Mafia Solves Nuclear Waste Problem
Mafia Solves Nuclear Waste Problem
Posted by "feww" on September 2009
Nuclear Waste Disposal Doesn’t Have
to Be So Expensive: says Mafia
The enterprising corporate arm of Mafia has found an answer (!) to the age old problem of energy growth: Go Nuclear!
And don’t worry about the astronomical cost of “disposing” of the permanent waste. They will dump it in the ocean for you at premium prices.
Italian authorities have located the wreck of a vessel with 180
barrels of toxic waste on board, which they say was sunk by the mafia,
off the south coast of Italy. The sunken ship is reported to be one of
more than 30 scuttled by Cosa Nostra.
Photo: ANSA.it.
Italian officials say the 110-meter long sunken vessel, which lay in
500 meters of water in the Tyrrhenian sea, may contain radioactive
waste, a report said.
The ship’s location was revealed by Francesco Fonti, an
ex-member of Calabria’s feared ‘Ndrangheta crime group, who confessed
to using explosives to sink this vessel and two others.
Greco said investigators believed there were 32 ships carrying toxic
waste sunk by the mafia since the introduction of tighter environmental
legislation in the 1980s made illegal waste disposal a lucrative
business for crime groups.
"The Mediterranean is 0.7 percent of the world's seas. If in this
tiny portion there are more than 30 (toxic waste) shipwrecks, imagine
what there could be elsewhere," he said.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/8260409.stm
Somalia & the Mafia, the nuclear waste dump zone
In 1991, the government of Somalia – in the Horn of Africa – collapsed. Its nine million people have been teetering on starvation ever since – and many of the ugliest forces in the Western world have seen this as a great opportunity to steal the country’s food supply and dump our nuclear waste in their seas.
Yes: nuclear waste. As soon as the government was gone, mysterious European ships started appearing off the coast of Somalia, dumping vast barrels into the ocean. The coastal population began to sicken. At first they suffered strange rashes, nausea and malformed babies. Then, after the 2005 tsunami, hundreds of the dumped and leaking barrels washed up on shore. People began to suffer from radiation sickness, and more than 300 died. Ahmedou Ould-Abdallah, the UN envoy to Somalia, tells me: “Somebody is dumping nuclear material here. There is also lead, and heavy metals such as cadmium and mercury – you name it.” Much of it can be traced back to European hospitals and factories, who seem to be passing it on to the Italian mafia to “dispose” of cheaply. When I asked Ould-Abdallah what European governments were doing about it, he said with a sigh: “Nothing. There has been no clean-up, no compensation, and no prevention.”
At the same time, other European ships have been looting Somalia’s seas of their greatest resource: seafood. We have destroyed our own fish-stocks by over-exploitation – and now we have moved on to theirs. More than $300m worth of tuna, shrimp, lobster and other sea-life is being stolen every year by vast trawlers illegally sailing into Somalia’s unprotected seas. The local fishermen have suddenly lost their livelihoods, and they are starving. Mohammed Hussein, a fisherman in the town of Marka 100km south of Mogadishu, told Reuters: “If nothing is done, there soon won’t be much fish left in our coastal waters.”
Somali waters have a high potential for fishing. As a result, the Fisheries and Marine Resources Minister has indicated that a study by his ministry had shown a large number of foreign vessels illegally fishing in Somali waters and serious pollution caused by vessels discharging toxic waste. Heavily armed foreign boats have often tried to exploit the breakdown of law and order in Somalia since the overthrow of President Mohammed Siad Barre in 1991 by fishing in the rich Somali waters, thus depriving coastal communities of resources.
Further, Somalia is one of the many Least Developed Countries that reportedly received countless shipments of illegal nuclear and toxic waste dumped along the coastline. Starting from the early 1980s and continuing into the civil war, the hazardous waste dumped along Somalia’s coast comprised uranium radioactive waste, lead, cadmium, mercury, industrial, hospital, chemical, leather treatment and other toxic waste. Most of the waste was simply dumped on the beaches in containers and disposable leaking barrels which ranged from small to big tanks without regard to the health of the local population and any environmentally devastating impacts.
