Did you know the Xmas 2004 tsunami that killed about 300,000 humans also swept toxic waste, including nuclear waste, into the war-torn poverty-shackled land of Somalia in Africa??

Go back to Christmas time, 2004, the tsunami we all now know about that killed about 300,000 humans. But did you know about the nuclear waste those tsunami waves probably washed into
Somalia??

Story is that:
“for the past 15 years or so, European companies and others have used Somalia as a dumping ground for a wide array of nuclear and hazardous wastes.” Nick Nuttall, that is his name, a spokesperson for the UN Environment Program (UNEP), told Voice Of America that money is a big
reason: “on average, it cost European countries $2.50 per ton to dump wastes on Somalia’s beaches, rather than $250 per ton to dispose of the wastes in Europe.”

Nuttall said the “tsunami dislodged and
smashed open the drums, barrels, and other containers, spreading the contaminants as far away as ten or more kilometers inland.”

[one kilometer= 5/8 of a mile; that is less than a mile] [Don’t get mad at me if this seems obvious to you — because in a NY Times article of Dec 12, 2004, it was revealed that the USA ranks 28th out of 40 countries in mathematical literacy — also
see the other rather stunning numbers we should all know about as Americans in the “America No. 1?” article in the Austin Chronicle of Jan 21, 2005 —
here’s the reference:
http://www.austinchronicle.com/issues/dispatch/2005-01-21/cols_ventura.html ]

Some groundwater has also been contaminated in Somalia.

Where is Somalia anyway? On the east coast of Africa, in the same basin where the tsunami and the after-waves bounced back and forth after the initial underwater bottom-shift that occured by Sumatra in Indonesia on the other (eastern) side of the Indian Ocean. Somalia is located up north at the horn of the African continent, wrapping around Ethiopia, the land of Haile Selassie, east of Kenya.

According to an article by Cathy Majtenyi on Feb 23, 2005:

“Somali officials said the country was vulnerable to illegal dumping, as Africa’s longest coastline is not patrolled and the country has no coast guards, or health officials and facilities to test whatever is inside the containers.

Until late last year, Somalia had been without an effective central government since 1991, when then-leader Siad Barre was ousted. The new transitional government is in the process of moving to the capital Mogadishu from its current base in Kenya.”

So Somalia is a good target for amoral profiteers who don’t care who they kill or contaminate. And, “The dumping of hazardous and nuclear wastes onto Somalia’s coastline is a long-running concern. In a media report last year, Somali fisherman said they saw foreign vessels dropping containers onto the beach and pollution into the waters.”

Mr. Nuttall said: “The results of the contamination on coastal populations have been disastrous.

“These problems range from acute respiratory infections to dry, heavy coughing, mouth bleedings, abdominal hemorrhages, what they described as unusual skin chemical reactions,” he noted. “So there’s a whole variety of ailments that people are reporting from these
villages where we had a chance to look. We need to go much further and farther in finding out the real scale of this problem.”

According to an ITV.com article posted on truthout.org on 4th March 2005: “Over the past decade, Italian and Swiss companies are alleged to have made THOUSANDS of illegal shipments of nuclear waste along Somalia’s coastline.” [Caps mine]

All this was not helped by corruptive forces, like the $80 million Somali health minister Nur Elmy Osman reportedly accepted “to import 10 million tonnes of industrial, hospital and highly toxic waste to the shores of north of Mogadishu” [$8 per tonne]. You can read more
about this on the Aragtida Padweynaha website report of January 9, 2005.

Try http://www.hobyonet.com/Aragtida/tsunami.htm

It has some maps too, to help your geography.

The VOA article is at

http://www.voanews.com/english/ and dated 23 February 2005

So beware of problems like this as you hear primping pundits tell us nuclear power and nuclear energy are just what we need to save the world. This is one of the dirtiest, most evil industries mankind has developed and promulgated. It only survives with government subsidies. No subsidies, no nuclear power. It’s your money – – to poison your own kids and family and friends. And it definitely not is the answer to global warming.

Check http://www.nirs.org for their latest post from their Nuclear Monitor issues combined 621-622
entitled:
“Nuclear Power: No solution to climate change”

It should be up there any day now, if not already, as will a review of “The Most Important Issues Americans THINK They Know Enough About….Part I”

All the Best,
Conrad Miller M.D. C 2005