qianjinding111
2011年4月29日星期五
DMK condoles death of Sathya Sai Baba - The Hindu
Culture of complicity linked to devastated by the nuclear power plant


TOKYO - Light of fierce insular nature of the nuclear industry of the Japan, it may be normal that an outsider exposed the cover-up of more serious security in the history of the Japanese nuclear. It took place at Fukushima Daiichi, Japan plant has struggled to get under control since last earthquake and tsunami.

In 2000, Kei Sugaoka, an inspector nuclear Japanese-Americans who had worked for General Electric to Daiichi, said principal regulator of the Japan on a dryer nuclear believed that cracked steam was being concealed. If the presentations, the revelations could have forced the operator, Tokyo Electric Power, to do what the utilities want less to: undertake costly repairs.
What happened then was an example, critics have said since then, collusive ties that bind the nuclear nation enterprises, regulators and politicians.
Despite a new law shielding Blowers, the regulator, the nuclear and industrial safety agency, disclosed the identity of Mr. Sugaoka at Tokyo Electric, effectively rejecting the industry. Instead of immediately deploy its own investigators to Daiichi, the Agency has asked the company to inspect its own reactors. Regulators allowed the company to keep operating its reactors over the next two years, even if, a survey revealed in the end, its managers had actually hidden other, more serious problems, including cracks in the shrouds covering the reactor cores.
Investigators can take months or years to decide what extended security problems or low regulations contributed to the disaster to Daiichi, the worst of its kind since Chernobyl. But as the unrest in the plant and the fears of radiation continue to shake the nation, the Japanese raise more and more the possibility that a culture of complicity is particularly vulnerable plant to the natural disaster that struck the country on March 11.
Already, many Japanese and Western experts argue that incompatible, non-existent or unpatrolled regulations played a role in the accident - including low dikes which has failed to protect the plants against the tsunami and the decision to put diesel backup generators that supply the cooling system of the reactors at the ground levelwhich makes it very vulnerable to flooding.
An extension of 10 years for the oldest reactors of Daiichi suggests that the regulatory system was allowed to remain lax by politicians, bureaucrats and industry leaders firmly focused on the expansion of nuclear energy. Regulators approved the extension beyond 40 years under the reactor just a few weeks before the tsunami, despite warnings about the safety and subsequent admissions of Tokyo Electric, often referred to as Tepco, it did not conduct inspections appropriate critical equipment.
The mild punishment for previous offences of security has reinforced the belief that the main actors of nuclear power are more interested in protecting their interests to increase the security. In 2002, after finally, concealment of Tepco, became public, its President and the President resigned, only to give advisory positions to the company. Other frameworks have been demoted, but later took jobs in companies doing business with Tepco. Still other received cuts tiny pay for their role in the cover-up. And after a closure and temporary repairs to Daiichi, Tepco resumes operation of the plant.
In a telephone interview from his home in the Bay of San Francisco, Mr. Sugaoka said, "I support nuclear energy, but I want to see a total transparency."
Revolving door
To the Japan, the web of connections between the nuclear industry and the representatives of the Government is now commonly called the "village of nuclear power". The expression refers to the transparent, collusive interests that underlie the thrust of the institution to increase nuclear power despite the discovery of fault lines active under plants, new projections on the size of the tsunami and a long history of cover-ups of security problems.
Panetta and Petraeus online for high security posts


WASHINGTON - President Obama is expected this week in the name of Leon e. Panetta, the Director of the CIA, as Secretary to the defence and the General David Petraeus h., top commander U.S. Afghanistan, Director of the C.I.A.administration officials said Wednesday.
Appointments, put in motion by the imminent retirement of the Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates are part of a significant rearrangement of the national security team Mr. Obama which will include several new assignments in the closest of his diplomatic circlemilitary and intelligence advisers.
Mr. Gates should resign this summer.
Changes at the top of the team of the national security of Mr. Obama long been expected.
Shortly after Mr. Gates leaves, the term expires for the Chairman of the joint staff, Admiral Mike Mullen, who, as Defense Secretary, was appointed by President George w. Bush. And Secretary of State James b. Steinberg announced that he leaves for University work - remove a crucial player in the efforts of Mr. Obama to handle the rise of China.
But the role of Mr. Gates is the most critical. It is often alloyed with Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton - who said that she intends to leave the administration when this mandate ends - including persuade them to Mr. Obama to start the military build-up in Afghanistan in 2009. Together, they have won many battles, but they clearly separate the month last on military intervention in Libya.
