"We knew the world would not be the same. Few people laughed, few people cried, most people were silent. I remembered the line from the Hindu scripture, the Bhagavad-Gita. Vishnu is trying to persuade the Prince that he should do his duty and to impress him takes on his multi-armed form and says, "Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.” I suppose we all thought that, one way or another.”

-Robert Oppenheimer, scientific director of the Manhattan Project which created the first atomic devices. [1]

LISTEN TO THE SHOW

The harnessing of the power of the atom was one of the signature technological achievements of the twentieth century.

The awesome possibilities of nuclear energy presented humanity with an opportunity to mature beyond the need for endless war and conquest with ever more potent weapons, or to destroy itself in a blaze of neutronic hubris.

An opportunity to evolve or perish.

One thousand days now separate us from the earthquake and tsunami that wrought what former nuclear industry senior vice president Arnold Gundersen called `the biggest industrial catastrophe in the history of mankind.` [2] It would appear that our species has not only failed to vanquish the nuclear dragon, or tame it. Our civilization seems to remain wholly subservient to it, surrendering to its promise of military mastery and industrial supremacy in the here and now at the cost of toxic waste that will survive far beyond the extinction of our species.

The guests on this week`s Global Research News Hour speak of cover-up. Yoichi Shimatsu spoke to the Global Research News Hour about the misleading statements coming from the Japanese government and the Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) about the explosions from March of 2011, the radiative effects, and the secretive role of Fukushima as a storage site for Plutonium and nuclear weapons.

Hatrick Penry goes even further. Penry utilizes documents disclosed from unimpeachable documentary sources, attained through Freeedom of Information requests, to show that much more radiation was released into the atmosphere than is generally recognized.

Moreover, the exercise of removing spent fuel rods from a waste pool at Fukushima`s Unit 4 would seem to be a fabrication.                                             

Mainstream media and government officials have apparently done a better job containing the truth of the Fukushima disaster, than they have the radio-active debris the catastrophe has generated.

THe Fukushima cover-up is about more than mendacious and criminal behaviour on the part of corporate and government officials. It shines a spotlight on the power and clout of the trans-national nuclear industry, and how they co-opt not only media, but whole sectors of economic and military endeavour.

Yoichi Shimatsu is a veteran investigator and former editor of the Japan Times Weekly. He has travelled to the fukushima exclusion Zone on several occasions since the accident.

Hatrick Penry is otherwise known as Tony Muga. He uncovered documents revealed through Freedom of Information requests with which he essentially discredits current and ongoing claims about the state of the facility. His site is http://hatrickpenry.wordpress.com

LISTEN TO THE SHOW

Click to download the audio (MP3 format)