Tim Judson: Five Years Later Nuclear Crisis at Fukushima Continues

Award-winning Investigative Journalist Robert Parry (1949-2018)

Award-winning investigative journalist and founder/editor of ConsortiumNews.com, Robert Parry has passed away. His ground-breaking work uncovering Reagan-era dirty wars in Central America and many other illegal and immoral policies conducted by successive administrations and U.S. intelligence agencies, stands as an inspiration to all in journalists working in the public interest.

Robert had been a regular guest on our Between The Lines and Counterpoint radio shows -- and many other progressive outlets across the U.S. over four decades.

His penetrating analysis of U.S. foreign policy and international conflicts will be sorely missed, and not easily replaced. His son Nat Parry writes a tribute to his father: Robert Parry’s Legacy and the Future of Consortiumnews.

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The Resistance Starts Now!

Between The Lines' coverage and resource compilation of the Resistance Movement

"The man who predicted Trump presidential win now says Trump impeachment could happen," AM Joy with Joy Reid, MSNBC, Jan. 21, 2018
"Sketchy Kazakh money finds its way into Trump dealings," The Rachel Maddow Show, MSNBC, Jan. 15, 2018
"Red flags seen in many Trump real estate deals," The Rachel Maddow Show, MSNBC, Jan. 15, 2018
"Secret Money: How Trump Made Millions Selling Condos To Unknown Buyers," BuzzFeed, Jan. 12, 2018
"The Scandals of Donald Trump: Presidential Edition," The Atlantic, May 15, 2017
"Here's what we know so far about Team Trump's ties to Russian interests," Washington Post's ongoing compilation
"What Comey Was Investigating, Explained," The Moscow Project, Center for American Progress

"Donald Trump's Financial Ties to Russian Oligarchs and Mobsters Detailed In Explosive New Documentary from the Netherlands," Dutch TV documentary, Alternet.org, May 12, 2017
Ongoing compilation of Trump's creeping authoritarianism," MotherJones.com
Full resource list ...

SPECIAL REPORT: "The Resistance - Women's March 2018 - Hartford, Connecticut" Jan. 20, 2018

Selected speeches from the Women's March in Hartford, Connecticut 2018, recorded and produced by Scott Harris

SPECIAL REPORT: "No Fracking Waste in CT!" Jan. 14, 2018

Jen Siskind Jennifer Siskind, local coordinator for Food and Water Watch, describes the campaign to stop fracking waste in Connecticut, which so far has led to fracking waste bans in 34 towns around the state. Interviewed by Richard Hill on Mic Check, WPKN Radio, Bridgeport, CT

SPECIAL REPORT: "Resistance Round Table: The Unraveling Continues..." Jan. 13, 2018

Lindsay Kanaly The panel discusses Trump's long history of racism and the Republican voter suppression juggernaut confronting Democrats leading up to the 2018 elections. Special guest: Lindsay Kanaly, a lead organizer of the Women's Marches planned for Jan. 20, 2018. Panel: Scott Harris, Ruthanne Baumgartner and Richard Hill on Resistance Roundtable, WPKN Radio, Bridgeport, CT.

SPECIAL REPORT: "Capitalism to the ash heap?" Richard Wolff, Jan. 2, 2018

Richard Wolff, Economics professor Richard Wolff declares U.S. capitalism to be beyond repair and suggests the need for a radical alternative. Interviewed by Richard Hill

SPECIAL REPORT: Maryn McKenna, author of "Big Chicken", Dec. 7, 2017

Maryn McKenna, investigative journalist and author of Big Chicken, talks about the widespread use and dangers of antibiotics in commercial poultry, beef and fruit production. Interview by Bill Duesing, Richard Hill and Guy Beardsly on WPKN's Organic Farm Stand.

SPECIAL REPORT: Nina Turner's address, Working Families Party Awards Banquet, Dec. 14, 2017

Nina Turner, president of Our Revolution, talks about the fight ahead for progressives as she receives the Working Families Organization Award for Exceptional Leadership Towards Advancing Progress. The event was held in Meriden, CT. Produced by Richard Hill.

SPECIAL REPORT: Mic Check, Dec. 12, 2017

Working Families Party of CT talks strategy and issues for 2018.
Lindsay Farrell, executive director of the Working Families Party of Connecticut, discusses the state's electoral landscape and lays out the issues and strategies that could lead to progressive victories in 2018. Interviewed by Richard Hill.

SPECIAL REPORT: Resistance Roundtable, Dec. 9, 2017

Disturbing developments in the Trump/Republican Agenda
Focus on the tax bill, destruction of our public lands, North Korea and Trump's private CIA. Panel: Scott Harris, Ruthanne Baumgartner and Richard Hill. Special guest: Jo Macallero of Rise and Resist.