In the name Mr. Panetta, the Pentagon, Mr. Obama is to select an official of the already confirmed firm with close ties to the White House and the Capitol. By selecting General Petraeus, who at the beginning at least do not have a strong relationship with the White House of Obama, the President is maintaining a military leader of prestige which has a thorough knowledge of intelligence in Afghanistan and Iraq in recent years.
The President is also likely soon to propose the veteran diplomat Ryan c. Crocker as the next Ambassador of United States in Afghanistan. This approach would be, at least together during a period of time, Mr. Crocker, former Ambassador of the Iraq, with General Petraeus, with whom he worked closely in Iraq in the Bush administration.
Q + A - what is happening to the Japan damaged nuclear power plant? -Reuters
(Updates with water treatment)
By Mayumi Negishi
(TOKYO, April 27, Reuters) - Japanese engineers were struggling to take control of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power, 240 km (150 miles) North of Tokyo, which was severely damaged by the earthquake on March 11 and the tsunami.
Two of six reactors at the plant, operated by the Tokyo electric power (TEPCO) Co, are considered to be stable, but the other four are volatile.
Here are a few questions and answers about efforts to end the nuclear crisis the worst of the world since the 1986 Chernobyl accident:
What is going on?
Workers are trying to fill the reactors with enough water to bring the nuclear fuel rods in a "cold case", in which the water cooling is less than 100 degrees Celsius and reactors are considered stable.
TEPCO has been pouring water in vessels of reactor containing sticks since the disaster to cool the as an emergency measure. [ID: nL3E7FI0C7]
In a further step towards a cold closed, TEPCO fills the containment vessel - a steel shell and concrete that houses the reactor vessel - with water in a water called procedure to the Tomb. He began by increasing the amount of water being poured into the reactor n ° 1.
System, which works like a radiator in a car cooling at the same time that it will work to restore reactors. TEPCO said mounting a separate external cooling system is also a possibility.
For reactors as No.2, who is suspected of having a damaged containment vessel, TEPCO said he hoped seal articles damaged with cement to prevent water pumped into leaking.
WHAT IS HINDERING THE OPERATION?
The large amounts of runoff from the TEPCO a pumping water in to prevent overheating of fuel rods and nuclear fusion. The operator estimates the amount of water in the Daiichi plant contaminated tonnes approximately 87,500.
TEPCO plans to begin a system to treat contaminated water of operation in June. The system, developed by Toshiba, of Kurion, Areva (CEPFi.PA), and Hitachi-GE nuclear energy closes U.S., would adsorb and isolate radioactive elements, and then the treated water may be reused to cool the reactors.
Radioactive materials isolated would remain in the nuclear power plant for the moment.
For the moment, TEPCO was transfer of radioactive water that has accumulated in the building of the reactor in the reservoirs and storage at the plant, but the process was progressing very slowly.
Storage on the site of many tanks were damaged by the tsunami and earlier authorities in April, made a decision to pump water contaminated with lower levels of radiation in the ocean to secure storage space. Which has since ceased, but could resume if they run out of storage again.
In the meantime, the radiation continues to infiltrate the TEPCO nuclear complex in the sea and in the air, but at much lower levels than at the height of the crisis in mid-March.
To contain the contamination, workers have tried pouring glass liquid to stop a leak and spraying the ground with the sticky resin to radiated capture dust. They are also nitrogen injection in
to prevent new explosions of hydrogen would be spread highly radioactive in the air.
THIS COULD BE HOW LONG?
On 17 April TEPCO announced a timetable for its operations. In the first three months it intends to cool the reactors and spent fuel stored in some of them at a stable level and reduce radiation leaks. [ID: nL3E7FH03J]
TEPCO hope then make reactors to a cold case in another period of three to six months.
But some experts said that the process could take more time. TEPCO himself said constants replicas, power outages, high levels of radiation and the threat of explosions of hydrogen are the factors that could impede his work.
Weather conditions, as the rainy season approaching and typhoons and lightning during the summer, could also pose problems.
WHAT ARE THE RISKS?
The risk is the radiation continues to infiltrate, or burst, each time a pipe or pressure leaks forces workers to vent steam. Water leaking in nuclear pressure receptacles could find its place in soil and ocean, while the tips of radiation could contaminate crops on a large area.
