Published: October 31st, 2011 at 10:45 am ET
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Oct. 31 — “Belgium plans to phase out nuclear power,” reports the BBC.
The country’s main political parties agreed on a plan to shut down all seven nuclear reactors.
Three of the reactors could be closed as early as 2015.
Recall the plutonium mishap in Belgium from earlier this month: Nuclear workers dosed with Plutonium during mishap
h/t Anonymous tip
Published: October 31st, 2011 at 10:45 am ET
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Living next door, I seriously doubted that Belgians get anything done properly except making chocolate.
Now they got me surprised.
*B&B “fans + likes” Belgians
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Dear Bread. Coming from the nation most associated since 1981 with politically disappointing, faith in humanity destroying, surprises–the United States, I am also VERY grateful to hear of such surprises. Thank you for your inside perspective on that. It’s been a while (at least a month or so, no?) since another wealthy nation said they were going to move decidedly away from nuclear. It is very wonderful to hear. I hope you and yours are well.
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This is EXCELLENT NEWS!! Posted here:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/09/30/japan-earthquake-2011-gov_n_989682.html
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Dear Whoopie: I’m sure you read the piece and maybe later realized your EXCELLENT optim. It’s a disinformation and distraction propaganda piece and is more cover-up of the real contamination situation. This article is on the order of human interest stories that don’t rationally analyze the data but focus on sweet human-scale events and apparent info that seems to indicate wow, the victims are now getting some relief. The visceral intended audience response by the slime balls that write this sort of article is that we’ll absorb the concept: “things are better; move along; nothing to see here!” Of course, this is ONGOING, nearly daily fall-out if it’s raining especially, from absolutely ongoing radionucllide emissions in the quadrillions of bequerels from Fukushima Dai ichi do not at all go away or get better within human lifetimes–this is NOT Chernobyl, and is already 100s x worse. The info is from the Government of Japan, which admitted, not lying but did, to getting their information from a profiteering corporation, TEPCO, which provided specious info often 30x less severe than the reality in so many cases in terms of reported emissions numbers released by Fukushima Dai ichi. Governments and profiteering corporations are NOT reliable sources of either data or information of the informative kind. All such must be verified by lay people exercising strong critical thinking skills, as well as, we hope, with the cooperation of “experts” in the now. Truly beneficial interactions with “experts” should be two-way and not audience-only-in-slack-jawed-in-awe variety. Also, it is a red flag when “celebrity” experts are regularly seen in corporate media, as well as on our blogs. Even in that disinformation role one CAN get a lot of useful information from experts either because they include it to boost credibility or because one is exercising one’s critical thinking skills in evaluating that “expert” source. Anyways, I appreciate that you are a warrior for…
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They’re on board now. wtg –> Belgium!!!
Dear Belgium Leaders,
Could you please send a memo to the leaders of a couple of countries like France and the USA and advise them to “get with the program” soon.
Sincerely,
Citizen USA
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The more country’s joining the better, hopefully Mother has not to endure another meltdown before the tiny snowball of common sense becomes a lawine that clares mankinds road to the future ( if there still is one possible) of all sociophatic selfdestructing junky’s stupidity, short term greed and weakness.
THUMB’S UP BELGIUM !
A world citizen that coincidently happens to be a Belg o.0
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D.I.D. I think my sister has it.
Disaster Interpretation Disorder.
I think most of the country has it actually. Especially prevalent in the political and academic communities. (?)
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The Nuclear proponents are beginning to lose their propaganda war, yet they will continue to fight to save their sinking ship with large amounts of money as though it mattered.
The ‘experts’ will take many innocent lives with them as they go down, but they won’t see it that way. Like a cat that will fight and scratch to the death. Unable to be born life and genetic mutations will be considered nothing more than collateral damage.
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Yeah, i hear you, my family too, one in California, they simply go with what the “news” feeds them
.
Or to stop me from convincing her to leave.
Oh, but i take iodine, i’m protected, nothing to worry about….
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Yeah, its all a matter of numbers, common sense needs to reach “critical mass” to “the point of no return” .
Would be cool if all loteries would “suggest” to (big) winners
to donate 1% of their luck in geigercounters to public in hotspots around the world. Just an idea.
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It is a shame that Japan has to be the “fool” country that everyone else can learn from. Japan prides itself on always being careful and correct with no mistakes. In this instance they have made the biggest, most foolish mistake in human history. Japan is an absolute disgrace of a country and should be ashamed and apologize to the world. The US is, of course, right behind them as they pushed for Japan to use nuclear power. Foolish, weak and stupid Japan. All pride, no courage or brains.
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@kintaman – it’s a shame that the world hasn’t learned from the very first atomic test (or even earlier).