SPECIAL REPORT: On Tyranny - one year later, Nov. 28, 2017

Professor Timothy Snyder, author of the highly acclaimed resistance manual On Tyranny, discusses his book and offers a fresh assessment of the state of our beleaguered republic. Timothy Snyder, history professor at Yale, is introduced by Stanley Heller, administrator of Promoting Enduring Peace, a Connecticut-based organization that sponsored this event at the United Church Parish House in New Haven on Nov. 28. A brief interview with Snyder conducted by WPKN radio producer, Richard Hill, follows his talk.

SPECIAL REPORT: Mic Check, Nov. 12, 2017

Lynne Ide, director of program and policy with the Universal Health Care Foundation of Connecticut, talks about the current state of health care coverage in Connecticut. Interviewed by Richard Hill, WPKN radio producer

SPECIAL REPORT: Resistance Roundtable, Nov. 11, 2017

Focus on the Republican tax plan, the just-released autopsy on the Democratic Party, and Internet censorship by Google, Facebook and Youtube. Including an interview with Hilary Grant, a lead organizer with Action Together Connecticut, who discusses the local results of the recent election, with hosts Richard Hill, Scott Harris and Ruth Baumgartner WPKN producers

SPECIAL REPORT: Rainy Day Radio, Nov. 7, 2017

Two leaders from Redneck Revolt, an anti-racist, anti-capitalist movement, talk about their work organizing with white working class people in Suffolk County, New York. Interviewed by Richard Hill, WPKN radio producer

SPECIAL REPORT: Rainy Day Radio, Nov. 7, 2017

Bruce Gagnon, coordinator for the Global Network Against Weapons and Nuclear Power in Space, describes the extent of -- and motives underlying -- the vast US network of military bases around the globe. Interviewed by Richard Hill, WPKN radio producer

SPECIAL REPORT: Resisting U.S. JeJu Island military base in South Korea, Oct. 24, 2017

Joyakol, South Korean peace activist and singer, discusses the crisis on the Korean peninsula and focuses on the resistance to the U.S. huge military base being constructed on Jeju Island. The event was sponsored by the Greater New Haven Peace Council and this audio was recorded by Richard Hill, WPKN producer.
Joyakol discusses Americans' biggest misconceptions about the conflict between North and South Korea and the U.S., Interview by Richard Hill, WPKN producer.

SPECIAL REPORT: John Allen, Out in New Haven

John Allen, founding director of the New Haven Pride Center, Connecticut, talks about his new LGBTQ television show, Out in New Haven, which presents a range of political and cultural issues to the community. Interviewed by Richard Hill on WPKN's Rainy Day Tuesday, Jan. 2, 2018.

2017 Gandhi Peace Awards

Promoting Enduring Peace presented its Gandhi Peace Award jointly to renowned consumer advocate Ralph Nader and BDS founder Omar Barghouti on April 23, 2017.

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THANK YOU TO EVERYONE...

who helped make our 25th anniversary with Jeremy Scahill a success!

For those who missed the event, or were there and really wanted to fully absorb its import, here it is in video

Jeremy Scahill keynote speech, part 1 from PROUDEYEMEDIA on Vimeo.

Jeremy Scahill keynote speech, part 2 from PROUDEYEMEDIA on Vimeo.

Between The Lines on Stitcher

Between The Lines Presentation at the Left Forum 2016

"How Do We Build A Mass Movement to Reverse Runaway Inequality?" with Les Leopold, author of "Runaway Inequality: An Activist's Guide to Economic Justice,"May 22, 2016, John Jay College of Criminal Justice, The City University of New York, 860 11th Ave. (Between 58th and 59th), New York City. Between The Lines' Scott Harris and Richard Hill moderated this workshop. Listen to the audio/slideshows and more from this workshop.

Listen to audio of the plenary sessions from the weekend.

JEREMY SCAHILL: Oscar-nominated documentary filmmaker "Dirty Wars"

Listen to the full interview (30:33) with Jeremy Scahill, an award-winning investigative journalist with the Nation Magazine, correspondent for Democracy Now! and author of the bestselling book, "Blackwater: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army," about America's outsourcing of its military. In an exclusive interview with Counterpoint's Scott Harris on Sept. 16, 2013, Scahill talks about his latest book, "Dirty Wars, The World is a Battlefield," also made into a documentary film under the same title, and was nominated Dec. 5, 2013 for an Academy Award in the Best Documentary Feature category.

Listen to Scott Harris Live on WPKN Radio

Between The Lines' Executive Producer Scott Harris hosts a live, weekly talk show, Counterpoint, from which some of Between The Lines' interviews are excerpted. Listen every Monday evening from 8 to 10 p.m. EDT at www.WPKN.org (Follows the 5-7 minute White Rose Calendar.)

Counterpoint in its entirety is archived after midnight ET Monday nights, and is available for at least a year following broadcast in WPKN Radio's Archives.

