.

As much as 55 percent of the No. 1 reactor core at the Fukushima Dai-Ichi station was damaged, compared with its earlier estimate of 70 percent.

“We revised the core damage data because some readings on the containment vessel monitors were wrong,” Matsumoto said. “There was also a recording mistake. We are investigating why this happened.”

The assessment for the No. 2 reactor was cut to 25 percent from 35 percent, while that for the No. 3 unit was raised to 30 percent from 25 percent.

“It seems a reasonable estimate that three reactor cores may be damaged to a similar extent,” said Unesaki. The new estimate “doesn’t indicate lower or higher risks at the plant.”

Radiation in Tokyo’s water supply fell to undetectable levels for the first time since March 18, the capital’s public health institute said today.

The level of iodine-131 in tap water fell to zero yesterday, and cesium-134 and cesium-137 also weren’t detected, the Tokyo Metropolitan Institute of Public Health said today.

[Iodine-131, cesium-134 and cesium-137 are man-made radioactive poisons that can only come from irradiated nuclear fuel.  Iodine-131 has a  half-life of about 8 days, so it will be completely gone from the environment in a few months.  Cesium-134 has a half-life of about 2 years, so it will be completely  gone from the environment after a few decades.  Cesium-137 has a half-life of 30 years, so it will not be completely gone from the environment until several centuries have elapsed. (GE)]

Tokyo residents were told on March 23 that the city’s water was unsafe for  infants after iodine and cesium levels exceeded guidelines.

To contact the reporters on this story:

Tsuyoshi Inajima in Tokyo at
tinajima@bloomberg.net;

Michio Nakayama in Tokyo at
mnakayama4@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story:

Amit Prakash at
aprakash1@bloomberg.net

Follow this link to sign the petition: http://blog.canpan.info/foejapan/daily/201104/24

The Japanese government is celebrating Children’s Day,
a national holiday on May 5th, by dramatically raising
radiation exposure limits in schools.

Robert Alvarez, April 29, 2011

Source: http://www.ips-dc.org/blog/japans_nuclear_catastrophe_leaves_little_to_celebrate_on_childrens_day

May 5 is Children’s Day, a Japanese national holiday that celebrates the
happiness of childhood. This year, it will fall under a dark, radioactive shadow.

Japanese children in the path of radioactive plumes from the crippled nuclear
reactors at the Fukushima Dai-Ichi power station are likely to suffer health
problems that a recent government action will only exacerbate.

On April 19, the Japanese government sharply ramped up its radiation
exposure limit to 2,000 millirem per year (20 mSv/y) for schools and
playgrounds in Fukushima prefecture. Japanese children are now permitted
to be exposed to an hourly dose rate 165 times above normal background
radiation and 133 times more than levels the U.S. Environmental Protection
Agency allows for the American public.

Japanese school children will be allowed to be exposed to same level
recommended by the International Commission on Radiation Protection
for nuclear workers. Unlike workers, however, children won’t have a choice
as to whether they can be so exposed.

This decision callously puts thousands of children in harm’s way.

Experts consider children to be 10 to 20 times more vulnerable to contracting
cancer from exposure to ionizing radiation than adults. This is because as
they grow, their dividing cells are more easily damaged — allowing cancer
cells to form. Routine fetal X-rays have ceased worldwide for this reason.
Cancer remains a leading cause of death by disease for children in the
United States.

On April 12, the Japanese government announced that the nuclear crisis in
Fukushima was as severe as the 1986 Chernobyl accident. Within weeks of
the 9.0 earthquake and tsunami, the four ruined reactors at the Dai-Ichi power
station released enormous quantities of radiation into the atmosphere.

According to the Daily Youmiri, Japan’s Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency
(NISA) announced that between 10 and 17 million curies (270,000- 360,000 TBq)
of radioactive materials were released to the atmosphere before early April,
a great deal more than previous official estimates.

Even though atmospheric releases blew mostly out to sea and appear to have
declined dramatically, NISA reports that Fukushima’s nuclear ruins are
discharging about 4,200 curies of iodine-131 and cesium-137 per day into the
air (154 TBq). This is nearly 320,000 times more radiation then the now
de-commissioned Connecticut Yankee nuclear power plant released over a year.

