Ibero-American News Digest

Argentine Nuclear Scientist Blasts Anti-Nuclear Hysteria

March 25 (EIRNS)—One of Argentina's foremost nuclear authorities, Dr. Raúl Oscar Racana, former president of the Nuclear Regulatory Agency (ARN) from 2004-2009, was interviewed on Channel 9 TV's "Hard To Tame" show on March 18, and blasted the hysteria-mongering about nuclear energy in general and the Japanese crisis, in particular. According to LaRouche Youth Movement (LYM) organizers in Argentina, the YouTube posting of the interview is circulating very widely. As seen in the following excerpts, Racana responded to the host's questions, which are paraphrased here, with very blunt answers, which are exact quotes (in translation):

Q: Are we on the verge of an apocalypse of a nuclear explosion?

A: No. You have to look at what's likely, possible, and impossible.

Q: What about a nuclear mushroom cloud?

A: Impossible.

Q: One in a million?

A: No. Impossible. Not even one in a million.

Q: Could the Fukushima reactor explode?

A: No. That's a figment of the imagination of some perverted minds and some stupid people....

Q: What about Chernobyl? Is Fukushima worse, or not as bad?

A: Look, first you have to define the kind of accident. There are accidents whose origin is natural, such as this one—nature caused it; there are accidents due to lack of expertise or errors; and there are accidents due to imprudence or negligence. That's Chernobyl...

Let me make a comparison. I buy you a Fiat 600, and I tell you, "Look, don't drive it at more than 130 kph." Now, if you drive it at 180 or 190 kph, that Fiat 600 can have an engine meltdown, it will be highly unstable, and you could have an accident at any time. So, to make sure that you don't drive at more than 130 kph I'm going to put a set of security systems on the car to make it impossible for you to exceed 130.

Now, if you get into the car, deactivate the security systems, and drive at 180 kph, you are imprudent. That's exactly what happened at Chernobyl....

Q: Are you concerned about how the Japanese are handling the Fukushima situation?

A: So far, they have shown that they have been able to control the situation....

Q: Who can guarantee that there won't be another earthquake or tsunami?

A: Nobody. But look, the world that's coming is one of dangers. You either face the danger and solve it, or you are doomed to vanish. The second premise you have to keep in mind for the coming world, is that with energy you can solve all problems, and without energy, you can't solve any. So don't worry about contamination coming from energy sources. Because if I have a system that produces contamination, I'll use energy to get rid of the contamination that the first energy system produced. You also have to be aware of where we live. Man is like a fish. A fish, out of water, dies. Man, without radiation, dies. Radiation keeps man alive.

Peruvian Geographer: Solar Activity Is Cause of Earthquakes

March 24 (EIRNS)—On March 12, the day after the Japanese earthquake/tsunami, the Peruvian daily La Razón published an article headlined, "Solar Storms Are the Cause of the Phenomenon, According to Vilchez Lara." It reported on the views of Luis Alberto Vilchez Lara, doctor in geographic sciences, president of the Antarctic Studies Institute in Peru, and dean of the department of geographic sciences of the Federico Villareal National University, as well as an Air Force professor.

According to La Razón, Vilchez has called on the country's authorities to take note of the changes in the Earth's axis of rotation and magnetic field, after the Japanese events, just as occurred after the February 2010 earthquake in Bio Bio, Chile. Vilchez, according to the daily, said that "This earthquake is a consequence of an unusual phenomenon which is happening in the cosmos, and which is known only to international scientific elites, referring to solar storms which not only have altered worldwide weather on the Earth but are also producing other significant changes in the Earth's crust."

Ecuadorian Nuclear Physicist Campaigns for World Land-Bridge

March 21 (EIRNS)—All that is needed to build a worldwide, high-speed, multimodal rail network which unifies the planet is political will and a crossing over the Bering Strait, Prof. Hugo Tobar Vega told the Ecuador daily Expreso, in an interview published March 19.

