Morning Posting.
- Libya Live Blog - May 02. Here .(Al-Jazeera).
- Syria Live Blog - May 02. Here (Al-Jazeera).
- Updated !Earthquakes in the last 24 hours in the world seismic activity in philippines today 5.1! More info here.
- Japan - Latest official Situation Update No. 101.
Source : Here .
- Live blog: Osama bin Laden killed by US forces.(Al-Jazeera).1:57pm The death of bin Laden was greeted with near-silence on Monday from Gulf Arab states, including his birthplace Saudi Arabia.By mid-afternoon, the only official comment from the Arabian Peninsula came from Yemen, bin Laden's ancestral homeland, where an official speaking on condition of anonymity hoped the killing would "root out terrorism throughout the world".Saudi Arabia's official news agency merely noted that the United States and Pakistan had announced bin Laden had been killed in a US military operation in Pakistan but gave no clue to Riyadh's thinking.The foreign ministers of Bahrain, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates, attending a meeting of Gulf foreign ministers in the UAE capital Abu Dhabi, all declined to comment on bin Laden's death.
10:22am Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood said that US soldiers should be withdrawn from Afghanistan and Iraq after the killing of Osama bin Laden. Essam al-Erian, a member of the Muslim Brotherhood's governing body, told Reuters:With Bin Laden's death, one of the reasons for which violence has been practised in the world has been removed. It is time for Obama to pull out of Afghanistan and Iraq and end the occupation of U.S. and Western forces around the world that have for so long harmed Muslim countries.For continious updates click here.
- Reactions on the Death of Osama Bin Laden.(Al-Jazeera).Ismail Haniyeh - head of Hamas in the Gaza strip.We condemn the assassination and the killing of an Arab holy warrior. We ask God to offer him mercy with the true believers and the martyrs.We regard this as a continuation of the American policy based on oppression and the shedding of Muslim and Arab blood.
P. Chidambaram - Indian home minister
We take note with grave concern that part of the statement in which (US) President Obama said that the firefight in which Osama bin Laden was killed took place in Abbottabad 'deep inside Pakistan'.This fact underlines our concern that terrorists belonging to different organisations find sanctuary in Pakistan.Read more reactions here.
- The Greatest Story ever told?(DailyMail).Shootout, no surrender and carried away on foot after U.S. chopper broke down: Dramatic reconstruction of how hit squad finally took out Bin Laden.Almost ten years after the horror of 9/11, Osama bin Laden must have thought he was safe.He had moved from the remote, barren mountains on Afghanistan’s inhospitable border to a comfortable $1million mansion in one of Pakistan’s most picturesque and affluent cities.Abbottabad - named after James Abbott, the British major who founded the town in 1853 - has such a pleasant climate that it is a major hub for tourists visiting the region.And the former home of the Gurkhas is still a major military base so locals have no reason to feel threatened.Behind the walls of his sprawling compound about 60 miles north of the Pakistani capital of Islamabad, Bin Laden had every reason to believe he was way beyond the searching eyes of the Americans he had taunted for so long.
His family was with him and a parade of couriers would bring him everything he needed from the city outside of more than a million people.So confident was he that the huge three-storey house he was living in was eight times larger than most other homes in the area, hardly a low-profile hideaway for the most wanted man in the world.After several run-throughs and the diplomatic blessing of the Pakistani government, a small special forces team of U.S. Navy Seals landed in the compound grounds yesterday with the explicit instruction - get Osama bin Laden, dead or alive.The raid on the compound, which was just 100 yards from a Pakistani military academy, was launched at about 1.15am in the morning, according to witnesses. Four U.S. helicopters took off from the Ghazi air base in northwest Pakistan.
Bin Laden's guards opened fire from the roof and one of the helicopters crashed.During an operation that took just 40 minutes from start to finish, Bin Laden was shot in the head in a firefight as he tried to evade capture. Three of his men were also killed along with a woman they tried to use as a human shield. One of Bin Laden's eleven sons was said to be among the dead.By February, U.S. intelligence officials were confident that Bin Laden and his family were living there and by March, Mr Obama was convening top secret meeting with his senior security staff.The CIA believe that for many years before settling in Abbottabad, Bin Laden moved from village to village in Waziristan. He communicated only about once a month and never used a telephone.
When he reached a village with his bodyguards he would request a meeting with the local tribal leader and a substantial bribe would be paid.Bin Laden would then be the guest of the village, where under Pashtun custom, he must be protected.The main obstacle in finding him was that even if someone wanted to betray him and collect the $25 million reward - there was no one to turn to. The local police would know Bin Laden was there and if anyone tried to report his presence they would quite likely be killed.One local mullah from Waziristan agreed to send information about Bin Laden’s movements and his beheaded body was found several weeks later with a message that his was the fate of spies.Read the full story here.