NISA’s estimate is likely to be the low end, given the numerous sources of
unmeasured and unfiltered leaks into the environment amidst the four wrecked
reactors. On April 27, Bloomberg News reported that radiation readings at the
Dai-Ichi nuclear power station have risen to the highest levels since the
earthquake.

With a half-life of 8.5 days, iodine-131 is rapidly absorbed in dairy products
and in the human thyroid, particularly those of children. Cesium-137 has a
half-life of 30 years and gives off potentially dangerous external radiation.
It concentrates in various foods and is absorbed throughout the human body.
Unlike iodine-131, which decays to a level considered safe after about three
months, cesium-137 can pose risks for several hundred years.

Measurements taken at 1,600 nursery schools, kindergartens, and middle
school playgrounds in early April indicate that children are regularly getting
high radiation doses. Radiation levels one meter above the ground indicate
that children at hundreds of schools received exposures 43- 200 times above
background. And this is outside of the “exclusionary zone” around the Dai-Ichi
reactors, where locals have been evacuated. Japan’s Ministry of Education
and Science has limited outdoor activities at 13 schools in the cities of
Fukushima, Date, and Koriyama Cities.

Although the extent of long-term contamination is not yet fully known, disturbing
evidence is emerging. Data collected 40 kilometers from the Fukushima’s
nuclear accident  show cumulative levels as high as 9.5 rems (95 mSv)
– nearly five times the international annual occupational dose. Soil beyond the
30-kilometer evacuation zone shows cesium-137 levels at 2,200 kBq per
square meter — 67 percent greater than that requiring evacuation near
Chernobyl.

Three-fourths of the monitored schools in Fukushima had radioactivity levels
so high that human entry shouldn’t be allowed, even though students began
a new semester on April 5.

PETITION AGAINST THE INCREASE OF “ACCEPTABLE” RADIATION TO 2,000 millirem per year (20 mSv/y) FOR JAPANESE SCHOOL CHILDREN AND PLAY GROUNDS

Follow this link to sign the petition: http://blog.canpan.info/foejapan/daily/201104/24

GENEVA, Apr 27, 2011 (IPS) – The nuclear disaster in Fukushima,
Japan and the 25th anniversary of the catastrophe in the Chernobyl
nuclear power plant in Ukraine have thrown into relief contradictions
in the role played by the World Health Organisation, which civil
society organisations have spent years pointing out.

An international coalition of NGOs, IndependentWHO, says the multilateral
agency has never shown independence in its decisions or actions, in terms
of living up to its mandate of protecting the victims of radioactive contamination.

The groups blame the WHO’s alleged inactivity in this area on an
agreement it signed in 1959 with the International Atomic Energy Agency
(IAEA), an independent United Nations organisation founded to promote
“safe, secure and peaceful nuclear technologies.”

The coalition of NGOs states that the agreement makes the WHO
“subservient” to the IAEA and prevents the U.N. health agency from
“taking any initiative or action to achieve its objectives: the preservation
and the improvement of health.”

IndependentWHO
The collective’s founding members are
Enfants de Tchernobyl Bélarus,
Physicians for Social Responsibility
International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War,
the People’s Health Movement,
the Commission for Independent Information and Research on Radioactivity,
Réseau Sortir du Nucléaire,
Brut de Béton Production and
ContrAtom.

The WHO should break off “that incestuous relationship” with the IAEA,
Russian-born Swiss journalist Wladimir Tchertkoff, who has produced seven
television documentaries on Chernobyl, told IPS.

But the relationship between the two agencies is unequal, because the IAEA
depends on the U.N. Security Council, while the WHO answers to the
lower-ranking Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC).

In the May 1959 agreement, the two agencies agreed to work in close
cooperation and consult each other whenever either of the two plans to
undertake a programme or activity in an area in which the other has a
substantial interest. It also establishes restrictions to safeguard the
confidentiality of certain documents.

