US faces limited options on North Korea

WASHINGTON (AP) Despite tough talk from President Barack Obama, the United States and its allies have limited options if North Korea goes ahead with its planned long-range rocket launch in mid-April.

Washington is likely to take the matter to the U.N. Security Council, analysts say, and could tighten its already tough sanctions. Such efforts would struggle without support from China, which can be expected to resist any moves that might threaten the stability of its neighbor.

There also is deep uncertainty about where turning the screw further on North Korea would lead. After the Security Council condemned its previous long-range rocket launch in 2009, North Korea responded by kicking out U.N. nuclear inspectors, pulling out of aid-for-disarmament negotiations and conducting its second detonation of an atomic device.

"At minimum, there has to be a statement of criticism" at the Security Council, said Gordon Flake, a Washington-based Korea analyst. "The question is how North Korea will react, and history suggests it won't react well." Read More

Japanese green tea leaves sample with low radioactivity levels Detected

Hong Kong (HKSAR) - A green tea leaves sample, imported from Japan and collected from a local retail outlet during surveillance, has been found to have low radioactivity levels, a spokesman for the Centre for Food Safety (CFS) of the Food and Environmental Hygiene Department said today (April 3). However, there is no health concern in consuming the product concerned.

Product details are as follows:

Product name: Tokan Maruko Yabuk Ta Ban Cha (Green Tea)
Manufacturer: Ochano Maruko Co Ltd
Place of origin: Shizuoka Prefecture, Japan
Packing size: 400 grams
Best before date: July 29, 2012

"The green tea leaves sample was collected from a local supermarket for radiation testing under the regular Food Surveillance Programme last Wednesday (March 28)," the CFS spokesman said.

"The test result showed that low levels of radioactive substances, Caesium-134 (Cs-134) and Caesium-137 (Cs-137), were detected at 11 Bq/kg and 19 Bq/kg respectively. However, the detected levels did not exceed the guideline levels of the Codex Alimentarius Commission (i.e.
Read More

Iranian suspicion grows over Turkey's regional role

(Reuters) - A senior Iranian political figure has spoken out against Turkey hosting Iran's next talks with world powers on its disputed nuclear program, in the latest anti-Turkish broadside from politicians in Tehran, Fars news agency reported late on Monday.

Last month Turkey offered Istanbul as the venue for talks expected to take place on April 13, a proposal which appeared to gather momentum last week when Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi said Istanbul would be "the best option".

Turkey has repeatedly backed Iran's right to develop peaceful nuclear technology. The United States and its allies suspect Tehran of covertly working on nuclear weapons and have imposed tough new sanctions on its financial and energy sectors.

Tehran, which says its nuclear activities are purely peaceful, has agreed to renewed talks with the five permanent members of the Security Council - the United States, Russia, China, France and Britain - and Germany this month. Read More

Radioctive Cesium up to 100 times levels before disaster found in plankton far off nuke plant, Japan

Radioactive cesium up to 100 times pre-nuclear disaster levels has been detected in plankton inhabiting the sea far from the crippled nuclear plant following the March 2011 disaster, according to a survey conducted by Japanese and U.S. researchers.

The high concentration of cesium, which is believed to derive from the Fukushima No. 1 Nuclear Power Plant, suggests that radioactive substances that have leaked from the complex are spreading extensively in the sea.

Jun Nishikawa, research associate with the University of Tokyo's Atmosphere and Ocean Research Institute, underscored the need for a long-term survey on the contamination of marine creatures with radioactive substances.

"Even though radiation levels detected from the plankton samples were still low, there is a possibility that large amounts of cesium will accumulate in fish through the food chain in a phenomenon called biological concentration. We need to continue our survey," he said. "Each species of marine creatures that feed on animal plankton need to be monitored over the long term."

The results of the survey were published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States on April 3. Read More

Is the U.S. preparing to send NUCLEAR drones to patrol the skies?

