Below is a transcript of Bob's Op Ed regarding the Fukusshima nuclear plant disaster, which appeared in the Albuquerque Journal on Saturday, 26 March, 2011.

Regarding  Fukushima

So very sad, the ongoing Fukushima  incident, coming  on top of the horrible devastation brought about by the earthquake and tsunami  in northeastern Japan.

But this  initial  tragedy has been further compounded by a lack of clarity and misleading statements on the part of both  the Japanese  government,  as well as by the reactors' owner, TEPCO, or the Japanese  Electric Power Company, by  the enormous  task presented  to get the reactors under control, and  the initially  paltry efforts  on TEPCO's part toward  that goal. From  a practical point of view,  the IAEA, or lnternational  Atomic Energy Agency, part of the UN,  is the only organization world-wide  that can assist  in nuclear  disasters of all varieties,  including  those related to nuclear  power.

The  IAEA made a formal  offer of assistance  to the Japanese  government  soon after  the earthquake hit on Friday, L1 March, and  the Japanese  government  in turn  requested  the IAEA's assistance  on Monday, 14 March.

The  IAEA's mandate in assisting nuclear  power  incidents  comes from  two UN Conventions written in the wake of the Three Mile  lsland mishap  in 1978 and the Chernobyl  disaster  in 1986, and  in summary  state  the  following:

1. Notify other States  or relevant agencies  of same of any given  incident,
2. Provide the affected States with available  information relevant to minimizing the radiological  consequences of same,  and,
3. Assist  the process  of limiting  consequences of the incident by providing equipment, materials, manpower and other assistance  as found necessary  upon request. (Resources by the IAEA and  its Members.)

Its obvious  that things haven't gone well in the Fukushima disaster, with enormous portent for the entire world beginning with health  issues related to the release of radiation  into  the air we breathe and the food and water we consume,  and the unbelievable  fact of nuclear  power plants  located  on known  fault  lines.

After reviewing  the situation,  I propose  the following items  that  I feel should ABSOLUTELY be taken  into consideration as we begin our evaluations  of this tragedy:

1. Yukiya Amano,  the IAEA Director General,  is himself a Japanese who purportedly  got his
job after energetic lobbying by Tokyo. Both the circumstances  of Dr. Amano's
appointment  as well as his performance  regarding  the Fukushima disaster should be
strongly evaluated.
2. The  IAEA both has  limited  funds, as well as under  the current  UN Charter  can only make
rules and regulations regarding  the nuclear  power  industry, but has no authority  toenforce same. This needs  to be changed, putting both adequate money  as well as  'teeth' into  the IAEA's authority.
3. The United Nations  needs  to establish  the office of an lnspector Generalfor the IAEA,
including advice from outside experts who are not strongly  linked  to the nuclear  power
industry.
4. The United Nations must have cooperative agreements  with every active and hopeful
nuclear  power Member stating the resources  in material and manpower they will
commit  to any  future  incident.
5. The IAEA should adequately  train  this committed  manpower such  that  it will have  an
ongoing  knowledge of the widest  possible array of nuclear  disasters and actions  to take
thereupon,  and be immediately  available  to deploy with regard  to same when they
occur, and,
6. Any Member Nation aspiring  to develop nuclear  power would  have  to ascribe  to 4 and 5
above,  in addition  to going through a rigorous evaluation  regarding  the  type and design
of reactor/s  they hoped  to deploy, and  the areas  in which they hoped  to deploy  them,
with overall authority by the IAEA to allow or disallow such deployments.

The obvious  alternative  to the above would be for  responsible  citizens worldwide  to take action with our respective  governments to discontinue nuclear  power world-wide,  in favor of safe, largely or totally green alternatives.

The issue of the three reactor  lndian Point Energy Center, sitting  near the Rapao Fault  line  just 24 miles north of Manhattan,  having  recently had a transformer  explosion  and now closed, should  serve sufficient  notice on all of us.

Below is a transcription of Bob’s Letter to the Editor of the Albuquerque Journal regarding the Scott and Jean Adam affair with the Somali pirates published on Tuesday, 1 March, 2011.

Don’t Let Pirates’ Victims Die in Vain

REGARDING THE tragic events near Somalia, I met Scott and Jean Adam in Hong Kong customs this past November, as we were both clearing pursuant to a Cathay Pacific flight back to Los Angeles. I’d been in China for the Zhuhai Air Show in conjunction with an aviation project I’m working on.

They were lovely people, and I was afforded the chance to become acquainted with them (as) they were either immediately in front of or behind me as we cleared, and, in effect, they may have had more baggage than I, which afforded us the time to chat briefly.

They told me they were sailing around the world, we exchanged business cards, and I asked them if they weren’t concerned about piracy off the Somali coast.

Scott’s response, with Jean just a few feet away, was something like, “Well, not really that  much, allowing that someone tried to board us sometime back, and Jean created such a fuss that the guy never got aboard,” or something to that effect.

I remember feeling some regret that it appeared we wouldn’t be seated too closely on the flight; then the news came on Saturday that they’d been captured the day prior.

This has been an extremely sad event, and one that, in my opinion, is bound to change how our country “does business” in that area of the world, unless also in conjunction with the International Task Force in the region.

I believe we- unless also “they”- will now begin more aggressively attacking the pirates both on and off shore, and also farther out into the Indian Ocean and the Gulfs of Aden and Oman.

Things like this often have to happen to get results from otherwise responsible governments, but in my own instance, I met Scott and Jean, and they were decent and loving people. It is so sad that they- or anyone, for that matter- had to be the sacrificial lamb to begin to effect these changes.