- Usama Bin Laden Killed in Firefight With U.S. Special Ops Team in Pakistan.(FOX).Declaring “justice has been done,” President Obama announced late Sunday that Usama bin Laden was killed by U.S. forces in Pakistan, marking the end of the worldwide manhunt that began nearly a decade ago on Sept. 11, 2001.The president made the stunning announcement within hours of informing congressional leaders. He said bin Laden was killed Sunday, the culmination of years of intelligence gathering. The news drew a large crowd to the front of the White House, as well as in Times Square, as people chanted “USA. USA.”The president traced the death of bin Laden to a tip received last August. He said he was briefed at the time on the “possible lead,” and that after months of intelligence work it was determined bin Laden was hiding in a compound “deep” inside Pakistan. Obama said, after determining the intelligence was sound, he authorized the operation to bring him to justice last week.At 3:30 p.m. EST, a 40-man Navy Seals squadron raided a compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, killing the Al Qaeda leader with a bullet to the head.Four Chinook and Blackhawk helicopters dropped 24 men on the compound. One helicopter suffered a "hard landing" inside the compound after an experiencing a mechanical failure and had to be destroyed on the site, according to one defense official.There was a large shootout. The residents at the compound resisted. The total raid took 40 minutes.No Americans were killed in the mission Sunday. Officials said three adult men other than bin Laden were killed – one was believed to be bin Laden’s son, the others couriers. Two women were also injured, the officials said.Obama said Americans must continue to be “vigilant.” But he said the death of the architect of the deadliest terror attack on U.S. soil should be welcomed around the world.“Bin Laden was not a Muslim leader. He was a mass murderer of Muslims,” Obama said. “So his demise should be welcomed by all who believe in peace and human dignity.”Sources said the vice president informed congressional leaders late Sunday night that the world’s most wanted man had been killed.Officials said bin Laden’s body, which was in U.S. custody, was given a sea burial.Hmmmm.......Great story,but any visual proof of this story would be very welcome.And Bin Laden was a Mass Murder of OTHER people not only Muslims!Great for ratings couldn't have come at a better time?Read the full story here.
- US officials do not want Mr. bin Laden’s burial place to become a terrorist shrine.(Al-Arabia).Jake Tapper of the same network quoted a senior administrator official as saying: “We are ensuring it is handled in accordance with Islamic practice and tradition. It’s something we take seriously and therefore it’s being handled in an appropriate manner. ”Islamic law mandates a body be washed and buried as soon as possible, usually by the next prayer, in a simple white sheet. However, how Muslims will react to bin Laden’s burial at sea is not known, as there seems to be no provision for burials at sea.Read the full story here.
- Taliban threaten US, Pakistan over Osama.(TheNews).PESHAWAR: Pakistan's main Taliban faction on Monday threatened to attack Pakistan and the United States after the US confirmed that Osama bin Laden had been killed near the Pakistani capital."If he has been martyred, we will avenge his death and launch attacks against American and Pakistani governments and their security forces," spokesman Ehsanullah Ehsan said by telephone from an undisclosed location."These people are in fact the enemies of Islam," he added.The Taliban spokesman said the militia had not itself managed to confirm bin Laden's death, which was announced by US President Barack Obama."If he has become a martyr, it is a great victory for us because martyrdom is the aim of all of us." Read the full story here.
- 'The American people did not choose this fight': Obama's speech in full.Number of times the President used the word "I" : 10 times.Number of times he mentioned the brave men who actually did the 'job' ...twice..Hmmm.... he was being humble i guess?Read the full text here.
- Senior ISI official confirms bin Laden killed.“Yes, I can confirm that,” one senior intelligence official told Reuters, but declined to give further details.(Dawn).Another security official in Peshawar confirmed it was a joint operation between CIA and Pakistani security forces.“It was carried out on a very precise info that some high-value target is there,” he said.A Pakistani military helicopter crashed near Abbottabad on Sunday night, killing one and wounding two, according to Pakistani media. It was unclear if the crash was related to bin Laden’s death, but witnesses reported gunshots and heavy firing before one of two low-flying helicopters crashed near the Pakistani Military Academy.The police blocked the road leading to Pakistan’s military academy, a Reuters photographer on the scene reported.“I have seen tail and two wings of the chopper,” a labourer told Reuters. The fact bin Laden was apparently living in relative luxury not far from Islamabad could pose awkward questions for Pakistan.“For some time there will be a lot of tension between Washington and Islamabad because Bin Laden seems to have been living here close to Islamabad,” said Imtiaz Gul, a security analyst.“If the ISI had known then somebody within the ISI must have leaked this information. Pakistan will have to do a lot of damage control because the Americans have been reporting he is in Pakistan. This is a serious blow to the credibility of Pakistan.But defence analyst and former general Talat Masood said the fact bin Laden was killed in a joint operation would limit the damage to Pakistan’s image. “There should be a sigh of relief because this will take some pressure off of Pakistan,” said defence analyst and former general Talat Masood. “Pakistan most probably has contributed to this, and Pakistan can take some credit for this – being such an iconic figure, it’s a great achievement.”Read the full story here.