Hoping to keep unmanned spy aircraft in the air for a longer period of time, U.S. scientists are reportedly toying with the idea of using nukes.

Plans for such a fleet of drones were drawn up by Sandia National Laboratories, America's top agency for nuclear development, but have not yet reached the building or testing phase, according to The Guardian.

A Sandia rep told the paper: 'The research on this topic was highly theoretical and very conceptual.

'The work only resulted in a preliminary feasibility study and no hardware was ever built or tested. The project has ended'.

Using nuclear power would reportedly provide enough juice to keep drones in the air for months instead of just days.

While it may sound like an exciting technological advance, not everyone is thrilled by the idea. Read More

North Korea goes retro, developing modern version of V-1 buzz bomb as Unmanned Attack Aircraft

Kim Jong Un’s turn as nostalgic replacement for his late grandfather, Kim Il-Sung, wasn’t the only bit of “history made new again” to come out of North Korea this week.

North Korea has acquired US-made MQM-107 Streaker target drones from the Middle East and is seeking to use them as a basis for an unmanned attack aircraft program:

SEOUL, Feb. 5 (Yonhap) — North Korea is developing unmanned attack aircraft using U.S. target drones purchased from the Middle East, a military source in Seoul said Sunday, indicating the aircraft will likely target the South.

“North Korea recently bought several U.S. MQM-107D Streakers from a Middle Eastern nation that appears to be Syria, and is developing unmanned attack aircraft based on them,” the source said on condition of anonymity.

The MQM-107D Streaker is a high-speed target drone used by the U.S. and South Korean militaries for testing guided missiles.

North Korea has conducted numerous tests on high-speed target drones mounted with high explosives, but has yet to master the technology, the source said, citing South Korean intelligence sources. Read More

China mum on fears of Nuclear terrorism in Pakistan

BEIJING: China is unlikely to defend Pakistan if questions are raised at the forthcoming Nuclear Security Summit about Islamabad's ability to safeguard its nuclear installations from theft or attack by terrorists.

The summit, to be held in Seoul, South Korea, on March 26-27 , will be attended by leaders of 53 countries including Indian PM Manmohan Singh and Chinese president Hu Jintao. Source

North Korea talks ahead of satellite launch

Hong Kong (CNN) -- North Korea said Monday that a special conference of its ruling Workers' Party would take place next week, an event expected to solidify the authority of its new leader ahead of a controversial rocket launch.

The meeting of party delegates, announced by state media, also comes just ahead of a significant anniversary for the secretive, nuclear-armed state -- the 100th anniversary of the birth of Kim Il Sung, the founder of North Korea.

At the conference on April 11, Kim Il Sung's grandson, Kim Jong Un, is likely to be named secretary-general of the Workers' Party, a key post that would underline his status as "supreme leader" of the insular regime, said Chung-In Moon, professor of political science at Yonsei University in Seoul.

That appointment would be "a very important signal that he's consolidating power and positions from an institutional point of view," Moon said.

It would also mean that Kim Jong Un would ex officio become chairman of the party's central military committee, following in the footsteps of his father, Kim Jong Il, who died in December.

The expected conferring of the new titles on Kim Jong Un is scheduled to happen just before the planned launch of a satellite by Pyongyang between April 12 and 16, using a long-range rocket. Read More

North Korea launch work caught on New satellite images

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) -- New satellite images of a North Korean rocket launch site show a mobile radar trailer and rows of what appear to be empty fuel and oxidizer tanks, evidence of ramped-up preparation for what Washington calls a cover for a long-range missile test.

An analysis of images provided Monday to The Associated Press by the U.S.-Korea Institute at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies shows Pyongyang "has undertaken more extensive preparations for its planned April rocket launch than previously understood." The images were taken Wednesday.

A mobile radar trailer essential for any launch stands at the end of a new dirt road running from the entrance of the Tongchang-ri site; it has a dish antenna that's probably a radar tracking system, according to the institute's analysis. Radar tracking during a launch gives engineers crucial real-time information on the performance of the rocket's engines, guidance system and other details.

