United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s official statements about Israel’s most recent armed attack upon Gaza are Orwellian lies of omission because they fail to uphold the one and only legal authority of the UN: to stop Wars of Aggression.
Allowing “developed nations” to have unlawful wars is consistent with UN history. A recent example is Secretary-General Kofi Annan’s silence for 18 months in official statements over the US/UK’s armed attacks and invasion of Iraq, to finally admit in 2004 when directly asked if that war is illegal:
http://www.undergroundworldnews.com
The following open letter signed by 129 organizations and distinguished individuals was sent to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on 5 August:
For humanity and the little remaining credibility of international law:
An Urgent Request on UN Intervention to Stabilize the Fukushima Unit 4 Spent Nuclear Fuel
Recently, former diplomats and experts both in Japan and abroad stressed the extremely risky condition of the Fukushima Daiichi Unit 4 spent nuclear fuel pool and this is being widely reported by world media. Robert Alvarez, Senior Scholar at the Institute for Policy Studies (IPS), who is one of the best-known experts on spent nuclear fuel, stated that in Unit 4 there is spent nuclear fuel which contains Cesium-137 (Cs-137) that is equivalent to 10 times the amount that was released at the time of the Chernobyl nuclear accident. Thus, if an earthquake or other event were to cause this pool to drain, this could result in a catastrophic radiological fire involving nearly 10 times the amount of Cs-137 released by the Chernobyl accident.
Nearly all of the 10,893 spent fuel assemblies at the Fukushima Daiichi plant sit in pools vulnerable to future earthquakes, with roughly 85 times more long-lived radioactivity than released at Chernobyl.
Dr. Helen Caldicott: If Spent Fuel Pool No. 4 collapses I am evacuating my family from Boston.
Few people know that the Pacific Northwest got whacked hard by fallout from the Fukushima disaster with radiation rates hundreds of thousands of times higher than normal background radiation.
The damage from this is not something that the corporate media or the government is talking about. It mysteriously disappeared from the radar almost immediately.
I don’t know what to think of this but it may be one of the reasons why the meme of “Fukushima Reactor 4 is leaning (or listing, or collapsing, or falling apart)” and “Reactor 4 Spent Fuel Pool is in danger” has started to circulate widely again since March this year.
Mr. Mitsuhei Murata is a former Japanese Ambassador to Switzerland and Senegal and the current Executive Director of the Japan Society for Global System and Ethics (according to his website) who seems to have been very active in anti-nuclear movements. There are tweets and blogs citing his website as the source of his comments which appeared on the English site by a Japanese diplomat (I think) Akio Matsumura.
Assuming that it is indeed Mr. Murata’s website, here’s the letter that Mr. Murata sent to UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon on March 25, 2012, as it appears on his site:
The Honorable Ban Ki-Moon
Secretary–General of the United Nations Organization
New York City, NY.
___________________________________________
Tokyo, March 25, 2012
Dear Secretary-General,
Honorable Ban Ki-moon,
I wish to express my heartfelt gratitude for your considerate letter dated 2 March, 2012. Your moral support for a United Nations Ethics Summit will remain a constant source of encouragement for my activities.
Please allow me to pay a tribute to your great contribution to strengthen nuclear safety and security. The current Nuclear Summit in Seoul is no doubt greatly benefiting from the high-level meeting you convened last September.
I was asked to make a statement at the public hearing of the Budgetary Committee of the House of Councilors on March 23. I raised the crucial problem. of N0.4 reactor of Fukushima containing1535 fuel rods. It could be fatally damaged by continuing aftershocks. Moreover, 50 meters away from it exists a common cooling pool for 6 reactors containing 6375 fuel rods ! It is no exaggeration to say that the fate of Japan and the whole world depends on NO.4 reactor. This is confirmed by most reliable experts like Dr.Arnie Gundersen or Dr. Fumiaki Koide.
Abidjan, Apr 4 (AP) A United Nations helicopter fired at President Laurent Gbagbo”s forces today as France authorised its military forces to take out his heavy weapons, an unprecedented escalation in the international community”s efforts at forcing the strongman from office.The office of French President Nicolas Sarkozy said UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon had requested France”s military participation.
French and UN helicopters have attacked forces loyal to Ivory Coast’s incumbent leader, Laurent Gbagbo.
Mr Gbagbo’s presidential palace and residence were hit, along with military camps used by pro-Gbagbo forces, in what UN chief Ban Ki-moon said was a mission of self-defence.
French troops and United Nations peacekeepers are joining the fight against Ivory Coast’s incumbent president as forces backing the country’s internationally-recognized leader launch another attack against his positions in the commercial capital, Abidjan.
Witnesses in Ivory Coast are reporting that U.N. helicopters have fired four missiles at a military base in Abidjan, the country’s former capital. The U.N. is trying to stop President Laurent Gbagbo’s forces from using weapons to hit civilians. The missiles were fired on a pro-Gbagbo military camp housing three battalions of the Ivorian army. The international body has no air force, leaving a full-blown offensive like the one in Libya out of the question. However, it does have a Ukrainian aviation unit with three Mi-24 attack helicopters that have been deployed in Ivory Coast. The U.N.’s focus is on heavy weapons, including BM-21 rocket systems, which Gbagbo loyalists are using on civilians. Ivory Coast’s brewing conflict is between its two presidents, Gbagbo and Alassane Ouattara, the internationally recognized election winner. Nonetheless, Gbagbo’s forces are targeting U.N. officers and residents of Abidjan.
Israel has rejected calls for an international probe, saying it would be biased against the Jewish state.
