Nuclear Hotseat

 Rudolph's not the only reindeer glowing in Norway...

INTERVIEW:
Dr. Helen Caldicott - Nobel Peace Prize nominee, founder of Physicians for Social Responsibility, pediatrician, veteran anti-nuclear activist and author - discusses her latest book,
"Crisis Without End" about Fukushima's medical and ecological consequences, and her upcoming
2015 Symposium on Nuclear Weapons.

Dr. Helen Caldicott (r) with Nuclear Hotseat's Libbe HaLevy at the 2013 Symposium on the Medical and Ecological Consequences of the Fukushima Nuclear Disaster

NUMNUTZ OF THE WEEK:  Two core graphite bricks are cracked, but hey, that's "expected" in the lifetime of the Hunterston B nuke facility in Scotland.  So is its lifetime over?  Hah!  This is nuclear!  They just upped the number of "expected" cracks and call it safe.  Numnutz, indeed!

PLUS:

• "Enormous orange flash" over Iranian military facility suspected of harboring secret nuke program; was it nuclear?
• Japan's typhoon Phanfone sets off alarms, triggers leaks at Fukushima Units 1 & 3;
• Congress wakes up to join Saginaw Chippewa Indian Tribe to oppose Ontario's proposed nuclear waste site less than a mile from Lake Huron;
• Judge upholds 20-year ban on new uranium mines near Grand Canyon;
• Department of Energy blows deadline to start emptying leaking nuke waste storage tank at Hanford site in Washington, so the state gives 'em another 18 months before the start... and still, the stuff keeps leaking!
• Sweden phasing out all nuclear if coalition of ruling Social Democrats and Green Party have their way;
• Radioactivity in Norway's reindeer hits new high; Rudolph not the only one who's glowing.

INTERVIEWS:

Focus on the American southwest and the fallout from the Valentine's Day  radwaste container explosion at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant, or WIPP site in Carlsbad, New Mexico.

• Don Hancock, Executive Director of Southwest Information and Resource Center, corrects some misinformation about radiation levels surrounding the site, then gives his take on the "plans" to fix the problem and the recent shake-up at Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) that removed four managers in charge of transuranic waste -- meaning the stuff that exploded at WIPP-- from their positions.
• Karen Hadden, Executive Director of the Sustainable Energy and Economic Development or SEED Coalition  in Texas, brings us up to date on water woes and contamination possibilities at the Waste Control Specialists (WCS) storage facility in Andrews Texas.  This is where the waste from Los Alamos National Laboratory that could not be sent to WIPP ended up.

NUMNUTZ OF THE WEEK:

• Yes, it's soup... but is it art?  Is it mmm mmm good or death warmed over?  Deadly Japanese hospitality offered at the Frieze Art Fair in London when conceptual artists United Brothers - originally from Iwaki in Fukushima - fly their mother in to make free soup out of Fukushima vegetables.  Isn't there a zombie movie that starts like this?

PLUS:

• Fuel rods losing uranium pellets at North Anna in Virginia
• Radiation hot spots found on ocean floor within 25 kilometers/15 miles of Fukushima
• Exelon asks Illinois for a mere $580 million to keep its nuclear reactors running
• Pakistan wants a larger place at the international nuclear table - what could go wrong?