"These pictures are new and important evidence that the North's preparations for its rocket launch are progressing according to schedule," said Joel Wit, visiting fellow at the institute and editor of its website on North Korea, "38 North." The images are from Digital Globe, a commercial satellite photography company. Read More

84 percent say government stress tests for nuclear plant restarts inadequate: survey Japan

Despite the Nuclear Safety Commission (NSC) of Japan's conclusion that the idled Oi Nuclear Power Plant clears safety standards required for resuming operations, 84 percent of the public do not believe that the government's safety tests are sufficient, a Mainichi opinion poll has found.

The Mainichi survey was conducted on March 31 and April 1 via phone, using phone numbers that were chosen randomly by computer. Phone numbers in municipalities that have been deemed no-go zones due to the crisis at the Fukushima No. 1 Nuclear Power Plant were excluded. The response rate was 60 percent, with 905 people responding from 1,499 households with qualified voters.

Of the 905 respondents, 62 percent said they were against resuming operations of the No. 3 and No. 4 reactors at Kansai Electric Power Co. (KEPCO)'s Oi nuclear plant in Fukui Prefecture, far outnumbering the 33 percent who said they supported the reactors' restart. Meanwhile, only 10 percent considered the NSC's so-called stress tests to be sufficient, while 84 percent said that they were not.

Discussions over a bill that would allow the launch of a new nuclear regulatory agency have stalled in the Diet, postponing its April 1 inauguration date. Because of this, oversight of nuclear power will remain under the jurisdiction of existing government bodies for the time being, even though the public carries a great distrust toward how government bodies have handled the disaster thus far. Even among survey respondents who said that they agreed with the restart of the two Oi reactors, 67 percent said the government's stress tests were insufficient. Read More

Japan Nuclear Plant May Be Worse Off Than Thought

TOKYO — The damage to one of three stricken reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi plant could be worse than previously thought, a recent internal investigation has shown, raising new concerns over the plant’s stability and complicating the post-disaster cleanup.

The government has said that the plant’s three badly damaged reactors have been in a relatively stable state, called a cold shutdown, for months, and officials say that continues. But new tests suggest that the plant — which was ravaged last March when a powerful earthquake and tsunami hit the area — might not be as stable as the government or the operator of the plant, Tokyo Electric Power Company, or Tepco, had hoped.

The key to keeping the reactors stable is keeping their fuel rods cool with water.

The company announced this week that an examination of one reactor, No. 2, showed that the water level in an outer containment vessel was far lower than estimated, which could indicate that the already badly damaged uranium fuel might not be completely submerged and, therefore, is in danger of heating up. Read More

Radioactivity levels found to be dangerous due to uranium mines in northern Arizona on Navajo lands

For some Navajos, the uranium contamination is all of a piece with their fraught relationship with the federal government.

“They’re making excuses, and they’ve always made excuses,” Ms. Knorr said. “The government should have had a law in place that told these mining companies: you clean up your mess when you leave.”
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A Navajo friend was once telling me about Monument Valley, about those famous structures that you see in northern Arizona made famous by old western films.

Little did I know that those famous landmarks are radioactive, and some contain old uranium mines at the top of them. Some 8.7 million pounds of uranium oxide were taken from these sacred lands by Monument Valley.

Arizona is the land of everything.

We have deserts and we have snow. We have tall mountains and deep canyons. We have the newest urban areas and old Native American domains, from dug up villages that pre-date the birth of Jesus to the largest area of reservations in the country.

We have a large elder and retired population from out of state, immigrants if you will, and we have more than 50% of the babies born today being minority, and its no wonder the older people with the money don’t want to share it by paying for public education.

Arizona also has the largest nuclear power plant in the nation, one that you can see as you head west of Phoenix on I-10 towards LA. It is also the only one not near a source of water, but instead uses 20,000,000,000 gallons of sewage water a year for cooling.