- Jihadists: Bin Laden death will not mute Jihad call.(ArabNews).DUBAI: Members of Jihadist forums said they prayed the news of Osama Bin Laden’s death was not true, and hinted at retaliation if it was, in some of the first Islamist reaction to the Al-Qaeda leader’s death.“Oh God, please make this news not true...God curse you Obama,” said one message on an Arabic language forum. “Oh Americans ... it is still legal for us to cut your necks.”“Osama may be killed but his message of Jihad will never die. Brothers and sisters, wait and see, his death will be a blessing in disguise,” said a poster on another Islamist forum.Hmmmm......well it seems Islam is still at war with us Mr President?Read the full story here.
- Hamas And Palestine mourns bin Laden's death.Gaza government condemns US slaying of 'Arab holy warrior', ask 'God to offer him mercy with true believers, martyrs'. Hamas on Monday condemned the killing by US forces of Osama bin Laden and mourned him as an "Arab holy warrior" while Iran condemned "Zionist terror" and US sources said Saudi Arabia had refused to bury the arch-terrorist's body."We regard this as a continuation of the American policy based on oppression and the shedding of Muslim and Arab blood," Ismail Haniyeh, head of the Hamas administration in the Gaza Strip, told reporters. Though he noted doctrinal differences between bin Laden's al Qaeda and Hamas, Haniyeh said: "We condemn the assassination and the killing of an Arab holy warrior. We ask God to offer him mercy with the true believers and the martyrs."Iran responded to the killing by saying that the US and its allies had now "lost the excuse to continue their presence in the region with the aim of fighting terror".In a statement Iranian Foreign Ministry Spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast said, "This incident proves that there is no need for a huge war in order to deal with one person." He said Iran, which sees itself as a victim of terror, "condemns all acts of terrorism in the world, including the organized terror of the Zionist regime".Meanwhile the Pakistani Taliban threatened attacks against government leaders, including President Asif Ali Zardari, the Pakistan army and the United States. "Now Pakistani rulers, President Zardari and the army will be our first targets. America will be our second target," Ehsanullah Ehsan, a spokesman for Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), or Taliban Movement of Pakistan, told Reuters by telephone from an undisclosed location.US officials said Monday that bin Laden's country of birth, Saudi Arabia, had refused to accept the body of the arch-terrorist for burial so the country was forced to bury him at sea, CBS reported. Earlier sources in Washington reported that bin Laden's body had been transferred to Afghanistan and then buried at sea for fear that Islamist extremists would turn any gravesite into a holy place. Saudi Arabia refused to comment on the death of bin Laden, saying that it was "too early". Saudi public opinion is divided on the slaying, with some pleased that the organizers of a number of attacks in the country pleased but others, especially on Arab forums, calling him a hero. Saudi Arabia revoked his citizenship in 1994.Issam al-Aryan of Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood responded to bin Laden's death by calling on the US to withdraw from Afghanistan and Iraq. "With bin Laden's death one of the main reasons for violence in the world is gone," he said."It's time for Obama to withdraw from Afghanistan and Iraq and terminate the occupation of the US and Western forces throughout the world, which harms Muslim states deeply."Al-Aryan added that "the uprisings in the Middle East are proof that democracy has its place in the region and it does not require foreign occupation". He also predicted that various terror groups would retaliate for the killing.Hmmmm........How about Hamas and the 'New Palestine" Mr President?Read the full story here.
- Group of 6 senators hones plan to cut US deficits.(Breitbart).WASHINGTON (AP) - A bipartisan group of six senators is closing in on what could represent the best chance for tackling a deficit crisis that has forced the government to borrow more than 40 cents of every dollar it spends. Their plan, still a work in progress, would reduce borrowing by up to $4 trillion over the next decade by putting the two parties' sacred cows on the chopping block. Republicans would have to agree to higher taxes while Democrats would have to accept cuts in popular benefit programs such as Medicare, Medicaid and maybe even Social Security. There is urgency to their work.
Most Republicans and some Democrats in Congress have said they will not vote to increase the government's ability to borrow without some action addressing the nation's long-term debt. The government is expected to reach its borrowing limit of $14.3 trillion by mid-May. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner says steps are being taken to delay until July what would be an unprecedented default on the debt. Geithner and a growing number of business leaders say a U.S. default would plunge the U.S., and perhaps the world, into a second economic crisis. Despite opposition from top leaders in both parties, the Senate's Gang of Six is banking on support from many of the 64 senators who wrote President Barack Obama in March urging him to support a comprehensive deficit reduction effort. "There's a huge appetite for a starting point that's bipartisan," said Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., one of the six senators, three from each party. "I think the conventional wisdom that says, `We can punt all of this until after the next presidential election.' I think there's a growing consensus we may not have that long."