This crime happened in international waters and therefor there should be an international probe.
An international probe would be biased against the Jewish state?
Sounds like we are all getting the anti-semite label now.
Just who do those Israeli fascists think they are?
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu talks during a Likud faction meeting at the Knesset, the Israeli parliament, in Jerusalem, Monday, June 7, 2010. Netanyahu has rejected a proposal by U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon for an international commission to investigate Israel’s killing of nine activists during a raid on a Gaza-bound flotilla carrying humanitarian supplies and hundreds of activists protesting the closure of the Hamas-ruled Palestinian territory, but officials said Netanyahu was open to a probe that would look into the actions of the activists as well. (AP)
JERUSALEM – Israel’s military has appointed an internal team of experts to examine last week’s deadly commando raid on a Gaza-bound flotilla.
The military said on Tuesday the team will review various internal investigations already going on. It says results are expected by July 4.
The military probe is in addition to a planned government review of the political decision-making ahead of the raid, which killed nine pro-Palestinian activists on the flotilla and triggered a storm of international criticism of Israel.
Israel has rejected calls for an international probe, saying it would be biased against the Jewish state.
Activists claimed Israeli commandos needlessly opened fire. Israel says its soldiers began shooting only after a mob of activists attacked them.
THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP’s earlier story is below.
SHARM EL-SHEIKH, Egypt (AP) — After three years of cooperating in the Israeli blockade of Gaza, Egypt said Monday that it will leave its border with the Palestinian territory open indefinitely for humanitarian aid and restricted travel.
With international pressure building to ease the blockade, an Egyptian security official said sealing off Hamas-ruled Gaza has only bred more militancy.
The decision to ease the restrictions erected by Israel to isolate and punish Hamas comes a week after a deadly Israeli raid on a flotilla of activists trying to break the blockade.
The move restores a link to the outside world for at least some of Gaza’s 1.5 million Palestinians. It also appeared calculated to defuse anger in the Arab and Muslim world over Egypt’s role in maintaining the blockade and to show that Egypt, too, is now pressing Israel to open at least its land crossings with Gaza.
“Egypt is the one that broke the blockade,” Egyptian Foreign Ministry spokesman Hossam Zaki said. “We are not going to let the occupying power escape from its responsibilities.”
Makeshift camps are sprouting up in Port-au-Prince
Up to 10,000 US troops will be on the ground or off the coast of Haiti by Monday to help deal with the earthquake aid effort, US defence officials say.
Aid distribution has begun but logistics continue to be extremely difficult, UN officials say.
Tuesday’s earthquake has left as many as 45,000-50,000 people dead.
Correspondents say survivors seem increasingly desperate and angry as bottlenecks and infrastructure damage delay relief efforts.
AT THE SCENE
Matt Frei, Port-au-Prince
No-one is in charge. The president is sleeping at the airport with quite a few journalists and aid workers.
Earlier this morning, I stood on top of the rubble of the Supreme Court, the Foreign Ministry, the Interior Ministry and the Senate – where a few senators had been killed when the quake hit. Their bodies have been dragged out and put in body bags. The representatives of state are literally lying on the pavement slowly rotting away.
This is a citizenry left to its own extremely meagre resources. You’ve got ordinary people trying to administer IV drips to their family members who are slowly dying, but not a single doctor or nurse at the general hospital.
Many are spending another day without food and shelter in the ruined capital.
UN humanitarian chief John Holmes told reporters that 30% of buildings throughout Port-au-Prince had been damaged, with the figure at 50% in some areas.
The US has already sent an aircraft carrier, the USS Carl Vinson, to Haiti and the USS Bataan, carrying a marine expeditionary unit, is on its way.
The chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, Adm Mike Mullen, said a hospital ship and more helicopters would be sent in the coming days, carrying more troops and marines.
He said the total number of US troops would rise to between 9,000 and 10,000.
“Right now, I mean, literally as we speak, the Vinson (aircraft carrier) and the company from the 82nd Airborne who got there last night are focusing on delivering water from the helicopters offshore to the people of Haiti.”
They want us to provide them with help, which is, of course, what we want to do
David Wimhurst
UN spokesman
US defence secretary Robert Gates said the relief effort was the “highest priority for US military assets in this hemisphere”, and all necessary resources would be made available.
He described infrastructure problems which have led to delays in aid distribution as “facts of life”.
“I don’t know how … [the US] government could have responded faster or more comprehensively than it has,” he said.
The announcements came after US President Barack Obama pledged full American support in a phone call to his Haitian counterpart Rene Preval.
Relief problems
The UN said a total of about $310m (£190m) in international aid had been pledged so far for the relief effort.
UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon: “Food and water are in critically short supply”
• Tens of thousands lose homes in 7.0 magnitude quake
• UN headquarters, schools and hospitals collapse
Footage of the earthquake’s aftermath. Contains disturbing images Link to this video
René Préval, the president of Haiti, has described the devastation after last night’s earthquake as “unimaginable” as governments and aid agencies around the world rushed into action.
Préval described how he had been forced to step over dead bodies and heard the cries of those trapped under the rubble of the national parliament. “Parliament has collapsed. The tax office has collapsed. Schools have collapsed. Hospitals have collapsed,”he told the Miami Herald.“There are a lot of schools that have a lot of dead people in them.” Préval said he thought thousands of people had died in the quake.
A 7.0 magnitude quake – the biggest recorded in this part of the Caribbean and the largest to hit Haiti in more than 200 years – rocked Port-au-Prince, destroying a hospital and sending houses tumbling into ravines.
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