The risk that the spent fuel pools could enter in a chain reaction is low, as long as the temperature indicators are accurate. But some more contaminated runoff may have to be disposed in the sea, if the workers run out of space to store water.
There is also a low risk of an explosion of steam corium, particularly in the reactor n ° 1, which is the oldest of the plant and who believes having a weak point.
If workers are unable to continue a jet of water operations, and nuclear fuel manages to melt through the bottom of the reactor and fall into a swimming pool with water below, this would result in a burst of high temperature and a sudden release of a huge amount of explosion of hydrogen which could violate the containment vessel.
Should any worst case produce, high levels of radiation up to 20 km (12 miles) around the site could be dispersed, making it impossible to bring the cold without great sacrifice shutdown reactors.
THE SITE WILL BECOME A NO-MAN LAND?
Very probably, Yes. Even after a cold there is tonnes of nuclear waste sitting on the site of nuclear reactors.
Burying concrete reactors make safe work and live a few kilometres away from the site, but is not a long-term solution for the disposal of spent fuel, which will decay and emit radiation over thousands of years.
Nuclear fuel irradiated at Fukushima was damaged by sea water, kind of recycling, it is probably not an option, while transport elsewhere it is little likely due to the opposition proposal bring.
Experts say that cleaning will take decades. (Other reports by Shinichi Saoshiro and Yoko Kubota;) (Editing by Alex Richardson)
The Guantánamo files: the detainees lawyers can click on the disclosure of Documents
It is, except for lawyers representing prisoners.
Monday, hours after WikiLeaks, The New York Times and other news organizations began to publish that the online documents, the Department of Justice has informed Guantánamo defence lawyers who remain legally classified documents even after that they were made public.
Because lawyers have security clearances, they are obliged to treat the files easily accessible "in accordance with all relevant and guarantees safety precautions" - handle, for example, in government facilities secure, said the notice, registry of the Ministry of security.
It is only the latest absurd challenge posed by floods of classified documents obtained by WikiLeaks during the past year: reports of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq; the land cables the State Department; and now the military of the past or present risks of assessments of 700 prisoners at Guantanamo.
Joseph Margulies, a Northwestern law professor representing Abu Zubaydah, the inmate accused of being a terrorist facilitator who was among by the Central Intelligence Agency, said that he could not comment on the newly disclosed his client assessmentwhich is displayed on the website of the time.
"Everyone can talk about it," said Mr. Margulies. "I can't talk about it".
The category of ballooning of documents classified by public-but a confused of officials and led to an unusual series of positions of government agencies and those who work with them.
In December, Columbia University warned international relations students commenting on the documents released by WikiLeaks online or connecting their likely to jeopardize their chances of obtaining a Government position. The same month, the United States of Agency for International Development told workers that the viewing of documents on a computer at work or home (not classified) might violate safety rules that govern their jobs. In February, a unit of the Air Force has warned that employees and their family members could be prosecuted under the Espionage Act for review the WikiLeaks documents at home.
Some of these warnings were quickly amended or withdrawn after attract ridiculous public. But the general principle that leaks files remain classified remains in force, with different consequences.
Some foreigners for asylum in the United States tied the diplomatic cables printed from the Internet that describe the repression in their country of origin - requiring the Department of Homeland Security to store their applications in special chests and cumbersome security rules apply.
Employees of the State Department said that they read a leak of cables on newspaper Web sites at home instead of may disorder are viewable at work. A journalist from the Times who appears with a head of the Department of State on a recent Panel was advised not to show cables leaks as slide - official has been banned from watching.
But the ban to Guantánamo lawyers has serious consequences, said Mr. Margulies, who wrote a book on Guantánamo and has represented five prisoners. Decisions on the subject that gets released were influenced by politics and the pressure of the public as well as by legal standards, he said.
"It is important to be able to use these documents to shape and inform the debate on the public square," he said. If an assessment of the risk of leakage contains clearly false accusations of a prisoner, a lawyer should be able to respond publicly, he said.
On Tuesday, Attorney General Eric h. Holder Jr. has told reporters that he considered that the dissemination of classified documents Guantánamo, prepared under the Bush administration, to be "deplorable". And he said that the Obama administration would not in public, even with deletions, its own evaluations of 240 prisoners who were still in Guantánamo, when he took office in 2009.
The new files, Mr. Holder said, "involve a wide range of information gleaned from a wide range of sources, some are classified".
