This Week on GR
by C. L. Cook
Welcome to GR's annual Year-Ender show. 2012 has come and nearly gone in record fashion. There were earth shaking events, sea and sky raking tempests, and e'er the sound of the pipes O' war heard 'cross t' hill and dale in many a-land near and far.
End of year updates, countdowns, and lists upon lists are surely found aplenty elsewhere, so this year, just here, we'd rather than look back at the year's top repeated stories, peer instead, a la Project Censored at deserving stories that received less, little, or no coverage.
Listen. Hear.
And, we'll feature music and nonsense.
Victoria Street Newz publisher and CFUV Radio broadcaster, Janine Bandcroft will too pop by at the bottom of the hour to ring in and wave out the new and old years. But first, a little music to set the calendrical tone from the Red Hot Chilli Pipers with Robbie Burns' annual paean to the passing year, Auld Lang Syne.
Chris Cook hosts Gorilla Radio, airing live every Monday, 5-6pm Pacific Time. In Victoria at 101.9FM, and on the internet at: http://cfuv.uvic.ca. He also serves as a contributing editor to the web news site, http://www.pacificfreepress.com. Check out the GR blog at: http://gorillaradioblog.blogspot.ca/
G-Radio is dedicated to social justice, the environment, community, and providing a forum for people and issues not covered in the corporate media.
Un/Under-reported #4 - Fukushima Burning
Court News, from the United States reported last week of a law suit launched by American sailors against the Tokyo Electric Power Company, or TEPCO. TEPCO you may recall is the entity responsible for the safe operation of Daiichi nuclear facilities located in Fukushima, Japan. You may too recall, the Daiichi plant's six nuclear reactors were damaged in varying degrees by the massive earthquake and subsequent tsunami that struck off the coast of Japan in March of 2010. So why, you may ask, would that ancient event still be making un-news in 2012? Well, the Daiichi plant meltdown was never fixed. Nearly two years after the fact, several of the plant's nuclear reactors are still busy melting away, releasing unknown, or at least unreleased to the world's media, amounts of Cesium -137 into the atmosphere.
Even as millions of gallons of sea water, desperately dumped into the smouldering cooling tanks runs off contaminated back to the sea, the message motif coming from the company and its cohorts in the Japanese government is "No problemo!" The problem for the US sailors, eight crew members of the USS Ronald Reagan so far, is the misrepresentations of the radioactive dangers posed by the plant made to the US government before their aircraft carrier moved in to assist. The sailors' lawyers say, TEPCO's false assurances lulled the US Navy into a "false sense of security" that in effect endangered their clients' safety and well being. Or, to put it in legal terms, the claimant's statement reads:
"Defendant TEPCO and the government of Japan, conspired and acted in concert, among other things, to create an illusory impression that the extent of the radiation that had leaked from the site of the FNPP [Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant] was at levels that would not pose a threat to the plaintiffs, in order to promote its interests and those of the government of Japan, knowing that the information it disseminated was defective, incomplete and untrue, while omitting to disclose the extraordinary risks posed to the plaintiffs who were carrying out their assigned duties aboard the U.S.S. Ronald Reagan."
And, they say: "Defendants had actual and/or constructive knowledge of the properties of radiation that would ensure that, once released into the environment, radiation would spread further and in concentrations that would cause injury to the plaintiffs."
Two years later, here in British Columbia, where debris from the great tsunami is still coming ashore, and the jet stream continues to deliver the radiation known to, "once released into the environment" cause "injury" the Canadian government long ago ceased monitoring, or at least making properly public results of monitoring, radiation levels, or studies of the effects of these elevated levels on human and environmental health.
It is as though the Fukushima Daiichi meltdown is a distant and disarmed disaster, not worthy of comment or investigation. And meanwhile, in Tokyo, the new Abe government is "researching" the previous government's stated goal of zero nuclear power generation, a move protesters believe a first step backward on commitments made towards a non-atomic powered Japan.
