A loss to our community as Rudi Nussbaum passes

It is with great sadness that we learn of the death of Dr. Rudi Nussbaum, who died in Holland after a fall. Rudi was an avowed pacifist and Holocaust survivor and an expert on the health effects of radiation exposure. As his longtime friend, Lloyd Marbet writes: "His work as a Professor Emeritus of Physics and Environmental Science at Portland State University was instrumental in raising alarm over the health effects of radiation exposure.  He wrote numerous papers on this subject and participated in gathering valuable information on workers and civilians that were exposed to radiation at Hanford and in surrounding communities, for which he became a vocal advocate for environmental justice. He helped bring the famous epidemiologist, Alice Stewart, to Portland, and promoted her life story. You can watch a short video interview with Rudi below.

"Uncanny Terrain," a documentary about organic farmers facing Japan's nuclear crisis

"Uncanny Terrain" is a documentary in progress, about organic farmers facing Japan's nuclear catastrophe. A Chicago-based, Japanese American film making team will spend up to a year in the radioactively contaminated regions of northeast Japan downwind of the devastated Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, which is still releasing radioactive steam onto the winds nearly five months after the radioactive catastrophe began. Fukushima and neighboring prefectures are famous for their small, family-run, independent organic farms. Husband and wife team Junko Kajino and Ed M. Koziarski have already captured powerful video testimonies, and are requesting monetary donations to enable them to continue their work.

Update on August 2, 2011 by admin

A map of radioactive contamination downwind of Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, done by U.S. National Nuclear Security Administration aerial monitoringThe Mainichi Daily News reports that the Japanese federal government will be mapping the concentration of radioactive contamination downwind of the still leaking Fukushima Daiichi nuclear catastrophe, focusing especially on farmland in Fukushima Prefecture.

Japanese support PM's call to do away with nuclear power: poll

"More than two-thirds of Japanese support Prime Minister Naoto Kan's call to do away with nuclear power, a media poll showed on Sunday, underscoring growing opposition to atomic energy in the wake of the crisis at the Fukushima Daiichi plant." Reuters

New Japan law "cleanses" bad nuclear news

"Friday, July 15, the Ministry of Industry and Trade (METI) – Agency for Natural Resources and Energy, opened a call for bids (tender) regarding the 'Nuclear Power Safety Regulation Publicity Project', for contractors to monitor blogs and tweets posted about nuclear power and radiation.

The project stipulates that the contractor shall '...monitor blogs on nuclear power and radiation issues as well as Twitter accounts (monitoring tweets is essential) around the clock, and conduct research and analysis on incorrect and inappropriate information that would lead to false rumors, and to report such internet accounts to the Agency. The Contractor is required to keep the Agency well informed on the internet accounts and keywords used in the blogs and Twitter accounts that are posting incorrect and inappropriate information.' " UK Progressive

Eisenhower quelled Japanese fears about nuclear weapons with "atoms for peace"

Eisenhower delivering "Atoms for Peace" speech at UNHow could it be that the only nation ever attacked with nuclear weapons would choose to embrace atomic energy just a decade later? The Japan Times Online has reported, based upon declassified U.S. federal government documents from the Eisenhower administration, that the American promotion of nuclear power in Japan in the mid-1950s was aimed at quelling Japanese fears about, and protests against, U.S. nuclear weapons testing in the Pacific region. The Eisenhower State Department recognized the Japanese outrage about the exposure of Japanese fishermen aboard the Lucky Dragon No. 5, downwind of the Bikini Atoll hydrogen bomb test in 1954, as the most severe strain between the U.S. and Japan since the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki 9 years earlier. President Eisenhower feared Japan's loss from the U.S. camp to the U.S.S.R.'s influence, and his State Dept. secretly recommended "It is important to our relations with Japan that we seek to remove the strong Japanese notion that atomic and nuclear energy is primarily destructive. We should accordingly attempt at an early point to include Japan in bilateral and multilateral actions intended to develop peaceful uses of atomic energy."

Eisenhower had delivered his famous (or is infamous a more appropriate word, given what it has led to?) "Atoms for Peace" speech at the United Nations General Assembly on December 8, 1953 (see photo at left). Dr. Arjun Makhijani and Scott Saleska, in their 1999 book The Nuclear Power Deception, documented that "Atoms for Peace" was a public relations ploy to calm American fears about the nuclear arms race, and justify the expansion of atomic enterprises in the name of societal benefit, when in fact the effort was more geared to U.S. nuclear weapons production, as well as to court foreign governments in the Cold War competition with the Soviets.

Update on August 2, 2011 by admin

In a related story, the Mainichi Daily News has reported that as early as the mid-1950s, the Eisenhower administration had the help of the highest level Japanese elected officials, including the Prime Minister, as well as Diet (federal parliamentary) leaders. By the mid-1970s, the Japanese federal government was offering lavish subsidies to local municipalities willing to host nuclear power plants, including in Fukushima Prefecture.