Eleanor Fairchild and Daryl Hannah were dragged from their positions in front of an excavator to keep it from tearing up Eleanor’s land

Published on Friday, October 5, 2012 by Common Dreams

Tar Sands Blockade: Along with Landowner, Actress Daryl Hannah Arrested

Great grandmother, Eleanor Fairchild, and film actress both arrested after blocking machinery

http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2012/10/05

- Common Dreams staff

Arrested on her own property for trespassing, east Texas great-grandmother says: “From the White House to my house, I don’t want this pipe threatening anyone’s house anywhere in the world!” (Photo: TarSandsBlockade.org)Film actress Daryl Hanna was arrested in Texas on Thursday along with 78-year-old and great-grandmother Eleanor Fairchild after they put their bodies in front of heavy logging machinery and refused to move.
Eleanor Fairchild and Daryl Hannah were dragged from their positions in front of an excavator to keep it from tearing up Eleanor’s land. TransCanada’s machinery operator refuses to turn off engine despite peaceful protestors a few feet in front of them. (Photo: TarSandsBlockade.org) The arrest took place on Fairchild's own property, where Canadian pipeline company TransCanada is clearcutting forests to make a path for the southern portion of the controversial Keystone XL pipeline, designed to bring tar sands oil from Alberta to Texas refineries.
Daryl’s involvement in the Fairchild Farms story brought a cascade of media attention to the Tar Sands Blockade which has been ongoing for nearly two weeks in east Texas.
"How can you be arrested for “trespassing” on your own land?" asked members from Tar Sands Blockade in a statement. "Well, anything can happen when a multi-national corporation comes in and expropriates your farm for their profit."
On Thursday afternoon, Hannah marched across Fairchild’s property with the ranch owner to block construction crews who have cleared large swaths of land along the controversial tar sands pipeline’s route. Keystone XL will permanently bisect Fairchild’s 300 acre ranch, which includes undeveloped wetland areas and natural springs producing more than 400 gallons of fresh water per minute from her property. Hannah, whose outspoken anti-Keystone position dates back many years, expressed pride to be able to stand with Fairchild who is watching her home and its delicate ecosystems destroyed in front of her eyes.
“I am standing in solidarity with the farmers, ranchers and landowners who have been bullied, coerced and threatened by TransCanada. Texans do not want this toxic export pipeline coming through and compromising their land and water,” said Fairchild. “Texas has already experienced a tragic and epic drought. We cannot afford to compromise our water supply for a multinational corporation’s profits.”
“I couldn’t be prouder to take a stand with my new inspiration, Eleanor,” Hannah said. “We’re rising up to defend homes here and now, because if a multinational corporation like TransCanada can come in and steal private property from Texans, then they’ll do it to anyone.”
“Tar sands is the dirtiest fuel on the planet, and I want the world to know that Texans do not want this pipeline forced through their homes,” Fairchild said, pushing back against the argument that her stance was solely about protecting her own property and water supply. “From the White House to my house, I don’t want this pipe threatening anyone’s house anywhere in the world!”

*  *  *

UPDATE 6:30PM - Photos and video of the action are coming soon. Follow us on twitter and facebook to be the first to see them.

UPDATE 4:30PM - TransCanada has arrested Eleanor for “trespassing” on her own land.

UPDATE 3:40PM – Daryl has been arrested for helping Eleanor defend her farm from toxic tar sands. Eleanor defiantly standing her ground with arms raised to halt TransCanada’s machinery.

UPDATE 3:35PM – Police officer trying to push Daryl and Eleanor out of the way! Yes, we got it on video.

UPDATE 3:30PM – Eleanor and Daryl defiantly step out in front of an excavator, a large piece of heavy machinery, to keep it from tearing up Eleanor’s land. TransCanada’s machinery operator refuses to turn off engine despite peaceful protestors a few feet in front of them.

Daryl brave’s fire and Keystone XL machinery to defend Eleanor’s farm.

UPDATE 3:15PM – Eleanor and Daryl march from Eleanor’s home down to the Keystone XL path of destruction that cuts through her 300 acre beloved farm and wetlands.

10 nuclear events in 10 days By Adonai – August 18, 2012

Posted in: Editors' picks, Nuclear events

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We had 10 different nuclear events reported in just 10 days. Below is a list of them with date and short description.

BELGIUM

(1) August 8, 2012 – Doel 3 nuclear reactor, Doel Nuclear Power Station - Shutdown
Doel 3 nuclear reactor at Doel Nuclear Power Station in Belgium was shut down on August 8, 2012 under the suspicion that one of its components might be cracked. “We have found anomalies,” said Karina De Beule, spokesman for the ACFN, the federal agency for nuclear control.
Doel 3 reactor will be shutdown until at least the end of August, but it is possible that the reactor could be shut down for good.
The station is located in the most densely populated area of all nuclear power stations in Europe, with 9 million inhabitants within a radius of 75 kilometres (47 miles). Construction of this plant started in 1969 and commission started in 1975. More info here.

USA

(2) August 12, 2012 – Maryland, Calvert Cliffs – Shutdown
Operators of the Calvert Cliffs nuclear power plant in Southern Maryland have shut down one of the two reactors there because a control rod unexpectedly dropped into the reactor core, causing a reduction in power generation, a plant spokesman said Monday.
The 793-MW unit was shut after a leak was identified Aug. 12. Since July, the NRC has been monitoring a gradual increase of unidentified leakage at the reactor and sought safety assurances from Entergy on those leaks.
(3) August 12, 2012 - Connecticut, Millstone Power Station – Shutdown
Connecticut’s nuclear power plant shut one of two units on Sunday because seawater used to cool down the plant is too warm. More info here.
(4) August 12, 2012 - Michigan, Palisades – Shutdown
Palisades is shut down because of a leak of coolant from the control rods. It’s supposedly fixed now but the NRC is bringing in three more inspectors.
(5) August 14, 2012 - Minnesota, Prairie Island – Shutdown 
One of the two nuclear generators at the Prairie Island plant was shut down because its emergency diesel generators suffered exhaust leaks.
(6) August 14, 2012 - Minnesota, Monticello – Shutdown
The Monticello nuclear plant’s single generating unit, which had been operating at 10 percent capacity since last weekend, was shut down because of a leaking pipe inside the plant’s concrete containment structure, the company said.
(7) August 16, 2012 – Michigan, Fermi – Loss of data
At approximately 14:58 EDT, a portion of the Fermi 2 Integrated Plant Computer System (IPCS) failed. This resulted in a loss of approximately 60 percent of data on the Safety Parameters Display System (SPDS). More info here.

BELGIUM

(8) August 16, 2012 – Tihange 2 nuclear reactor, Tihange Nuclear Power Station – Shutdown
Belgium has halted the 1,008-megawatt Tihange 2 reactor, as it has the same pressure vessel as Doel 3 at Doel Nuclear Power Station.
“I would like to remind that Doel 3 and Tihange 2 have been halted and do not represent any danger for the population, the workers and the environment,” Willy De Roovere, head of the FANC regulator agency.

JAPAN

(9) August 16, 2012 – No. 4 reactor turbine building,  Fukushima No. 1 - Radioactive water leakage
Tokyo Electric Power Co. discovered possibly highly radioactive water on the first floor of the No. 4 reactor turbine building at its disaster-crippled Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant on Tuesday morning. The company believes the water leaked from a pipe that is transferring highly radioactive water from the basement of the No. 3 reactor’s turbine building. More info here.

