The earthquake and tsunami-spawned disaster at Japan's Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant has raised concern about possible biological mutations.
And now, a video that's gone viral on YouTube is adding to those concerns.
It shows a baby rabbit with no ears, supposedly born in April on a farm about 18 miles from the crippled plant, which is about 140 miles northeast of Tokyo.
RussiaToday, which posted the video, says, "The clip has given rise to fears the radiation threat in the area is far worse than previously thought. The funny bunny has caused an online frenzy, with predictions that babies in Japan may soon be born with mutations."
However, AOL News quotes F. Ward Whicker, professor emeritus at Colorado State University's Department of Environmental and Radiological Health Sciences, as saying there could certainly be other explanations for the bunny's missing ears.
In Azerbaijan, a cable written in November 2008 describes the man who would have the responsibility for regulation of a proposed nuclear program, Kamaladdin Heydarov, as "ubiquitous, with his hands in everything from construction to customs."
"He is rumored to have made his fortune while heading up the State Customs Service, and is now heavily invested in Baku's rampant construction boom," says the cable, which followed a meeting in Baku between Heydarov, the minister of emergency situations, and then U.S. Special Envoy Frank Mermoud.
Even in India, which already has a well developed nuclear industry and plans to build 58 more reactors, eyebrows can be raised. The security at one nuclear facility visited by a U.S. delegation in November 2008 is described in one cable as only "moderate" with security officers performing bag and vehicle checks that weren't thorough, a lack of cameras in key areas, and some parts having very little security at all.
In response to the disclosures, a Vietnam government official said that the quotes attributed to Tien were "completely ungrounded" and that the country manages radioactive waste in compliance with local laws and recommendations from the International Atomic Energy Agency.
An Azeri official said the government had not taken a decision to construct a nuclear reactor but instead had a plan to conduct a feasibility study into the construction of a nuclear research reactor, which was the subject of talks with the IAEA and had been put off until 2012 from this year. Heydarov could not be reached for comment.
A senior official at India's atomic energy department, A.P. Joshi, said it hadn't previously heard of the security doubts and therefore couldn't comment on them.
The anecdotes illustrate risks ranging from corruption to poor oversight and bad infrastructure. The dangers have been thrown into stark relief by two shattering events half a world apart - the Fukushima nuclear disaster in Japan and the popular unrest that has brought unprecedented political turmoil to the Middle East.
This helps to explain why leaders of the Group of Eight nations late last month sought more stringent international rules on nuclear safety.
The speed with which the operator of the Japanese nuclear plant lost control, and the subsequent meltdowns of three reactors, ensuing explosions and overheating of fuel rod storage pools, were a wake-up call for nuclear regulators.
If in a modern, stable democracy, there could be apparently lax regulatory oversight, failure of infrastructure, and a slow response to a crisis from authorities, then it begs the question of how others would handle a similar situation.
"If Japan can't cope with the implications of a disaster like this," said Andrew Neff, a senior energy analyst at economic analysis and market intelligence group IHS Global Insight, "then in some ways I think it's a legitimate exercise to question whether other less-developed countries could cope."
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