Nuclear Hotseat Hosted By Libbe Halevy

Featured Interview with Tim Judson, the new Executive Director of NIRS. He shares strategies for propelling our movement forward as well as exposing the soft, vulnerable underbelly of nuclear slumlord Entergy. Also, India's anti-nuclear firebrand Kumar Sundaram explains the significance of Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's upcoming trip to India and how anyone can join in the protests with a selfie. RadCast w/Mimi German, of course! PLUS: Special Ocean report, with Woods Hole's Ken Buessler organizing a crowdsourced Pan-Pacific water sampling project; Race for governor of Tokyo heats up w/former Prime Minister and now anti-nuclear candidate Hosokawa joining the fight; new Japanese study confirms what we've known all along: there's no way to evacuate from a nuclear disaster before the radiation plume hits; and between Fort Calhoun and St. Lucie, nukes can't seem to keep operating if it rains or snows. What a wimpy, flawed technology!

Contrary to Internet rumors and hysteria over the holidays, the sky is not falling, Fukushima #3 has not had and is not in danger of an explosion, the US has not been nuked with excruciatingly high levels of radiation and the beaches of California do not glow in the dark. Solid information on radiation from Sean Bonner of Safecast and Mimi German of RadCast. Plus a post by Arnie Gundersen of Fairewinds Energy Education on what that steam from Unit 3 really means. PLUS: Japanese government and Fukushima Medical University signed secret pact w/IAEA to keep info secret; TEPCO restructuring so it can keep making profits while blowing it at Fukushima; more species collapse, including bald eagles and nonexistent sardines; plutonium dump in ocean 50 miles from San Francisco; and Russia does a better job protecting its citizens from Fukushima radiation than the US does.

Special Encore presentation of Alison Katz of Independent WHO (World Health Organization) on how the International Atomic Energy Alliance censors WHO's nuclear information. Alison dissects the history, politics and manipulations of the "Unholy Alliance" between the agency we're supposed to trust to safeguard the world's health – especially in nuclear matters -- and the pro-nuclear IAEA. This is an Encore Presentation (NH #118) and a Nuclear Hotseat exclusive.

A trio of Christmas gifts: three of the top, most respected voices within the anti-nuclear community, taken from the past year of Nuclear Hotseat. Dr. Helen Caldicott talks about how she became an activist and her then-upcoming Symposium on the Medical and Ecological Impact of the Fukushima Nuclear Disaster (NH #83 - 1/15/13). In our most popular program ever, with 489,195 downloads in the first five days (and still getting play), Arnie Gundersen explains what he would do with Fukushima if he were in charge. (NH #117 - 9/10/13). And Ralph Nader spoke at the east coast conference, Fukushima Nuclear Accident: Ongoing Lessons. Excerpts here, with a link to the full speech on our website, NuclearHotseat.com/blog under program #131. Merry Chana-Christa-Kwanza-Solsti-Rama-Mas!

Interview w/Dr. Jim Green, Friends of the Earth's Nuclear Campaigner for Australia on that country's culpability for Fukushima and whether it's really safer from radiation down under than in the Northern Hemisphere. RadCast with Mimi German gives the "nuclear weather report" for the US, showing increased radiation across the country. PLUS: TEPCO admits what they knew and when they know it re: meltdowns in Fukushima Units 1,2,3 and Dr. Caldicott labels their actions criminal irresponsibility" and "corporate terrorism" as she calls for an international tribunal on nuclear power and weapons. Highest ever radiation recorded in water at Fukushima within 16 feet of the Pacific Ocean. Hot particle found 250 miles from Fukushima. Call for Catholics to champion 83-year-old Sister Megan Rice to Pope Francis before she's sentenced for civil disobedience at Oak Ridge nuke site. And three, count them, three Numnutz of the Week - so much stupidity, I couldn't choose.

INTERVIEW: Attorney Charles Bonner, who is representing USS Ronald Reagan sailors nuked by Fukushima radiation during Operation Tomadachi in their lawsuit against TEPCO. PLUS: RadCast w/Mimi German, Japanese citizens rebelling against state secrets act, how Japan ignored Chernobyl in setting safety standards, explosion and fire in Arkansas nuke facility, more demands for radiation testing for food and the ocean, AARP going after Florida "advance fee" law, and who knew Mexico had a National Commission of Nuclear Safety and Safeguards?

INTERVIEW: Kevin Kamps, Nuclear Waste Watchdog/Bulldog for Beyond Nuclear, talks through our possible eternal futures as regards radioactive waste. PLUS: Japan in uproar as PM Abe-Baby pushes Secrecy Act through the Diet; Strontium 90 predicted to start hitting the Pacific this week; World Bank sniffs, "We don't do nuclear energy" while Norwegian investment fund dumps TEPCO stock; Chernobyl getting new containment mega-building; NRC DUCK! and Cover report; plus RadCast radiation "weather" report; and Japan wants to train its 2020 Olympic athletes where?!?!?