The group includes four members of Obama's deficit commission, and its recommendations are expected to closely track the commission's plan for $3 in spending cuts for every $1 in tax revenue increases over the coming decade. Its other two Democrats are Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois, the second-ranking Democratic leader, and Sen. Kent Conrad of North Dakota, the Budget Committee chairman. The Republicans are Sens. Tom Coburn of Oklahoma, Mike Crapo of Idaho and Saxby Chambliss of Georgia. The six have met in private for several months, even as House Republicans and Obama developed more partisan plans that have little chance of being enacted into law because of Washington's divided government.Obama has shied away from tackling Social Security's problems and top Democrats in Congress, including Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi of California, have ruled out cuts in benefits, including changes that would only affect future retirees, such as raising the retirement age.
The plan by Obama's deficit commission, which the president did not endorse, would have nearly frozen the Pentagon's budget and cut spending at most domestic agencies. It called for gradually raising the retirement age for full Social Security benefits to 69 and curbing future cost-of-living increases. The full retirement age is currently 66, and is gradually increasing to 67 for people born in 1960 or later. Income tax rates would fall, paid for by scaling back dozens of popular tax breaks, including deductions for mortgage interest and charitable contributions. Premiums for employer provided health insurance, which are now tax exempt, would be taxed eventually.The Gang of Six supports changing the tax law, though senators have not decided whether they will offer a detailed plan or a series of targets for Congress to meet, with automatic spending cuts or tax increases if lawmakers fail, said a Senate aide familiar with the negotiations. Reid endorsed such a mechanism this past week. The senators are discussing similar spending targets for defense and domestic agency budgets, Medicare and Medicaid. "We want to make sure there's not an ability to punt," Warner said.Hmmmm....There's no plan to stop Obama's spending?Because the more he spend the more the US taxpayer is going to bleed!Read the full story here.
- Trump: I’ve Decided “In My Mind” to Run For President.(Bloomberg).New York real estate developer Donald Trump says he has decided “in my mind” to run for president, yet won’t make an official announcement before the season finale of his reality television show later this month.“In my mind, I have already decided,” Trump, 64, said in a telephone interview today. “I am going to announce. But I can’t do anything until the show ends.”Trump said he will focus on “making our country rich and respected,” by creating jobs, boosting the economy and stopping China and the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries from taking advantage of the U.S.“The OPEC nations will be acting much differently, and fuel prices will go down and the economy will become strong again,” Trump said. “They may like me or not like me, but nobody will be ripping us off.”Some recent polls have shown Trump at or near the top of a large field of potential Republican candidates. In an April 26 Rasmussen Reports poll, Trump led with support from 19 percent of 1,000 likely Republican primary voters nationwide. The poll’s margin of error was plus or minus three percentage points.Read the full story here.
- Imam's Call to Add Crescent Moon Symbol to Russian Emblem Met With Alarm.(Fox).Was it a call to bring the revolts and violence of the “Arab Spring” now sweeping the Middle East to Russia? That is the question that swirled throughout Moscow when a top imam called for the addition of the Islamic crescent moon symbol to the Russian emblem. The surprise call by Talgat Tadzhuddin during an interview with a leading Russian newspaper was met with alarm because the imam heads the Central Spiritual Association of Muslims of Russia, a major regional Islamic association. As quickly as the word of the proposal became public it ignited a wave of condemnation. “According to this logic,” Georgiy Vilinbakhov, head of Russia’s Heraldry Service argued, “we must change the name of Russia, put a green stripe on or flag and move the capital city from Moscow to somewhere on the border between Europe and Asia.” In his interview, Tadzhuddin said, “We are asking for one of the heads (of the Russian state emblem, a double-headed eagle) to be topped with a crescent moon and the other to be topped with a Russian Orthodox cross. All the crowns on the coat of arms -- two on the heads of eagles and one above the middle -- are topped by crosses. But Russia has 20 million Muslims. That is 18 percent of the population.” Tadzhuddin also said that he had presented a sketch of the proposed change to both Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin. The Kremlin has not commented on the issue.Hmmmm.....Do they really think Russia forgot Beslan?Read the full story here.
- New insights on the 'Palestine Papers' (also known as Palileaks).(IsraelMatzav).The attached is an interesting new study of the Palestine Papers. It shows conclusively that the 'Palestinians' never responded to Olmert's offer, and that they never agreed to surrender the "right of return" -- running counter to the spin that's been all over the media. It's an interesting document that's worth perusing. Read and see the full story here.