Un/Under-reported #3 - Canada's Lost Lost Soldier
On Christmas Day, the Ottawa Citizen published military affairs corresponent, David Pugliese's disturbing account of the Department of National Defense's erasure of files regarding the untimely death of peacekeeper, Major Paeta Hess-von Kruedener. Major Hess-von Kruedener was killed in the line of duty, along with three of his UN blue helmet colleagues at their post overlooking the Israel-Lebanon border's de-militarized zone. Citing the Canadian Legion, a veteran's organization, publication Legion Magazine, Pugliese picks up the story in 2006, as Israel begins an invasion of neighbour Lebanon, writing:
"The Israeli attack on the UN outpost began shortly after noon on July 25, 2006, prompting the UN deputy secretary general to almost immediately call the Israeli ambassador to the UN and complain. Several hours later another artillery barrage hit the outpost. That was followed by another 16 artillery rounds hitting the base, destroying most of the buildings above ground and blowing the door off the underground bunker where Hess-von Kruedener and his fellow peacekeepers had taken refuge. At one point, a general in charge of UN operations in Lebanon called the Israeli liaison officer and told him, “You’re killing my people.” Later that day, an Israeli fighter pilot directed a precision-guided bomb through the door of the UN bunker. The blast from the massive bomb killed the four men."
Pugliese adds, then Canadian chief of defense staff General Rick Hillier described Major Hess-von Kruedener's killing as a “tragic accident.”
Pugliese observes, the incident of a Canadian death at a distant outpost has now "largely been forgotten," but even so, not forgotten enough for the Department of National Defense's liking - or perhaps for that of its friends in high places who have repeatedly repeated the mantra of loyalty to Israel right or wrong.
In 2008 an investigation was duly carried out, and its results made public. Though it took nearly two years for DND to put the official stamp on the file, barely a year later the 67 page report was disappeared from DND's website. Since that time, it has not been available for public perusal; the army finding its findings too sensitive for unofficial eyes.
Too sensitive too is the United Nations report into the incident, also excised from Canada's public record. Pugliese writes, Legion Magazine attempts to obtain a hard copy of the original Canadian report, which contained the UN's work, were refused by the military. DND demanded Legion go through official access-to-information channels. But, the Legionnaires obtained a copy through channels of their own, and as of the Christmas Day release of Pugliese's article, it is available for Canadians to see at the Legion Magazine website; but for how long?
Un/Under-reported #2 - FIPPA and the Usurpation of Canada
One of the too few CBC stories covering the FIPPA, the deal formerly known as the Foreign Investment Promotion and Protection Agreement with China begins thusly:
"While details of the agreement were kept secret until the deal was tabled in Parliament on Sept. 26., now that the details have been revealed, the deal itself does not have to be debated in Parliament. That's because treaty making is a royal prerogative and can become law through a cabinet order in council after sitting in Parliament for no less than 21 days after being tabled."
And just so, the illegitimate occupant of Sussex Drive, Stephen Harper, despiser of Parliamentary democracy has done, ramming through the deal without debate in Canada's House. Fittingly, he signed away the nation's sovereignty while out of the country at an APEC Summit in Vladivostok, Russia last September. The CBC highlight things worthy of knowing about the deal in an article they title: 5 things to know about the Canada-China investment treaty. http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/story/2012/10/27/pol-the-house-fippa-with-china.html
Un/Under-reported #1 - Idle No More - http://idlenomore1.blogspot.ca/
As they were late to the Occupy Movement, Quebec's student strike and subsequent Casseroles manifestations, the State/corporate media nexus in this country also tried to first ignore, then belittle the nascent Idle No More's "acts of resurgence and reclamation of sacred sites."
The rising up, now into its fourth week, is five hundred years in the making and may signal finally the beginning of an end to both colonialism's genocidal legacy and the racism sustaining it yet. From the website Idle No More1.blogspot.ca this explanation of the goals and demands of INM and a new generation:
"Idle No More is a peaceful organization that is working towards profound social, political, and economic change. Our goal is to use education to build consciousness and awareness in all Canadians on the resurgence of Indigenous sovereignty and environmental protections. We are working on building relationships within our communities as well as across Canada and globally. We also call out to each community to organize teach-ins and peaceful demonstrations – we believe an educated public is the best form of action. Each community has different needs, and we support the various actions that are taking place across Turtle Island, however because of the many decades of colonialism, some community members are seeking stronger forms of action such as blockades. While we need to protect the land from further damage, we hope that this will be used as a last resort to protect Mother Earth, and not as a symbolic act. We are working hard to maintain INM as a positive movement that includes all cultures in a vision for justice for all people and for our earth."
We are all, at this moment of a New Year, standing on the threshold of new beginnings. The old order of things is passing away, but not passing gently into its good night.
Despite the violence and injustice of those that still rule, our best hope for the Happy New Years we wish one another is to cleave closely to the principles of the First Peoples of this glorious continent: Justice, stewardship, and respect for all living things, remembering all things are alive.
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