3/7/2012 Hundreds of banks help finance nuclear weapons, report says

Source: Los Angeles Times
Date: March 7, 2012 11:53 am

More than 300 banks, insurance companies and other institutions are helping to finance nuclear weapons around the world, according to a new report from an activist campaign that aims to prod banks to divest from the makers of such weapons.
...
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3/4/2012 Japan earthquake and tsunami anniversary: the television reporter who filmed as she ran

Source: UK Telegraph
Date: 5:36PM GMT 04 Mar 2012
by: Glen Milner, Video Journalist

Ayumi Yanagisawa, a correspondent for the Japanese broadcaster NHK, was working in a tiny seaside town when the earthquake hit. Her first instinct was to pick up her camera.

By Glen Milner, Video Journalist
5:36PM GMT 04 Mar 2012 

Stationed at the national broadcaster's Ishinomaki headquarters in Miyagi prefecture, the reporter was working in Ogatsu on the north east coast of Japan when disaster struck on March 11 2011.
...
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3/2/2012 (Video) Did we almost lose Tokyo?

Source: The Big Picture
Date: 3/2/2012
by: Thom Hartmann

Description

Kevin Kamps, Beyond Nuclear joins Thom Hartmann. In a little over a week - we'll hit the one-year anniversary of the earthquake and tsunami that triggered a nuclear crisis at Fukushima in Japan. And this week - we're learning that that nuclear crisis is even worse than was originally thought. On Wednesday - Japanese Scientists announced that twice as much radioactive cesium than estimated blew out of the plant after the earthquake and tsunami. That's about 40,000 trillion bequerels. And it took just 18 days for those radioactive particles to encircle the planet - turning up in places as far away as Vermont. French scientists are now calling on Japan to remain vigilant in its inspections of fruit, milk, and game to prevent further radiation contamination.

These new numbers come on the heels of a Greenpeace report on the Fukushima disaster - in which the organization places the blame for the crisis - NOT on the natural disaster - but instead on the Japanese Government. The report accuses the Japanese government of ignoring the risks posed to Fukushima before the earthquake and "cutting corners to protect profits over people." It goes on to argues that nuclear energy is "inherently unsafe" and governments are too quick to approve nuclear power plants, while at the same time unable to the consequences of nuclear disasters. That includes the United States. Currently - there are 23 General Electric Mark 1 reactors in operation around the United States. The Mark 1 is the same reactor design used at Fukushima. And just last month - the Nuclear Regulatory Commission issued a warning to 96 nuclear reactors around the nation that sit on fault lines - urging operators to perform new stress tests to see if the reactor can hold up to earthquake. So what should we make of all this?

3/2/2012 The Demonic Reality of Fukushima

Source: CounterPunch
Date: Weekend Edition March 2-4, 2012
by: Cindy Folkers

In the days following the March 11, 2011 beginning of the Fukushima Nuclear Catastrophe, chief cabinet secretary Yukio Edano repeatedly reassured the Japanese public, news media, and world community that there was “no immediate health risk” from mounting radioactive releases from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. His choice of words was very similar to the U.S. nuclear power establishment’s during the Three Mile Island melt down of 1979, as captured by Rosalie Bertell’s classic anti-nuclear primer No Immediate Danger? Prognosis for a Radioactive Earth.
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Map of Peach Bottom Nuclear Generating Station:

View Live Ustream Radiation Detectors in a larger map

2/29/2012 Japanese Government Softened Tsunami Warning 8 Days Before One Hit Fukushima

Source: AllGov.com
Date: Wednesday, February 29, 2012

At the behest of nuclear power companies, government officials in Japan softened language relating to the threat of earthquake-produced tsunamis only eight days before last year’s disaster.   In early March 2011, representatives of Tokyo Electric Power Co., Tohoku Electric Power Co. and Japan Atomic Power Co. asked the secretariat of the Earthquake Research Committee to amend a draft document discussing the possibility of a huge tsunami striking the northeast part of the country. ... Read the rest here

2/28/2012 (Video) Inside Japan's Nuclear Meltdown

Source: PBS
Date: 2/28/2012
Part 1

Watch Inside Japan's Nuclear Meltdown on PBS. See more from FRONTLINE.