- Indonesia: Extremist group recruits students to target Christians and introduce shariah.Jakarta (AsiaNews) - An emerging Islamic terrorist group recruits followers among university students and, through brainwashing, prepares them for suicide bombings or bomb attacks against sensitive targets, including Christian churches. It has been confirmed by the Indonesian police that the former separatist movement "NII or Negara Islam Indonesia" - the Islamic state Indonesia - has now turned into an extremist group in the network of terror. It recently orchestrated an attack on a Protestant church that only by accident, did not result in a bloodbath.The acronym NII in the decades has become the symbol of the Muslim separatist struggle, which aims to impose Islamic law - Shariah - in Indonesia and introduce a full range of behaviors, lifestyles and patterns derived from the Arabic culture such as the beard, jilbab or the burqa. Today it has changed the face, becoming involved in the fundamentalist terror network, its leaders have adopted techniques like brainwashing to recruit young people in universities and train them to carry out attacks or bombings.Police spokesman Amar Boy Rafly reports that the NII terrorist group arose five years ago and promotes the recruitment in schools, propagating an extremist vision of Islam. Among the objectives of the recent attack on the Christ Church Cathedral - a modern, luxurious building - at Gading Serpong, in the city of Tangerang, Banten province, about 20 km west of Jakarta. The mastermind of the massacre is 31 year old Fernando Pepi, a former student of the Islamic State University (Uin) and originally from West Java. The police stopped him on April 27 last, with his wife and seven other members of the NII.The attackers wanted to place explosive charges in the property that is located not far from a state-owned pipeline. In recent days, a small charge exploded, but the real objective was a larger explosion capable of causing hundreds of casualties in the celebration of Easter. The material for the assassination plot was bought on the black market - at least 120 km of explosives - and, according to the terrorists, would have led to a massacre.President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono has alerted the Indonesian civil society as a whole, noting that the terrorist group constitutes a real threat for the country. However, the majority of citizens are skeptical of the claims of the Head of State regarding extremist movements: empty words without any decisive action.Read the full story here.
- Iran sends 14th fleet of warships to Gulf of Aden.(Tehrantimes).TEHRAN - Iran has dispatched the 14th fleet of the its warships to the Gulf of Aden in order to protect vessels sailing in the area, Kamran Farhang of the Navy said on Sunday. The dispatching took place following the return of the previous fleet of warships to the country, Farhang stated. The 14th fleet includes a submarine and a destroyer, which will patrol the areas with the message of peace and friendship, he explained. The 13th fleet of Navy warships was dispatched to the Gulf of Aden and international waters in March in order to protect the trade vessels and oil tankers sailing in the region.Read the full story here.
- Castrate serial rapists, says Indian judge.(NDTV).New Delhi: Serial or child rapists should be castrated - this is what Additional Sessions Judge Kamini Lau recommended as she heard a case where a 15-year-old girl was allegedly raped by her stepfather for four years."The Indian legislatures are yet to take notice of this alarming situation and address the issue with all seriousness by exploring the possibility of alternative sentences of surgical castration or chemical castration, particularly in cases of minors, serial offenders and child molesters," she said.Now that the issue is back in the headlines, women's rights activists are divided."I think it's an option worth exploring...and this comes from a woman judge, who is obviously passionate and feels the case. I am not from the legal community am only a citizen so I can react as one and say, yes, we need some stern action," said Sadia Dehlvi, a women's rights activist and an author.The judge has sent a copy of the order to the ministry of law and also to the national commission for women for their opinion. Read the full story here.
- Israeli targeting pod leading bombings in Libya.(JPost).Technology developed by Rafael Advanced Defense Systems is assisting NATO launch accurate missile strikes against Gaddafi forces in Libya. While Israel is not actively participating in NATO military operations against Libya, technology developed by Israeli defense giant Rafael Advanced Defense Systems is assisting the Western military alliance in launching accurate missile strikes against the embattled Col. Muammar Gaddafi.The British and Swedish air forces have been using Rafael’s Litening targeting pod on their Typhoon and Grippen fighter jets, which is fitted under the fuselage of an aircraft, and provides air crews with precision strike capabilities.The Israel Air Force uses the Litening on its F-15 and F-16 fighter jets, and the pod has been credited with improving the force’s level of accuracy in recent years.Last October, government-owned RADS announced that it sold its 1,000th targeting pod. The pod is used by more than 20 countries, and is also manufactured in the US by Northrop Grumman.The pod integrates a high-resolution infrared sensor that displays images of a target for the pilot and navigator, as well as a CCD camera. The pod also comes equipped with a laser designator for precise delivery of laser-guided bombs.Read the full story here.
Morning Posting.
- Live broadcast info from Japan directly ! Here.
