The plant, which is located on the shore of the great lake and operated by Entergy, was shut down after the water tank exceeded its site threshold and leaked. Authorities say the crack led to about 79 gallons of “slightly radioactive water” spilling from the Palisades plant into the lake, WOOD-TV reports.The leak came from a 300,000-gallon injection and refueling tank, which floods and cools the nuclear reactor with borated water during refueling outages. It also removes heat from the reactor when there is a loss of coolant by sourcing the safety injection system.This month’s incident marks the second time the injection and refueling tank leaked, and caused the ninth shutdown of the plant since September 2011. Since 2012, the plant shut down six times as a result of leaks.It took operators about a week and a half to find the source of the leak. But even though authorities acknowledged that the leaking water was radioactive, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission claims that this poses no risk to the local community, since it is was diluted.“The NRC’s radiation dose limits are based on scientific studies and have not been shown to cause harmful health effects,” NRC spokeswoman Viktoria Mitlyng told MLive. “The NRC regularly reviews new information to make sure the agency’s limits are optimal for protecting public health. But this was an unplanned release that should not have happened.”The NRC says the assessed dose to the public was 0.002 percent of the federal limit. The maximum dose to the public is limited to 0.1 rem per year. But because the Palisades plant has been shut down nine times since September 2011 and has frequently leaked in the past, Americans have expressed deep concern over the lack of safety that repeatedly causes problems in the lakeside Covert Township, Mich.David Lochbaum, director of the Union of Concerned Scientists’ nuclear safety project, told MLive that it is unacceptable for the plant to suffer repeated leaks, and that Entergy should repair it properly rather than continuously patching up leaks. The NRC mandates plant owners to find and fix all safety hazards.“Applying Band-Aid fixes every few months is not complying with this federal regulation,” he said. “The NRC must take steps to ensure that a federal regulation developed to protect public health and safety is consistently being met rather than consistently being violated. ‘Patch and restart’ may be great for generating revenue, but it is very bad for public safety.”Congressman Fred Upton, the chair of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce,on Mondaytook a tour of the plant and announced that it will remain shut down until officials are sure it is safe to re-start. He said 10 of the tank’s nozzles are currently being upgraded and he will return to re-examine the plant before it is restarted. … Read More
Iraq in ruins: Post-war life overshadowed by crumbling infrastructure, corruption, poverty
In spite of billions of dollars spent on reconstruction following the decade-long conflict, many neighborhoods lack sewerage systems and trash collection services. In some settlements, there are barely any streets. Water is also a big problem, locals pointed out.“Nobody drinks the city water because we know it’s not clean. Since the war, I’ve had to rely on bottled water. What comes out of the tap is contaminated and makes us sick. How can we drink it?” local resident Umm Muhammad indicated. Central power is another issue, with the system sometimes on for as little as two hours a day. Electrician from Baghdad Abu Meria is sure the new government is to blame for the chaos that reigning in his homeland.“It’s the citizens who suffer in the end, not the government. The services are so bad and the power system has really deteriorated. There were billions spent on fixing the grid but there’s little to show for it.”Abu Meria now earns four times more than before the war due to the frequent failures and blackouts all over the city.As RT’s Lucy Kafanov also discovered, the crumbling infrastructure is closely entangled with rampant corruption.Transparency International group has ranked Iraq as the eighth most-corrupt state in the world. In the latest scandal, the country’s Electricity Ministry was involved in a $1.7 billion fraud case.On the backdrop of this, most Iraqis remain impoverished, struggling to make their ends meet. In the Al Tajiat landfill, on the outskirts of Baghdad, people are actually forced to live – without any proper living conditions.“There are no schools for the kids here, no electricity, no real houses. To get a drink of water we have to travel 4km. It’s very difficult to live here.” Watch RT’s Lucy Kafanov’s full report. … Read More
Hunger strikers won’t stop until they get a fair trial – former Gitmo inmate
Kunaz, who languished in Guantanamo for five years even though the American authorities knew he was innocent after 4 months, told RT that he was tortured to sign papers saying he was a member of Al-Qaeda or the Taliban. RT: How did you end up in Guantanamo?Murat Kunaz: I was sold for bounty, $3,000 dollars to the American government, but as soon as the American government found out that I was innocent and not a terrorist, they let me go back home. They knew I was innocent 4 months after I got arrested, but I stayed 5 years in Guantanamo altogether. They always forced me to sign papers saying that I should agree that I am a member of Al-Qaeda and the Taliban and every time I refused to sign those kinds of papers they tortured me in different kind of ways like water-boarding and electric shocks. They thought that I would agree to sign those papers. RT: Why, if they knew you were innocent after four months, were you only released after 5 years? MK: I was from the beginning innocent, so they could have let me go home any time if they wanted. The German government had to agree that they wanted to take me back, so as soon as they did this I was allowed to come back home. RT: But why did it take so long if they knew you were innocent? MK: Because once you are in the system it’s very difficult to get out even if the government knows you are innocent. 95% of those prisoners have never had a trail and they still won’t get one in the future. That means they’ll be staying there all their life, even though they are innocent. RT: Did you ever go on hunger strike when you were in Guantanamo? MK: Yes, I went on hunger strike a couple of times during my time in Guantanamo. If you have been on hunger strike more than 3-4 weeks, they start force feeding you and that means you get handcuffed and shackled to a chair so you can’t move and you get fed food through a pipe up your nose and into your stomach, so they can keep you alive for many months or years of course.RT: What is driving prisoners to take these desperate measures? MK: I can understand those detainees, they have been there more than 11 years, and they still haven’t had a trial. I think it will be their last hunger strike for most of the detainees. I believe they will never eat regular meals there again. They’ll have to be force fed or else they will die. RT: Did anything change in Guantanamo when the Obama administration came into power? MK: Yes, a little bit. There were small changes, a couple of things. It was very important for us to get medication for sick prisoners. We had some prisoners who were very sick, they needed medication that they weren’t getting. So, when we started hunger striking they started giving out medication for those sick people. RT: What needs to be done to close Guantanamo? MK: Of course more pressure needs to be put on the president of the USA, Barack Obama, including the hunger strike. So if this continues things might change. RT: What do the inmates of Guantanamo want? MK: They want to be tried. This is all they need. As soon as this happens they will be happy. RT: How long do you think this hunger strike will go on for? MK: We can’t compare this hunger strike now with other ones, which went on for one or two months – this hunger strike is already over three months. Even the American government has to take it very seriously now because more than 80% of the prisoners are on hunger strike.RT: Have you spoken to anyone else who has been in Guantanamo? MK: I have talked to a couple of prisoners who were released after I got released, so they told me a couple of things were much the same, after Barack Obama, a couple of things got changed but nothing much. … Read More
Shopkeeper jailed for ‘torture’ of three teens
A Stockholm shopkeeper has been jailed for two years for locking up three teenage boys in his store’s cellar for ten hours, where he mimicked aspects of water boarding on one of them. … Read More
Radioactive Leak Coming From U.S. Nuclear Power Plant
http://www.youtube.com/v/Ij-MjKTf6ow?version=3&f=videos&app=youtube_gdata Original source: Radioactive Leak Coming From U.S. Nuclear Power Plant
Chile violence video: Teargas, water cannons used against students
http://www.youtube.com/v/Vy1Kdcx5gBc?version=3&f=videos&app=youtube_gdata See the article here: Chile violence video: Teargas, water cannons used against students
