[Peace-discuss] Japanese warning

[C. G. Estabrook]

    Published on Saturday, March 12, 2011 by the Associated Press
    Huge Rally in Germany: 'Nuclear Power? No Thanks!'

BERLIN - An explosion at a Japanese nuclear power plant has given new fuel to a 
long-running dispute over the technology's future in Germany, where thousands on 
Saturday demonstrated against plans to extend the life of the country's nuclear 
power stations.

Organizers said tens of thousands formed a human chain between the 
Neckarwestheim nuclear plant and the southwestern city of Stuttgart, which are 
28 miles (45 kilometers) appart- some waving yellow flags with the slogan 
"Nuclear power - no thanks." Police didn't immediately give a figure.

The demonstration was planned long before the post-earthquake blast at Japan's 
Fukushima Dai-ichi plant, but the fears of possible disaster gave an added focus 
to opponents of the technology in Germany.

Saturday's explosion destroyed a building housing the reactor, but a radiation 
leak was decreasing despite fears of a meltdown from damage caused by a powerful 
earthquake and tsunami, officials in Japan said.

Germany's government last year decided to extend the life of its 17 nuclear 
plans for an average 12 extra years. A previous government had said it wanted 
them all shut by 2021.

While Germany - unlike some of its European Union partners - has no plans to 
build any new plants, the extension was divisive.

The mishap in Japan, which comes two weeks before a closely fought state 
election in the region where Saturday's protest was held, prompted new criticism 
from the opposition.

Events at Fukushima "show that, even in a high-tech country like Japan that is 
equipped for all eventualities, nuclear power is an uncontrollable, highly 
dangerous, risky technology," the leadership of the opposition Greens said in a 
statement.

Matthias Miersch, a lawmaker with the main opposition Social Democrats, urged 
the government to scrap immediately the decision to extend German nuclear 
plants' lives. The third opposition party, the Left Party, called for a 
worldwide moratorium on expanding nuclear power capacity.

Nuclear energy has been unpopular in Germany since an explosion at a nuclear 
reactor at Chernobyl, Ukraine, in 1986, sent a cloud of radiation over much of 
Europe.

Chancellor Angela Merkel, however, has argued that Germany needs to keep nuclear 
energy for now as a "bridging technology" until it has developed more renewable 
power sources.

Her deputy, Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle, on Saturday pushed aside 
questions about the government's nuclear policy.

With thousands likely dead or missing in Japan, "Germany's first answer can't be 
that ... a political argument breaks out here because there are state election 
campaigns going on," he said.

Merkel's center-right coalition faces a tight battle to keep control of the 
regional government in Baden-Wuerttemberg in a March 27 election, and two other 
votes also are looming.

© 2011 Associated Press

On 3/12/11 6:41 PM, C. G. Estabrook wrote:
> I'd say that there's a good chance they are.  Have you been reading Bill 
> Keller recently?
>
> The Times regularly puts into practice the poet's advice:
>
>     Tell all the Truth but tell it slant —
>     Success in Circuit lies
>     Too bright for our infirm Delight
>     The Truth's superb surprise...
>
>
> On 3/12/11 6:29 PM, Brussel Morton K. wrote:
>> So what did Broad conclude about "Nuclear Jihad: Can Terrorists Get the Bomb?"?
>> He's not only written for the NYT, and moreover, not everyone who writes for 
>> the Times is contaminated….
>>
>>
>> On Mar 12, 2011, at 5:55 PM, C. G. Estabrook wrote:
>>
>>> Given the tie-ups between the NYT and the nuclear industry, I'd think we'd 
>>> at least want a second opinion...
>>>
>>> The author of this piece is a long-time Timesman who's written on and 
>>> perhaps contributed to US science propaganda.  In the run-up to the invasion 
>>> of Iraq he published "Germs: Biological Weapons and America's Secret War" 
>>> (2001), and in 2007 he did a "Discovery Channel" program called "Nuclear 
>>> Jihad: Can Terrorists Get the Bomb?"
>>>
>>>
>>> On 3/12/11 5:17 PM, Brussel Morton K. wrote:
>>>> A fair report by William Broad on the dangers of radioactivity from the 
>>>> severely damaged  Japanese reactor. We don't yet know the intensity of its 
>>>> radiations, and so we don't know if they are a serious problem. We are 
>>>> constantly exposed to nuclear radiations, and the safety limits imposed by 
>>>> the responsible agencies are considered super safe; there could be very 
>>>> high multiples of those limits and yet have no observed effects on human 
>>>> health (despite the claims of someone like Wasserman).
>>>>
>>>> http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/13/science/13radiation.html?hp
>>>>
> _______________________________________________
> Peace-discuss mailing list
> Peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net
> http://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/peace-discuss