Nuclear Hotseat

Radiation Monitoring - modeled by citizens in Japan, needed in USA and everywhere else because of manipulative nonsense like what's demonstrated in this cartoon. 

• Radiation Monitoring in USA based on Japan's Citizen Activist model is the focus of our interview with this week's guest.  Originally from Japan, Rachel Clark holds a degree in International Studies from Ramapo College of New Jersey.  As an independent interpreter/global coordinator, her language capacity has been utilized in various international events:  she supported former Prime Minister of Japan, Naoto Kan at the Coalition Against Nuke’s Symposium in 2013; and former Mayor of Nago City, Okinawa, Susumu Inamine, when he made various official visits to New York and Washington DC in 2014 and 2015; former president of East Timor, José Ramos-Horta (Nobel Peace Prize laureate) onboard Peace Boat in 2018; and many others.  She coordinated the English version of “Citizens’ Radiation Data Map of Japan,” which is now available in both digital and printed formats. We spoke on April 2, 2021.
• Email to contact Rachel Clark to be put on list to learn more about this program as it develops:  [email protected]
  
• Video from Rachel Clark that led to this episode:
  https://youtu.be/CTyFx_SuIWY 

• Minna No Data Site - English
• Citizens’ Radiation Data Map of Japan - English
• Manhattan Project for a Nuclear-Free World home page
• Manhattan Project for a Nuclear-Free World - Youtube channel
• Downloadable 100 years map of Japan's radiation after Fukushima nuclear disaster
• Video from a measuring lab in Saitama Prefecture

Turkish Nuclear Reactors - Photo from a protest of the Turkish Antinuclear Platform by multiple anti-nuclear groups, where Pinar Demircan is representing her group, nukleersiz.org.

• Pınar Demircan is a Turkish antinuclear activist and a journalist who started writing about nuclear after the Fukushima nuclear disaster began. She speaks Japanese and English as well as Turkish, and has been involved to global forums and panels where she presented on nuclear projects and the antinuclear struggle in Turkey. Currently, she writes at Yesil Gazete (Green News) and Civil Pages.  At the same time, she is the Project coordinator of Nukleersiz.org (means Nuclear free), which is a member of Turkey's Antinuclear Platform and Do Not Nuke the Climate network. She spoke with us from her home in Istanbul on February 20, 2021.
• To contact Pinar Demircan: [email protected] or on Twitter:  @pnrizumi
• LINK to English transcription of Russian Involvement portion of interview
• LINKS to writing by Pinar Demircan based on the episode:
  
  • Problems around Akkuyu NPP is so dire that, even the supporters of nuclear energy must object’ (Interview) 
  • For Sinop NPP, Turkey seeks EIA without a company for a reference reactor
    
  • Akkuyu Nuclear Power Plant is already a problem - https://yesilgazete.org/akkuyu-nuclear-power-plant-is-already-a-problem/
  • Radioactive realities of Gaziemir: Turkey’s authoritarian negligence
  • Contact Nuclear-Free Turkey - www.nukleersiz.org

Turkish journalist and anti-nuclear activist Pinar Demircan (l).

So ya wanna go on vacation?  Why not explore the "mysteries" and "magical experiences" awaiting  you on this memorable trip to... Chernobyl!  Just don't expect their promised insurance to be worth squat...

• The 7 Reasons Why Nuclear Energy is NOT the Answer to Solve Climate Change by Mark Z. Jacobson
• Logo Contest for the National Radioactive Waste Coalition - Deadline April 30, 2020.
• LINKS for films coming... 

Three Mile Island Nuclear Meltdown: Never Forget!
March 28, 1979 in Middletown, Pennsylvania
Nuclear Hotseat producer/Host Libbe HaLevy was one mile from the nuclear accident when it happened.  In this picture, taken 10 days after the accident began, she attempts to inject some humor into a decidedly unfunny situation.  That scream looks like a joke, but it wasn't.

For more info on Libbe's book about the experience, YES, I GLOW IN THE DARK!  One Mile from Three Mile Island to Fukushima and Nuclear Hotseat, SCROLL DOWN.

• Arnie Gundersen, Chief Engineer for Fairewinds Energy Education.
  Watch a video of Arnie Gundersen speaking about the accident at the 40th Anniversary of the founding of TMI Alert.
  
• Peter Bradford, who was a Commissioner at the Nuclear Regulatory Commissioner  during the TMI accident.
• Eric Epstein, Chair of Three Mile Island Alert. 
  TMI Alert’s Radiation monitoring page.
• Mary Stamos, long time Middletown resident and TMIA member
• Walter Cronkite, anchor for the CBS Evening News at the time of TMI and known as “the most trusted newsman in America.  To view his CBS network reports on TMI, CLICK HERE.
  
  

Our thanks to filmmaker Robert (Robbie) Leppzer, producer of the two-hour audio documentary Voices from Three Mile Island, for permission to use excerpts from that work in this program.  These include:

• Portions of the news montage
• Middletown Mayor Bob Reid
• Dairy farmer Jane Lee
• Local resident Pat Street
• Dr. Michael Gluck, general practitioner, who works out of three Harrisburg hospitals and lives within two miles of the TMI reactors. 

