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US stores spent nuclear fuel rods at 4 times pool capacity
By Rady Ananda
In a recent interview with The Real News Network, Robert Alvarez, a nuclear policy specialist since 1975, reports that spent nuclear fuel in the United States comprises the largest concentration of radioactivity on the planet: 71,000 metric tons. Worse, since the Yucca Mountain waste repository has been scrapped due to its proximity to active faults (see last image), the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission has allowed reactor operators to store four times more waste in the spent fuel pools than they’re designed to handle.
Each Fukushima spent fuel pool holds about 100 metric tons, he says, while each US pool holds from 500-700 metric tons. A single pool fire would release catastrophic amounts of radioactivity, rendering 17-22,000 square miles of area uninhabitable. That’s about the size of New Hampshire and Vermont – from one pool fire. [Image: Spent fuel pool at the top of a nuclear reactor.]
The Race for Space Solar Energy
William John Cox
The failures of the General Electric nuclear reactors in Japan to safely shut down during the 9.0 Tahoku earthquake, following in the wake of the catastrophic Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico and the deadly methane gas explosion in Massey’s West Virginia coal mine, conclusively demonstrate the grave dangers to human society posed by current energy production methods.
The radiation plume from melting reactor cores and the smoke of burning spent fuel rods threaten the lives of the unborn; yet, they point in the direction of the only logical alternative to these failed policies – the generation of an inexhaustible, safe, pollution-free supply of energy from outer space.
Military officer’s 9/11 case against Bush officials to be heard April 5
Edited by Rady Ananda
From info provided by Center for 9/11 Justice
A Top Secret Military Specialist, who was injured in the Pentagon explosion on September 11, 2001 and who sued Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld and Air Force General Richard Myers for conspiracy, terrorism, constitutional violations, and for personal injuries, will have her case heard by the United States Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit (Connecticut) on April 5.
April Gallop saw disturbing things up close that have not been reported in the media, advises her attorney, William Veale. An independent judicial hearing of that and other evidence will allow review of the official explanation of the events on 9/11, which numerous experts claim to be impossible according to the laws of physics.
They said it wasn't like Cernobyl and they were wrong
Michael Collins
According to an international scientific group monitoring radiation around the world, the Fukushima reactors are emitting nuclear toxins at levels approaching those seen in the "aftermath" of Chernobyl. The Chernobyl disaster began with an explosion, Fukushima is a smoldering cauldron of toxins. Chernobyl had 180 tonnes of nuclear fuel on site. Fukushima has 1700 tonnes of nuclear fuel on site. (Image)
This isn't the beginning of the end as hoped, it's looking like the end of the beginning.
CounterPunch ran an interview wit Japanese nuclear industry author Hiroshe Takashi just yesterday in which the author lamented the poor reporting of the tragedy in the Japanese press:
"Really, they talk this nonsense, trying to reassure everyone, trying to avoid panic. What we need now is a proper panic. Because the situation has come to the point where the danger is real." Hiroshe Takashi, CounterPunch March 22
Just two days later, the "proper panic" is on its way.
Target Israel, not Libya
by Stephen Lendman
On April 9, 1986, Ronald Reagan called Muammar el Gaddafi the "mad dog of the Middle East." Today, after an imposed no-fly zone, war rages to remove him. For decades, he ruled despotically, punishing enemies, rewarding friends. His days may now be numbered. Washington won't quit until he's gone, no matter how many corpses it takes to achieve it.
In fact, however, a far greater Middle East menace threatens the entire region, the Israeli war machine based in Jerusalem. Besides illegally occupying Palestine, brutalizing Palestinians daily, persecuting Israeli Arabs, threatening and attacking its neighbors, its longstanding plan calls for dividing and dominating the region.
In fact, it's nightmarish vision calls for partitioning Arab nations into small states - balkanizing them along ethnic and sectarian lines as Israeli satellites, controllable satraps. The idea is modeled after the Ottoman Empire's Millet system under which local authorities governed confessional communities with separate ethnic identities.