UK

(10) August 18, 2012 – East Lothian – Torness nuclear power station – Fire
Fire crews were called to Torness nuclear power station in East Lothian early yesterday after a blaze broke out. The plant’s on-site fire team dealt with the incident, which involved lagging on a pipe catching alight at 12:25am. Managers insisted there was no risk to the public during the incident at the plant, operated by French firm EDF Energy.

Sources: EDIS, nrc.gov
Featured image: deepbluesheep.deviantart.com

Related posts:

1. Nuclear reactor in Belgium shut down due to suspicion of cracked component Doel 3 nuclear reactor at Doel Nuclear Power Station in Belgium was shut down on August 8, 2012 under the suspicion that one of its components might be cracked. “We have found anomalies,” said Karina De Beule, spokesman for the ACFN, the federal agency for nuclear control. The station is located in the most densely populated area of all nuclear power stations in Europe, with 9 million inhabitants within a radius of 75 kilometres (47 miles). Construction of......
2. Unscheduled shutdown of French nuclear reactor Cattenom Cattenom, Lorraine, France - nuclear reactor has gone into an unscheduled shutdown, state energy giant EDF said on Friday (Feb. 10, 2012 UTC) placing fresh pressure on a national power grid already strained by freezing temperatures. The company said the shutdown, on the number two reactor at the Cattenom plant in the northeast of the country, was caused by a broken alternator in a non-nuclear part of the reactor and posed no threat to public safety.......
3. Nuclear reactor in Connecticut shut down due to excessive seawater temperatures 37-year old nuclear reactor, Unit 2 of The Milestone Nuclear Power Station in Connecticut, was shut down on Sunday, August 12, 2012 as seawater used in cooling the reactor soared to 76.7 degrees Fahrenheit (24.83 degrees Celsius). 880-megawatt reactor was shut down by Dominion Power who operates the facility. Under the reactor’s safety rules, the cooling water can be no higher than 75 degrees Fahrenheit. “Temperatures this summer are the warmest we’ve had since operations began here......
4. Nuclear reactor of fifth largest nuclear power plant automatically shut down, South Korea On July 30, 2012 reactor at the Yeonggwang nuclear power plant in southwestern Korea was automatically shut down due to a malfunction, plant operators said. The state-run Korea Hydro & Nuclear Power Co (KHNP) said the Unit 6 reactor at the Yeonggwang plant, located some 330 kilometers southwest of Seoul, went off-line at 5:57 UTC. The unit had been under special treatment due to fuel rod defects that caused radioactivity levels in the reactor coolant......

Tags: nuclear event

8 Comments

1. Reply

   Rob Cherwink

   Posted August 19, 2012 at 8:08 PM

   ah – i was thinking wrong, as in “events” being protests and rallies – oops
   nonetheless, a big 10 days!
2. Reply

   adexter

   Posted August 18, 2012 at 9:32 PM

   Ya when stuff gets older and weaker, still has pressure on it, and the ground quakes……….10 in 10 days huh? Could this just be the beginning of a line of events that is going to gradually increase ugly wise? Is Canada next? What is going to happen this Sept 2012 when Japan gets whacked again with 8.9 and 9.8M+ Quakes: and/or higher, same day events; and their containment fields are not exactly ready now? I’m just so happy they built them right where they did Every one is focused on melting water to raise the Oceans and flood coastal regions. But when large mountains burst out of our Oceans the water will rise.
3. Reply

   Rob Cherwink

   Posted August 18, 2012 at 9:26 PM

   there were quite a few more events in the US – OWS was involved along with Occupy New Mexico, OWS Environmental Solidarity, etc., but i guess this article was to cover only the 8th to the 18th (?) – these were all around “Hiroshima Day”
   here are a few links:
   http://rceezwhatsup.blogspot.com/2012/08/occupy-nukes-hiroshima-day-august-6-ows.html
   http://rceezwhatsup.blogspot.com/2012/08/los-alamos-national-call-to-action.html
   http://rceezwhatsup.blogspot.com/2012/08/livermore-group-to-commemorate-atomic.html
   http://rceezwhatsup.blogspot.com/2012/08/august-6-day-of-action-against-us.html
4. Reply

   
   

   http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=4206464638022525701#editor/target=post;postID=213441664943910658

   
   

Japan Nuclear Accident: ‘Abnormalities’ in Butterflies Traced to Fukushima Plant

Japanese scientists say “abnormalities” detected in the country’s butterflies may be a result of radioactive fallout from the Fukushima nuclear disaster last year. In a study published in Scientific Reports, an online journal, researchers say “artificial radionuclides” from the Fukushima Daiichi power plant caused “physiological and genetic damage” to pale grass blue butterflies.
Scientists first began tracking common butterflies around the nuclear plant two months after the disaster. They collected 121 insects, and found 12 percent of them had unusually small wings. That number jumped more than 5 percent when butterflies collected from the plant site had offspring of their own.
In another group of butterflies collected six months after the disaster, scientists found 28 percent had “abnormal” traits. That number nearly doubled among the second generation born.
“At the time of the accident, the populations of this species were overwintering as larvae and were externally exposed to artificial radiation,” the researchers wrote in their study. “It is possible that they ate contaminated leaves during the spring and were thus also exposed to internal radiation.”
It has been 17 months after the worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl, and its effects on human health have largely been considered minimal, with no radiation-related deaths or illnesses reported so far. But traces of radioactive cesium exceeding government safety levels have been detected in seafood off the Fukushima coast, limiting the catch for fisherman there.
Tiny amounts of cesium of 137 and cesium 134 were detected in more than a dozen bluefin tuna caught near San Diego in August last year. The levels were 10 times higher than tuna found in previous years, but well below those the Japanese and US governments considered harmful to human health.

http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/headlines/2012/08/japan-nuclear-accident-abnormalities-in-butterflies-traced-to-fukushima-plant/

The Nun Who Broke Into the Nuclear Sanctum

Shawn Poynter for The New York Times

Sister Megan Rice, 82, is one of three people arrested in a break-in at a nuclear complex in Oak Ridge, Tenn.

By WILLIAM J. BROAD

Published: August 10, 2012

She has been arrested 40 or 50 times for acts of civil disobedience and once served six months in prison. In the Nevada desert, she and other peace activists knelt down to block a truck rumbling across the government’s nuclear test site, prompting the authorities to take her into custody.

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National Nuclear Security Administration/Department of Energy

Sister Rice is one of three people arrested in a break-in at a the Oak Ridge nuclear reservation.

She gained so much attention that the Energy Department, which maintains the nation’s nuclear arsenal, helped pay for an oral history in which she described her upbringing and the development of her antinuclear views.

Now, Sister Megan Rice, 82, a Roman Catholic nun of the Society of the Holy Child Jesus, and two male accomplices have carried out what nuclear experts call the biggest security breach in the history of the nation’s atomic complex, making their way to the inner sanctum of the site where the United States keeps crucial nuclear bomb parts and fuel.

“Deadly force is authorized,” signs there read. “Halt!” Images of skulls emphasize the lethal danger.

With flashlights and bolt cutters, the three pacifists defied barbed wire as well as armed guards, video cameras and motion sensors at the Oak Ridge nuclear reservation in Tennessee early on July 28, a Saturday. They splashed blood on the Highly Enriched Uranium Materials Facility — a new windowless, half-billion-dollar plant encircled by enormous guard towers — and hung banners outside its walls.