The complete VOICES FROM THREE MILE ISLAND audio documentary is available as a free download at:  https://www.powerstrugglemovie.com/voices-from-three-mile-island

Power Struggle, Robbie Leppzer's current film, is the story of the successful citizen-activist led shutdown of the Vermont Yankee nuclear power station.  For a limited time, if you purchase a ticket for the film through Nuclear Hotseat, half the purchase price will be donated to support the show.  You can get more information and buy your tickets HERE. 

Libbe HaLevy's nuclear memoir, YES, I GLOW IN THE DARK!  One Mile from Three Mile Island to Fukushima and Nuclear Hotseat, contains full information on her experience having been one mile from the nuclear accident at TMI when it happened.  You can purchase your copy of the book HERE. 

Plutonium + Nazis + Crashes = US Nukes in Space Dangers - When the Antares rocket crashed in 2014 (above), nothing was said about the possibility of plutonium on board, but research reveals that the power source for this style of rocket was listed as a 4 kg. fuel capsule in the shape of a long rod which contained plutonium-238 - with a half-life of 89.6 years.  Not reported at the time, and confirmation not yet achieved... but what if it did have plutonium on board?  
Listen Here: 

• Plutonium + Nazis + Crashes = U.S. Nukes in Space Dangers - As regular listeners to Nuclear Hotseat know, Karl Grossman is one of my favorite interviewees. He is an author and journalism professor at the State University of New York/College at Old Westbury, host of the television program Enviro Close-Up with Karl Grossman, author of six books, and writer of numerous magazine, newspaper and Internet articles. Karl has been covering nuclear issues for over 50 years, and he carries our archives in his mind – would that we could publish THAT. We talk with him here about nukes in space, where the impulse to expand nuclear domination came from, and the dangers nuclear represents, from launch to orbit to crash-down. We talked on March 12, 2021.LINKS from the interview:
  
  • Karl Grossman's cornerstone book,COVER UP: What you are NOT supposed to know about nuclear power.

• Chernobyl: Consequences of the Catastrophe for People and the Environment is a translation of a 2007 Russian publication by Alexey V. Yablokov, Vassily B. Nesterenko, and Alexey V. Nesterenko, edited by Janette D. Sherman-Nevinger
• Global Network Against Weapons and Nuclear Power in Space
  
• Rachel Traczyk is a field organizer with Beyond the Bomb and a recipient of their Future First Fellowship. She shares about the Fellowship, what it did for her, and how young people can apply.  The link for the application (deadlne for application April 30) is:   https://beyondthebomb.org/futurefirst-fellowship-summer-2021/.If you have questions, email Rachel at: [email protected] or her associate Tristan at [email protected].

Fukushima 10: In Okuma Town, in the Difficult to Return Zone, foreign TV crew members wear protective gear while the lone decontamination worker sweeping the street is wearing regular work clothes.
Photo courtesy of Shinshuu Hida.

Fukushima 10: Voices from Japan - The 9th edition of Nuclear Hotseat's Voices from Japan features on-the-ground interviews with people working in or involved with Fukushima.  For the first time, we are posting the original interviews in Japanese (scroll down).

The interviews on this episode of Nuclear Hotseat: Voices from Japan were based on original Japanese interviews conducted by Yuji Kaneko.
今回のニュークリアホットシート福島原発事故特集１は日本語によるインタビューを元に作られました。

＊インタビューは商業施設内で行われたため雑音が入っています。  ご了承ください。

*The interviews were conducted in public spaces, so there is background noise.

To listen to photographer Shinshuu Hida’s original interview in Japanese, CLICK HERE
飛田晋秀さんの日本語インタビューはこちら: CLICK HERE

Fukushima 10: Photographer Shinshuu Hida in Tomioka Town, Fukushima Prefecture.
Note the security guard in the background taking pictures of the photojournalists with his smart phone.  Photo courtesy of Yuji Kaneko.

Shinshuu Hida’s website is here:  飛田さんのウェブサイトhttps://www.fukushimanosugata.com

To listen to radiation researcher Nobuyoshi Ito’s Interview in Japanese, CLICK HERE

伊藤延由さんの日本語インタビューはこちら: CLICK HERE

Fukushima 10:  Radiation researcher Nobuyoshi Ito at Iitate Village Nature Park.  He explains that the farther you go up the hill, away from the decontaminated area, the higher the radiation level.  There are no signs to prevent people and children from using this park.
Photo courtesy of Yuji Kaneko. 

Fukushima 10:  Radiation reading on the ground in front of the Japanese Agricultural Coop Building in Okuma Town.  Photo Courtesy of Shinshuu Hida.

March 3, 2020 Press Conference on "Radioactive Hotspots along Olympic Torch Relay Route" with (l-r) Kazumasa Aoki: Vice President, Radioactivity Monitoring Center for Citizen; Nobuyoshi Ito: Iitate Village Resident; and Jun Nakamura: Co-Chairman, Fukuichi Area Environmental Radiation Monitoring Project