Industrialised countries generate about 90 per cent of the world’s hazardous wastes. The amount of waste crossing national frontiers is increasing and is likely to continue, due to the high growth of industries in developed countries accompanied by a high increase in the production of hazardous waste. Reportedly, some European firms are known to be engaged in the business of dumping hazardous waste in Africa. The primary cause of this is cost. It has been estimated that it costs as little as $2.50 per tonne to dump hazardous waste in Africa as opposed to $250 per tonne in Europe.
***
From cocaine to plutonium: mafia clan accused of trafficking nuclear waste
Authorities in Italy are investigating a mafia clan accused of trafficking nuclear waste and trying to make plutonium.
The ‘Ndrangheta mafia, which gained notoriety in August for its blood
feud killings of six men in Germany, is alleged to have made illegal
shipments of radioactive waste to Somalia, as well as seeking the
“clandestine production” of other nuclear material.
Its true there was an increase in illegal dumping of Toxic wastes on the Somali waters by European and Asia firms, because the country had no functional government for the past 17 years. As a result almost all European and Asia firms started freely dumping their toxic wastes in Somali waters without paying for the service.
As a result of this, a group of enterprising Somalis leaving at the port of Eyl , a haven for piracy, approached the Italian mafias in Rome and explained their annoyance over the dumping of toxic wastes on their waters..
The group of Somalis then requested the Italian mafias to protect their waters and start collecting revenue from vessels plying the route. The Italian Mafias accepted to help their former protectorate by stopping the irresponsible dumping of toxics wastes on one condition, which was to seize any vessel travelling on the Somali waters and demand a ransom. Hence the beginning of a flourishing piracy business at the port of Eyl where NATO forces even fear to go
The Italian mafia is an old hand at illegal toxic-waste dumping, drug smuggling and kidnapping, but prosecutors now say it’s moved into sinister new lines of work providing services to foreign terrorists including Al Qaeda, and trafficking nuclear material. Francesco Basentini, head of anti-mafia police in Potenza, says his investigators have evidence that the Sicilian Cosa Nostra and Calabrian ‘Ndrangheta have been dealing in radioactive nuclear waste, some imported from elsewhere in Europe and the United States. And, he says, they’ve also been dabbling in the “clandestine production of plutonium.”
While Basentini won’t reveal the mob’s customers for the nuclear materials, Nicola Gratteri, an anti-mafia prosecutor in Calabria, confirms that Italian mafiosi are increasingly working with foreign terrorists, and investigators have fingered the Naples Camorra mob as a conduit for fake documents and arms for Al Qaeda. Gratteri sees a perverse logic behind the mafia’s cooperation with terrorists: to make Italy a valued part of their infrastructure rather a target of their attacks.
***
Magistrate Francesco Basentini in the city of Potenza, in southern Italy, began the investigation after a confession of an ‘Ndrangheta “turncoat,” detailing his role in the alleged waste-dumping. Basentini said that two of the Calabrian clan’s members are being investigated, along with eight former employees of the state energy research agency Enea.
The eight Enea managers are suspected of paying the mobsters to get rid of 600 drums of toxic and radioactive waste from Italy, Switzerland, France, Germany, and the US, with Somalia as the destination lined up by the traffickers.
These activities took place in the 1980s and 1990s.
Maurizio Dematteis with the Italian environmental umbrella Ligambiente 2001 said there were already more than 600,000 tonnes of radioactive waste on the floor of the Atlantic ocean along the coast of the western Sahara.
He also said there were three enormous illegal dumps – among the largest in the world – in Somalia, where workers handle the radioactive waste without any kind of safeguard or protective gear – not even gloves.
The workers do not know what they are handling, and if one of them dies, the family is persuaded to keep quiet with a small bit of cash, the activist added.
