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"The road to a nuclear weapons-free world is apparently paved with good intentions - but littered with plenty of platitudes and empty promises. A month-long nuclear non-proliferation review conference concluded late Friday "with more of a whimper than a bang", said John Burroughs, executive director of the Lawyers' Committee on Nuclear Policy. "The result was disappointing without being surprising," he said. However, said Burroughs, one concrete achievement was on a make-or-break issue: a nuclear weapons-free zone in the Middle East. The final document, he pointed out, calls for a conference on this controversial subject in 2012, and the appointment of a facilitator to make it happen. The next nuclear review conference is due three years later, in 2015. "The road ahead is not easy," said Ambassador Maged Abdelaziz of Egypt, speaking on behalf of the 118-nation Non-Aligned Movement (NAM), "but it's the only way forward." He singled out the reaffirmation by the conference of the importance of Israel's accession to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), and the placement of all its nuclear facilities under the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in Vienna. "

"Iran's recent formal notification to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) of its nuclear fuel swap deal with Turkey and Brazil - a move aimed at budging from its previous tough stance - is expected to undercut the US-led international campaign for fresh sanctions against Teheran. Due to deep concerns over Iran's nuclear program, the international community has pushed for several rounds of Teheran-targeted United Nations Security Council resolutions, urging the Islamic nation to put a moratorium on its uranium enrichment."

Latest radiation readings We created this page with the clear intention of informing you of vital information which we explain here and in related posts. Due to the high volume of visitors, most of whom have very valid and urgent questions, we are unable to answer each question. We will be preparing an FAQ section but in the meantime PLEASE READ THROUGH THE COMMENTS TO SEE IF YOUR QUESTION HAS BEEN ANSWERED AND READ THE VAST AMOUNT OF INFORMATION ON ENVIROREPORTER.COM AND OTHER GOVERNMENT AND MEDIA WEBSITES.

"I received the following email a few days ago from a Russian nuclear physicist friend who is an expert on the kinds of gases being released at Fukushima. Here is what he wrote: About Japan: the problem is that the reactor uses "dirty" fuel. It is a combination of plutonium and uranium (MOX). I suspect that the old fuel rods have bean spread out due to the explosion and the surrounding area is contaminated with plutonium which means you can never return to this place again. It is like a new Tchernobyl. Personally, I am not surprised that the authority has not informed people about this. I have been following the Fukushima story very closely since the earthquake and devastating tsunami. I have asked scientists I know, nuclear physicists and others about where they find real information. I have also watched as the news has virtually disappeared. There is something extremely disturbing going on, and having lived through the media blackout in France back in April and early May 1986, and speaking to doctors who are deeply concerned by the dramatic increase in cancers appearing at very young ages, it is obvious that information is being held back. We are still told not to eat mushrooms and truffles from parts of Europe, not wild boar and reindeer from Germany and Finland 25 years later. "

* Compensation covers damages until Aug 31 * Subsequent claims to be taken quarterly * First round of compensation does not cover property damage By Taiga Uranaka TOKYO, Aug 30 (Reuters) - Tokyo Electric Power unveiled the first details on Tuesday of how it would compensate Fukushima residents for lodging and other costs stemming from their evacuation of areas close to its crippled nuclear plant. The payments, due to reach victims in October, nearly seven months after the start of the nuclear crisis, mark just the first round in a series of state-supported outlays that some analysts estimate could climb as high as $130 billion. About 80,000 people were evacuated from a 20 kilometre radius around Tokyo Electric's Fukushima Daiichi plant, which has been leaking radiation since a March 11 earthquake and tsunami triggered a meltdown of reactor cores.

The 11 March 2011 9.0 magnitude earthquake off Japan's northeast coast set off a series of cascading events which resulted in the deaths of more than 20,500 people along with an ongoing nuclear crisis. The crisis epitomized what disaster scholars call a compounded or complex disaster. The quake itself caused few direct casualties - fewer than 5 percent of the deaths due to this disaster are attributed to collapsed buildings - but triggered a devastating tsunami which overtopped seawalls, washed away entire villages, swept people and cars out to sea, and damaged the back-up cooling systems at the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power complex. Of the six reactors on site, the quake's arrival automatically shut down the three which were operational. With diesel generators and batteries offline, the residual heat in the reactors raised the temperature to more than 2000 degrees Fahrenheit, melting down the zircaloy fuel rods. The fuel pellets, free from their sheaths, fell to the floor of the steel containment vessels where they may have burned holes through the thick steel plating. Nuclear authorities in Japan eventually classified the radiation release from the Fukushima nuclear complex as a level 7 nuclear crisis on the International Nuclear and Radiological Event Scale (INES), placing the event in the same category as the 26 April 1986 Chernobyl accident in the Ukraine.

