Check out this article ~ Wag le Chien (Wag the Dog)?
Did French President Nicolas Sarkozy push the Libyan intervention to boost his re-election bid?By Anne Applebaum, Monday, March 28, 2011 ~ link ~ http://www.slate.com/id/2289620/
March 29, 2011
France and U.S. to help Japan in nuclear crisis ~ Sarkozy pans to visit Tokyo Thursday (?)
France and the United States are to help Japan in its battle to contain radiation from a crippled nuclear complex where plutonium finds have raised public alarm over the world's worst atomic crisis since Chernobyl in 1986.
The high-stakes operation at the Fukushima plant has added to Japan's unprecedented humanitarian disaster with 27,500 people dead or missing from a March 11 earthquake and tsunami. French President Nicolas Sarkozy, who chairs the G20 and G8 blocs of nations, plans to visit Tokyo on Thursday.
He will be the first foreign leader in Japan since the disaster. In further support, France flew in two experts from its state-owned nuclear reactor maker Areva and its CEA nuclear research body to assist Japan's heavily-criticized plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Co (TEPCO). A global leader in the industry, France produces about 75 percent of its power from reactors so it has a strong interest in helping Japan get through the Fukushima disaster.
The United States is also weighing in to send some radiation-detecting robots to Japan to help explore the reactor cores and spent fuel pools, the Energy Department said. With evidence mounting of radiation inside and beyond the plant, public fears rose a notch with Tuesday's announcement of plutonium traces in soil at five places within the facility. A by-product of atomic reactions and a prime ingredient in nuclear bombs, plutonium is highly carcinogenic and one of the most dangerous substances on the planet, experts say.
Japan said, however, that only two of the plutonium traces had likely come from the plant, probably from overheating spent fuel rods or damage to reactor No. 3, with the others being particles in the atmosphere from past nuclear testing abroad. The levels, of up to 0.54 becquerels per kg, were not considered harmful, Japanese officials said.
The U.N. atomic agency IAEA agreed. "Concentrations reported for both, plutonium-238 and plutonium-239/240, are similar to those deposited in Japan as a result of the testing of nuclear weapons," said its latest briefing.
First rattled by the earthquake and then engulfed by a giant wave, the Fukushima plant resembles a bomb site, with steam and smoke occasionally rising from mangled pipes and twisted steel. Plant operator TEPCO is under enormous pressure, criticized for safety lapses and a slow disaster response.
Its shares are down almost 75 percent since the quake -- hitting a 47-year low on Tuesday -- and there is talk of a state takeover. RISING ANGER The government, too, is taking heat.
AFP
France and U.S. to help Japan in nuclear crisis ~ Sarkozy pans to visit Tokyo Thursday (?)
France and the United States are to help Japan in its battle to contain radiation from a crippled nuclear complex where plutonium finds have raised public alarm over the world's worst atomic crisis since Chernobyl in 1986.
The high-stakes operation at the Fukushima plant has added to Japan's unprecedented humanitarian disaster with 27,500 people dead or missing from a March 11 earthquake and tsunami. French President Nicolas Sarkozy, who chairs the G20 and G8 blocs of nations, plans to visit Tokyo on Thursday.
He will be the first foreign leader in Japan since the disaster. In further support, France flew in two experts from its state-owned nuclear reactor maker Areva and its CEA nuclear research body to assist Japan's heavily-criticized plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Co (TEPCO). A global leader in the industry, France produces about 75 percent of its power from reactors so it has a strong interest in helping Japan get through the Fukushima disaster.
The United States is also weighing in to send some radiation-detecting robots to Japan to help explore the reactor cores and spent fuel pools, the Energy Department said. With evidence mounting of radiation inside and beyond the plant, public fears rose a notch with Tuesday's announcement of plutonium traces in soil at five places within the facility. A by-product of atomic reactions and a prime ingredient in nuclear bombs, plutonium is highly carcinogenic and one of the most dangerous substances on the planet, experts say.
Japan said, however, that only two of the plutonium traces had likely come from the plant, probably from overheating spent fuel rods or damage to reactor No. 3, with the others being particles in the atmosphere from past nuclear testing abroad. The levels, of up to 0.54 becquerels per kg, were not considered harmful, Japanese officials said.
The U.N. atomic agency IAEA agreed. "Concentrations reported for both, plutonium-238 and plutonium-239/240, are similar to those deposited in Japan as a result of the testing of nuclear weapons," said its latest briefing.
First rattled by the earthquake and then engulfed by a giant wave, the Fukushima plant resembles a bomb site, with steam and smoke occasionally rising from mangled pipes and twisted steel. Plant operator TEPCO is under enormous pressure, criticized for safety lapses and a slow disaster response.
Its shares are down almost 75 percent since the quake -- hitting a 47-year low on Tuesday -- and there is talk of a state takeover. RISING ANGER The government, too, is taking heat.
AFP