***
http://amfix.blogs.cnn.com/2009/04/09/somali-women-flocking-to-ports-in-hope-of-marrying-pirates/
Pirates are holding a U.S. captain hostage at sea. The Navy is watching everything that happens. So what is supposed to happen next? And what is driving this problem? We talked to someone who knows a thing or two about the pirates and has experience covering them in Somalia. Kaj Larsen, former U.S. Navy SEAL, spoke to T.J. Holmes on CNN’s American Morning Thursday.
Larsen says the root conditions of poverty, lawlessness and civil war on the ground in Somalia are to blame. The large sums of ransom money being paid out to pirates, he says, is even leading some Somali women to venture to the port town of Bosaso in hopes of marrying these newly-rich men.
Larsen: You couldn’t have said it better, T.J. I’ve
been on the ground in Somalia. One of the interesting demographic
things that’s happening right now is that single Somali women are
flocking to the port town Bosaso where these pirates come out of in the
hopes of marrying a pirate. So you can see that it really is — the root
conditions of poverty, lawlessness and civil war on the ground in
Somalia are really what are breeding this problem.
Larsen: I think this is a clarion call to the international community that Somalia is and continues to be a failed state. And that if we don’t continue to pay attention to it, if we don’t start changing the conditions on the ground there, if we don’t start governing that ungoverned space that it’s going to be a breeding ground for piracy and possibly international terrorism. So yes, I would hope that this situation, that the silver lining in the cloud is that people would start paying attention to this horrific situation in the country there.
———-
these are fairly explosive revelations that seem to have been buried away and forgotten about.. Italian mafia dumping radioactive waste at sea and on land in somalia through the 80’s and 90’s with obvious western/eastern government compliance to allow this to happen.. and the degradation of the fishing stocks off the coast of somalia through this dumping and over fishing have brought the country to its knees..piracy is the leading industry in the country, and may also be involved in direct links to the mafia, through the ransoms that are demanded and then handed over for the abandonment of the dumping of illegal waste by the mafia groups.. and the navy seal confirms what i believe, that a ground surge/war will happen to “secure” the country but also to guard the huge oil supplies they have in the semi-autonomous area of puntland
401
http://seeker401.wordpress.com/mafia-nuclear-waste-dumping-zone
http://EcoDelMar.org/deep_blue_nuc
100K+ protest Mafia cancer
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7957501.stm
http://feww.wordpress.com/2009/09/16/mafia-solves-nuclear-waste-problem
http://weblog.Greenpeace.org/nuclear-reaction/2009/09/mafia_sank_nuclear_ships
http://Greenpeace.org.uk/blog/nuclear/mafia-accused-of-trafficking-nuclear-waste
Mafia dumps nuclear waste in the high seas...
http://video.nationalgeographic.com/vide
http://EcoDelMar.org/tradition
International Eco-Mafia
and an Ecological Catastrophe
The Nuclear Dump
in the Mediterranean Sea
By MICHAEL LEONARDI
Now
being overshadowed by the deaths of 6 Italian soldiers in the growingly
unpopular war in Afghanistan, another deadly and sinister Tragedy is
brewing. In the beckoning blue waters of the Mediterranean Sea that
surround the Italian Peninsula and its islands, and which laps at the
coasts of 22 countries in Africa, Europe, the Middle East and Asia, a
hidden legacy of the Sea being used as a disposal site for radioactive
and other toxic wastes for over 20 years is beginning to come to light.
What some inside the halls of government are calling an international
catastrophe, runs the risk of being swept under the table once again by
an Italian Government that has been colluding and embroiled in this
ecological and public health disaster from its beginnings.