“Swords into plowshares,” read one, quoting the Book of Isaiah. “Spears into pruning hooks.” The plant holds the nation’s main supply of highly enriched uranium, enough for thousands of nuclear weapons.

The actions of Sister Rice, a New York native who grew up on a prosperous block in Morningside Heights, and her companions, ages 57 and 63, are a huge embarrassment for President Obama. Since 2010, he has led a campaign to eliminate or lock down nuclear materials as a way to fight atomic terrorism. Now, the three — two of whom, including Sister Rice, are free and are awaiting trial in October — have made nuclear theft seem only a little more challenging than a romp in the Tennessee woods.

In interviews this week, Sister Rice discussed her life — somewhat reluctantly at times — and kept emphasizing what she called “the issue.”

“It’s the criminality of this 70-year industry,” she said. “We spend more on nuclear arms than on the departments of education, health, transportation, disaster relief and a number of other government agencies that I can’t remember.”

Federal prosecutors, needless to say, take a different view. “This is a matter of national security,” William C. Killian, a United States attorney, told reporters outside a Knoxville courtroom. “It is a significant case.”

Sister Rice is no geopolitical strategist. But her bold acts and articulate fervor highlight how the antinuclear movement has evolved since the end of the cold war. They also illustrate the fierce independence of Catholic nuns, who met this week in St. Louis to decide how to respond to a Vatican appraisal that cast them as rebellious dissenters.

“We’re free as larks,” Sister Rice said of herself and her older religious friends. “We have no responsibilities — no children, no grandchildren, no jobs.”

“So the lot fell on us,” she said of fighting nuclear arms. “We can do it. But we all do share the responsibility equally.”

Megan Gillespie Rice was born in Manhattan on Jan. 31, 1930, the youngest of three girls in a Catholic family. Her father was an obstetrician who taught at New York University and treated patients at Bellevue Hospital. Her mother received a doctorate from Columbia University in history, writing her dissertation on Catholic views about slavery.

In the oral history, by the University of Nevada, Sister Rice portrayed her mother as strongly in favor of interracial marriage. “I just can’t wait,” she quoted her mother as saying, “until everybody in the world is tan!”

Sister Rice went to Catholic schools in Manhattan, became a nun at 18 and received degrees in biology from Villanova and Boston College, where her studies included class work at Harvard Medical School on how to use radioactive tracers. From 1962 to 2004, with occasional breaks, she served her order as a schoolteacher in Nigeria and Ghana.

“We slept in a classroom — no electricity, no water,” she said of her early days in rural Africa.

While visiting Manhattan in the early 1980s, she joined in antinuclear protests. She began visiting the Nevada test site for demonstrations and prayer vigils. Her mother accompanied her at times.

Around 1990, Sister Rice and other nuns set out on foot in the desert toward the site’s operational headquarters to distribute antinuclear leaflets. But guards, she recalled, “came up with their guns and treated us as though we were terrible criminals.”

In 1998, she was arrested in a protest at the School of the Americas, an Army school at Fort Benning, in Georgia. It taught generations of Latin American soldiers to fight leftist insurgencies; some went on to commit human rights abuses. The school has since been closed.

Sister Rice served six months in federal prison. “It was a great eye-opener,” she said. “When you’ve had a prison experience, it minimizes your needs very much.”

Malaria and typhoid fever began to impede her work in Africa and brought her back to the United States permanently. Around 2005, her order gave her permission to join the Nevada Desert Experience, an activist group based in Las Vegas that organizes spiritual events near the atomic test site in support of nuclear abolition.

“She’s the kind of person who would risk her life to protect others,” Jim Haber, the group’s coordinator, said in an interview.

Late last month, Sister Rice set her sights on the Oak Ridge nuclear reservation, which covers more than 50 square miles, including wooded hills. Her aim was to draw attention to its nuclear work. After the break-in, the protesters released an “indictment” accusing the United States of crimes against humanity.

On Thursday in Knoxville, federal prosecutors shot back with an indictment of their own. They charged Sister Rice, Michael R. Walli, 63, of Washington, and Gregory I. Boertje-Obed, 57, of Duluth, Minn., with trespassing on government property (a misdemeanor) as well as its destruction and depredation (both felonies). The charges carry penalties of up to 16 years in prison and fines of up to $600,000. All pleaded not guilty.

A trial in Federal District Court in Knoxville is set for Oct. 10. If found guilty, the three defendants might be allowed to serve their sentences for the various charges concurrently, shortening their imprisonments to five years.

“She’s a pretty sympathetic character,” Ralph Hutchison, coordinator of the Oak Ridge Environmental Peace Alliance, said of the nun. “Sixteen years would be signing her death warrant.”

Sister Rice plans to leave Knoxville on Saturday for the Catholic Worker residence in Washington and commute to the trial from there.

She called her life privileged. “I’ve sort of fallen heir to it,” she told the interviewer from the University of Nevada. “I’m grateful.”

US Nuclear Regulators Freeze 19 Power Plant Licensing Decisions ...

Mat McDermott
Energy / Fossil Fuels
August 8, 2012

Montgomery County Planning Commission/CC BY-SA 2.0
A US Court of Appeals ruling saying that spent nuclear fuel stored at nuclear power plants "poses a dangerous, long-term health and environmental risk" has prompted the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to halt all pending licensing decisions, ENS reports.
Affected are 9 construction and operating licenses, 8 license renewals, 1 operating license, and 1 early site permit.
The NRC order says:

We are now considering all available options for resolving the waste confidence issue, which could include generic or site-specific NRC actions or some combination of both. We have not yet determined a course of action. [...] This determination extends just to final license issuance; all licensing reviews and proceedings should continue to move forward.

The court ruling that brought a halt to US licensing decisions for nuclear power plants stems from an action brought about the New York State Attorney General over the relicensing of the Indian Point nuclear power plant, 38 miles north of New York City and up for relicensing in 2013. One of the three reactors at Indian Point is already permanently shut down, with the remaining two reaching the end of their initial 40-year operating licenses.
Analysis of the impact of an accident at Indian Point shows that if an event on the scale of the Fukushima disaster were to occur, it would be 10-100 times more costly than the $60 billion estimated price tag for that nuclear disaster, in addition to forcing the evacuation of millions of people in the most densely populated part of the United States.
The same analysis shows that should Indian Point be shut down the region would not need to bring extra electricity generation online to replace it until 2020, due to surplus power capacity in surrounding regions.