- Libya Live Blog - April 14. Here .(Al-Jazeera).
- Updated !Earthquakes in the last 24 hours in the world increased seismic activity in Japan today between 4.5 and 5.4! More info here.
- Japan - Latest official Situation Update No. 86.On 14.04.2011 at 09:19 GMT+2
Operator of the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant faced a uphill battle in removing harmful radioactive water at the facility Thursday, since the level of contaminated water in its underground trench turned out to be rising again. Tokyo Electric Power Co. removed some 660 tons of highly contaminated water in the past two days from one of the trenches to a "condenser" inside the No.2 reactor turbine building. The condenser has a capacity to store 3,000 tons of liquid. But the country's Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency said that the water level at the vertical part of the trench as of 07: 00 a.m. local time Thursday had increased by about 3.5 centimeters from the level observed at 6 p.m. local time Wednesday, according to Kyodo News report. The agency's official said that the rise is likely linked to the continued water injection into the No. 2 reactor core. Thursday's reading is about 2.5 centimeters lower than the figure before the removing started. Radioactive water was found in the basements of the No.1 to No.3 reactor turbine buildings, and the nearby trenches connected to them. The water totaled about 60,000 tons. Removing the water to nearby tanks and other storage places is considered vital to the attempt of restoring the key cooling functions at the reactors.
Situation Update No. 85 - On 13.04.2011 at 17:51 GMT+2
For the first time since the March 11 earthquake and tsunami that devastated the country, Japanese authorities have reported that they have discovered minute amounts of radioactive strontium in areas of the country. The tiny amounts of radioactive strontium were detected in both soil and plants in Fukushima Prefecture, and beyond the 30-kilometer zone that Japan has established around the struggling Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant, which has a total of six reactors. The plant is owned by the Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO). The 30-kilometer zone consists of an evacuation zone of 20-kilometers, along with a further 10-kilometer zone where residents are told to remain indoors. Earlier, this Monday, the government announced an expansion of the evacuation zone for some municipalities. Those would be evacuated if tests show high levels of accumulated radiation. The evacuation zone might extend as far as the 30-km radius.
Radioactive strontium-90 has a half-life of 28.90 years. The amounts discovered are minute, for now, but the human body absorbs strontium as though it were calcium, because of their chemical similarities. Thus, strontium-90 can lead to various bone disorders and diseases, including leukemia. Earlier, radioactive cesium and iodine had been discovered. For some, the government encouraged potassium iodide pills. However, experts, including the CDC, noted that those pills only protect against radioactive iodine and in addition, only protects the thyroid gland against radiation. Any other part of the human body exposed to radioactive iodine, such as the lungs, is not protected. Additionally, other experts warned against taking potassium iodide unnecessarily. The CDC noted that potassium iodide can be harmful to people who are allergic to the substance or who have the skin disorders dermatitis herpetiformis or urticaria vasculitis. In addition, those with thyroid conditions could worsen them.
Despite the negative news, on Tuesday Sendai airport launched its first flights since March 11 after a major repair operation. The airport had been seriously damaged by the tsunami, with hundreds of cars and even houses washed across the runway. Additionally, after the tsunami, fires also broke out in some of the aircraft hangars.Here .
- Serfhood - Obama’s Tax Increase Trigger: Punishing Taxpayers with Automatic Tax Hikes When Politicians Overspend.Responding to widespread criticism of his AWOL status on the budget fight, President Obama today unveiled a fiscal plan. It already is being criticized for its class warfare approach to tax policy, but the most disturbing feature may be a provision that punishes the American people with higher taxes if politicians overspend.Called a “debt failsafe trigger,” Obama’s scheme would automatically raise taxes if politicians spend too much. According to the talking points distributed by the White House, the automatic tax increase would take effect “if, by 2014, the projected ratio of debt-to-GDP is not stabilized and declining toward the end of the decade.”Let’s ponder what this means. If politicians in Washington spend too much and cause more red ink, which happens on a routine basis, Obama wants a provision that automatically would raise taxes on the American people.In other words, they play and we pay. The last thing we need is a perverse incentive for even more reckless spending from Washington.Hmmmm.....Your 'majesty' we the people had enough.Read the full story here.
- IMF: World Banks Face $3.6 Trillion “Wall” of Maturing Debt.The world’s banks face a $3.6 trillion “wall of maturing debt” in the next two years and must compete with debt-laden governments to secure financing, the IMF (has) warned.Japan and the United States face the largest public debt rollovers of any advanced economy at 56 percent and 29 percent of gross domestic product, respectively. . . .So between the World’s banks, USA and Japan, we’re looking at a staggering figure of $10.533 Trillion or $10,533,000,000,000 to refinance.Too get an idea just how big a number that really is, instead of cash owed think of the number in seconds. 10.533 Trillion Seconds = 333,999.24 years or 3,339.99 Centuries.It will probably take them that long to pay it off. Like I said, it is a staggering amount of cash owed.Hmmmm......Don't worry 'Dear leader'will give then a few speeches as collateral.Read the full story here.
