Belarus Ready to Build 2nd Nuclear Power Plant, Says President Lukashenko

From RIA Novosti (4/3/2012; emphasis is mine):

Belarus may build a second nuclear plant in the country in addition to one already planned for the western Grodno Region, President Alexander Lukashenko said on Tuesday.

“If we have your cooperation, support and suitable conditions, we are ready to build a second nuclear power station in Belarus,” the president told International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) head Yukiya Amano who is on a visit to Minsk.

Construction of Belarus’ first nuclear plant in the Grodno Region, close to the Lithuanian border, was expected to begin in April. Lukashenko said on Tuesday its construction has “already begun.”

The $9-billion plant will be built by Russia’s Atomstroyexport company, a subsidiary of state nuclear energy corporation Rosatom. The plant will consist of two reactors with a capacity of 1,200 MW each and will boost the entire Belarusian energy system's capacity to 8,000 MW. The power station’s first unit is due to be ready in 2017 and the second in 2018.

Belarus began preparing to build a nuclear plant back in the 1980s, but the project was shelved following the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear disaster in neighboring Ukraine.

Belarusian opposition and environmental activists have raised concerns over the project, which were further fuelled by the March 2011 accident at Japan’s Fukushima nuclear power station. Lithuania has demanded the plant be moved away from its border.

Russia says it employs advanced technology to ensure accident-free operations at all the power stations it builds.

Well, it is not really the technology per se, no matter how advanced, which is the issue here. It is how the plant is managed and operated and the kind of political and social environment that it exists. Abysmal failures on all of them in Japan. How will it be different in Belarus?

Maybe it was like selling nuclear power to the Japanese after Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and immediately after the Bikini Atoll (Dai-Go Fukuryu-Maru) - since Japan suffered atomic atrocities, only Japan could use the atomic energy for peaceful purposes.

In the case of Belarus, the sales pitch (if they ever needed one) would be: "Belarus has suffered tremendously from the Chernobyl nuclear accident. So, only Belarus, who has learned the lessons from the accident, will be able to operate a safe, state-of-the-art nuclear power plant and demonstrate to the world that the country has totally recovered from the accident." Something like that...

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(English Translation Part 2) Dörte Siedentopf on Fukushima Nuclear Disaster: "They Haven't Learned Anything from Chernobyl"

Translation Part 1 by the reader Viola is here.

The following is the translation of the remaining part by the reader Florian Zschage.

The original article in German is here.

The Japanese translation is here.

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Now i want to talk about the health situation, which is normally not an issue here in Germany. It is important to understand the following: The more time goes by, the more catastrophic the situation for the people and all biological life in the region become. That's what our media and our politicians don't want to see, just as Lukaschenko, who declared the accident a thing of the past.

The hidden mothers

After Chernobyl, multiple 'waves of catastrophe' occurred. The first affected the adults: the Liquidators, the physicians, people who went into the contaminated areas, and the people who lived there. Many of them died of cancer quiet fast. The children were affected from the beginning, too. In the affected regions of Belarus generally there is a general iodine deficiency, because there is no coastline as in Japan. Therefore the radioactive iodine was assimilated massively by the infantiles thyroid glands.

After Chernobyl, the government decided to perform abortions on all pregnant women. But many mothers hid. In the year after the accident, many of those infants had thyroid cancer, too. An illness that was practically nonexistent for children. 4000 cases of thyroid cancer in Belarus are officially confirmed. Those had operations, received radiation therapy and take hormone medication for all their life, to not become cretins. And they would have to get this therapy for free – also for later ocurring dysfunctionalities – until today, 25 years after the accident, but they don’t.

Nowadays in the succeeding generation we observe increased numbers of blood deseases. As we say: CHERNOBYL RAGES IN THE GENES. And that will continue for the next 300 years or so, because Strontium and Caesium has a half-life of 30 years, and as a general rule, after 10 half-life periods, no significant amount of these isotopes remain. That equals seven to eight generations. Plus the plutonium, which has a half-life of 24.000 years. Another problem is radiation induced diabetes for children and adults, especially in infants. A phenomenon that was unknown in the past.