New charges filed in nuclear weapons plant breach

ERIK SCHELZIG, Associated Press

Updated 4:22 p.m., Thursday, August 9, 2012

• 
  Y-12 protesters Sister Megan Rice, center, and Michael Walli, in the background waving, are greeted by supporters as they arrive for a federal court appearance Thursday, Aug. 9, 2012 in Knoxville, Tenn. Along with a third defendant third, Greg Boertje-Obed, the pair were indicted on charges stemming from their alleged July 2 infiltration of the Y-12 nuclear weapons plant in Oak Ridge, Tenn. Photo: Knoxville News Sentinel, Michael Patrick / AP

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NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — A federal grand jury toughened the charges against three anti-war protesters who authorities say cut their way through three security fences and spray-painted slogans on the walls of a nuclear weapons plant in Tennessee.
An indictment released Thursday in Knoxville charges an 82-year-old Roman Catholic nun with Sisters of the Holy Child Jesus, a gardener and a housepainter with "depredation" of the Y-12 National Security Complex in Oak Ridge. The charge carries a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison.
The indictment against Megan Rice of Las Vegas, Michael Walli of Washington and Greg Boertje-Obed of Duluth, Minn., includes two charges announced previously: trespassing, a misdemeanor, and malicious destruction of property, a felony.
The sprawling Y-12 complex of 800 acres and 500 buildings stores the nation's supply of weapons-grade uranium, makes nuclear warhead parts and provides nuclear fuel for the Navy and research reactors worldwide.
According to an affidavit filed with the court, the protesters walked nearly a half-mile into the high-security property before dawn on July 28, past signs warning that deadly force could be used on intruders. They made it to a building called the Highly Enriched Uranium Materials Facility, where the uranium is stored.
On the way, federal court documents say, the three used bolt cutters to clear three security fences and set off many alarms.
They painted the exterior of the building with the phrases "woe to the empire of blood" and "the fruit of justice is peace" and sprayed it with blood, according to an investigator's affidavit.
"We come to the Y-12 facility because our very humanity rejects the designs of nuclearism, empire and war," a letter found at the site and signed by the three defendants read. "Our faith in love and nonviolence encourages us to believe that our activity here is necessary."
The Department of Energy, which oversees the site, has not responded to messages seeking comment on the new charge or about security procedures at Y-12.
The Y-12 website says the facility's main mission is "to ensure the U.S. nuclear arsenal is safe, secure, and reliable."
"Portions of every weapon in the U.S. nuclear stockpile were manufactured at Y-12, and we employ only the most advanced and failsafe technologies to protect the stockpile," according to the site.
Since the intrusion, the contractors that operate Y-12 for the government have added security training and replaced the top security managers.
Oak Ridge was created as a secret city in World War II to house Y-12 and other plants that enriched uranium for the first nuclear bomb used in war. The Y-12 complex has been the annual target of peace protests tied to the anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima. Every year since 1998, a few protesters have provoked arrest by blocking the road leading into the site or by stepping across a blue line that marks the property boundary.
Walli was arrested two years ago for trespassing at Y-12 and sentenced to eight months in federal prison, according to news reports.
Because of the new indictment, a court hearing scheduled for Thursday was canceled.
The three defendants have pleaded not guilty, and Rice and Walli have been released pending the Oct. 10 trial. Boertje-Obed, who is representing himself, was still in custody and couldn't be reached for comment.
An attorney for Rice didn't return calls seeking comment and Walli's defense lawyer declined to comment, citing court rules.

New security leaders at Tenn nuclear weapons plant; protesters broke into high-security area

By Associated Press, Published: August 8

KNOXVILLE, Tenn. — The security contractor at a Tennessee plant that stores the nation’s supply of weapons-grade uranium has replaced its general manager almost two weeks after three protesters, including an 82-year-old nun, got into a high-security area.
Security firm WSI Oak Ridge confirmed to the Knoxville News Sentinel (http://bit.ly/MqW3ex) Wednesday that Steven C. Hafner is taking over the position from Lee Brooks.

Protesters on July 28 were found hanging banners in the dark, singing and offering to break bread with the security guards at Y-12 Oak Ridge National Security Complex in Knoxville. An affidavit said that before security guards apprehended them, they spray-painted the building with protest slogans and threw blood on it. They were arrested and officials say all nuclear materials are safe.

Afterward, security contractor WSI said it was looking at its procedures and it removed Brooks and Y-12 Protective Force director Gary Brandon from their posts. WSI named John Garrity to replace Brandon. Brooks and Brandon are awaiting reassignments by G4S Government Solutions, the parent company of WSI.
The newspaper reported that the halt to nuclear operations at the plant was still in effect. The plant originally said the stand-down was expected to be lifted by this week and that security personnel would undergo training and refresher instruction.
A spokeswoman for Y-12 did not immediately return a phone call to The Associated Press on Wednesday seeking comment.
The Y-12 plant also makes nuclear warhead parts and provides nuclear fuel for the Navy and research reactors worldwide. The National Nuclear Security Administration’s Production Office is responsible for oversight of the security contractors. Last month, WSI-Oak Ridge said it planned to cut as many as 51 jobs, including about 34 security police officer positions at the complex.
The plant produced the material used in the first nuclear bomb dropped on Hiroshima, Japan, on Aug. 6, 1945. At annual protests tied to the anniversary, a few protesters have staged deliberate acts of civil disobedience to provoke their arrests including blocking the road into the plant or defying trespassing signs by deliberately crossing a blue line that marks the beginning of federal property.
But on July 28, three protesters went much further, officials said. An affidavit was filed in federal court this week by the Department of Energy’s inspector general. The News Sentinel reported that the affidavit alleges that Megan Rice, a Roman Catholic nun, Michael Walli, 63, and Greg Boertje-Obed, 57, climbed a ridge before dawn, set off alarms as they used bolt cutters to get through three wire fences and made it to the exterior of the Highly Enriched Uranium Materials Facility.
They have been charged with federal charges of trespassing, a misdemeanor, and willful and malicious destruction of property, a felony.
Federal energy officials and the two U.S. senators from Tennessee said the latest breach troublesome.
At previous protests, arrests peaked in 1989, when 29 people were charged with trespassing at the plant gates. Ten more were arrested in 1990. Then the arrests stopped, because the local district attorney declined to press state charges.
Arrests resumed in 1998 and over the next 10 years, less than two dozen were taken in annually and charged in state court with trespassing. The harshest punishments were fines or jail sentences of up to 10 days.
On New Year’s Day 2002, a few months after the 9/11 attacks raised terrorism worries, a dozen protesters made it onto the property carrying 14-foot flags and lighted candles. The activists told The Associated Press that they stopped three times for prayers and spent about a half-hour on the grounds before they were noticed and detained.
Department of Energy officials said the group in 2002 wasn’t a serious threat because they never reached sensitive areas.
The complex upgraded security, adding guards, building concrete barriers and adding intrusion detectors to meet standards described as three times tougher than before 9/11.
In 2002, authorities for the first time charged four protesters who crossed the blue line with federal trespassing, still a misdemeanor. They were convicted and sentenced to two months in prison.
At the largest rally ever at the plant, on the 60th anniversary of the bombing in 2005, more than 1,100 turned out and 15 were arrested on state charges. Arrests have dwindled since then.

U.S. Regulator Halts Nuclear-Plant Licensing

Court Rules That NRC Can No Longer Accept Assurances a Permanent Waste Repository Is Coming 

BY REBECCA SMITH AND RYAN TRACY

The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission said it would stop issuing licenses for nuclear plants until it addresses problems with its nuclear-waste policy that were raised by a recent federal appeals court decision.
The move, while not expected to affect any nuclear plants right away, shows how the standstill in finding a permanent American nuclear waste dump could undermine the expansion of nuclear power, which is already facing a challenge from cheaper natural gas.
In June, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit said the NRC's approach to managing nuclear waste was inconsistent with federal environmental standards.