"However,", he added, "" I would be concerned about the information that was incomplete.""
During this time, Dean Boyd, a spokesman for the Department of Justice, said that the Department strives to respond to questions by lawyers for the Guantánamo detainees on restrictions on the use of disclosure of documents.
"We are working through these issues now," said Mr. Boyd. "We want simply to ensure that any information published by WikiLeaks is managed properly."
Nuclear nightmare America - RollingStone.com

Five days after a huge earthquake and tsunami struck Japan, triggering the worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl, nuclear regulatory agency came before Congress bearing the good news of America: don't worryIt cannot happen here. In the aftermath of the disaster in Japanese, Germany officials moved quickly to close old plants for inspection and implement new plants of licences on China hold. But Gregory Jaczko, the President of the nuclear regulatory Commission, reassured legislators that nothing in the reactors at Fukushima Daiichi justified any immediate change in US nuclear plants. Indeed, 10 days after the earthquake in Japan, NRC extended the licence of the Vermont Yankee nuclear reactor age of 40 years - a twin of virtual of Fukushima - for another two decades. The renewal of the licence has been granted even if the reactor cooling tower was literally falling down, and the plant on several occasions had a leak of radioactive liquid.
Worst Nukes America: 14 nuclear "about correctness" in 2010
Perhaps Jaczko tent simply prevent a panic on a large scale on the dangers of U.S. nuclear plants. After all, there are now 104 reactors scattered across the country, generating 20 per cent of American power. Each of them have been designed in the 1960s and 1970s and are almost the end of their life expectancy. But there was a problem with the testimony of Jaczko, according to Dave Lochbaum, Senior Advisor to the Union of Concerned Scientists: key elements of what the Chief NRC said Congress were "a baldfaced lie."
This article appears in the edition of May 12, 2011, of Rolling Stone magazine. The issue is now available on newsstands and will appear in the archive online April 29.
Lochbaum, a nuclear engineer, says that the Jaczko knows full well that what the NRC calls "defence in depth" reactors at the U.S. has been seriously compromised over the years. In some places, fuel spent highly radioactive is stored in what amounts to swimming pools located next to the reactors. In other places, changes in the reactor cooling systems have made the most vulnerable to a collapse of the base if something goes wrong. A few weeks before Fukushima, Lochbaum a report circulated widely pointed out risky performance of NRC, describing 14 serious "near-miss" events at nuclear plants last year only. The Indian Point reactor just north of the city of New York, federal inspectors discovered a containment system of the water that had been leaking for 16 years.
The Gulf oil spill: A year later, "nothing of fundamentally changed."
As head of the NRC, Jaczko is the top cop on the beat nuclear, the guy responsible for maintaining the fleet of the nation of aging nukes running safely. A Democrat baldness, age 40 with large ears and a Professor of physics, brilliant air high school, Jaczko oversees an agency of 4,000 with a budget of $ 1 billion. But the NRC has long served as little more than a dog lap industry nuclear, eager to crack down against unsafe reactors. "The Agency is a wholly owned subsidiary of the nuclear industry, said Victor Gilinsky, who served in the commission in the Three Mile Island meltdown in 1979.". Even President Obama denounced the NRC during the 2008 campaign, calling it a "moribund agency which must be overhauled and became a captive of the industries it regulates.
In the years ahead, nuclear experts warn, the consequences of inaction of the Agency could be disastrous. "NRC has developed constantly the benefits of the industry over the public safety," said Arnie Gundersen, a former leader of turned nuclear whistleblower. "Therefore, we have Fukushimas of a dozen of waiting to happen in America."
Policy RS daily: rolling stone, and editors on political news
House Professor G.O.P. Members Face voter anger budget
About the same time in Wisconsin, representative Paul d. Ryan, the architect of the Republican budget proposal, is facing a packed town meeting, occasional boos and a skeptical public as he tried to draw on the justification of his party for the redesign of the programme of health insurance for retirees.
In a church theater here Tuesday evening, a meeting between representative Allen b. West and some of his voters begins on a chaotic note, with the members of the audience quickly on their feet, some heckling him and others vociferously defending him. "You're not going to intimidate me", said Mr. West.
After 10 days of trying to sell components on their plan to overhaul Medicare, Republican House in several districts appear to be more and more concerned about issues and defensive anger, in which voters and a barrage of new attacks from Democrats and their allies.