" Sovacool reports that 21 deaths have so far been linked to Fukushima - 7 from first responders and plant operators, and 14 elderly people who died during the evacuation process. None of these were due to radiation exposure, but he notes that 160 people have so far been exposed to 'hazardous' levels of radiation. Hopefully the final outcome will be less than the thousands of early deaths that followed Chernobyl - Sovacool quotes the low IAEA-WHO estimate of 4000, but also points to other studies, which suggest 93,000 early cancer deaths. But away from the media spotlight, there are claimed to be continuing deaths and disease as a result of routine emissions and occasional leaks from nuclear facilities: Sovacool quotes 3,780 premature deaths and 1,253 cancers globally per annum. Of course it's not just people that have to be buried, but also nuclear waste. The back end of the nuclear cycle is probably its worst aspect- unless you are concerned about the prospects of terrorist attacks, the illegal diversion of nuclear material, or the proliferation of weapons making capacity. The latter issues relate to current geo-political conflicts, but the waste issue takes us beyond that into the far future. Sovacool quotes Alvin Weinberg's comment that, in terms of guarding and managing nuclear wastes, humanity seemed to have a ' remarkable belief that it can devise social institutions that are stable for periods equivalent to geological ages'."

"TEPCO has sent out their compensation applications to people who received provisional compensation. It consists of a 156 page manual and a 60 page application form. It requires copies of a variety of documents people may no longer have access to due to the disasters and each individual in a household must fill out a booklet. This application is only good through August so any ongoing compensation for September onward would require filling out another monster sized application. The truly evil part is if TEPCO declares the application incomplete for some reason the applicant will not be able to fix the issue. They will have to start from scratch and complete another 60 page application with documentation. This farcical process is clearly intended to avoid having to pay any compensation by making the process impossible to complete. People have the ability to request mediation from the government if TEPCO rejects their application creating another long complicated endeavor."

"Tokyo Electric Power Co. on Monday started sending out some 60,000 application forms to people seeking damages due to the nuclear crisis at its Fukushima No. 1 power plant. The 60,000 forms are being sent to households that have already received provisional compensation. Those who are filing for the first time need to ask Tepco to send an application form. Applicants are required to attach necessary documents, such as receipts, to apply for compensation for transportation costs, lodging expenses, mental suffering and other problems. Under the full-scale compensation scheme, an evacuee who has been forced to flee in line with a government order will receive ¥5,000 for moving from one place to another inside Fukushima Prefecture. A person will also be given up to ¥8,000 per night for staying in a hotel."

TOKYO --The problems that followed the recent earthquake and tsunami in Japan, including the accident at the Fukushima I nuclear power station (NPS) and the shortage of power supply due to extensive damage suffered by the country's electric power systems, are expected to have a significant impact on Japan's future energy policy. While relevant discussions have not yet begun under the circumstance that the primary focus is placed on the resolution of the nuclear accident at present, some national government bureaucrats have started voicing their views on the country's future energy policy.

"The time series data provided by Marian Steinbech, "A Crowdsourced Japan Radiation Spreadsheet", was visualized with custom C/OpenGL software to overlay circles on geographic maps of Japan. Recent versions of the data, going back to March 1, can be downloaded from his blog here: http://www.sendung.de/japan-radiation-open-data/. These moments in time were selected to highlight how the radiation has effected Ibaraki prefecture and Tokyo, and demonstrate that while direct gamma radiation dissipates with the square distance law, particle-based radiation also dissipates with distance due to weather scattering. Although much attention has been placed on Tokyo, a very interesting finding was that Ibaraki prefecture, population 2.9 million, has received a radiation dose equivalent to nuclear worker levels while its distance from Fukushima, 100km, places it outside the current evacuation zone of 30km."

