MISC. Items

Coca-Cola, the world’s largest producer of sugary beverages, is backing a new “science-based” solution to the obesity crisis: To maintain a healthy weight, get more exercise and worry less about cutting calories.

The beverage giant has teamed up with influential scientists who are advancing this message in medical journals, at conferences and through social media. To help the scientists get the word out, Coke has provided financial and logistical support to a new nonprofit organization called the Global Energy Balance Network, which promotes the argument that weight-conscious Americans are overly fixated on how much they eat and drink while not paying enough attention to exercise.

Since writing my first article 4 months ago published in CounterPunch titled, Why Fukushima Ended the Nuclear Debate, there have been about 11 reported NRC Events from CGS. I ask myself each time a new Event occurs, how many near misses can one nuclear plant have before the next Fukushima attacks us from within? When does the luck run dry? I also ask daily, why won’t the Nuclear Regulatory Commission shut down nuclear power plants before luck turns to corium, molten nuclear core?

First came the development and testing of nuclear weapons regarded as essential for national security by the major governments of the world, carried out in low population density areas where there were mainly indigenous or minority populations live. This was followed by the construction of large numbers of nuclear power stations in the U.S. near the large cities, promoted by the federal government anxious to end the public’s fear of fallout from bomb testing and as a clean way to meet the rapidly growing need for energy to replace the massively polluting fossil fuel power stations. After it was discovered in the early 1970s that even small radiation doses from permitted normal releases of fission products less than those received from normal background radiation produced unexpectedly large adverse effects on human health, government agencies tried to minimize the health effects on the majority population. This was done using the Federal Milk Marketing Program, originally established in the 1930s to protect the income of farmers when their milk did not taste well by forcing wholesalers to pay the normal price and to direct it to be diluted with normally tasting milk. Beginning in the 1970s, this program was used to send milk produced in areas close to nuclear reactors contaminated with fission products into the inner city areas where the population was composed mainly of low income African Americans and recent Hispanic immigrants.

Some say concern among residents and area officials has heightened since Missouri Attorney General Chris Koster released reports last month that said an underground fire at the landfill was moving toward radioactive waste in the adjacent West Lake Landfill.

Koster’s office also said some radioactive contamination was outside West Lake, a Superfund site overseen by the Environmental Protection Agency. The reports contradict landfill owner Republic Services’ assurances that the fire is under control and come as Koster’s office presses a lawsuit against Republic over the landfill.

Doel Nuclear Power Station in northern Belgium was hit by an explosion around midnight UTC on November 1, 2015 (23:00 local time on October 31) which caused a fire in its Doel 1 nuclear reactor.