INTERVIEW: Former Fukushima resident Setsuko Kida on the immediate aftermath of the earthquake and tsunami, her emergence into activism and her recent trip to the US to meet with attorneys for the USS Ronald Reagan sailors who are suing TEPCO. PLUS: Japan Diet's lower house passes State Secrets Protection Bill amid fears of growing fascism and censorship; world's engineers express concern over TEPCO's attempts to remove fuel rods from Unit 4 spent fuel pool; unofficial reports (which will probably be banned under the Secrecy Act) show Fukushima worker deaths already over 4,000; TEPCO president warns the world that nuclear energy is "not fully safe;" Sen. Boxer boxes NRC's MacFarlane over her agency's refusal to release documents to senate committee investigation; and sea animals massing in California's Monterrey Bay - trying to escape the Pacific Ocean and Fukushima's radiation?

INTERVIEW: Anti-nuclear/Pro-alternatives veteran activist Harvey Wasserman blasts through TEPCO lies, how and where and why to get active NOW! Arnie Gundersen of Fairewinds.org explains specifics about Spent Fuel Pool 4 and the dangerous operation TEPCO has just launched. Mimi German delivers the RadCast - radiation readings around the US (the international report starts next week). PLUS: TEPCO pulls first fuel rods out of Fukushima... but they're "blanks;" first pics of the leaks (two) at the bottom of Unit 1; PM Abe-Baby pushes Secrecy Law but his wife Akie hasn't shut up yet about her opposition to his nuclear policy; more thyroid cancer cases found in Fukushima children; Hypothyroidism found in US west coast infants born first nine months after Fukushima; Alaska wildlife in heartbreaking collapse and Fukushima radiation found in 15 separate ocean species. All this and a tornado hits a Kentucky nuclear fuel factory. Oy!

Mimi German, founder of RadCast Radiation Reports - a new online and mainstream media "radiation weather report" - explains how the service started and how quickly it has grown to broadcast and online outlets, including Thom Hartmann on RT.com. Then listen to the first RadCast report as we inaugurate the service on Nuclear Hotseat. PLUS: T-minus ten days to TEPCO's yakuza-recruited workers' attempt to remove spent fuel rods from SFP4 without triggering Armageddon; world scientists, engineers, leaders and now media calling for TEPCO to be removed from any position of authority over Fukushima; Japan's Nuclear Regulatory Authority working to ban interviews w/Fukushima residents on radiation-related health problems; Pandora flops as CNN audience drops by over 40%; and why in the world would Belarus want to sign contracts to build two nuke plants in that Chernobyl-hammered country?

Interview with Norbert Suchanek, founder of the Rio de Janeiro-based Uranium Film Festival, on this international ingathering of anti-nuclear voices, the growing archive of our nuclear history, and the Festival's first showing in America this month. PLUS: TEPCO delays Armageddon for tests of whether or not they can do anything right; US Energy Secretary Moniz offers American help at Fukushima... with rope-like strings attached; world's voices raised in warning to help pull Japan from the brink of disaster; and CNN flogs Pandora's Propaganda for all it's worth as we get them to give Beyond Nuclear's Kevin Kamps airtime to hit back. We're betting on Kevin.

What's scarier than Nuclear? Join the spooky terror as activists from both coasts share their worst nuclear fears. Then hear from experts from the October 19 Community Symposium on Decommissioning San Onofre to hear the most frightening information about nuclear waste as part of the Nuclear Hotseat Halloween Fright House! PLUS: 7.3 Quake damage at Fukushima suspected; TEPCO resorts to slave labor to get workers into the danger zone; Caldicott/Gundersen/Yablokov letter to UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon delivered, results not yet noticed; Japanese PM Abe-baby pushing Secrecy Act through Parliament; Pacific ocean rad-plume predicted to hit west coast of North America in 2014; and for those who can't wrap their heads around the ongoing damage to human health from Fukushima radiation, how about them dead horses?

Beyond Nuclear's Linda Gunter, Physicians for Social Responsibility's John W. Rachow and nuclear physicist Dr. M.V. Ramana give us the facts to counter CNN's November airings of the pro-nuclear propaganda film "Pandora's Promise." Learn the facts, prepare for action! Activists can be ready with op-eds, letters to the editor and more by using the information they provide. PLUS: Japan radiation, the world's voices rise to make Fukushima subject to an international coalition of experts instead of just TEPCO, Koodankulam starts up despite protests, yellow salmon found in British Columbia, "The Ocean is Dead," and... lead-lined jockstraps - for real!

SPECIAL REPORT: On-the-scene reporting on two top level east coast anti-nuclear events held last week featuring Ralph Nader, former Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan, former NRC Chair Gregory Jaczko, former NRC Commissioner Peter Bradford, Fairewinds Energy Education's Arnie Gundersen, and via tape, Jean-Michel Cousteau. The topic : Fukushima Nuclear Accident: Ongoing Lessons. The New York event focused on the Indian Point NPP and the one in Boston on Pilgrim NPP. Inspiring, infuriating, motivating -- the perfect reason to take action NOW! PLUS: A new feature, The Abe-Baby Report! covering the ongoing wacky actions of current Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe as he tries to cover up the existence and impact of the ongoing Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster to the International Olympic Committee even as he actually breaks down to ask the world's scientific and technological community for help. Mission Accomplished, anyone?