You can also listen to full unedited interview segments from Counterpoint, which are generally available some time the day following broadcast.

Subscribe to Counterpoint bulletins via our subscriptions page.

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A compilation of activist and news sites with a progressive point of view

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Five Years Later Nuclear Crisis at Fukushima Continues

Posted March 16, 2016

Interview with Tim Judson, executive director with Nuclear Information and Resource Service (NIRS), conducted by Scott Harris

Millions of Japanese citizens observed a moment of silence as their nation marked the fifth anniversary of the devastation wrought by the 9.0 magnitude earthquake and tsunami that struck on March 11, 2011. The monster quake, centered off Japan’s northeast coast, killed more than 19,000 and left some 2,500 missing and unaccounted for.

The most serious damage resulting from the earthquake occurred at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power complex, where three nuclear reactors lost their coolant and melted down. The disaster, the worst nuclear accident since Chernobyl, caused hydrogen explosions in containment buildings and the release of massive amounts of radioactive material into the atmosphere, ground water and the Pacific Ocean. The plant’s operator, Tepco estimates that it will take 30 to 40 years to safely decommission the now dangerously radioactive reactors. The nuclear plant is still releasing thousands of tons of radioactive water and over 1,000 tanks filled with contaminated water surround the destroyed reactors.

The Japanese government has opened two of the nation’s other nuclear plants that were shut down after the earthquake, and plans to reactivate more of the nation’s 42 commercial reactors in the months ahead. Between The Lines’ Scott Harris spoke with Tim Judson, executive director with the group, Nuclear Information and Resource Service, who assesses the status of the Fukushima nuclear disaster cleanup operation the post-Fukushima condition of the nuclear power industry in the U.S. and around the world. [Rush transcript below.]

TIM JUDSON: About a 160,000 people were evacuated from the area of Fukushima which is a fairly rural area for Japan. But there were also mistakes in the course of the evacuation, where because the utility company that operated the plant was providing incomplete information about the direction in which the radiation plume was being blown. There were people that became exposed to high levels of radiation along the roads because they were directed to evacuate using the wrong routes. So those people have suffered very high levels of exposure to radiation.

I think there's an idea that the accident happened during March and April of 2011. The reality is that this accident is not under control. They have not been able to even identify where the melted nuclear fuel is in the plants because the radiation levels inside are too high. And you know, for the last five years, there's been, because this is a coastal nuclear plant next to mountains, there's a lot of rain and groundwater.

There's been 300 tons of radioactively contaminated water washing through the site and out into the ocean for the last five years. And the government and TEPCO have not been able to stop that constant leaching of radioactivity into the ocean for this entire time. So you have essentially the whole sort of coastal area off of Fukushima is awash in radioactive contamination. The fishing industry around there has been decimated by this. It's just not legal or safe to fish and to sell fish for consumption. There is some notion that actually Japan got lucky to some extent, for most of the first few days in which the meltdowns were occurring, the wind was actually blowing from Fukushima out to the sea, and so a lot of the radiation that was released from the meltdowns actually was pushed out over the water. And only for a couple of days during that time was the wind blowing toward communities that were on the land. That essentially saved the capital city of Tokyo of 20 million people from having to be evacuated. If the wind had been blowing in another direction, the Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has said that the capital city might have needed to be evacuated and there could have been many, many, many, more deaths in the short term from radiation exposure than there were.

So, in addition to the fact that there's clear public health issues, there's been a significant uptick in the amount of thyroid disease among children who were exposed to the radiation plumes and living in the area, you have the immense amount of social stress that comes from the dislocation that all these hundreds of thousands of people are experiencing.

BETWEEN THE LINES: I have read that in the past few months, the number of nuclear reactors under construction across the world has hit a 25-year high with around 60 to 70 reactors now being built, and this of course in spite of Fukushima and the justified concern that citizens all around the world have about the safety of nuclear power. Please comment, if you would.

TIM JUDSON: Sure. Well, I think that the notion that nuclear construction is increasing is a complicated one. I mean, there's only really nuclear plants being built in a very small handful of countries, and that includes China and South Korea, somewhat in India. But there, I think what you're probably seeing is, as far as an increase in construction, is that actually the construction of nuclear plants is constantly behind schedule. They're constantly not meeting deadlines. So you're noticing essentially, sort of a backlog of reactors that should have been completed by now, being met with reactors that are starting to be built and that might look like there's more reactors under construction. What we really expect to see is that this industry globally is fading. We'e got reactors that are closing in the U.S., Germany is planning to phase out nuclear power, even France, which is the most nuclear country in the world, is planning to reduce its reliance on nuclear power pretty extensively in the next ten years. This industry is really at a plateau, or declining. And I think more likely, the latter.

Learn more about the Nuclear Information and Resource Service by visiting nirs.org.