It’s foolish that Japan didn’t learn by itself and besides – fukushima is not necessarily the last nuc-disaster to learn from – there are enough open threats left on this planet to join in anytime.
Even if all plants were shut down we’re still left with all that dangerous waste for many generations.
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Yes, they could use much more COURAGE, and less Pride/ isolationism!!! But, they are not alone in that respect… (Hello, USA–you are getting dosed up!!)
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I think in the end the US will prove to be the biggest fool of all because it is not going to take to heart the lessons of Fukushima. As soon as the NCR announced its recommendations following its post-Fuku review, several of the commissioners voted to put off taking any action on them.
In the meantime, we are not only continuing to operate similar reactors (many of which are aged well beyond their originally intended operating life), but the NRC is now allowing operators to ramp up their power output well beyond what they were originally designed to handle as well.
And in the meantime, most Americans have barely paid any attention at all to one of the most significant nuclear disaster in history, though its fallout has been raining down on our country for months.
Unless something here changes, I fear we are destined to have our own Fukushima in this country sooner or later–but if watching Fukushima unfold wasn’t enough to catalyze such change, I don’t know what would be.
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Thanks to the jet stream we have our own Fuku already. Its called Fukushima. I think at this point in history, we have been hit harder than say south west Japan. I believe we have gotten a longer continuous dose, but there are places in Japan that are now and will remain for centuries uninhabitable.
Greed is a terrible thing.
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w :- w – Great step for a small country – thanks Belgium and don’t despair
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Three cheers for the Belgians–and the Germans and Italians too!
Not only does every country that chooses to phase out nuclear power remove a few of the reactors that are releasing nasty stuff into the air, creating dangerous waste, and posing ever-present accident threats, but the more countries that choose to phase it out, the more countries that will be pouring research and development into making the real renewable technologies more viable–so in the long run it will become easier for other countries to follow them.
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Yes- it becomes harder for the French to sell their nuke power. They used to sell a lot to their neighbours Germany, Italy and France – et maintenant?
Rien ne va plus, HA!!
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In India also the indignation of the people has reached a very high level so that political spectrum supporting the people against nukes is extending from Kerala to Tamilnadu to West Bengal to Maharashtra and people are also going to the courts. A typical rebuttal of the government’s case appeared in the Deccan Herald newspaper headlined Anti-nuke protest gets Oppn support at
http://www.deccanherald.com/content/201606/anti-nuke-protest-gets-oppn.html
See especially the readers comments for the URL for the rebuttal. Enenews is referenced there so people may get a glimpse of the international discussions on Fukushima and other nuclear theaters.
Hope B will be followed by A! And then all the missing countries!
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THANK YOU, Belgium!!!
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party like its 1999 people! well done belgium…
http://www.vevo.com/watch/queen/another-one-bites-the-dust/GB2100700001
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Good news！
How long can human last with the current idiocy?
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remember the map showing contamination everywhere outside the borders of france and the uk!! lol! well, here is a bit of info about belgium and isnt it a coincidence that after mercoule belgium ditches nuclear….just saying
“Depending on how you gauge it, Belgium is 27 times, 52 times, or 530 times better equipped for radiation monitoring than the United States of America.
Belgium has about 530 times more radiation monitor density than the United States (for area covered), or about 52 time more (for population covered), or 27 times (for comparing monitors/nuke plants).”
http://allegedlyapparent.wordpress.com/2011/04/14/radiation-monitoring-network-belgium-vs-usa/
and from that link i got this
beginning to love belgium 
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Meantime in Belgium, whose Dutch- and French-speaking parties can’t agree on what powers should be devolved from the center to the regions, the absence of government is hardly commented on. More than nine months after a June 2010 election, talk in bars and cafes strays only occasionally to the country’s political predicament. “We’re not really following it anymore,” says a bartender in the Flemish town of Mechelen with a shrug.
“It’s a crisis without an audience,” says Carl Devos, politics professor at the University of Ghent. “It’s a bit absurd.”
In a world of upheaval, the fact that one of its oldest democracies has kept ticking over without validated political leadership is remarkable, even if its citizens don’t see it.”
everybody needs to move to belgium now!! lol!
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is delft university teaching illegal information??
“The team is lead by Jan van de Putte (Belgium), an experienced radiation expert who qualified at the Technical University of Delft, and has participated in environmental surveys of radioactive contamination in Russia, Ukraine, Spain, Belgium and France.
Also in the team is radiation expert Jacob Namminga (Netherlands), who also qualified at the Technical University of Delft, and has taken part in environmental surveys of radioactive contamination in Ukraine, Spain, and France.”
http://www.greenpeace.org/international/en/press/releases/Greenpeace-radiation-monitoring-team-begins-Fukushima-assessment–/
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