 

Doctors: Japan Nuclear Plant Workers Face Stigma

By MALCOLM FOSTER Associated Press

TOKYO August 5, 2012 (AP)

A growing number of Japanese workers who are risking their health to shut down the crippled Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant are suffering from depression, anxiety about the future and a loss of motivation, say two doctors who visit them regularly.
But their psychological problems are driven less by fears about developing cancer from radiation exposure and more by something immediate and personal: Discrimination from the very community they tried to protect, says Jun Shigemura, who heads a volunteer team of about ten psychiatrists and psychologists from the National Defense Medical College who meet with Tokyo Electric Power Co. nuclear plant employees.
They tell therapists they have been harangued by residents displaced in Japan's nuclear disaster and threatened with signs on their doors telling them to leave. Some of their children have been taunted at school, and prospective landlords have turned them away.
"They have become targets of people's anger," Shigemura told The Associated Press.
TEPCO workers — in their readily identifiable blue uniforms — were once considered to be among the elite in this rural area 230 kilometers (140 kilometers) north of Tokyo. But after the March 11, 2011, earthquake and tsunami set off meltdowns at the Fukushima plant, residents came to view them as "perpetrators," Shigemura said.
Many TEPCO families in the area now hide their link to the company for fear of criticism, local doctors and psychiatrists say.
Shigemura likens the workers' experience to that of U.S. Vietnam veterans returning home to hostility in the 1960s and early '70s.
"They both worked for (the good of) their countries, but they got a backlash," he said.
About a dozen nuclear workers approached by the AP declined to be interviewed for this report. Except in rare cases, TEPCO has repeatedly declined requests to interview workers, and the workers themselves have shunned virtually all media attention, so these doctors' accounts provide an unusual glimpse into their lives.
One former TEPCO employee who lived in the town of Tomioka, inside the 20-kilometer (15-mile) exclusion zone around the plant, told journalists during a rare visit to the Fukushima plant in February that she was frequently harassed by evacuees among the 100,000 displaced by the disaster.
"Many people who want to go home are getting frustrated and they often yell at me, 'How are you going to make it up to us?'" said Saori Kanesaki, a former visitor guide at the Fukushima plant.
More than a half-century ago, many Japanese survivors of the U.S. bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were stigmatized due to fears about their exposure to radiation. But the Fukushima disaster has thrown up a completely new kind of discrimination because of the workers' links to TEPCO, a company widely despised throughout Japan for its mishandling of the disaster.
Some 3,000 TEPCO employees and other contractors continue to labor daily at the plant in one of the world's riskiest jobs — keeping three melted-down reactor cores as well as spent fuel pools cool through a makeshift system of water pipes.
They face a long haul: Removing the fuel and completely shutting down the plant could take 40 years.

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Protesters demonstrate against nuclear power plants at Japan's parliament

Protesters hold placards and shout slogans as they march to form a 'human chain' around Japan's parliament in Tokyo, to demonstrate against nuclear power plants. Photograph: Kazuhiro Nogi/AFP/Getty Images

Tens of thousands of people protested against nuclear power plants outside Japan's parliament on Sunday.
The protesters, including pensioners, were pressed up against a wall of steel thrown around the parliament building. Some broke through the barriers and spilled onto the streets, forcing the police to bring in reinforcements and deploy armoured buses to buttress the main parliament gate.
The protest came as results from rural Yamaguchi showed that Tetsunari Iida, an advocate of renewable energy, had lost his bid to become governor. He was defeated by a candidate backed by the opposition Liberal Democratic party (LDP), which promoted nuclear energy during its decades in power, Kyodo news agency reported.
Iida, who wants Japan to give up nuclear power by 2020, had promised to revitalise Yamaguchi's economy with renewable energy projects and opposed a project to build a new nuclear plant in the town of Kaminoseki.
Energy policy has become a major headache for prime minister, Yoshihiko Noda. Weekly protests outside the PM's office have grown in size in recent months, with ordinary workers and mothers with children joining the crowds.
On Sunday, the protesters, holding candles, took their demonstration to parliament. Many had marched past the headquarters of Tokyo Electric Power Co, the company at the heart of Fukushima disaster, the worst nuclear crisis since Chernobyl in 1986.
"We are here to oppose nuclear power, which is simply too dangerous," said Hiroko Yamada, an elderly woman from Saitama prefecture near Tokyo.
"[Noda] isn't listening to us. He only listens to companies and Yonekura," she said, referring to Hiromasa Yonekura, the chairman of Japan's biggest business lobby.
An upset victory by Iida would have put pressure on the government which is considering an energy portfolio to replace a 2010 programme that would have boosted nuclear power's share of electricity supply to more than half by 2030.
Noda, who approved restarting two reactors recently, has said he would decide on a new medium-term energy plan in August, but reports said that decision could be delayed.
Experts have proposed three options: zero nuclear power as soon as possible, a 15% atomic share of electricity by 2030, or 20-25% by the same date compared to almost 30% before the Fukushima disaster.
Under pressure from businesses worried about stable electricity supply, Noda has been thought to be leaning towards the 15% option, which would require all of Japan's 50 reactors to resume operations before gradually closing older units.
The growing anti-nuclear movement, however, may make that choice difficult.
Multiple inquiries into the Fukushima nuclear disaster have pointed to the failure by authorities and energy companies to adopt strict safety measures and disaster response plans.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/jul/30/nuclear-protests-japan-fukushima-disaster

A series of important updates about the drought, with jokes

By Philip Bump

Let’s check in on our old friend the drought, shall we? Here’s the key takeaway, if you’re in a big rush:
It still exists.
Today, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack added another 218 counties to the list of drought-afflicted disaster areas, meaning we’ve officially passed the halfway mark. Fully one out of every two American counties has been so designated. Here’s the current map.

Map via the USDA.

Just to save some effort, here’s our projection of that map a month from now.

(I made this one.)

To be fair, that’s not exactly a scientific assessment, but it will either be proven correct or the situation will be better than this. We did it that way because we like to aim high.
It’s climate change’s fault.
Surprising zero rational people, a scientist from UC-Santa Barbara outlined for Wired the ways in which the current drought is likely attributable to a changing climate.

“In any single event, it’s hard to really know if you’re just seeing a natural variation or climate change,” cautioned climatologist Chris Funk of the University of California, Santa Barbara. With that caveat, Funk said when asked if human activity exacerbated the drought, “Tentatively, the answer is yes. To some extent, it is.” …
La Niña generally produces dry spells in southern North America, but adding a warm-to-cool Pacific gradient generates what some scientists call “the perfect ocean for drought,” spreading it far and wide. …
“The 2011 drought in Texas was part of the La Niña effect, and we’ve carried it on here,” he said. “When background conditions in the tropical Atlantic and Indian Ocean are warm, it leads to the worst of all possible worlds for droughts in the mid-latitudes. I can’t confirm that’s been driving the conditions we’ve been seeing, but it’s a useful first guess.”
If that dynamic is at work, then fossil fuel pollution is implicated. “Some part of it is related to extra water vapor that wouldn’t be there” if not for human greenhouse gas emissions, Funk said. “If we didn’t have all that extra anthropogenic water vapor, the western Pacific would be cooler, and the gradient wouldn’t be as great.”

