Nuclear Hotseat

Dr. Celine-Marie Pascale, Professor of Sociology and Affiliate Professor for the School of Communication at American University in Washington, D.C.  She researched mainstream media coverage of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster that shows the bias that those of us in this movement always said was there -- and she's got the data to prove it!

Could anything be numnutzier than Canada approving creation of a nuclear waste dump less than 3/4 of a mile from the shores of Lake Huron?

• 85-year-old Sister Megan Rice's sabotage conviction overturned by Federal court!  Ruling also covers co-defendants 66-year-old Michael Walli and 59-year-old Greg Boertje-Obed.
• Transformer explosion and fire at Indian Point nuclear reactor in New York, only 40 miles from Manhattan!
• Radon releases from uranium mine near native lands in southwest Utah!
• "Significant" amounts of Fukushima radiation detected in Pacific ocean off the coast of north America!
• Radiation from Chernobyl forest fire found in plume that hits US west coast!
• Too many exclamation marks in this write-up!

• Lou Zeller, Executive Director of the Blue Ridge Environmental Defense League, on the nuclear reactors downstream of the leaking, sinkhole'ed Boone Dam in Tennessee.
• Jim Hopson, Manager of Public Relations for the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA), on current status of Boone Dam.
• Physicians for Social Responsibility's Christine Herrmann and Martin Fleck on PSR's Nukebusters Film Competition - with cash prizes of up to $5,000 for 1-4 minute films!  (Click on logo below.)

NUMNUTZ OF THE WEEK:

When is a financial slap on the wrist really an investment in infrastructure?  When the Enviromental Protection Agency, New Mexico's Governor Susana Martinez and the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP site) in Carlsbad come together!  Nothing like a radiological accident at a nuclear facility to spark more interest in developing a new nuclear facility!

• Chernobyl forest fire in the exclusion zone out, but radiation carried by smoke, wind lands throughout Eastern Europe... and probably the rest of the world as well.
• As Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty Review Conference at the United Nations meets in New York, global activists present 8 million petitions demanding a world free of nuclear weapons.
• Food fight!  Japan challenges Taiwan - how DARE they propose radiation food safety legislation!
• TEPCO admits Fukushima radioactive water leak now over 600x "safe" level - and it's going into the Pacific.

www.psr.org/nuclear-weapons/nukebusters-short-film-contest.html

This week, we commemorate the 29th anniversary of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster in Ukraine with a Nuclear Hotseat Special.  You'll hear from:

• Chernobyl survivor Bonnie Kouneva, a teenager in Bulgaria when the accident began, on the impact to her and her not-yet-born children;

[caption id="attachment_2552" align="aligncenter" width="400"]

First picture taken of Chernobyl only 14 hours after the explosion and fire of April 26, 1986. The fogging is caused by the radiation, measured at over 1,500 rems.[/caption]

• Dr. Janette Sherman, well known for her work with statistician Joseph Mangano on analyses of data after Fukushima that indicate a spike in US infant mortality and hypothyroidism.  She also edited the English edition of Dr. Alexey Yablokov's groundbreaking book, Chernobyl: Consequences of the Catastrophe for People and the Environment;
• A brief interview w/Dr. Alexey Yablokov from Dr. Helen Caldicott's 2013 Symposium on the Medical and Ecological Impact of the Fukushima Nuclear Disaster;

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The new sarcophagus, intended to encase the radioactive remains of Chernobyl for another 100 years, remains unfinished and $625 million (US) short on funds, caught between Russia and Ukraine in the recent political tensions and fighting.[/caption]

• Voices from Japan makes the Chernobyl/Fukushima connection personal with a message from Ryuichi Hirokawa, a Japanese journalist who was the first non-Soviet photo journalist allowed at Chernobyl and began working at Fukushima the day after the disaster began.  He currently works with children and families through the Incorporated NPO Okinawa Kumi No Sato.

QUEBEC CITY -- The world's perception of nuclear issues shifted in mid-April in Quebec at the World Uranium Symposium and the Uranium Film Festival.  More than 300 participants from five continents, 20 countries - including South Africa, Mongolia, Australia, India, Mali, Cameroon, Greenland, Germany, and Japan - and more than 50 films from around the world came together to focus international attention on uranium issues.  Why uranium?  Because all things nuclear start with a shovel! 

• April 14-16, the World Uranium Symposium made international news by issuing a jointly created Declaration of the World Uranium Symposium 2015.  This is HISTORIC, as for the first time our entire platform and position has been spelled out for all to read in a single document.  READ IT AND SIGN HERE 
• Interviews with more than 20 activists, world experts, filmmakers and actors
• Focus on Indigenous People's rights and the need to protect their lands and health from uranium mining.

• More than 50 films from around the world on every aspect of the nuclear/uranium issue.
• Gala Red Carpet Opening including performances by Cirque du Soleil. 

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Libbe HaLevy gets steampunked by Cirque du Soleil at the Uranium Film Festival[/caption]

• Special appearance by Hollywood favorite Ed Begley, Jr.
• Reviews of films and interviews with filmmakers and cast.