At the site of the earthquake, stress had been building up in the Earth’s crust for decades. When it released, that stress caused one of the most damaging quakes on record. The earth moved more than 20 meters over a 500-mile zone and the resulting earthquake released as much energy as a 45-megaton hydrogen bomb (to put this in perspective, this is 30,000 times more powerful as the bomb that leveled Hiroshima). It was the fourth-strongest earthquake recorded since 1900 and the strongest earthquake to strike Japan in recorded history. The quake shifted the Earth’s axis by somewhere between 4 and 10 inches ..
.. For example, it’s true that radioactive cesium (Cs-134 and Cs-137) was measured in tuna caught in the Pacific Ocean. But it’s not true that this cesium posed any risk to people eating this tuna. I interviewed the scientist who made these measurements and he pointed out that the radioactivity of the cesium was lower than the radioactivity content of the natural potassium in the fish.
.. This shouldn’t surprise anyone who has studied the impact of the Chernobyl accident. While there was significant short-term impact in the areas close to the Chernobyl reactors—and the area right around the ruined reactor remains a forbidden zone where you just don’t want to go—further afield the impact was fairly low. Numerous studies (summarized by the International Atomic Energy Agency in this 2006 report) concluded that the ecosystem in the exclusion zone around the Chernobyl site is among the richest ecosystems in Europe, teeming with large game as well as smaller animals, partly because there aren’t any people there.
How They Failed to Block the Iran Deal
The debate on the deal throughout was only ostensibly on its merits. The Republicans’ contempt for Obama—as a Democrat, as a black person, as, in the view of many of them, an illegitimate president—was clear to any close observer. For the first time in US history, the opposition party thumbed its nose at the president by inviting the head of another nation—Netanyahu—to address Congress to urge rejection of an international measure the president supported. When Secretary of State John Kerry, a former chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, appeared before it to testify on the agreement, he was greeted with overt contempt by its Republican members.
.. The lead in opposing it was taken by AIPAC, which aligns itself on Israel’s security matters with the Likud party and its leader, Netanyahu. (When the more peace-minded Yitzahk Rabin was prime minister, his relationship with AIPAC was rocky.)
.. Each side had support from Israeli officials: current ones were against the deal, while former heads of intelligence and the military said that it was good for Israel’s security.
The Man Who Saved the World
The little-known story of how close to nuclear destruction the world really was during those dark October days and how the heroism of one man saved us all
Obama reads Iran better than his critics
Mr Obama has taken the opposite tack. A realistic negotiator puts himself into his adversary’s shoes. The starting point on Iran is that its desire to go nuclear is entirely rational. US-led coalitions have invaded two of Iran’s direct neighbours, Iraq and Afghanistan in the past 15 years. American troops are still there. As a rule, the US does not invade countries that have nuclear weapons. Moreover, the US labelled Iran part of the “axis of evil” in 2002, at a time when Tehran wanted to help the US in Afghanistan, where they shared enmity with the Taliban (as they still do). Mohammad Khatami, the moderate cleric who was then Iran’s president, had also signalled a nuclear deal was possible. Had President George W Bush responded, a far better one would have been available. Instead, he branded Iran evil. Unsurprisingly, Tehran stepped up its clandestine efforts.
.. It is possible, as Mr Obama’s critics predict, that Iran will spend much of the estimated $100bn in unfrozen assets on regional proxies — Hizbollah at the forefront. So what? Compared to the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Isis) and its mimics, Hizbollah is a restrained actor. Its theology is absolutist and it has carried out terrorist attacks. But it is not a death cult. In a world of bad choices, boosting Hizbollah’s clout is an acceptable price to pay for a deal that delays — and possibly dispels — the spectre of a Middle East nuclear arms race
.. Diplomatic norms prevent Mr Obama from pointing out that Iran is a more promising candidate for peaceful change than Saudi Arabia. Unlike that country, Iran has a quasi-democracy. About half of its university graduates are female. There are competing power centres within Iran’s theological regime. Prospects for further relaxation are easy to imagine.
.. There is also the small matter of how to defeat Isis. Without Iran’s help, the US would be in far worse straits.