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ABOUT THIS BOOK Japan's worst nuclear radiation accident took place at a uranium reprocessing facility in Tokaimura, northeast of Tokyo, on 30 September 1999. The direct cause of the accident was cited as the depositing of a uranyl nitrate solution--containing about 16.6 kg of uranium, which exceeded the critical mass--into a precipitation tank. Three workers were exposed to extreme doses of radiation. Hiroshi Ouchi, one of these workers, was transferred to the University of Tokyo Hospital Emergency Room, three days after the accident. Dr. Maekawa and his staff initially thought that Ouchi looked relatively well for a person exposed to such radiation levels. He could talk, and only his right hand was a little swollen with redness. However, his condition gradually weakened as the radioactivity broke down the chromosomes in his cells.

The Ethics Commission will hold a hearing Wednesday on charges that Nuclear Projects Office Director Bob Loux illegally raised his own salary. The meeting, however, is closed to the public and, under state law, commission director Patty Cafferata can't even confirm that there is a complaint against Loux. The complaint was filed by Assembly Minority Leader Heidi Gansert after Gov. Jim Gibbons issued a letter demanding Loux resign because he had raised his own salary and the salaries of his staff beyond legislatively authorized maximums. The practice had apparently gone on since 2005 and, as of this fiscal year, Loux was paying himself at a rate of $151,542 - $37,454 more than his authorized salary of $114,088. Over that period, he and others in the Nuclear Projects Office had received $195,790 more in salary than they were entitled to.

A federal judge said Tuesday that he will decide soon if he should dismiss a Highland Park man's lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Energy or allow it to go forward. Moniem El-Ganayni claims the Energy Department revoked his national security clearance, causing him to lose his job as a nuclear physicist at a West Mifflin laboratory, in retaliation for him publicly condemning the war in Iraq and local FBI agents for allegedly mistreating Muslims. The Egyptian-born U.S. citizen claims the Energy Department's actions violated his constitutional rights to free speech and to not be discriminated against for his ethnicity or religion.

The director of the Nevada office charged with fighting the proposed Yucca Mountain nuclear waste dump has gotten himself into hot water. Bob Loux is facing serious punishment - or even dismissal - after admitting to lawmakers he gave unauthorized raises to himself and his staff. There is no question that what happened under his watch deserves a swift response and that he must be held accountable for his actions. As a state personnel matter, his fate now properly rests with the Nevada Commission on Nuclear Projects, an independent agency that has long been the state's watchdog over the Yucca Mountain project.

In 1986, a young Israeli man called Mordechai Vanunu followed his conscience and told the world that Israel had a nuclear weapons programme. He was convicted of espionage and treason and sentenced to 18 years in prison. After serving this (12 years of which were in solitary confinement), Vanunu was released. In April 2004, about 80 people from around the world went to welcome him out of prison. Unbelievably, upon his release Vanunu was made subject to severe restrictions, which forbade him many basic civil liberties (including his right to leave Israel, to speak to foreigners and foreign media) and restricted his travel within Israel.

Warren F. "Pete" Miller, Jr. has been selected by President Barack Obama to fill two posts that oversee each end of nuclear energy-supplying it and storing its waste. First, Miller was nominated to be Assistant Secretary for Nuclear Energy in the Department of Energy, and about a week later, he was also chosen to serve as director of Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management. Industry observers believe Miller's latter role will involve carrying out Obama's wishes to end the controversial project to store nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain, Nevada. Miller was confirmed by the Senate for the first position on August 7, 2009, but his confirmation for the radioactive waste role was held up by Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina), who opposes the closing of Yucca Mountain. Born in Chicago on March 17, 1943, Miller is one of five children raised by Warren F. Miller, Sr., and Helen Robinson Miller. His father worked as a milkman, delivering dairy products to homes in the Chicago area, and his mother worked as a secretary at the University of Chicago. Miller attended all-black inner city schools while growing up, and during high school, he enrolled in the Reserve Officers Training Corps, becoming commander of his ROTC unit.

A Smith's Landing member is outraged his band will not help him move from contaminated land along the Slave River. John Tourangeau says Chief Fred Daniels and his council broke their promises of financial assistance to help him relocate in Fort Fitzgerald, after they informed him his land was contaminated and told him to move for his son's safety. Now he is asking Indian and Northern Affairs Canada to step in.

Huw Alun Evans's farm in north Wales looks no different from any other; his 400 sheep and lambs graze happily across 125 hectares. His farmland rises to 2,408ft at the summit of the extinct volcano Rhobell Fawr, in the Snowdonia national park. His family has farmed there for three generations and he has run the Hengwrt Uchaf farm at Rhyd-y-main for 31 years. However, for more than two decades he has lived on the southern periphery of a restricted area due to radioactive fallout from the Chernobyl power station accident in 1986. Thousands of his sheep have been scanned for radiation throughout this time.