- HT:BigGovernment.Obama Administration Ignores Federal Law to Regulate Internet.We have repeatedly written about our having to endure between now and November 2012 the intentional policy and political schizophrenia of the Barack Obama Administration.For public consumption – with the perpetual assistance of his servile media – there will be the “new” President Barack Obama. The “shellacked,” humbled man who claims to get that his Party’s policies were historically rejected by the American people. Whose now moderated, bipartisan, Triangulated work with the Republicans will make former President and 1994 “shellackee” Bill Clinton look recalcitrant and amateur….Going forward, in real terms, President Obama is incapable of a (President Bill) Clinton-esque move to the Middle. He will do his best to put on a public show, but his Big-Government-At-All-Costs agenda will continue unabated. It will just be done behind the scenes via rampant, abusive expansion of the vast regulatory authority at his disposal.Every Commission, every Agency, every Board in the federal pantheon will ratchet up their orders, rules and directives. To impose via executive branch regulatory fiat what President Obama can no longer get done in Congress. In other words, bypass the obviously expressed will of the American people for smaller, more accountable government – so as to continue jamming through his on-all-fronts Titanic Government plan. And do so without the People’s representatives at all involved in the process.The Administration’s first post-election, venomous bite at this secret apple was the Federal Communications Commission (FCC)’s December 21st under-cover-of-Christmas vote to illegally commandeer control of the wired Internet – so as to then impose Network Neutrality.Which puts a regulatory hammer lock on the Internet free market.About which former Obama Deputy Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisors Susan Crawford just said : “(R)egulating these guys into an inch of their life is exactly what needs to happen.”Mission accomplished. And how very reassuring for our foundering economy – and the job providers who are the key to the recovery.Hmmmm.....Democracy or dictatorship?Read the full story here.
- Obama: My Vision Is An America “Where We Live Within Our Means”.This is my vision for America: A vision where we live within our means while still investing in our future, where everyone makes sacrifices, but no one bears all the burden, where we provide a basic measure of security for our citizens and we provide rising opportunity for our children. There will be those who vigorously disagree with my approach. I can guarantee that as well. Some will argue, we should not even consider ever, ever raising taxes even if only on the wealthiest Americans. It’s just an article of faith to them,” President Obama said in his address on the deficit and debt.Hmmmm.....Surely this man is overdue for a medical checkup?Read the full story here
- Obama Ripped For Allowing $600 Million Cut To Health Centers For Needy That Don’t Provide Abortions While Protecting Planned Parenthood Funding.(Daily Caller) – The American Principles Project (APP) Wednesday criticized the Obama administration for allowing the elimination of $600 million for Community Health Centers while protecting funding for Planned Parenthood as part of last week’s budget deal agreed to by Congress and the White House.Touting Planned Parenthood as a key women’s health-care provider, Democrats held firm to their promise not to allow cuts to the nation’s largest abortion provider.Community Health Centers, which do not perform abortions, provide health services to the needy — including mammograms and pre- and post-natal care.According to the American Principles Project last year Community Health Centers performed 320,000 mammograms while Planned Parenthood did none.“Coating its ideology in flowery language about women’s health and alleged Republican mean-spiritedness, liberal Democrats refused to cut one dime out of Planned Parenthood’s plump federal purse during the budget debate,” said the president of APP, Frank Cannon. “All the while a sharp knife was being taken to community health centers that actually perform full-scale exams for the needy. These health centers offer prenatal care to women and their babies – 480,000 times in 2009 alone. Planned Parenthood? Their 850 clinics average less than one prenatal visit a month, in other words, it’s not their line of work.”Hmmmm......The true BigBrother Society no expences for the needy and limit the future expences (birthrate).Read the full story here.