The new approach proposed Medicare - a key piece of a budget that Republican leaders have hailed as a brave effort to budgetary problems in the long term of the nation - has been a constant theme in town-hall-style sessions and other public gatherings during a break from the Congress two weeks which have provided the first opportunity for legislators to assess the reaction of the plan.
An example of the response appeared Tuesday as representative Daniel Webster, a freshman Republican from Florida, before a crowd of turbulent at a packed city to Orlando meeting where some people, apparently organized or encouraged by Liberal groupsbrandished signs saying "Hands off health insurance" and demanded that it rather "tax rich."
Mr. Webster, shown in the video station WFTV, sought to defuse the situation by saying that any change was years of absence and that current retirees would not see a difference. "Not a senior citizen is harmed by this budget", he said, noting that her granddaughter again was "seeking a bankrupt country."
Under the Republican proposal, Medicare would be converted to a program that would subsidize health coverage for retirees than provide coverage directly, a change which say many Democrats might leave the elderly people with inadequate health care as costs rise in the long term. The Republican budget would also be Medicaid, who pays for the nursing home residents with low income, transform a grant to States program, raising the possibility that States, under pressure from budget, would be reduced on the cover.
Democrats face political pressure as well to show that they can bring spending under control and slow the growth of the national debt, and there are cracks in the party to back tax increases and raise the ceiling of the national debt without concrete measures to bring down the budget deficit.
Before the release of the proposal of Mr. Ryan, Republican expressed their confidence that public opinion had turned in their favour, and on Tuesday House leaders sought to reassure Republicans that their approach to budget should ultimately carry the day. Led by Chairman John a. Boehner of Ohio, Republicans held a conference call, urging the members of the House to tell voters that he is plan expenditures of the administration of the cost of jobs Obama and ration health care.
Officials familiar with the call said that the legislators met did not appear alarmed by the response that they, and that Mr. Ryan told his Republican compatriots, he succeeded in making the case that Medicare would make bankruptcy without intervention. Mr. Ryan said with his voters that those 55 or Medicare currently would be still covered under the existing program.
But news reports noted that Mr. Ryan himself face a mixed Tuesday response that it has held meetings strained with the voters, of which some were repressed due to the overflow crowds. This is another indication that the Republicans still have a huge sale work to do on their budget, especially for older voters tend to turn out to vote at rates higher than younger people.
"I think that what we have right now working on Medicare are a bunch of clowns, Washington", said Robert Murphy, 73, a retired to Fort Lauderdale. "I think that they should leave Medicare." "But I know that they can not leave the way it is."
Meeting of the West Mr. Tuesday night here, it takes only written questions submitted by the public. Motions have been largely friendly, but some people pipe noisily on Medicare, accusing him of making misleading remarks. Several were escorted out by security.
Democrats and their allies are stepping up their efforts to organize opposition at public events. They hope to put the Republicans on their heels as Republicans had Democrats at town-hall-style angry meetings conducted during the review of the right to health.
"We have said from the moment where the gavel came down on the vote at the end of Medicare us would hold responsible for every day in every sense,", said the representative Steve Israel of New York, Chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. "It is precisely what we do." We encourage everyone to attend these meetings. ?
Democrats and other interest groups are mobilizing a campaign that includes automatic telephone calls, radio and commercials on television and events to keep the pressure on Republicans.?The Americans United for change, a Liberal Group, was automated in 23 districts Republican House calls and commercials in four districts of Iowa, Minnesota and Wisconsin, in which an advertiser said that a budget approved by the Assembly is tantamount to "ending the Medicare therefore millionaires can obtain tax relief."
Republicans began to strike this week, with efforts in the districts of conservative Democrats to change the object of the Medicare Federal overall spending. A new advertising radio against Representative Mike Ross, Democrat of Arkansas, paid for by the Republican National Committee, tells Arkansans that he would continue "to spend your money recklessly."
When they begin a long battle for public opinion on budget issues, many Republicans say that much of the outrage at their meetings comes liberal democratic plants sent by MoveOn.org and other groups.
"My town halls are being disrupted by the Democrats,", said representative Lou Barletta of Pennsylvania, whose meetings have been peppered with complaints about Republican policies. "They are apparently sent to us to do so." I'm not sensing that the public in General is angry on Medicare reform. When I explain that the people over 55 years of age are not affected it is almost a sigh of relief. "He added:"I will not do something different." ?
Jennifer Steinhauer reported Fort Lauderdale and Carl Hulse in Washington.