The Navajo Nation, sacred land near the Grand Canyon and Four Corners area, is also home to lots of uranium and coal. This is were Arizona gets a lot of its energy from, and Tucson is not exempt, exploiting this finite resource in the land that extends from Northeastern Arizona and into New Mexico, home of the dirtiest coal plants in the nation. Read More

U.S. halting food aid means scrapping food-for-nuke deal: North Korea

BEIJING (Kyodo) -- North Korea warned the United States on Saturday that suspending food aid to the country under a bilateral food-for-nuclear deal would amount to scrapping the agreement "in its entirety."

The deal, struck in Beijing and announced Feb. 29, commits North Korea to implement moratoriums on nuclear tests, long-range missile launches and uranium enrichment activities in exchange for 240,000 tons of U.S. food aid.

North Korea's Foreign Ministry sounded the warning in criticizing the United States for signaling the suspension of planned food aid if Pyongyang goes ahead with the launch of a "satellite" in mid-April that Washington says violates a 2006 U.N. Security Council resolution.

The United States "responded to the DPRK's planned satellite launch with the announcement to stop following through on its commitment to food aid. This would be a regrettable act of scrapping the DPRK-U.S. agreement in its entirety as it is a violation of the core articles of the February 29 DPRK-U.S. agreement," a Foreign Ministry spokesman was quoted as saying by the official Korean Central News Agency. Read More

Foods with excessive radiation under new rule found in 8 prefectures in Japan

TOKYO (Kyodo) -- Food items containing levels of radioactive cesium exceeding a new limit, to be enforced from Sunday, have been found in 421 instances in eight prefectures since January this year, a survey by the health ministry showed Saturday.

The food items with levels exceeding 100 becquerels per kilogram of cesium were found in Fukushima, Iwate, Miyagi, Yamagata, Ibaraki, Tochigi, Gunma and Chiba prefectures in the survey conducted through March 21, according to the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare.

Of the 421 cases, about 80 percent involved seafood and river fishes, and the remainder involved shiitake mushrooms and the meat of wild animals such as boars and birds.

Almost all cases involving vegetables related to shiitake mushrooms. Read More

Off-limits order lifted for parts of 2 Fukushima municipalities

TAMURA/KAWAUCHI, Japan (Kyodo) -- The government lifted its off-limits order Sunday for parts of Tamura city and Kawauchi village in Fukushima Prefecture, located near the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant.

Residents from these areas, where radiation levels are relatively low, will now be allowed to freely enter the areas without taking protective measures against radiation exposure although they cannot stay overnight.

It was the first revision of the government's designation of evacuation zones in the current no-go zone within a 20-kilometer radius from the plant since the nuclear accident, which was triggered by the earthquake and tsunami disaster on March 11 last year.

Eimasa Tsuboi, 72, from Tamura said he wants to rebuild his family's collapsed ancestral grave first. Read More

U.S. can maintain nuclear arms without tests

WASHINGTON (AP) -- A study by the National Academy of Sciences has found that the U.S. can maintain its nuclear arsenal without resuming the testing program it suspended nearly 20 years ago, addressing a key issue in the debate over ratification of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty.

The study also found that monitoring networks would likely detect even relatively small nuclear blasts in most parts of the world, apparently countering concerns that other nations could cheat on the agreement without getting caught.

President Barack Obama's has repeatedly called for Senate ratification of the treaty, most recently in a speech at the nuclear security summit in Seoul. The president has made arms control and nonproliferation central to his foreign policy and has pledged to work for a world free of nuclear weapons. The Associated Press reported in February that the administration is looking at plans to reduce the number of U.S.-deployed nuclear weapons by up to 80 percent.

Some Senate Republicans, though, have raised doubts that the aging U.S. arsenal could be counted on to work without periodic testing and have expressed concern that other countries might overtake the U.S. through clandestine nuclear tests. Read More