Resist a Larger War Into Libya
The Attack on Libya is Not Merely a No Fly Zone—But an Intervention Into Libya
By Kevin Zeese
It was hard for some peace activists to look at the planned attack by Col. Gadhafi on Libyan rebels and oppose the no fly zone approved by the U.N. Col. Gadhafi is a vicious leader who promised to make the streets run red with blood so this was an issue that divided the peace community.
Regardless of how you felt about the original no fly zone, how you feel about the Gadhafi regime or the armed rebels fighting it, we should all recognize that the United States, United Kingdom and France are going further than a no fly zone and are intervening in a civil war for their own reasons that have nothing to do with defending democracy or other humanitarian goals. Already we are seeing evidence of the broader mission beyond a no fly zone and beyond what President Obama said would be a few days with no troops on the ground.
- While in Egypt this week Secretary Gates hinted that the war in Libya may be open-ended.
Libya – What Now?
By Brian Downing
After weeks of indecision, the NATO powers and a few Arab states have taken action against the Kadafi regime and its armed forces. NATO aircraft and missiles have devastated loyalist air defenses, troops concentrations, and supply convoys. Rebel forces have been heartened and have even made some counteroffensives out of their enclave in Benghazi. (Image)
NATO resolve is not strong, but an agreement today (March 24) will likely guarantee that the air campaign continues. Abandoning it now or reducing it to a no-fly zone only would be a severe embarrassment to the alliance and lead to lasting mistrust within it. Furthermore, it might leave Libya in a murderous stalemate or an unstable partition ever on the brink of renewed war.
Cheerleading for War
by Stephen Lendman
When America goes to war, managed news goes with it spreading rumors, half-truths, misinformation, and willful deception about targeted nations, regimes and leaders, whether despots or democrats. Whoever first said it, the first casualty of war is truth, and then some as John Pilger once observed saying:
"Journalism is the first casualty. Not only that: it has become a weapon of war, a virulent censorship (and willful misreporting) that goes unrecognised in the United States, Britain and other democracies; censorship by omission, whose power is such that, in war, it can mean the difference between life and death for people in faraway countries...."
As a result, managed news jeopardizes free and open societies by substituting fiction for facts, carefully filtered reports for truth, and cheerleading propaganda for real journalism. As a result, wars of aggression are called liberating ones. Civil liberties are suppressed for our own good, and patriotism means going along with lawless governments, reigning death and destruction on defenseless nations for imperial, not noble, reasons.
Billionaires Flourish, Inequalities Deepen as Economies “Recover”
James Petras
Introduction
The bailouts of banks, speculators and manufacturers served their real purposes: the multi-millionaires became billionaires and the later became multi-billionaires. According to the annual report of the business magazine Forbes there are 1,210 individuals – and in many cases family clans – with a net value of $1 billion dollars (or more). There total net worth is $4 trillion, 500 billion dollars, greater than the combined worth of 4 billion people in the world. The current concentration of wealth exceeds any previous period in history; from King Midas, the Maharajahs, and the Robber Barons to the recent Silicon Valley – Wall Street moguls of the present decade.
I SAW THE MOON
By Gaither Stewart
French President Nicolas Sarkozy, a Bushite figure, with his former model wife and renowned salopette, Carla Bruni. Always glad to play useful foil to America's designs, but harboring ambitions of his own.
(Rome) Last Saturday night I saw the Supermoon. The same March 19 night that Operation “Odyssey Dawn” was launched against the Libya of Muammar Gadaffi, the earth’s star in all its glory passed its nearest point to planet Earth as it does every 19 years. This time it was a full moon. It hovered over my house. At midnight the yellow Supermoon illuminated my front yard almost as a winter sun does at midday. That same night the same moon shone also over Tripoli, 600 miles the south, illuminating all of Libya as it did my front yard.
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