IRAN’S OIL
The United States and United Kingdom have long been inclined toward sanctioning Iran, its officials, and their allies. These sanctions have significantly reduced Iran’s oil revenue.
The 1979 Revolution, which expelled major Western interests from Iran, was largely driven by British and American corporations’ exploitation of Iran’s abundant fossil fuel resources. That expulsion represented an enormous loss of profit a lesson that energy industry executives appear not to have forgotten. These corporations have lobbied in Washington and London to ensure such an outcome never happens to them again, anywhere in the world.
Should Iran be militarily defeated by Western forces, it would almost certainly be compelled to reopen its vast fossil fuel reserves to those energy companies. Those corporate interests and likely the Israeli government as well would welcome the fall of the Iranian government as a means of regaining access to those resources.
The U.S. and British invasion and occupation of Iraq from 2003 to 2011 were probably driven by precisely this kind of corporate greed. Some American companies secured lucrative contracts for oil services and exploration in Iraq following the war, and British companies particularly BP gained significant access to Iraq’s oil reserves.
Yet I saw virtually nothing in mainstream Western media about these post-war corporate incursions into Iraq. I have little confidence that the same outlets would report fully on similar developments in a post-war Iran.
Frank Sterle Jr.
White Rock, B.C.
NO KINGS COVERAGE
I found your interview with Aja Romano very interesting, and her explanation of why only some news gets covered. I got the impression, however, that your view on what constitutes mainstream media (or credible news) only involves print media. You made several references to the lack of coverage on protests like No Kings Day or the Minnesota protests against ICE as being virtually ignored in The New York Times and other major newspapers.
On CNN and MSNBC, it was almost impossible during the height of the Minnesota protests to see anything else on their stations. CNN and MSNBC have amply covered today’s third No Kings Day protest. In fact, television news stations love funerals, marches, riots, and so on because there is lots of action and pageantry.
Rose Dyson
Toronto
Thanks, Rose Dyson. William Leikam also pointed out that The New York Times did indeed cover the third No Kings demonstration. (The article by Thomas Fuller was not on the front page but on page A18.)
WHAT HAS HAPPENED TO SCIENCE AT HEALTH CANADA?
Health Canada’s recent document, “Guidelines for Canadian Drinking Water Quality: Radiological Parameters,” provides an alarming reference value for tritium: 100,000 radioactive disintegrations per second per litre of water (100,000 Bq/L).
The document states this level can be used “for health guidance when interpreting monitoring data where, in unique scenarios, there is reason to believe that levels may be significant.” It also suggests there is “little or no evidence” of elevated tritium concentrations in Canadian drinking water.
This is demonstrably false.
Nuclear reactors routinely release large amounts of radioactive water, turning normal hydrogen atoms into radioactive tritium. Consequently, Ontario communities near nuclear facilities have several times the natural tritium background (which is around 2 Bq/L) in their drinking water. Port Elgin, just 17 kilometres from the Bruce nuclear complex, averaged 17.4 Bq/L in 2005.
Ian Fairlie, a world-leading expert on tritium, cites studies linking nuclear facilities to increased rates of cancer and congenital deformities. Inside the body, tritiated water behaves like ordinary water, spreading to all cells. It integrates into proteins and genetic material, causing cellular damage when it decays. Fairlie stresses the need for public transparency regarding these hazards and calls for much stricter safety standards.
Ontario’s current drinking water standard for tritium is 7,000 Bq/L already far higher than other jurisdictions (the U.S. limit is 740 Bq/L; the EU’s is 100 Bq/L). Although two Ontario committees previously recommended a limit of just 20 Bq/L a standard the nuclear industry admitted it could meet the government failed to act.
Now, Health Canada has moved in the exact opposite direction. It offers no scientific justification for how it arrived at its absurdly high “reference level” of 100,000 Bq/L for drinking water. One must ask: was this a political decision designed to mask the health risks of tritium and pave the way for an expansion of nuclear power?
Ole Hendrickson
Ottawa, Ontario