Again: Science cannot say definitively that climate change caused the drought, in part because science cannot say definitively what the manifestations of climate change should be when our atmosphere contains the amount of CO2 that it does. But I suspect if you gave those scientists $50 and put them at a betting window at the Flamingo, they wouldn’t put their money on “coincidence.”
Congress is told that it’s climate change’s fault, does nothing.
Another scientist made the long, lonely trudge up Capitol Hill this morning to put his money on “it’s our fault, idiots.” From the Guardian:

Drought, wildfires, hurricanes and heatwaves are becoming normal in America because of climate change, Congress was told on Wednesday in the first hearing on climate science in more than two years.
In a predictably contentious hearing, the Senate’s environment and public works committee heard from a lead scientist for the UN’s climate body, the IPCC, on the growing evidence linking extreme weather and climate change.
“It is critical to understand that the link between climate change and the kinds of extremes that lead to disaster is clear,” Christopher Field, a lead author of the IPCC report and director of global ecology at the Carnegie Institute for Science, said in testimony.
“There is no doubt that climate has changed,” he went on. “There is also no doubt that a changing climate changes the risks of extremes, including extremes that can lead to disaster.”

Sen. James Inhofe (R), whose home state of Oklahoma is having the hottest day in its history today, told everyone, “The global warming movement has completely collapsed.” He then laughed and led all the other Republicans in telling Field that his mother was a hamster and that his father smelt of elderberries.

“The US experienced 14 billion-dollar disasters in 2011, a record that surpasses the previous maximum of 9,” [Field] said. “The 2011 disasters included a blizzard, tornadoes, floods, severe weather, a hurricane, a tropical storm, drought and heatwaves, and wildfires. In 2012, we have already experienced horrifying wildfires, a powerful windstorm that hit Washington DC, heat waves in much of the country, and a massive drought.”
He went on to make a point of warning Texans that the future of farming and ranching could be put in jeopardy because of climate change.

At this point, Senate Republicans dropped a large wooden rabbit on his head.
Outside the Capitol, D.C. was setting records.
July 2012 was the second-hottest July in the recorded history of Washington, D.C. (The hottest? 2011. See! It’s getting cooler!)
The fantastic team at the Washington Post‘s Capital Weather Gang (seriously, it’s fantastic) delineates the key stats:

• July 2012 set the record for most days at or above 95 with 16
• July 2012 set the record for most days at or above 100 with 7
• July 2012 tied (with 1930) the record for most consecutive days at or above 100 with 4
• July 2012 ranked 2nd for most days with lows at or above 80 with 4 (2011 had 7)

Japan anti-nuclear groups protest at parliament

Crowd breaks through barriers
* Defeated candidate wanted no nuclear power by 2020
(Reuters) - Tens of thousands of people protested against nuclear power outside Japan's parliament on Sunday, the same day a proponent of using renewable energy to replace nuclear following the Fukushima disaster was defeated in a local election.
The protesters, including old-age pensioners, pressed up against a wall of steel thrown up around the parliament building shouting, "We don't need nuclear power" and other slogans.
On the main avenue leading to the assembly, the crowd broke through the barriers and spilled onto the streets, forcing the police to bring in reinforcements and deploy armoured buses to buttress the main parliament gate.
The protest came as results from rural Yamaguchi showed that Tetsunari Iida, an advocate of renewable energy to replace nuclear power, lost his bid to become governor to a rival backed by the opposition Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), which promoted nuclear power during its decades in power, Kyodo news agency reported, citing exit polls.
Iida, who wants Japan to exit nuclear power by 2020, had promised to revitalise Yamaguchi's economy with renewable energy projects and opposed a project by Chubu Electric Power Co to build a new nuclear plant in the town of Kaminoseki.
Energy policy has become a major headache for Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda, who less than a year in office is battling to hold his Democratic Party together before a general election due next year but which could come sooner.
Weekly protests outside Noda's office have grown in size in recent months, with ordinary salary workers and mothers with children joining the crowds.
On Sunday, the protesters - holding candles as darkness fell on the hot summer day - took their demonstration to parliament.
Chanting "oppose restarts", they pressed against steel barriers erected around the parliament building, where thousands of police were deployed to keep the peace.
Many of the crowd had marched past the headquarters of Tokyo Electric Power Co, the company at the heart of the worst nuclear crisis since the Chernobyl disaster in 1986.
"We are here to oppose nuclear power, which is simply too dangerous," Hiroko Yamada, an elderly woman from Saitama prefecture near Tokyo, said.
"(Noda) isn't listening to us. He only listens to companies and Yonekura," she said, referring to Hiromasa Yonekura, the chairman of Japan's biggest business lobby.
An upset victory by Iida, 53, would have added to Noda's woes as the government tries to decide on an energy portfolio to replace a 2010 programme that would have boosted nuclear power's share of electricity supply to more than half by 2030.
Still, Iida's support from volunteers in the conservative stronghold bodes ill for the Democrats and the LDP, support for which has failed to benefit greatly from Noda's woes, Kyodo said in an analysis of the local vote.
"The brave battle by Iida, who sought a change in energy policy, can be said to be proof the popular call to exit nuclear power has spread even to Yamaguchi," the news agency said.
Noda, who approved the restart of two idled reactors this month, has said he would decide on a new medium-term energy plan in August, although media reports over the weekend said that decision could be delayed.
Experts have proposed three options: zero nuclear power as soon as possible, a 15 percent atomic share of electricity by 2030, or 20-25 percent by the same date compared to almost 30 percent before the Fukushima disaster.
Under pressure from businesses worried about stable electricity supply, Noda has been thought to be leaning toward 15 percent, which would require all of Japan's 50 reactors to resume operations before gradually closing older units.
The growing anti-nuclear movement, however, may make that choice difficult, some experts said.
Multiple inquiries into the March 11, 2011 nuclear crisis, in which a huge quake-induced tsunami devastated the Fukushima plant, causing meltdowns and forcing mass evacuations, have underscored the failure by authorities and utilities to adopt strict safety steps or disaster response plans. (Reporting by Linda Sieg and Aaron Scheldrick; Editing by Joseph Radford and Michael Roddy)

Nuclear expansion on track despite Fukushima: OECD report

LONDON (Reuters) - Strong expansion of nuclear power as a carbon-free energy source in Asia is expected to press ahead despite the Fukushima accident in Japan that soured sentiment in some countries, a benchmark report said on Thursday.

 http://www.google.com/url?sa=X&q=http://in.reuters.com/article/2012/07/26/us-nuclear-uranium-report-idINBRE86P04S20120726&ct=ga&cad=CAcQAhgAIAAoATAAOABAh6_HgAVIAVAAWABiBWVuLVVT&cd=BgK7dlSIebo&usg=AFQjCNHtBkUNUpRg-fL1IKu3sLlFiwJRlQ

Five Year Old Shuts Down Armed Soldiers.

Weaponized Laser Equipped Drone Testing

On July 26, the U.S. Air National Guard will get the green light to begin firing lasers from unmanned attack drones in a vast swath of skies over North Dakota, despite the concerns of local commercial pilots.

At the Devils Lake home of the North Dakota Army National Guard, pilots train on MQ-1 Predator drones — the most prevalent unmanned attack vehicle in the military arsenal. In late June the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) published an updated set of rules and regulations covering Devils Lake, creating several large restricted airspaces over the Camp Gilbert C. Grafton military base.

The reason: the Air Force plans to begin tests of potentially dangerous lasers shot remotely from the drone.

“Sorties will be limited to the minimum necessary for training, be confined to restricted airspace, and be executed against ground targets for laser designation, completely within an existing Army small arms weapons training range,” Billie Jo Lorius, a public information officer with the North Dakota National Guard, told FoxNews.com.