Tokyo resident, blogger and neighborhood activist Dennis Riches, living 120 miles from Fukushima, gives us a first-hand glimpse at the mental twists and turns that let TEPCO executives and PM Abe live with themselves. BONUS INTERVIEW: Michael Leonardi of Toledo Coalition for Safe Energy and the Coalition Against Nukes gives a first-hand account of police shenanigans around Canadian hearings on nuclear waste dump proposed for less than a mile from Lake Huron. PLUS: FDA "decision" to test or even ban foods from Japan is non-binding and essentially meaningless (SMOKE AND MIRRORS ALERT!); Duke Energy given North Carolina Utilities Commission to continue to gouge ratepayers for its nuclear debacles; more cracks found in Davis-Besse containment vessel but the NRC thinks that's just safe as safe can be!; nosebleed epidemic in Japan w/over 5,000 tweets in two days; 70% of kids in Kanto have cesium in their urine; 2011 increase in Japanese birth defects documented; Kaku says TEPCO the equivalent of the Three Stoog

Joseph Mangano of Radiation and Public Health Project (radiation.org) shreds the International Atomic Energy Agency's (IAEA) stranglehold on the World Health Organization's (WHO) ability to present honest information on radiation dangers to public health. A point-by-point analysis of IAEA's flawed epidemiological mandate to WHO, based on the late Dr. Rosalie Bertell's analysis. Core information on how the entire world has been tricked into believing radiation is no big deal. PLUS: Japanese PM Shinzo Abe-Baby has ongoing "Mission Accomplished" complications from his "The situation is under control!" claims to the International Olympic Committee; activists on the rise against NRC waste "confidence," proposed nuke waste dump on the shores of Lake Huron, EPA's new "McCarthyism" that raises "acceptable" limits on radiation exposure to life-threatening levels; and isn't it odd the Russia, China and Korea are doing a better job of protecting their citizens than the US is?

Joseph Mangano of Radiation and Public Health Project (radiation.org) shreds the International Atomic Energy Agency's (IAEA) stranglehold on the World Health Organization's (WHO) ability to present honest information on radiation dangers to public health. A point-by-point analysis of IAEA's flawed epidemiological mandate to WHO, based on the late Dr. Rosalie Bertell's analysis. Core information on how the entire world has been tricked into believing radiation is no big deal. PLUS: Japanese PM Shinzo Abe-Baby has ongoing "Mission Accomplished" complications from his "The situation is under control!" claims to the International Olympic Committee; activists on the rise against NRC waste "confidence," proposed nuke waste dump on the shores of Lake Huron, EPA's new "McCarthyism" that raises "acceptable" limits on radiation exposure to life-threatening levels; and isn't it odd the Russia, China and Korea are doing a better job of protecting their citizens than the US is?

It's one thing to say that the World Health Organization is completely subservient to the pro-nuclear International Atomic Energy Agency -- but what exactly does that mean? In this Nuclear Hotseat exclusive, Alison Katz of the Geneva, Switzerland-based Independent WHO - Health and Nuclear Power, explains the history, politics and scientific manipulations of the one agency the world is supposed to be able to trust with its health. Whether you're an activist, a member of the media or just a curious individual, you must listen to this full-length interview if you hope to understand how deeply the world has been tricked when it comes to understanding the health implications of nuclear radiation.

Arnie Gundersen of Fairewinds Energy Education provides a vision of how he would proceed with Fukushima, including missed opportunities, TEPCO incompetence and the all-important moves he would make to minimize the negative impact of the world's worst nuclear/industrial disaster. NUMNUTZ OF THE WEEK: Could anyone top the International Olympic Committee this week? Two strong contenders, but still, the IOC wins, hands down. PLUS: Spin-speak attaining dizzying speeds as Japan seeks to quash any suspicions about the negative impact of Fukushima radionuclides on Olympic athletes and fans; Japanese professor equates TEPCO w/Homer Simpson ; Fukushima crane suffers cracks, starts to fall over; fish of public concern to China, Korea, some Canadians... and Guam?!?; and British embassy supports Fukushima by playing cricket in the evacuation zone. There's a reason why they lost the empire...

Former Japanese resident Beverly Findlay-Kaneko reports on her recent trip to Japan, where she met with committed activists, two symposia, demonstrations and followed through on her humanitarian work helping Fukushima's children spend time in a camp far from the nuclear disaster, where they can again experience sunshine and air they can breathe without fear. NUMNUTZ OF THE WEEK: Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe for offering "prompt" solutions to Fukushima almost 30 months after the disaster began. Too late, Abe Baby! PLUS: More leaks, higher radiation found on-site at Fukushima Daiichi; salt water corroding containment tanks, TEPCO finally being acknowledged as incompetent, radioactive seawater plume predicted to hit west coast of the US in 20 years... or four years... or one... But at least Japan is about to be nuclear-free again, if only for a few months... Three Mile Island decommissioning cost set at $918 million but will undoubtedly be more by the time it's scheduled to begin - in 2034!