Dozens of ships, reportedly carrying cargos of what could be thousands
of barrels of radioactive and toxic wastes have been intentionally sunk
off the shores of Italy, Spain, Greece and as far away as Africa and
Asia, by the International Ecomafia led by Calabria’s ‘Ndrangheta
organized crime syndicate. This has taken place for over twenty years
and insiders in the Italian government and secret service have been
involved in covering it up. The first of these ships to be found,
thought to be called the Cunsky, has been photographed by a robot off
the coast of Cetraro, a medium sized town on the Tyrrheinan coast of
Calabria. Cancerous tumors and thyroid problems are highly prevalent
here and a growing epidemic all along the coasts of the Mediterranean
Sea. Certraro is a town known for its port by tourists all over the
world. Fish caught by the hundreds of fishemen that make their
livelihoods there are eaten throughout Italy and sold on the
International market.
The setting for this story is putting the spotlight on the south of
Italy and the regions of Calabria in the toe of the boot, Basilicata
above Calabria, Puglia in the heel, but also Greece and Spain with
repercussions for the entire Mediterranean basin. The facts of this
unfolding disaster have been documented by Greenpeace and Italy’s
leading environmental organization Legambiente dating back to the late
90’s. Greenpeace has worked to trace the trail of large Cargo Ships
that have disappeared from international circulation. Between 32 and 41
such ships are thought to have been sunk in international waters
between Italy, Greece and Spain, but mostly along the Italian
coastlines. Then, in 2005, a mafia “pentito” (one who repents) named
Franceso Fonti testified of his involvement in the sinking of three
specific ships called the Cunsky, off Cetraro, the Yvonne A off the
coast of Maratea in Basilicata, and the Voriais Sporadais, said to be
off the coast of Metaponto in Basilicata on the Ionian Sea. All are
international tourist destinations with large fishing industries.
Last week a robot was sent down into the depths 11 kilometers off the
coast of Cetraro. There, the robot shot photos of the ship thought to
be the Cunsky, confirming the story of the ‘Ndrangheta “pentito” and
striking a chord of alarm throughout Italy and the world. In the photos
drums like those used to transport and store radioactive and toxic
wastes can be distinguished.
Reports of up to 41 boats have now surfaced in the international media.
It is hoped that many of the barrels are still intact, but no one knows
for sure and it is still unclear what they contain. Traces of Mercury
and Cesnium 137 have recently been found near the town of Amantea in
Calabria further south of Cetraro by about 50 kilometers. Cesnium 137
is a radioactive byproduct of fission reactions that is highly soluble
in water and highly toxic, with a half-life of 30 years. This
contamination is believed to have come from another ship called the
Jolly Rosso that beached along the Calabrian shore in 1990. The cargo
of the Jolly Rosso was illegally dumped near Amantea on a hill along
the Oliva River. Amantea is a hotspot for tumors and ground temperature
around the contaminated area is said to be six degrees warmer than
normal. The population is demanding the truth and government action.
International cooperation is needed in order to find and remove the
sunken ships from the seabed. This will have to be an enormous and
unprecedented undertaking needing close monitoring by international
organizations, the European Union and the United Nations. For now Japan
has offered its assistance as a large sector of their tuna fishing is
done in the Mediterranean between the coast of Spain and Sardinia. A
very strong concern here is that past and current government ties to
the International Ecomafia may hinder efforts to fully investigate the
scope of this calamity or to swiftly initiate attempts to contain the
damage already caused. According to the “pentito” Fonti, he was in
contact with agents from the Italian secret service, SISMI, and
government officials in 1992 when he was involved in the sinking of
these ships.
Author and Italian parliament member Leoluca Orlando, stopping short of
blaming the government outright or any specific government officials,
said that people in the "political system" aided the criminal network.
"Can
you imagine that it is possible to happen without persons inside the
system, inside the political system, inside the bureaucracy, inside the
state, not being connected with these criminals?" he said. "I am sure
that inside the official system there are friends, there are persons
who have protected this form of criminality."
Francesco Neri, an official working with the Calabian anti-mafia
directorate, said that it is unclear who wanted to dispose of these
wastes, but that this would be part of their investigation. The pentito
Fonti stated that wastes that he dealt with came from Norway, France,
Germany and the United States.