The lasers aren’t intended as weapons, as were those built on the jumbo jet operated by the Air Force in the Airborne Laser Test Bed program, which was officially mothballed in February. Rather they are targeting lasers fixed on a spot on the ground, which can be used to steer other explosives to a target.

The Air Force is not testing them yet but expects to begin soon, Lorius said.

‘Sorties will be … executed against ground targets for laser designation within an existing Army small arms weapons training range.’

- Billie Jo Lorius, a public information officer with the North Dakota National Guard, told FoxNews.com.

“Air Force RPA [remotely piloted aircraft] laser use in North Dakota, expected to begin in mid-FY13, will be conducted only for Continuation Training (CT) sorties,” she said. Fiscal year 2013 begins in October.

Yet because such lasers pose a risk to the eyes, especially for other pilots operating in the area, the limitations were necessary and the North Dakota location was required — despite the complaints of area pilots.

Read More Via:fox


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Source dark government.com

Nevada Desert Experience - August Desert Witness PEACE Events Public Event · By Mary Lou AndersonSunday, August 5, 2012 2:00pm in PDT Multiple Locations - SEE INFO! August 5 Book Signing: Drone Warfare: Killing by Remote Control with Author and Activist Medea Benjamin, co-Founder of the organization CODEPINK: Women for Peace Sunday August 5 2:00 to 4:00 pm EMERGENCY ARTS 520 Fremont Street Las Vegas, NV 89101 Come hear Medea Benjamin read from her new book, Drone Warfare: Killing by Remote Control. This is an excellent conversation starter and well-rounded introduction to the subject. Benjamin is great at connecting the dots, raising ethical questions and speaking passionately. The Beat Cafe will be open, and the event will be in the Common Gallery on the first floor. August 6 to 9 Protests Against the Largest Drone Convention in the World AUVSI Meets at Mandalay Bay Convention Center 8000 People from 40 Countries If you want to help be a fly in the ointment of this new killing machine's smooth running, check in with NDE as plans develop further with other allies. August 9 Anti-Test at the Mercury Entrance to the Nevada Test Site (Nevada National Security Site) 6:30 to 8:00 am (Before it gets really hot!)... And then in Las Vegas Educational Picket at the National Atomic Testing Museum 10:00 am to 1:00 pm

• •  Sunday, August 5, 2012
  • 2:00pm in PDT

• Multiple Locations - SEE INFO!

• August 5 Book Signing: Drone Warfare: Killing by Remote Control with Author and Activist Medea Benjamin, co-Founder of the organization CODEPINK: Women for Peace Sunday August 5 2:00 to 4:00 pm EMERGENCY ARTS 520 Fremont Street Las Vegas, NV 89101 Come hear Medea Benjamin read from her new book, Drone Warfare: Killing by Remote Control. This is an excellent conversation starter and well-rounded introduction to the subject. Benjamin is great at connecting the dots, raising ethical questions and speaking passionately. The Beat Cafe will be open, and the event will be in the Common Gallery on the first floor. August 6 to 9 Protests Against the Largest Drone Convention in the World AUVSI Meets at Mandalay Bay Convention Center 8000 People from 40 Countries If you want to help be a fly in the ointment of this new killing machine's smooth running, check in with NDE as plans develop further with other allies. August 9 Anti-Test at the Mercury Entrance to the Nevada Test Site (Nevada National Security Site) 6:30 to 8:00 am (Before it gets really hot!)... And then in Las Vegas Educational Picket at the National Atomic Testing Museum 10:00 am to 1:00 pm Greet visitors to this museum that is devoted to remembering the Cold War in all its nuclear glory...and not much of the horror. We will informally supplement the discourse and remind people of the ongoing fallout from the use of the atomic bomb in 1945 as we memorialize the victims in Nagasaki (and Hiroshima). For other actions around the southwest and as part of the move to "un-Occupy the Nuclear Weapons Complex, visit NukeFreeNow.org

Been sick last week

See Dr tomorrow, gregor

Japanese celebrate nuclear shutdown

Thousands rally as last of reactors closes, but many still see benefits

Associated Press

Published 10:59 p.m., Saturday, May 5, 2012

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• 
  Participants raise banners with a slogan, "Good bye, nuclear power station", at a rally protesting against the usage of nuclear energy in Tokyo Saturday, May 5, 2012. Thousands of Japanese marched to celebrate the last of this nation's 50 nuclear reactors switching off Saturday, shaking banners shaped as giant fish that have become a potent anti-nuclear symbol. (AP Photo/Itsuo Inouye)

TOKYO — Thousands of Japanese marched to celebrate the switching off of the last of their nation's 50 nuclear reactors Saturday, waving banners shaped as giant fish that have become a potent anti-nuclear symbol.
Japan was without electricity from nuclear power for the first time in four decades when the reactor at Tomari nuclear plant on the northern island of Hokkaido went offline for mandatory routine maintenance.
After last year's March 11 quake and tsunami set off meltdowns at the Fukushima Dai-ichi plant, no reactor halted for checkups has been restarted amid public worries about the safety of nuclear technology.
"Today is a historic day," Masashi Ishikawa shouted to a crowd gathered at a Tokyo park, some holding traditional "koinobori" carp-shaped banners for Children's Day that have become a symbol of the anti-nuclear movement.
"There are so many nuclear plants, but not a single one will be up and running today, and that's because of our efforts," Ishikawa said.
The activists said it is fitting that the day Japan stopped nuclear power coincides with Children's Day because of their concerns about protecting children from radiation, which Fukushima Dai-ichi is still spewing into the air and water.
The government has been eager to restart nuclear reactors, warning about blackouts and rising carbon emissions as Japan is forced to turn to oil and gas for energy.
Japan now requires reactors to pass new tests to withstand quakes and tsunami and to gain local residents' approval before restarting.
The response from people living near nuclear plants has been mixed, with some wanting them back in operation because of jobs, subsidies and other benefits to the local economy.
The mayor of Tomari city, Hiroomi Makino, is among those who support nuclear power.
"There may be various ways of thinking but it's extremely regrettable," he said of the shutdown.
Major protests, like the one Saturday, have been generally limited to urban areas like Tokyo, which had received electricity from faraway nuclear plants, including Fukushima Dai-ichi.
Before the nuclear crisis, Japan relied on nuclear power for a third of its electricity.
The crowd at the anti-nuclear rally, estimated at 5,500 by organizers, shrugged off government warnings about a power shortage.
If anything, they said, with the reactors going offline one by one, it was clear the nation didn't really need nuclear power.

It's time for Obama to give Iran an ultimatum

The Obama administration claims that sanctions against Iran are working. Officials point to the fact that Iran agreed to enter negotiations last week with the so-called p5+1 delegation. In the meantime, officials seem to ignore the findings of their own intelligence officials who say Iran’s nuclear weapons program continues to advance.

The talks, led by the European Union’s policy chief, Catherine Ashton, were held in Istanbul on April 14, 2012. The United States and the other permanent members of the UN Security Council, along with Germany, sent representatives for negotiations aimed at persuading Iran to halt its nuclear weapons program.
President Obama appears to believe that Iran’s leaders now feel so besieged they will agree to trade their nuclear ambition for ending sanctions and obtaining some carrots for Tehran.

Iran apparently felt so pressured that the talks lasted only one day. Ashton nevertheless described them as “the beginnings of a sustained process.” That is diplomatic speak for making no progress beyond agreeing to talk again.