In that framework, “the nuclear lobby has managed to get the WHO to
renounce taking care of the victims of nuclear disasters,” said Swiss
academic Jean Ziegler, currently vice president of the U.N. Human Rights
Council’s Advisory Committee.

In line with the 1959 agreement, the WHO’s position is that “when there is a
nuclear accident, we are not responsible for taking care of the victims; the
nuclear agency is the sole responsible party,” Ziegler told IPS.

He described this as an appalling situation in which thousands of people die,
when they could have been saved.

This “renews our suspicion that the nuclear lobby is well-established” here, he
said, pointing to the WHO building, outside of which the interview took place.

The latest estimate of the number of Chernobyl victims, published by the two
agencies on Sept. 5, 2005, mentions 50 deaths and 4,000 cases of cancer.

IndependentWHO calls such figures absurdly low, because they fail to take
into account the health of the children living in the contaminated areas, “where
rates of illness are at 80 percent.” The statistics also “ignore the fate of the
600,000 to 1,000,000 liquidators,” the name given to the veterans of the
Chernobyl rescue and clean-up, the coalition statements adds.

Tchertkoff pointed out that the study “Chernobyl: Consequences of the
Catastrophe for People and the Environment”, a book translated from Russian
that was published in December 2009 by the New York Academy of Sciences,
put the total number of people who died as a result of the disaster at 985,000,
between the Apr. 26, 1986 explosion of Unit 4 of the Chernobyl nuclear plant
and 2004.

According to health data cited by the book, more than 80 percent of children
in the areas of Ukraine, Belarus — the Soviet republic of Belarusssia at the time
– and Russia that were contaminated by Chernobyl were in good health prior
to the accident, while “fewer than 20 percent are well” today.

Agreement WHA 12-40

IndependentWHO says the agreement between the WHO and
the IAEA “is a major source of disinformation on the health and
environmental consequences of the accident at Chernobyl” and
that “WHO must regain its independence completely so that it
can investigate the relationship between radiation and health.”

“Here are just three examples that illustrate perfectly the way in
which the Agreement compromises the independence of WHO:

1. The IAEA is committed, in its statutes, to the promotion of the
peaceful use of the atom. It is therefore a commercial lobby
group.

2. The IAEA has put itself forward as the body responsible for
the setting of safety standards within the nuclear industry as
a whole. It is therefore both judge and jury.

3. The IAEA has no mandate nor any expertise in matters of
public health.”

Since Apr. 27, 2007, the organisations grouped in IndependentWHO have
maintained a vigil in front of the WHO building in Geneva every working day
from 8:00 AM to 6:00 PM.

The vigil, which consists of one to three activists, is calling for a revision of
the 1959 agreement with the IAEA and demanding that the WHO work
toward its objective, as outlined in the agency’s constitution: “the attainment
by all peoples of the highest possible level of health.”

But Tchertkoff was sceptical. The WHO “cannot do much because it is a
victim” of a situation that was created, he said.

With respect to the accident in Fukushima, in northeast Japan, caused by
the Mar. 11 earthquake and tsunami, “The WHO doesn’t know what to do,”
he said.

“It doesn’t have staff capable of dealing with the situation. It only has five
people, just two of whom are university graduates with no experience,”
he added.

Tchertkoff also mentioned the controversy triggered by WHO policies
during the 2009 flu pandemic, in particular with regard to the production
and distribution of flu vaccines.

Ziegler said the WHO has been “infiltrated” by the nuclear lobby and the
pharmaceutical industry.

He recalled that an independent inquiry set up by former WHO director-
general Gro Harlem Brundtland (1998-2003) found that some of the
agency’s staff had received payments from the tobacco industry while
the agency was debating the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control,
which was finally approved in 2005.

Tchertkoff believes there are two different tendencies in the WHO.

One is that if circumstances continue to deteriorate, like over the last few
weeks, it will become necessary for the WHO to once again discuss its
policy regarding nuclear radiation.

But the other group holds that a reopening of the debate would amount to
a confession “that we haven’t done anything in the past few decades,”
he said.

“A serious internal problem of this kind is lamentable at a time when we
are looking at Fukushima, Chernobyl and all of the world’s nuclear plants,
surrounded by some 410 million people living in a radius of 30 kilometres
from these danger spots,” the journalist said.