The world's top nuclear watchdog chose Japan's Yukiya Amano as its next head on Thursday - and he touched on the devastation U.S. atom bombs wreaked on his country in pledging to do his utmost to prevent the spread of nuclear arms. The decision by the 35-nation International Atomic Energy Agency board ended a tug of war on who should succeed Nobel Peace laureate Mohamed ElBaradei, who saw his agency vaulted into prominence during a high-profile 12-year tenure. North Korea left the nonproliferation fold to develop a nuclear weapons program on ElBaradei's watch and his agency later launched inconclusive probes on suspicions that those to nations were interested in developing nuclear weapons

Like a modern-day Cain, Mordechai Vanunu walks the streets of East Jerusalem in search of a place to spend the night. He has no permanent address, and because of a cash shortage he moves from one cheap hostel to the next. He is forbidden to talk with foreigners. With Israelis he does not wish to speak. The Arabs in East Jerusalem do not try to befriend him, fearing trouble. He is a difficult and complicated man. His belief in his principles is stern and dogmatic, but is also cause for bewilderment. Even his family and most of his few supporters abroad have cut off contact.

Udall introduces Senate bill to help sick Rocky Flats and other nuclear workers The nuclear bombs Charlie Wolf built helped win the Cold War. But his toughest battles came afterward, when he applied to a troubled federal compensation program intended for those whose top-secret work made them sick. Wolf wound up battling a bureaucratic morass for more than six years - all while fighting brain cancer that was supposed to have killed him in six months - trying to prove he qualified for financial and medical aid.

In September 2007, Stephen Zunes fell under the spotlight of the mass media following his meeting with the controversial Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in New York during his third trip to the US to attend the 62nd session of the United Nations General Assembly. Dr. Stephen Zunes is a Professor of Politics and International Studies at the University of San Francisco, where he serves as the chairman of Middle Eastern Studies program. His articles constantly appear in the major media outlets and news websites including Common Dreams, Tikkun Magazine, National Catholic Reporter, Foreign Policy In Focus, Huffington Post, Open Democracy and AlterNet. Zunes also appears on BBC, PBS, NPR and MSNBC as a Middle Eastern studies expert to present his viewpoints, analyses and commentaries on the outstanding issues of conflict in Israel, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Turkey and Iran.

"An otherwise garden-variety workplace dispute has posed a larger question at the Byron nuclear generation station, 80 miles west of Chicago: How adequately are security guards trained and equipped to protect nuclear power plants? The question is raised by a complaint brought before a federal administrative judge by Matt Simon, a former guard and weapons trainer at Byron who is asking the court to decide between two explanations for why he no longer works at the facility. Was he an incompetent employee who falsified weapons logs, as claimed by Exelon Corp., which operates Byron? Or was he fired a year ago for trying to alert his superiors to security lapses at the plant, as he asserts? In what his attorneys characterize as a whistle-blower suit, Simon alleges there was a consistent policy of dumbing down security training and certifying unqualified guards. He says rifles and other equipment failed. He says plant officials filed false security reports with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and that his firing resulted directly from his speaking out."

"The Vermont Public Service Board wants to know why Vermont Yankee management has refused to allow a documentary film maker to bring his camera on a site visit on Thursday. Yankee has until noon today to respond to Robbie Leppzer's request to allow him to film the PSB's visit, it wrote in a letter to the power plant's managers. Leppzer, who has been following the debate over Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant's future, said he only wants the chance to tell the story from both sides Last week, he learned his attempt to present an impartial account of the issue was thwarted when his request to allow him to bring his video equipment to the site was refused. "I've been seeking the viewpoints and perspectives of all sides of the nuclear power debate including Entergy representatives and Vermont Yankee staff," said Leppzer. "I was looking forward to filming at the PSB site visit as a way of showing the work they are doing and their transparency with government." Leppzer said he's been filming public hearings, meetings of the Legislature and legislative committees, a town meeting and public workshops such as those recently held by Entergy and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. "

"A man died on his second day of work at Japan's tsunami-wrecked nuclear power plant Saturday, and the plant operator said harmful levels of radiation were not detected in his body. The contract worker in his 60s was the first person to die at the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant in northeastern Japan since March 11, when an earthquake and tsunami damaged the facility and caused fires, explosions and radiation leaks in the world's second-worst nuclear accident. The worker was carrying equipment when he collapsed and died later in a hospital, said Naoyuki Matsumoto, spokesman for Tokyo Electric Power Co. The company does not know the cause of his death, Matsumoto said. "

Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko criticised his government on Tuesday for slow progress on building a new shelter to encase the wrecked fourth reactor of the Chernobyl power plant, site of the world's worst nuclear accident. Ukraine signed a deal in September 2007 with the French-led Novarka consortium to erect an arch-shaped shelter at the plant where a fire, followed by an explosion, occurred on April 26, 1986, sending radiation billowing over parts of central Europe. This project was due to be completed over four to five years at a cost of $1.39 billion. A second deal with U.S.-based Holtec International foresees building a facility to house spent nuclear fuel from reactors. Turning on his political rival Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko, Yushchenko told a national security meeting: "We have had three international conferences, more than $900 million in resources have been brought together ... why is there an empty building site today?".

Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko criticised his government on Tuesday for slow progress on building a new shelter to encase the wrecked fourth reactor of the Chernobyl power plant, site of the world's worst nuclear accident. Ukraine signed a deal in September 2007 with the French-led Novarka consortium to erect an arch-shaped shelter at the plant where a fire, followed by an explosion, occurred on April 26, 1986, sending radiation billowing over parts of central Europe. This project was due to be completed over four to five years at a cost of $1.39 billion. A second deal with U.S.-based Holtec International foresees building a facility to house spent nuclear fuel from reactors. Turning on his political rival Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko, Yushchenko told a national security meeting: "We have had three international conferences, more than $900 million in resources have been brought together ... why is there an empty building site today?".

Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko criticised his government on Tuesday for slow progress on building a new shelter to encase the wrecked fourth reactor of the Chernobyl power plant, site of the world's worst nuclear accident. Ukraine signed a deal in September 2007 with the French-led Novarka consortium to erect an arch-shaped shelter at the plant where a fire, followed by an explosion, occurred on April 26, 1986, sending radiation billowing over parts of central Europe. This project was due to be completed over four to five years at a cost of $1.39 billion. A second deal with U.S.-based Holtec International foresees building a facility to house spent nuclear fuel from reactors. Turning on his political rival Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko, Yushchenko told a national security meeting: "We have had three international conferences, more than $900 million in resources have been brought together ... why is there an empty building site today?".

"President Barack Obama has dramatically adjusted his attitude toward nuclear safety since he visited The Sentinel as a candidate in 2007. Then he said he was "an agnostic on nuclear power." This week, he took over the choir. He will make available $8.3 billion in federal loan guarantees for construction of the first U.S. nuclear power plants since the Seabrook fiasco in the 1980s. He touted the number of jobs to be created, the need to reduce greenhouse gasses and a boost for U.S. technological competitiveness. And he said the grant for two reactors in Georgia "is only the beginning." His upcoming budget includes more than $50 billion for nuclear construction. Loan guarantees by taxpayers are necessary because private lenders believe investments in nuclear power are too risky. During his campaign visit to The Sentinel, Obama was more nuanced. "Given the importance of reducing carbon emissions," he said, "nuclear should be in the mix - if we can make it safe, we know how to store (the nuclear waste and) we can make sure that it's not vulnerable to terrorist attack." But he cautioned that those safety questions "may not be solvable. And if they are not solvable, then I don't want to invest in it.""

Standing precariously on the thin edge of a newly dug well, Ajitbhai Narela looked out proudly at his groundnut and mango saplings. For decades, he said, his family has tilled the soil here, working the land and producing sweet-tasting fruit. But soon, he noted, the fields may disappear. If Indian officials have their way, land in this seaside village will be paved over for a nuclear power plant.

Standing precariously on the thin edge of a newly dug well, Ajitbhai Narela looked out proudly at his groundnut and mango saplings. For decades, he said, his family has tilled the soil here, working the land and producing sweet-tasting fruit. But soon, he noted, the fields may disappear. If Indian officials have their way, land in this seaside village will be paved over for a nuclear power plant.

"Mike Carlson was at his desk when he noticed his chair starting to move. The computer monitor on his desk at Central Vermont Public Service Corp. in Rutland shuddered, too, Wednesday afternoon moving from side to side, thanks to a magnitude-5.0 earthquake in Canada at abount 2:30 p.m. that shook a region stretching as far west as Michigan and into New England. Vermont Yankee nuclear plant in Vernon reported an "unusual event," the lowest of four levels of emergency classification. U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission spokesman Neil Sheehan says the earthquake wasn't felt in the control room but was in other parts of the site. Yankee officials say there's no evidence of damage to the plant. Vermont Emergency Management spokesman Mark Bosma said no reports of damage have been reported. Advertisement "

"Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Abul Gheit said Tuesday his country will not stop its calls on Israel to join the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and submit its facilities to international observation. Following a meeting here with Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Yukiya Amano, Abul Gheit said his country will press ahead with its calls for submitting all Israeli nuclear facilities to international observation, state- run MENA news agency reported. "I can not imagine any one in Egypt would say that we stop calls for submitting Israeli facilities to the observation of international society represented in the IAEA," he said. Meanwhile, Abul Gheit said his meeting with Amano also touched upon ways the international watchdog could help Egypt to carry out its peaceful nuclear program."