2/25/2012 Evacuate Tokyo and All US Forces From Japan

Source: Veterans Today
Date: Saturday, February 25th, 2012

Tokyo Radiation Level 25 Times the Fukushima Mandatory Evacuation Zone

… by  Bob Nichols

(San Francisco) Widely known Physicist Dr Paolo Scampa, the publisher of the EU AIPRI Blog and an eminent chemical physicist, announced today his latest calculations of deadly radioactivity in Tokyo itself.  Both the nuclear regulatory and media responses have been missing in action. However, the outrageous statement of a Japanese politician pretty well sums up the level of understanding of the parasitic political class “Smile, and the radiation won’t hurt you.” ... Read the rest here

Mochizuki, Publisher of the highly respected Fukushima Diary

2/20/2012 (Video) Results of Fukushima's Preliminary Exposure Survey Announced: What Do 2 Experts Say?

Source: tokyobrowntabby YouTube channel
Date: 2/20/2012


Description:
 

Fukushima Prefecture is conducting a health survey with all its 2 million residents to estimate the amount of their external radiation exposure during the first 4 months of the accident. On February 20, the results of the preliminary survey with approximately 10,000 residents were announced.

This video shows how NHK Fukushima TV reported about the results and how 2 experts reacted to them. One is Dr. Shunichi Yamashita, Vice President of Fukushima Medical University, who played a critical role in persuading residents out of immediate evacuation by preaching safety through his many lectures in the early months of the accident. The other one is Dr. Hiroaki Koide, Research Associate at Kyoto University Research Reactor Institute, who has been fighting against nuclear power plants for nearly 40 years.

The first half of this video clip is from a NHK Fukushima TV's local news program called "HamaNaka Aizu" aired on February 20, 2012.
The second half of this video clip is from a news & information radio program called "Tanemaki Journal" aired on February 20, 2012 (this part is audio only).

The original video: http://youtu.be/dTUzHtN5z_I

Translation and captioning by tokyobrowntabby.

For Dr. Koide's important testimony at the Japan's Diet, please go to:
Part 1: http://youtu.be/f50bRwppY5U
Part 2: http://youtu.be/ET51DV1LZxo

For Dr. Yamashita's safty-mongering remarks, please go to:
http://youtu.be/Guw-lee4vio
http://youtu.be/oN4ZZqPtZzk
http://youtu.be/zhP11CW8r3o

2/25/2012 Report from Tokyo: 6.5 microSv/h at Japan’s busiest train station — Equal to 57 millisieverts per year, 10 times Chernobyl evacuation levels — Near Imperial Palace (PHOTOS)

Source: ENENews
Date: February 25th, 2012 at 5:32 pm ET
[Editor's Note: I normally do not republish ENENews reports here as most nuclear minded people already read that blog (I assume) or pick it up from the RadiationNews™ Google gadget feeds but this is truly startling.]
Follow-up to:

• Gendai: Radioactivity detected in Tokyo park sample at Chernobyl evacuation level?
• Asahi Source: Locations in Chiba came under heavy nuclear fallout; Borders Tokyo -- Contamination has potential to affect ecosystems

Title: Tokyo station is contaminated as mandatory evacuating zone in Fukushima
Source: Fukushima Diary
Date: Feb 25, 2012
...
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2/21/2012 Iran Holds Air Defense Drills As IAEA Says Iran Blocks Access To Key Nuclear Site

Source: ZeroHedge
Date 02/21/2012 22:59 -0500
by: Tyler Durden

As if the market needed another bizarro catalyst to ramp even higher courtesy of an even more pronounced drop in corporate earnings courtesy of soaring energy costs, that is just what it is about to get following news of further deterioration in the Nash equilibrium in Iran, where on one hand we learn that IAEA just pronounced Iran nuclear talks a failure (this is bad), and on the other Press TV reports that the Iran army just started a 4 day air defense exercise in a 190,000 square kilometer area in southern Iran (this is just as bad). The escalation "ball" is now in the Western court. And if Iraq is any indication, after IAEA talks "failure" (no matter how grossly manipulated by the media), the aftermath is usually always one and the same
...
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2/20/2012 RadiationNews™ Google gadget updated to include Fukushima Update feed

The RadiationNews™ Google gadget has been updated to include James Corbett's Fukushima Update RSS feed.

RadiationNews™ can be added to iGoogle (  ) or embedded in your own website.

2/17/2012 Vermont Yankee and Other Aging Nuclear Power Plants

Source: CNN
Date: 2/17/2012
by: Amber Lyon

[Editor's Note:
Arnie Gundersen and Bernie Sanders are interviewed along with Vermont's attorney general William H. Sorrell who says Entergy, the utility which runs the Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Plant, misled them. There is also an attempt to interview the Entergy CEO J. Wayne Leonard and to interview the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, who both declined to be interviewed.