Tag: IAEA

Russia-Ukraine updates: Moscow rejects demand to hand over Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant

DW – August 12, 2022

Leading Russian politicians are rejecting the G7’s demand that Moscow hand control of the Zaporizhzhya nuclear power plant, which has been occupied by Russian troops since March, back to Ukraine.

“No and no again,” Konstantin Kosachev, deputy speaker of Russia’s upper house of parliament, the Federation Council, answered when asked about the possible handover, according to the Russian Interfax news agency. To ensure the safety of the nuclear power plant, he said, complete control over the facility is necessary.

Kosachev’s sentiment was echoed by the head of the Foreign Affairs Committee in the State Duma, Leonid Slutsky, who accused Ukraine of “nuclear terrorism.”

“And all the statements of support by the G7 foreign ministers are nothing but sponsorship of nuclear terrorism,” he wrote on his Telegram channel.

Ukraine has accused Russia of firing at Ukrainian towns from the site in the knowledge that Ukrainian forces could not risk returning fire. It says Moscow has shelled the area itself while blaming Ukraine. Russia says it is Ukraine that has shelled the plant. The security situation around the facility, which has been occupied by Russian troops since March, has deteriorated in recent days, with fresh shelling reported at the site on Thursday.

Meanwhile, the German government has expressed concern about the ongoing fighting in the area around Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhya nuclear power plant.

Government spokesman Steffen Hebestreit said Berlin had “no findings of its own” that could confirm any of the conflicting accounts coming from Kyiv or Moscow, but Berlin was calling “on all sides to stop this highly dangerous shelling.”

The European Union’s foreign policy chief, Josep Borrell, also supported call for demilitarisation of the area starting with full withdrawal of Russian forces, and urged IAEA to visit. “Zaporizhzhia facility must not be used as part of any military operation,” he wrote on Twitter.

https://www.dw.com

Japan Decides To Dump One Million Tons Of Radioactive Fukushima Water Into The Pacific; IAEA Approves

Tyler Durden – April 12, 2021

We live in a bizarre world: one where the the Keystone XL pipeline must be shut in case of a hypothetical (and extremely unlikely) leak, but where Japan is allowed to dump over one million tons of radioactive water into the Pacific Ocean. Actually, it’s either bizarre or simply exposing just how profoundly hypocritical, self-serving and corrupt the ESG/Green/Greta Thunberg theater truly is.

Last week we wrote that ten years after the Fukushima disaster, Japan had finally come “clean”, and admitted that it is “unavoidable” that it would have to dump radioactive Fukushima water in the Pacific Ocean. Fast forward to today when moments ago Kyodo confirmed what we already knew: the Japanese government decided to release treated radioactive water accumulating at the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant into the sea, having determined “it poses no safety concerns to humans or the environment” despite worries of local fishermen and neighboring countries.

So an oil pipeline whose odds of leaking are virtually zero must be shuttered immediately, but a million tons of radioactive water is “safe” and can be released into the Pacific Ocean, from where it will eventually finds its way into billions of humans around the globe.

But wait, the insanity gets better: Japan’s decision to release all this radioactivity into the ocean was backed by none other than the “scientists” at the International Atomic Energy Agency, with Director General Rafael Grossi saying it is “scientifically sound” and in line with standard practice in the nuclear industry around the world.

So… the IAEA has a standard practice of what exploded nuclear power plants do with their fallout water? And how often has this particular standard practice been invoked we wonder?

Between this and the covid debacle, one can almost see why nobody trusts the world’s so-called  scientists any more.

https://www.zerohedge.com

Iran Built, ‘Sanitised’ Secret Nuclear Site Ahead of IAEA Inspectors’ Arrival, Report Claims

– March 5, 2021

The National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), the diplomatic wing of the People’s Mujahedin of Iran (MEK), an Iran-listed domestic terrorist group, claims to have uncovered evidence of illegal activity at a secret Iranian nuclear facility.

In an online conference held Tuesday and picked up on by some US media, the NCRI provided information about an alleged deactivated nuclear site located in the Abadeh region in central Iran.

The analysis, complete with an examination of open-source intelligence, including Google Earth and DigitalGlobe satellite images, claims that the Abadeh site was previously overseen by Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, the Iranian nuclear scientist assassinated in an attack on his convoy outside Tehran late last year, and whom Israeli intelligence has alleged was the head of a secret Iranian nuclear programme.

The NCRI says the facility was built by companies controlled by Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, and played a role in ‘Project Marivan’, an element “of the clerical regime’s nuclear weapons programme”.

Iran denies that it has any intention to pursue nuclear weapons, and its supreme leaders have issued fatwas (religious rulings compliance with which is mandatory) banning the development of nuclear arms and other weapons of mass destruction.

The Abadeh site was supposedly been built for use by the Center for Research and Expansion of Technologies on Explosions and Impact (Persian acronym METFAZ), a subunit of the Organisation of Defensive Innovation and Research (SPND), the research entity which Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu claimed was tasked with pursuing the development of nukes in his ‘Iran Lied’ speech in April 2018. The Trump administration is thought to have based its decision to withdraw from the Iran nuclear deal, at least in part, on this speech.

According to the NCRI, the Abadeh facility was “sanitised” in July 2019, prior to the arrival of International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors in August of that year.

https://sputniknews.com

Dumping Fukushima’s Water into the Ocean What could possibly go wrong?

Robert Hunziker – November 1, 2020

For nearly a decade the crippled Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant has been streaming radioactive water into the Pacific Ocean. As it happens, TEPCO (Tokyo Electric Power Co.) struggles to control it. Yet, the bulk of the radioactive water is stored in more than 1,000 water tanks.

Assuredly, Japan’s government has made an informal decision to dump Fukushima Daiichi’s radioactive water into the Pacific Ocean. A formal announcement could come as early as this year. Currently, 1.2 million tonnes of radioactive water is stored.

The problem: TEPCO is running out of storage space.

Government of Japan’s solution: Dump it into the Pacific Ocean.

Third-party expert solutions: Build more storage tanks.

Environmental groups insist there is no reason why additional storage tanks cannot be constructed outside the perimeter of the plant. They accuse the government of seeking the cheapest and quickest solution to the problem. All along, authorities have promised the site will be safe in 40 years. Really, only 40 years!

According to IAEA’s Director General Grossi, who visited Fukushima in February 2020, dumping radioactive water that is mainly contaminated with tritium meets global standards of practice. (Source: Michael Jacob in Tokyo, What! Is Japan Really Planning to Dump Radioactive Water From Fukushima Into the Ocean? Sweden-Science-Innovation, June 10, 2020)

https://www.counterpunch.org