Ilaria Alpi was a Journalist who was following the trail of arms and
toxic garbage trafficking from Italy to Somalia. She worked for Italian
public television station Rai. In 1994 she and her camera man Miran
Hrovatin were gunned down and killed in Mogadishu under mysterious
circumstances. Many here believe, including the Mafia pentito Fonti,
that she was killed because she learned too much about the collusion
between the Mafia and Italian military.
I have lived in Calabria for almost two years with my wife and
beautiful 14 month baby Gaia Valmaree, who was named in honor of both
our mother Earth and my own mother. Upon our return from a visit to the
toxic cities of Toledo and Detroit, we were alarmed and shocked to
learn that the Tyrrhenian sea, which Gaia has been bathing in since her
birth, has been intentionally poisoned with radioactive and other
highly toxic wastes for over twenty years. How shocked and dismayed we
were to discover that government officials have known about it all
along. And how enraged we are that a journalist has been killed,
possibly for trying to reveal the truth about the disposal of waste by
the international Ecomafia and their colluding government and corporate
interests.
Michael Leonardi
currently lives in Calabria. He teaches English at the University of
Calabria in Cosenza and at the Vocational Highschool in Maratea for
training hotel and restaurant workers.
http://www.counterpunch.org/leonardi09182009.html
http://EcoDelMar.org/sea-x-ray
http://EcoDelMar.org/deep_blue_nuc
Scientists long believed that chemicals and heavy metals of concern on land and in coastal waters, such as PCBs, DDT and mercury, would not reach the depths of the ocean. However, it is now known that they are almost ubiquitous, found in significant quantities in ocean waters from the Arctic to the Antarctic, borne on winds to places far removed from their source.
Once in the ocean, they are carried by currents bound for the deep sea, or taken up by phytoplankton and accumulate in higher and higher concentrations with each step up in the food chain.
Both the surface life itself and the creatures that rise from the depths at night to feed on it eventually die or are eaten, and their waste and bodies sink into the depths to be consumed by life on the deep seafloor.
Thus, north Atlantic fish living in the twilight zone such as lanternfish, hatchetfish, viperfish and dragonfish have high levels of PCBs,109 and deep seafloor dwelling species such as morid cod living at 2,000 meters have similar levels of PCBs and DDT as cod from the shallow shelf waters off Canada.
Recent research from the north and south Atlantic and Monterey Bay Canyon off California indicates that the deep sea might actually act as a sink for contaminants in the oceans, and that deeper- dwelling fauna may be even more contaminated with these chemicals than those that live close to the surface.
For example, in one study roundnose grenadier caught at 2,000 meters in the North Atlantic were more contaminated than those from 1,000 meters depth,
and the deepest-dwelling fish caught, the lizardfish, was the most highly contaminated of all.112 In recent years, PCB and DDT have been phased out in
many parts of the world, but other similar chemicals still in use today are showing up in deep sea fish.113 Whether contamination by persistent organic pollutants had, continues to have, or will still have significant impacts on the deep sea biology and ecology are unknown. Similarly, levels of mercury in some long-lived, commercially caught deep sea fish are high enough to raise questions about their suitability for human consumption.
For example, orange roughy have over 0.5 parts per million of mercury (1 ppm = 1 mg/kg),114 and alfonsino have levels as high as 0.96 ppm.
Because mercury levels also increase with age and size, larger specimens of these fish are often even more highly contaminated.
The U.S. government recently warned that women of child bearing age and children should eat no more than one meal a week of albacore tuna, which carries
an average of 0.34 ppm of mercury, and that those same consumers should not eat king mackerel (0.73 ppm), swordfish (0.97ppm) and shark (0.99ppm) at all. Though no specific warning has yet been given for deep sea fish such as orange roughy and alfonsino, it seems clear that consumers should be similarly concerned.