The government buys two kinds of insulin and all have to deal with that. But children need at least a third type of insulin and that type is not available, unless NGOs don't take care of it. These NGOs also take care of the missing but necessary education.There are also eye diseases, opaqueness of the eye lens. And we saw an increase in breast cancer, many died within the first 5 years. One may ask oneself if radiation induced cancer is more aggressive than the "normal" one.

The number of birth deformities also increased. Abortion is a big issue. Contraception costs money, and many people simply can't afford it. That's a big problem. On the other hand, there are many infertile couples. In Kostjukovitschi, 30 % of the couples are sterile involuntarily. Another issue is the increase in malignant tumors that occur ow in 6-, 7-, 8-, 9-year old children. Brain tumors. Bone tumors.

Another big problem: In the contaminated areas, wounds didn't heal properly anymore, it was dramatic. The reason for that is low immunity, because radioactive Strontium is incorporated in the bones and stays there. In the bones, human blood is created, and this way, it is irradiated continously during its formation. In a way, it is like AIDS: Immunisation doesn't work anymore, because no antibodies are generated anymore.Therefore we have an increase of polio, despite immunisation efforts. Same with tuberculosis, the more, because the overall nutrition is bad. Many people watered their vegetables with rain water and they collect mushrooms and berries in autumn, which still are highly contaminated.

Aggrieved cells

The majority of the disabilities in children with mental or corporal handicaps in the region originate in radioactive radiation. One has to understand that the ovaries of women already exist in the woman's own embryonic stadium. A big amount of cells become follicles, around 8 millions of them. All damage that happens to the mother inflicts these cells, too. The placenta has a natural barrier but unfortunately it is this barrier where radioactive particles do accumulate. The damaged egg cells can not be repaired. When a woman is born, there are still around 1-2 millions of them. During puberty, there are still 400.000. And those can be already damaged, when a pregnancy occurs. With all the consequences.

One more thing is important to know: All those genetic damages, the cancer frequency and so on... those all are consequences of LOW DOSE RADIATION, and this is something completely different from the radiation disease of the liquidators. This is a fact that is contantly and continually denied by all persons in charge.

The irradiation of vital organs is caused by incorporated radionuclides. If a cell is damaged, there are four possibilities for the cell. 1.: The cell dies instantaneously. 2.: The functionality of the cell is destroyed. 3. The cell degenerates and cancer occurs. 4.: The cell repairs itself. But this is only possible for adult cells. Cells in embryos have no such repair functions, children cells can't do that either. For them it's all about growing and dividing and only with time, the ability to repair themselves becomes existent. That's one of the crucial factors why children are especially in danger. And this is why all pregnants and all children have to be evacuated from the Fukushima area immediately!

The atomic industry in general is an issue that can't be evaluated properly and finally, because so many economic interests are involved, so much money stands behind it. But what we can judge is that the lobbyists – which include many political and semi-political organizations and their people in charge – are cynically and act upon that attitude. This begins with radiation thresholds. Even in the Ukraine and in Belarus, these limits are lower then here (in Germany).

There is simply no binding independent worldwide authority. At WHO, there is JUST ONE person, who deals with Radiation! But the WHO has nothing to say anyway. When it comes to radiation exposure and its consequences, they are not allowed to say anything. Since a contract was sealed in 1957, it is subordinate to the IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) and therefore supresses all reports about the real dangers of radiation. We have to decry all of this. The IPPNW demands that this agreement is dismissed! Maybe the WHO is able to fulfill its first article: to help all peoples to reach the best-possible health status.

The Foodwatch-report of IPPNW (August 2011, German section) states clearly: The determination of limiting values is, in the last consequnce "a decision about the tolerated amount of causualties”.

© 26.12. 2011, taz (Die Tageszeitung)

http://www.taz.de/rztin-mit-sozialer-Verantwortung/%2184368/

English translation by Florian Matthias Zschage,
corrected by Dr. Björn Voss
7th of January 2012

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Florian Zschage's entire translation can be downloaded at the following links:
PDF file: http://www.file-upload.net/download-4011943/The_hot_rock-taz_20111226.pdf.html
text file: http://www.file-upload.net/download-4012088/The_hot_rock-taz_20111226.txt.html

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