March, 25 2011, 01:09pm EDT
NRDC Urges Obama to Launch 'Truly Independent' Probe of All Nuclear Plants
Doubts about Safeguards Require Fresh, Outside Review of Risks, says Frances Beinecke, NRDC President
WASHINGTON
President Barack Obama should launch an independent investigation into the safety of the nation's 104 nuclear power plants in the wake of Japan's Fukushima Daiichi tragedy, Frances Beinecke, president of the Natural Resources Defense Council, said today.
"We urge you to commission an independent inquiry which will help to ensure the adequacy of, and increase public confidence in, the measures to be taken in response to Japan's nuclear crisis," Beinecke wrote in a letter to the president.
Such an investigation, she said, should assess the causes of Japan's Fukushima Daiichi nuclear accident and how such accidents can be prevented, especially at U.S. reactors with similar designs and spent fuel storage pools.
Pending a full independent investigation, she wrote, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission should suspend granting license renewals to nuclear power plants in high seismic hazard areas, and review the licenses it has granted to nuclear plants in such areas.
"We believe it is important that you now establish an independent commission to explore the root causes and consequences of the still unfolding disaster at Fukushima Daiichi in light of the renewed public concern regarding the serious hazards to public safety. This includes threats that may be triggered by so-called "beyond design basis" events--both natural and man-made- that could occur at U.S. nuclear power plants.
"Review of the implications of this disaster should not be limited to the NRC assessing the adequacy of its own previous rules and decisions. This would be problematic for any entity, but is particularly the case for the NRC, which has long been seen as a weak regulator with insufficient independence from the industry it oversees."
"Thus an independent commission can help objectively determine national and global ramifications for the siting and safe operation of nuclear power plants and provide a credible assessment of the adequacy of what the NRC and the nuclear power industry will recommend as the appropriate responses to the accident."
While the situation at Fukushima Daiichi remains dire and uncertain, she wrote, "it is already clear that clinging to the status quo offers inadequate insurance against the recurrence of such a catastrophic nuclear event in the United States," Beinecke said.
The full letter can be found here: https://docs.nrdc.org/nuclear/files/nuc_11032401a.pdf.
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House Dems Voice 'Deep Concern' Over Biden Claim That Israel Is Legally Using US Arms
A letter from 26 lawmakers notes the "stark differences and gaps" between what Biden administration officials say and the opinions of "prominent experts and global institutions" accusing Israel of genocide.
Apr 16, 2024
More than two dozen House Democrats on Tuesday challenged the Biden administration's claim that Israel is using U.S.-supplied weapons in compliance with domestic and international law—an assertion made amid an ongoing World Court probe of "plausibly" genocidal Israeli policies and practices in Gaza.
Citing "mounting credible and deeply troubling reports and allegations" of human rights crimes committed by Israeli troops in Gaza and soldiers and settlers in the occupied West Bank, 26 congressional Democrats led by Texas Reps. Veronica Escobar—who co-chairs President Joe Biden's reelection campaign—and Joaquin Castro asked U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, Secretary of State Antony Blinken, and Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines "whether and how" their agencies determined Israel is lawfully using arms provided by Washington.
"We write to express our deep concern regarding the U.S. Department of State's recent comments regarding assurances from the Israeli government, under National Security Memorandum (NSM) 20, that the Israeli government is using U.S.-origin weapons in full compliance with relevant U.S. and international law and is not restricting the delivery of humanitarian assistance," the lawmakers wrote in a letter to the Cabinet members.
The letter acknowledges the "grave concerns" of institutions and experts around the world regarding Israel's "conduct throughout the war in Gaza, its policies regarding civilian harm and military targeting, unauthorized expansion of settlements and settler violence in the West Bank, and potential use of U.S. arms by settlers, in additional to limitations on humanitarian aid supported by the U.S."
The legislators noted Israeli attacks on aid convoys, workers, and recipients—like the February 29 "
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While the lawmakers didn't mention the International Court of Justice's January 26
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The lawmakers' letter came amid reports of fresh Israeli atrocities, including a drone strike on a playground in the Maghazi refugee camp in northern Gaza that killed at least 11 children. Eyewitnesses described a "horrific scene of children torn apart."
While Biden has called out Israel's "indiscriminate bombing" in Gaza—much of it carried out using U.S.-supplied warplanes and munitions including 2,000-pound bombs that can level whole city blocks—his administration has approved more than 100 arms sales to Israel, has repeatedly sidestepped Congress to fast-track emergency armed aid, and is seeking to provide the key ally with billions of dollars in addition weaponry atop the nearly $4 billion it gets annually from Washington.
This, despite multiple federal laws—and the administration's own rules— prohibiting U.S. arms transfers to human rights violators.
According to Palestinian and international officials, more than 110,000 Palestinians have been killed or wounded by Israeli forces since October 7. Most of the dead are women and children. At least 7,000 Palestinians are also missing and presumed dead and buried beneath the rubble of hundreds of thousands of bombed-out homes and other buildings.
Around 90% of Gaza's 2.3 million people have been forcibly displaced in what many Palestinians are calling a second Nakba, a reference to the ethnic cleansing of over 750,000 Arabs from Palestine during the establishment of the modern state of Israel in 1948.
A growing number of not only progressive lawmakers but also mainstream Democrats are calling for a suspension of U.S. military aid to Israel.
On Tuesday, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.)—who was criticized earlier in the war for not calling for a cease-fire—stood beside a photo of a starving Gazan girl while declaring "no more money for" the far-right government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his "war machine."
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The wife of jailed WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange sharply criticized "assurances" the U.S. government made as the U.K. High Court considers allowing the 52-year-old Australian's extradition to the United States, where he faces 175 years in prison.
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Responding on social media, his wife, Stella Assange—who is an attorney—blasted the U.S. assurances as "weasel words."
"The United States has issued a nonassurance in relation to the First Amendment, and a standard assurance in relation to the death penalty," she said. "It makes no undertaking to withdraw the prosecution's previous assertion that Julian has no First Amendment rights because he is not a U.S citizen."
"The Biden administration must drop this dangerous prosecution before it is too late."
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The U.K. court's next hearing is scheduled for May 20. Last week, reporters asked U.S. President Joe Biden about requests from Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and members of the country's Parliament to drop the extradition effort and charges. He said that "we're considering it."
So far, the Biden administration has ignored significant pressure from Australian and U.S. politicians as well as human rights and press freedom groups, and continued to pursue the extradition of Julian Assange, who was charged under former President Donald Trump—the Republican expected to face the Democratic president in the November election.
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Following recent reports that Google may soon expand its tech collaboration with the Israeli government, dozens of the company's employees on Tuesday entered its offices in New York City and Sunnyvale, California and announced that they wouldn't leave until executives pull out of its $1.2 billion cloud services and data contract with the country.
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In Sunnyvale, workers began occupying the office of Google Cloud CEO Thomas Kurian, while employees in the company's New York office began a sit-in in a common space.
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Former Google cloud software engineer Eddie Hatfield, who was fired last month for disrupting a Google Israel event, was among those who protested in New York.
The sit-ins came a week after Time magazine reported that Google has entered further negotiations with the Israeli government in recent weeks, even as international human rights experts raise alarm that Israeli officials have directly caused famine to take hold in parts of Gaza by blocking humanitarian aid.
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