Still Obama has hailed the decision of Iran to enter negotiations as a victory for his “tough” sanctions policy.
But talking is nothing new for Iran.
Most likely the country's leaders are not weakening from international pressure but simply repeating the successful ploy they used in earlier talks with the Europeans. Those negotiations went on for years and produced no change in Iranian policy while allowing their scientists to use the time to make greater advances toward the bomb.

Instead of insisting on continuous bargaining, the blundering p5+1 agreed to meet again in five weeks.
Now, the Iranians have bought an additional month to continue work on a nuclear device. They have every incentive to drag out the negotiations to ensure the United States and others will refrain from a military strike on the grounds that a diplomatic solution is still possible. If they can prolong the talks a few months or perhaps a year, they are likely to reach the point where they cannot be stopped from building a bomb.

Obama’s own intelligence services also dispute his claim the sanctions are working. The CIA recently released a report showing that Iran has produced more low-grade enriched uranium and increased its stock of uranium enriched to 20 percent. Furthermore, Iran has increased the number of operational centrifuges and continued to work on the development of long-range ballistic missiles.


We still hear some commentators making the ridiculous claim that the Iranians haven’t decided they want to build a bomb.
No, surely ballistic missile development is part of their program for peaceful nuclear energy. Yes, enrichment of uranium continues at levels beyond those needed for energy or medicine. And, surely, nuclear facilities are hidden under ground in bunkers because they are engaged in innocuous research.

Various other analysts have suggested an Iranian nuclear bomb is nothing to worry about since the country would be afraid to use it for fear another nuclear power would annihilate them.
Why then is the p5+1, which have a deterrent, so worried?
Why are the Arabs petrified?
Why did Saudi Arabia call on the U.S. to attack Tehran?

The desperation to prevent any military action against Iran is leading to increasingly nonsensical arguments about the harmlessness of a nuclear Iran.
One of the latest flights of fantasy was an article suggesting that proliferation was nothing to worry about even though the president of Iran said that he was going to share the nuclear technology.
A member of the Saudi royal family announced that if Iran gets the bomb, it will have to do so as well. At least 12 Arab states have signed nuclear cooperation agreements in the years since Iran’s program became public.
Does anyone really believe they all suddenly decided they needed “peaceful” nuclear energy?
Does anyone seriously believe that the Gulf Oil states are convinced that they have an urgent need to seek a nuclear alternative to petroleum when they pay less than $1 for a gallon of gas?

There was one other nugget in the CIA report that was largely ignored by the media. The CIA report noted that the Syrians had been operating a clandestine nuclear program for more than a decade, but we apparently did not learn about it until just before Israel destroyed their reactor. If you add the ignorance about the Syrian program to the long history of CIA failures in the Middle East, it is easy to understand why Israel and other Middle Eastern countries do not want to trust their security to CIA evaluations of Iran’s capability.

If Obama wants to negotiate with Iran, then he needs to immediately demand that Iran take specific, verifiable measures to dismantle its enrichment facilities and cease all nuclear weapons research.
A deadline must be set for these steps to be completed in a matter of weeks – not months or years. And our president must make clear that the consequences of failing to comply will be a military operation that ensures Iran will not get the bomb.
The time for prolonged negotiations and diplomatic niceties and quid pro quos is long past. Now is the time for ultimatums.

Mitchell Bard is a foreign policy analyst. His latest books are "The Arab Lobby: The Invisible Alliance That Undermines America’s Interests in the Middle East" and "Israel Matters: Understand the Past – Look to the Future."

 http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2012/04/18/it-time-for-obama-to-give-iran-ultimatum/

Iran's nuclear genie is out of the bottle

After a yearlong round of escalating international economic sanctions and rhetoric, the regime in Iran has finally come around to raising expectations that it will take some constructive steps in reining in its nuclear weapons ambitions. But this cycle of threat and accommodation has played out before, and its outcome should have been predictable.
According to the information provided by Iranian dissidents obtained from their sources inside the regime, as well as the U.N.'s atomic watchdog agency, the nuclear genie is out of the bottle in Iran, and the regime's genius for delay and subterfuge will only give it the time to complete the dash to a workable weapon.
Every major effort by the U.S. to negotiate with Iran since the 1979 revolution has failed. The regime has always received its ransom: weapons from President Ronald Reagan, the listing of the democratic opposition group the Mujahedin-e Khalq (PMOI/MEK) as a "terrorist" group by President Bill Clinton — by giving a glimmer of hope and then delivering nothing in return.

• Topics
• Iran
• Nuclear Policy
• Weaponry
• See more topics »

This cycle continues with the Obama administration. The Iranian nuclear envoy expressed confidence about an offer put on the table by the West in October 2009 as a step toward solving the nuclear issue. Then, after the uprising in Iran was violently suppressed in 2009, Iran announced the nuclear deal was unacceptable. Meanwhile, Iran had enriched uranium to the 20 percent level, a significant scientific leap toward acquiring fissile material for the bomb.

The regime is motivated by fanatical zeal and an outsized sense of importance in the region. The acquisition of nuclear weapons is conflated with these motives, and that is why no amount of political concessions and economic incentives can stop this drive.
Information obtained by the network inside Iran of MEK makes it abundantly clear that Iran has expanded the organization responsible for nuclear weapons development. Their findings reveal a complete, elaborate and highly secret research structure and a network for procurement of the parts and equipment required to build nuclear weapons.
Identities of 60 directors and experts working in various parts of this organization (abbreviated in Farsi as SPND) and 11 institutions and companies affiliated with it have been detailed. The underground nuclear site near the holy city of Qom known as Fordow, which has been involved in enriching uranium to 20 percent (dubbed by Tehran as necessary fuel for its medical research) is actually run by SPND and controlled by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
This information sharply contradicts the assessment by some in the administration that Iran has not yet made the decision to go forward with the weapons program, as well as the observation by others who suggest that Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei has forbidden the development of a nuclear bomb.
Iran's foreign minister, ahead of nuclear talks, suggested that the negotiations should be used only to build trust, making it clear that the Iranian regime's leaders had already decided to use the talks to buy even more time, without making any concessions.
With each attempt at negotiation with Iran, America has fashioned a lash for its own back. It's time to turn one of those lashes against the regime. As a majority of members of Congress stated, the dissident group, MEK, which exposed key nuclear sites of Iran, was unjustifiably put on the list of terrorist organizations as one of many U.S. efforts to placate Tehran. This is an unarmed, secular group dedicated to a democratic and non-nuclear Iran. The regime rightly fears and hates it and devotes its resources to destroy or demonize it.
President Barack Obama should delist the group immediately, just as a U.S. Court of Appeals has urged him to consider doing on the basis of a lack of evidence against the dissidents. Doing so will call Iran on its bluffing, and it is a reasonable step that falls between insufficient sanctions and unimaginable warfare. Doing so is consistent with U.S. efforts to be on the side of the millions in Iran, who showed the world that they want the ruling theocracy overturned. It is time for America to change course.
Alireza Jafarzadeh is the author of "The Iran Threat: President Ahmadinejad and the Coming Nuclear Crisis." He exposed the nuclear sites in Natanz and Arak in 2002, which triggered the International Atomic Energy Agency inspections of the Iranian nuclear sites. His email is jafarzadeh@spcwashington.com.

Copyright © 2012, The Baltimore Sun

http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/opinion/oped/bs-ed-iran-20120416,0,7922913.story