Isn't this far-fetched? "Not at all!", the 72-year-old nuclear physicist and expert in maritime transport, answered with a smile. Tobar Vega, who teaches at Ecuador's Escuela Politécnica del Litoral (Espol), continued that what is crazy, is that in 2012, a 30-meter-draft vessel, capable of transporting 22,000 containers, will begin operating. If this is where maritime transport is headed, it will be the death of most ports in the world, which can't handle such size. He explained that the project for a world train is not new. Tsar Nicolas II of Russia proposed uniting the Americas and Asia by a bridge over the Bering Strait, and in 2007, President Vladimir Putin proposed to his U.S. counterpart just such a world land-bridge—crossing the strait with a tunnel. "Should it be built, it would be one of the most important achievements of all humanity, because it connects the whole planet by land, from Chile to South Africa," Tobar Vega said.

Accompanying the Expreso article is a graphic with EIR's famous global land-bridge map, identified as "the principal rail lines throughout the world, outlined by U.S. economist Lyndon LaRouche."

Will this be possible? "I think so," Tobar Vega answered. "I may not see it, because once approved, it will take some 17 years to build, but it will be useful to humanity."

Chile Could See Another Big Quake Soon

March 26 (EIRNS)—Both Chilean and foreign seismologists, geologists and engineers warn that another big earthquake in Chile, of a magnitude as high as 9 on the Richter scale, is a real possibility in the near future. In the two weeks since the Japanese quake and tsunami, there has been a considerable amount of seismic activity in Chile, although not of a magnitude to cause significant damage.

But Stefano Lorito of Italy's National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology reported in late January of this year that Chile's Pacific coast is a likely site for a new earthquake, due to the fact that the 8.8 magnitude quake that occurred on Feb. 27, 2010 didn't sufficiently relieve seismic stress that had been building up in the zone. According to Lorito's study, which was published Jan. 30 in Nature Geoscience, the 2010 quake in south central Chile had only partly broken stresses deep in the Earth's crust in an area south of the capital of Santiago. These stresses have been building up since an 1835 quake devastated the city of Concepción, also severely damaged in last year's quake.

Lorito's team of scientists looked particularly at the risks in an area known as the "Darwin Gap" on the coast near Concepción, so named because Charles Darwin visited the area and documented the enormous damage done to that city by the 1835 quake. Examining data from tsunamis, satellites, and other sources, Lorito's group found that the continental Nazca plate beneath the Pacific Ocean was sliding under the South American mainland at a rate of about 6.8 cm. (2.7 in.) a year, so that a total of almost 12 meters (39 ft. 4.4 in.) of stresses had built up since 1835.

While the area deep below the Earth to the north of Concepción moved almost 20 meters as a result of the 2010 quake, the Darwin Gap area barely moved. Lorito's team concluded that "the increased stress on the unbroken patch may in turn have increased the probability of another major to great earthquake there in the near future."

Sane Voices Amidst Anti-Nuclear Hysteria

March 27 (EIRNS)—While Greenpeace and a gaggle of other British-directed fascist greenies are using events in Japan to demand the takedown of nuclear energy, a number of sane voices have been heard above the din.

In Argentina and Brazil, officials have reaffirmed their intention to continue their nations' respective nuclear programs, emphasizing the safety of their reactors. These two governments have also just formalized a program to jointly develop two research reactors in each country.

In Chile, the government of President Sebastián Piñera has just signed a memorandum of understanding on nuclear cooperation with the United States, following similar nuclear training agreements with France and Argentina. Anti-nuclear hysteria has emerged here since the Japanese earthquake and tsunami, especially in the Congress, forcing Piñera to promise not to build nuclear reactors during his Presidency. But pro-nuclear sentiment remains strong among some business and scientific leaders who realize that nuclear is the only way Chile can generate the energy it will need in coming years. Piñera said last week that his government will continue "to study" events in Japan.

Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez, a British asset, is letting it all hang out, however. On March 15, after denouncing nuclear energy as "something extremely risky and dangerous for the whole world," he announced he was freezing Venezuela's plans to build its first nuclear power plant, established in a 2010 agreement he signed with Russia.

Not to be outdone, Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos hailed Chávez's decision, and insisted other countries follow suit. Santos called Japan "a wake-up call for all countries using that kind of energy, which is extremely sensitive to human error or natural disasters," in his address March 16 to a "Thinking Green: Economic Strategy for the 21st Century" conference in Bogotá, whose big—and we do mean big—speaker was British hedge fund fraudster Al Gore.