IPS, which requested an interview with WHO director of Public Health and
Environment María Neira, received no response from the WHO with regard
to these accusations.

Apr 17, 2011 10:13 PM | By Andrea Nagel
Source: http://www.timeslive.co.za/opinion/article1026595.ece/Deadly-cost-of-power

Before March 11, not many people outside Japan had heard of the towns of Okuma and Futaba. Now the area around the towns, home to the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, one of the 15 largest nuclear power stations in the world, has been splashed across news stations around the world.

When the 9.0 earthquake and resultant tsunami hit Japan, the reactor cooling systems of the plant were disabled, which led to nuclear radiation leaks that required a 20km-radius evacuation zone.

The security category of the crisis has now reached level 7, equal to the Chernobyl disaster, which means a major release of radiation and a widespread health and environmental impact, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency .

But experts are saying the new rating exaggerates the severity of the crisis, and that the Chernobyl disaster was far worse.

April 26 will be the 26th anniversary of the Chernobyl disaster. The blast at Chernobyl blew the roof off a reactor and sent large amounts of radiation wafting across Europe. The accident led to the evacuation of well over 100000 people and affected livestock as far away as Scandinavia and Britain.

Against this backdrop and ever since President Jacob Zuma’s visit to France to discuss plans for our nuclear power developments, a debate is raging in South Africa over whether nuclear power is a safe alternative for energy in this country.

Some residents of Krugersdorp are have been relocated because of high levels of radiation detected on a mine in the vicinity and our National Nuclear Regulator plans to distribute hundreds of leaflets to teach the affected community how to protect themselves from mining radiation.

Environmental group Earthlife SA believes nuclear power is not only risky but also complex, dangerous and expensive.

“It’s reckless insanity to continue with the nuclear programme in South Africa,” said Tristan Taylor, spokesman for Earthlife SA.

In the same week the disaster in Japan took place, Eskom announced that South Africa is “well-equipped” to have nuclear power stations, and that we have a good nuclear safety culture.

“Clearly we’d be looking at what actually happened in Japan, but South Africa has a nuclear safety culture because of Koeberg station,” Eskom spokesman for nuclear power, Tony Scott, told Sapa.

Taylor argued: “We don’t take a breath to reassess our security schemes. This government just goes ahead with its nuclear stance, even after China put a moratorium on its nuclear projects to think about its nuclear security.

“Do we need nuclear power at the great cost of this power?” he asked.

“Not only is it unsafe, it is also one of the most expensive ways of powering this country. Aside from the costs of building and running the nuclear plants, we also require a police force to guard them.”

Eskom’s Scott has a different perspective: “How many people are killed on the roads every day compared to people killed in the nuclear industry?

“Obviously if something does go wrong in nuclear the consequences are enormous.”

But, he said most of the nuclear reactors at power stations in Japan shut themselves down as they were supposed to, following the earthquake and tsunami.

Taylor, however, asks: “Why are we going down the nuclear road when we have safer and cheaper alternatives, such as renewable wind and solar energy?

‘We should be putting combined state funds from taxation, revenue from the sale of electricity and debt into renewable energy. South Africans should be questioning not only where their electricity comes from, but also the social investment that this country is making in the supply of electricity.”

Scott was positive about South Africa’s ability to supply safe nuclear power.

“If we do build more [nuclear power stations], we would buy modern technology, and certainly the events that happened [in Japan] would be looked at and taken into account to see what technology should be used,” he said.

But Taylor says that going forward with nuclear technology is a mistake.

“Nuclear energy requires a lot of state funding.

“We know we can manufacture what we need for renewable energy locally, like windmills and solar geysers. We have the industrial base to go renewable. Plus there are distinctive safety advantages.

“The danger of nuclear energy is that it can have adverse effects on the young that are only discernable after many years. [With renewable energy] the worst thing that can happen if a windmill falls down is that it kills a cow.”

Source: http://www.timeslive.co.za/opinion/article1026595.ece/Deadly-cost-of-power