Tuesday, April 24, 2012
Some Japanese towns to stay dangerously radioactive for at least a decade
(CBS News) As Japan continues to clean up after the deadly earthquake and tsunami that killed nearly 16,000 people on March 11, 2011, one thing is clear: something went really wrong at the Fukushima nuclear power plant, and the people who lived nearby will suffer for decades as a result.
The airborne radiation levels in parts of Fukushima prefecture are expected to remain at or close to dangerous amounts at least until 2022, according to a new government report written about in the Japan Times. Government officials project annual radiation dosages to exceed 50 millisieverts in the towns nearest the plant, a level which the government has said makes areas off-limits to the thousands of affected evacuees.
As many as six of the seven municipalities around the Fukushima plant will likely maintain dangerous levels of radiation for a decade, Al Jazeera reports.
Adding to the problem, locals have repeatedly complained to the press about a lackadaisical or disorganized cleanup plan.
"It's been a year already, and nothing," local organic farmer Muneo Kano, 61, complained to Al Jazeera.
CBS News correspondent Lucy Craft reported at the beginning of April that a lot of the soil in Fukushima prefecture is already heavily contaminated, and has ruined the cultivation of famous local delicacies like shiitake mushrooms. (Watch Craft's report at left.)
"Our biggest fear is: how will we support ourselves?" mushroom farmer Shinichi Sakuma, 44, told CBS News.
Utility company TEPCO has taken most of the blame for putting locals in this situation. When the tsunami hit the plant, it was stacked with more uranium than it was designed to hold, and the plant had missed several safety checks over the course of a decade, Reuters reports. Additionally, some of the decisions officials made in the immediate wake of the tsunami have come under scrutiny as possibly worsening the fallout.
TEPCO has paid compensation to local farmers, but much of the compensation is running out as their livelihoods remain in ruins.
"The government says a lot of things but in terms of concrete action it's done absolutely nothing. We're on our own," local farmer Sakuma told CBS News.
While many have been critical of the government's handling of the Fukushima disaster, some are pointing out that at least they are finally being realistic about the scope of the crisis there.
In the meantime, it appears the Japanese people do not have to worry about more nuclear disasters. Greenpeace International reports that safety and maintenance concerns have led the country to at least temporarily shut down all but one of its 54 reactors, and the last one will likely shut down by the beginning of May. This could be Japan's first nuclear-free summer since 1966.
PM: Egypt's Sinai turning into a 'Wild West'
Egypt's Sinai Peninsula has turned into a "kind of Wild West," which terrorist organizations use to smuggle weapons with Iranian assistance and initiate attacks on Israel, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu told Israel Radio on Tuesday.
The open desert border between Israel and Egypt has been relatively quiet since the 1979 peace treaty. But various Israeli officials have said that since the fall of former Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak, Cairo lost control of the desolate Sinai, exacerbating tensions.
Earlier this month, Jerusalem said a rocket that hit Eilat was fired from Sinai. Last August, cross-border infiltrators shot dead eight Israelis.
"We are acting against this reality and we are in ... continuous discussions with the Egyptian government, which is also troubled by this," said Netanyahu.
Iran denies supporting terrorist attacks on Israel from the Sinai.
Foreign Minister Avigdor Liberman said Sunday that the situation in Sinai was more worrying than what was happening in Iran, and called for a significant boost to troop numbers along the southern border.
In an apparent response Monday, Egypt's interim military ruler, Field Marshal Mohamed Hussein Tantawi, cautioned against any interference along the long desert frontier.
"Our borders, especially the northeast ones, are inflamed. We do not attack neighboring countries but will defend our territory," Egypt's state news agency MENA quoted him as saying.
"We will break the legs of anyone trying to attack us or who come near the borders."
Jerusalem Post
Pyongyang threatens a fast, ‘peculiar’ attack
North Korea yesterday threatened the South, saying they would stage “a special action by revolutionary forces” against the Blue House and local media.
“The special actions of our revolutionary armed forces will start soon to meet the reckless challenge of the group of traitors,” the North’s Korean People’s Army’s “unit for special action strategy” said in a statement yesterday.
“The target of our special action is Lee Myung-bak’s traitor group and his rats, including the conservative media that swings public opinion.
“Once the above-said special actions kick off, they will reduce all the rat-like groups and the bases for provocations to ashes in three or four minutes, or faster than that, by unprecedented, peculiar means and methods of our own style,” they said.
The so-called “special unit” pointed out a series of actions by President Lee, which they considered insulting to their sovereign state and the dignity of their leader.
“On April 20, [President Lee] appeared at the Institute for Unification Education, which is a nest of rats, and said, ‘Now what North Korea needs is not only bread but liberty and human rights,’” the statement said. “And he said if we don’t give up our will to develop missiles, they should focus on ‘a change of the North’s system,’ and they should make us ‘reform agriculture and dissolve the cooperative farms,’ which is none of his business.”