Mon, Nov 2, 2009
from Parkersburg News and Sentinel:
Ohio River leads nation in toxic discharge:
A national environmental group has released a study indicating two area rivers are among the top 10 waterways for total toxic discharge... The bulk of the New River's 14 million pounds of toxic discharge is largely the result of the U.S. Army Radford Army Ammunition plant in Radford, Va. The study claims the plant is responsible for more than 13.6 million pounds of toxic pollutants into the New River. Calls to the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection office in Parkersburg were referred to Charleston. After several days of leaving messages, officials in Charleston referred questions to Melyssa Savage, Title III program manager for the West Virginia Division of Homeland Security and Emergency Management Agency. Savage was out of the office...
Bush Administration Blocks
Progress on Toxics Treaty
National environmental and public health groups denounce obstruction that threatens public health
November 1, 2002
Washington
Contact: Dustin Cranor
Leading national environmental and public health
groups denounced the Bush Administration for its 11th-hour
obstruction of Senate legislation implementing the Stockholm Convention
on Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs). The Administration sat out the
negotiations for the past 18 months, and its recent objections in
effect ended all hopes of making the POPs treaty law in the 107th
Congress.
“It's outrageous that the Bush Administration continues to balk at proposals to implement the treaty while refusing to engage in constructive or meaningful ways,” said Robert K. Musil, Ph.D., M.P.H., Executive Director of Physicians for Social Responsibility. “The international community has recognized that industrial tozins (POPs) pose a serious multi-generational threat to public health around the world, but the White House continues to drag its feet.”
A recent investigation by the Environmental Working Group found that an
independent science panel advised the EPA that Teflon is a "likely
human carcinogen." The report says there is evidence that the
manufacturer Dupont knew that Teflon was toxic, that it entered the
bloodstream of people who used it for cooking, and that it is very persistent in
Earth's entire environment. Dupont is also undergoing a long and drawn-out federal criminal
investigation for allegedly suppressing studies regarding birth defects
and other health hazards from Teflon while a profit can still be made for the well healed and most influential shareholders.
GE USA and the American Paper Industry Giants
Filed Lawsuit to block Standard Measures
previously established to protect the
American Public from toxic PCBs
General Electric Company and the American Forest and Paper Association (a trade group representing the paper industry), joined forces to sue the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to block new PCB water quality criteria designed to protect human health.
The EPA settled with industrial giants and yet another corporate action accomplished it's profitable goal:
Hazardous PCB rulings were delayed once again so that highly profitable American Industries were allowed to continue dumping known Toxic PCBs into
American Public Waterways leading to the only living Oceans in the entire universe.
http://FoxRiverWatch.com/industry_sues_to_block_safety_standards
Insurance and public health costs are expected to skyrocket as the
ocean's food chain is contaminated, more children are diagnosed with
ADD and autism, and more adults are diagnosed with cancer. Immune
system suppression is expected to result in incurable infections, again
severely impacting corporate insurance investments and dividends.
Mafia Also Solves Age Old Nuclear Waste Problem
Giant US Industries sue their EPA to continue
dumping Toxic leftovers into Earth's Oceans
Join our cause... force manufactures to "Take It Back" ... tell them
YOU made YOUR Chemicals, and YOU know best how to RECYCLE them... not
us!... so STOP dumping YOUR byproducts into OUR Oceans NOW! and take
back what you have already dumped when it is returned to you by the EPA
or the Army Corp Of Engineers or whatever salvage company has enough
skills to safely transport it back to it's origin... http://EcoDelMar.org/TakeItBack
If this sounds impossible... think about it this way... if you
painted antique cars in your garage... could you legally dump the old
paint thinner/cleaners down the drain?... of course not! So why are
manufacturers allowed to do this on a massive mega-tonnage scale...
They are killing our Oceans and Planet Earth and this has to stop.
Please sign the petition to tell the US Congress to stop allowing
profiteers to destroy our planet for their profit. This is the cause of
widespread cancer and children with autism... if you truly want to
fight cancer... stop industrial pollution... http://EcoDelMar.org/TakeItBack
Inspiring video full screen...