"Mistrust of the media has surged among the people of Fukushima Prefecture. In part this is due to reports filed by mainstream journalists who are unwilling to visit the area near the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. But above all it is the result of contradictory reportsreleased by the media, TEPCO and the government. On the one hand, many local officials and residents in Fukushima insist that the situation is safe and that the media, in fanning unwarranted fears, are damaging the economy of the region.By contrast, many freelance journalists in Tokyo report that the central government is downplaying the fact that radiation leakage has been massive and that the threat to public health has been woefully underestimated. While the government long hewed to its original definition of a 20 kilometer exclusion zone, following the April 12 announcement that the Fukushima radiation severity level has been raised from a level 5 event (as with Three Mile Island) to a level 7 event (as with Chernobyl), the government also extended the radiation exclusion zone from 20 kilometers to at least five communities in the 30-50 kilometer range."

"Nearly two months after the start of the crisis at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant, only 10 percent of workers there had been tested for internal radiation exposure caused by inhalation or ingestion of radioactive substances, due to a shortage of testing equipment available for them. Tokyo Electric Power Co., operator of the crippled nuclear compound, is finding it impossible to use testing apparatus set up inside the facility because of high radiation levels recorded near the equipment. A number of personnel working to overcome the nuclear crisis at the facility are increasingly alarmed by their lack of internal exposure testing. Some have said they may have to continue to work at the facility without knowing whether their radiation exposure levels have exceeded the upper limit set by the government. On Tuesday, the government revealed a timetable for ending the nuclear crisis. The road map called for increased surveillance of the workers' radiation levels, including a measure requiring TEPCO to periodically report such data to the government."

"In order to address public concerns over post 3/11 food safety, the government should be more forthcoming in the monitoring and disclosure of data regarding radiation contamination of soil, Akira Sugenoya, mayor of Matsumoto City, Nagano Prefecture, told this reporter recently. Sugenoya, a medical doctor, speaks from experience, having spent 5½ years from 1996 in the Republic of Belarus treating children with thyroid cancer. He was there because the incidence of that disease in children surged after the Chernobyl disaster in neighboring Ukraine in 1986. In that April 26 event, which involved an explosion and a fire at the nuclear power plant there, large amounts of radioactive substances were released into the atmosphere. Consequently, due to his unique experience, Sugenoya - who has held his position as mayor since 2004 - was asked by Japan's Food Safety Commission to share his opinion as an expert at a series of meetings convened in late March to set emergency radiation limits for domestic food."

CORNWALL has turned down the chance to receive a jackpot worth billions of pounds by not bidding to have radioactive waste stored in the county. The Government is currently inviting local authorities to submit expressions of interest to host geological disposal facilities for "higher activity" radioactive waste. In a white paper published in the summer the Government said that the construction and operation of the facilities would be a "multi-billion pound project that will provide skilled employment for hundreds of people over many decades".

Chubu Electric Power Co. is considering decommissioning two reactors at the Hamaoka Nuclear Power Plant and building a new reactor in response to tougher earthquake resistance standards, it has been learned. The power company is reportedly considering decommissioning the No. 1 and No. 2 reactors at the plant in Omaezaki, Shizuoka Prefecture, and building a new sixth reactor that would start operating from fiscal 2018 or later. Decommissioning work on the reactors, which are currently not operating, would be completed around 2035.

Informal communication among British veterans of the first Iraq war may have shaped the vets' characterization of Gulf War Syndrome. After the bullets stopped flying, the rumors took off among British veterans of the 1991 Gulf War. Early accounts of physical and emotional reactions to wartime experiences spread from one person to another through networks of veterans. Within a few years, these former soldiers had decided among themselves that many of them suffered from the controversial illness known as Gulf War Syndrome, a new study concludes.

Environment Minister Saša Dragin made the comments at the central event marking the Earth Day in Belgrade. Dragin also said that his ministry and the Smederevo-based U.S. Steel company have signed a USD 40mn contract stipulating that the company will invest the sum in new technologies in the next two years.

As the Charter'97 press center has learnt from parents, whose children attend the Minsk kindergarten No 111, their kids were not allowed to go out yesterday. Teachers told the parents it was an order of the director, who had received a call from a higher-level agency. The exact reason of this decision is unknown, but staff of the kindergarten says it may be connected with an accident on a nuclear plant in one of the neighbouring countries.