The statement continued: “On the previous day, April 19, [Lee] also appeared at a puppet organization called the Agency for Defense Development and touched some shoddy missiles, saying they have the precision and capacity to ‘immediately bomb’ any part of our sacred state. And there, the puppet Defense Minister Kim Kwan-jin and other military, war-like freaks danced to his tune.”
In a response to the North’s failed rocket launch on April 13, the Ministry of National Defense unveiled two high-end missiles never before seen by the public, saying they could attack anywhere in North Korean territory.
The statement also mentioned by name South Korean media organizations it described as “slaves of the traitors.”
“Meanwhile, the slaves of the traitors, the old conservative media, is forming public opinion,” it said. “The broadcasters, such as Dong-A Ilbo, KBS, MBC, and YTN, which are located in central Seoul, are participating in the move.”
While fiery threats against the South are commonplace from Pyongyang, analysts speculated that North Korea could use high-end technology for the forecast provocation.
“Firing a missile toward the South is an act of war, which would be difficult for them,” Yang Moo-jin, a professor at the University of North Korean Studies, told the Korea JoongAng Daily. “They could commit a cyberattack or jam South Korean military communication.”
Yang said it was rare for “a unit for special action strategy” to issue such a statement. “And the target is really specific: the Lee administration and conservative media, which are based in central Seoul,” Yang said.
Yun Duk-min, a professor at the state-run Institute for Foreign Affairs and National Security, told the Korea JoongAng Daily that North Korea appears to want to create an external crisis to consolidate Kim Jong-un’s rule.
“I guess that the North is trying to solidify its internal power structure by creating a crisis outside in the aftermath of the failure of the missile launch,” Yun said. “And that means they are having trouble in consolidating internal powers, with the possibility of military officials challenging the new leader Jong-un.”
Cheong Seong-chang, a senior fellow at the Sejong Institute, said the so-called special action must have been the work of new leader Kim Jong-un, showing a hawkish attitude in dealing with South Korea.
“From a cyberattack on the homepages of the Blue House, government-backed organizations or local media to biological terror, an active response to any kind of provocations seems to be needed,” Cheong said.
“It would be a realistic judgment to see Kim Jong-un as the most hard-line person, exhorting North Korean officials to be hostile against the South,” Cheong said. “Considering his pragmatic and hawkish personality along with his lack of experience as a policy maker, the North Korea of Kim Jong-un could be much more threatening and hard to control than his father’s.”
Korea JoongAng Daily
Iran in full control of Strait of Hormuz
In an interview with the Islamic Republic of Iran News Network (IRINN) television network on Saturday evening, the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) Navy Commander Rear Admiral Ali Fadavi said the Persian Gulf littoral states aligned themselves with the Baathist regime and sought to strangle Iran’s oil exports during the Iraqi-imposed war on Iran (1980-1988).
However, hegemonic powers soon realized that Iran, while providing regional security, has succeeded in monitoring the movements of the ships' and tankers’ from the Persian Gulf to the Sea of Oman. We still are controlling the movement of oil tankers through the Strait of Hormuz.
On January 2, Iranian Navy wrapped up Velayat-90 naval drills, conducted in an area stretching from the east of the Strait of Hormuz in the Persian Gulf to the Gulf of Aden.
The drills, which were launched on December 24, 2011, had four stages, namely the preparedness, expansion of forces, tactical, and power phases, which were carried out successfully.
The military drills took place in line with a directive by the Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei, instructing Iranian armed forces to maintain total readiness to defend the nation against any potential threats.
Over the past years, Iran has made important breakthroughs in its defense sector and attained self-sufficiency in producing important military equipment and systems.
The country has repeatedly clarified that its military might is merely based on the nation's defense doctrine of deterrence and poses no threat to other countries.
Iran maintains that the drills held either by the Army or the IRGC are defensive in nature and intend to convey a message of peace and friendship to the regional countries.
The Islamic Republic has also extended a public invitation to regional states to conduct joint naval drills with Iranian forces.
Press Tv
Volcano Behind Atlantis Legend Re-Awakens
The volcano that may have given rise to the legend of Atlantis has awakened, researchers say.
The cataclysmic eruptions at the Greek isle of Santorini about 3,600 years ago that spewed forth about 9.5 to 14.3 cubic miles (40 to 60 cubic kilometers) of lava devastated the ancient seafaring Minoan civilization, potentially inspiring the legend of the lost city of Atlantis. From the air, the resulting caldera, or volcanic crater, appears as a small cluster within the larger collection of Greek islands in the Aegean Sea.
Over the next four millennia, the largely underwater caldera at Santorini has experienced a series of smaller eruptions, with five such outbursts in the past 600 years, ending most recently in 1950. After a 60-year lull, Santorini awakened in January 2011 with a swarm of tremors, each magnitude 3.2 or less, new GPS research has revealed.
Our Amazing Planet
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)