- Arizona passes 'birther' bill after Donald Trump questions Obama's birth certificate.Days after its main sponsor met with Donald Trump, Arizona's 'birther bill' has passed the state Senate.The bill requires presidential candidates to prove they are U.S. citizens before they can be included on Arizona's ballot and receive any votes from the state.Candidates who don't have a long form of their birth certificate are also given the option to show two alternative documents, including a baptismal or circumcision certificate, a hospital birth record or a post-partum medical record.The bill approved would make Arizona the first state to pass such legislation. Democrats say it exceeds the state's authority.It now goes to the House for a final vote.The bill was approved only by Republicans at 20-9.Senate President Russell Pearce told reporters: 'This is an obligation the state has. Verification is not only legitimate, it’s appropriate.'The proposal is prompted by Donald trump's on-going crusade to prove that President Obama was not actually born in Hawaii but in Kenya.In an interview with CNN he pointed out that there are no photos of President Obama from when he was younger, only in his teenage years. He also claims that no one remembers him from school.He said: 'If you go back to my first grade, my kindergarten, people remember me. Nobody from those early years remembers him. 'If you're going to be president of the United States, it says very profoundly you have to be born in this country.Sarah Palin has now jumped on the Trump bandwagon, despite saying in February that the 'birther' issue was a distraction from more important issues.Perhaps fuelled by Trump's recent rise in the polls, she came out over the weekend to defend his attempts saying: 'I appreciate that the Donald wants to spend his resources on something that so interests him and so many Americans, you know more power to him.'Obviously there is something that the president doesn't want people to see, that he sees going to great lengths to make sure it isn't shown. And I think that's perplexing for a lot of people.'Hmmm......I for one would love to see a baptismal certificate.Read the full story here.
- HT:DougRoss.The Obama Legacy: 8 Charts That Will Blow Your Mind.It's one thing to review the raw data, but it's another thing altogether to see the numbers represented in graphical form.Hmmmm......Behold the state of the 'Obamanation"!Read and SEE the full story here.
- HT:TheAmericanDream.25 Shocking Facts That Prove That The Entire U.S. Health Care Industry Has Become One Giant Money Making Scam.What is the appropriate word to use when you find out that the top executive at the third largest health insurance company in America raked in 68.7 million dollars in 2010? How is one supposed to respond when one learns that more than two dozen pharmaceutical companies make over a billion dollars in profits each year? Is it okay to get angry when you discover that over 90 percent of all hospital bills contain "gross overcharges"? Once upon a time, going into the medical profession was seen as a "noble" thing to do. But now the health care industry in the United States has become one giant money making scam and it is completely dominated by health insurance companies, pharmaceutical corporations, lawyers and corporate fatcats. In America today, just one trip to the hospital can cost you tens of thousands of dollars even if you do not stay for a single night. The sad thing is that the vast majority of the money that you pay out for medical care does not even go to your doctor. In fact, large numbers of doctors across the United States are going broke. Rather, it is the "system" that is soaking up almost all of the profits. We have a health care industry in the United States that is fundamentally broken and it needs to be rebuilt from the ground up.
But wasn't that what Obamacare was supposed to do? No, in fact Obamacare was largely written by representatives from the health insurance industry and the pharmaceutical industry. Once it was signed into law the stocks of most health insurance companies went way up.The truth is that Obamacare was one of the worst pieces of legislation in modern American history. It did nothing to fix our health care problems. Rather, it just made all of our health care problems much worse.
In case you haven't noticed, health insurance companies all over the United States have announced that they are going to raise premiums significantly due to the new law. Of course they are just using it as an excuse. They have been sticking it to us good for the last several decades and they just grab hold of whatever excuse they can find to justify the latest rate hike.If you are looking for a legal way to drain massive amounts of money out of average Americans just become a health care company executive. Health care has become perhaps the greatest money making scam in the United States. When Americans are sick and have to go to the hospital most of them aren't really thinking about how much it will cost. At that point they are super vulnerable and ready to be exploited.The system is broken.Everyone knows it.But it never gets fixed.The following are 25 shocking facts that prove that the entire U.S. health care industry is one giant money making scam....Read the full story here.
- Pakistan: Christian Girls Forced to Convert to Islam; Rapes, Coersion, Abuse.In Pakistan forced conversions to Islam, rapes and forced marriages are on the rise. The victims are mostly Hindu and Christian girls, belonging to religious minorities. A report sent to Fides by the Centre for Legal Assistance and Settlement (CLAAS), which takes care of legal assistance for Christians who are discriminated against and persecuted in Pakistan.LAHORE, Pakistan (Agenzia Fides) - In Pakistan forced conversions to Islam, rapes and forced marriages are on the rise. The victims are mostly Hindu and Christian girls, belonging to religious minorities, complain Fides local sources. This has been a worrying phenomenon for the Church in Pakistan for some time and that the Church is trying to address, looking for the cooperation of institutions but it is an uphill battle. "The Christian girls are the weakest and most vulnerable, because their communities are poor, defenceless and marginalized, therefore easily exposed to harassment and threats. Often they do not even have the courage to denounce the violence," says a sister to Fides. The sister hides and assists the girls who have managed to escape. "But the trend is worrying: There are hundreds of cases a year registered and those that come to light are only a fraction," she says. In a society that tolerates discrimination of religious minorities, especially of women, the dominant religion and related social position are used to impose tyranny.A report sent to Fides by the Centre for Legal Assistance and Settlement (CLAAS), which takes care of legal assistance for Christians who are discriminated against and persecuted in Pakistan, confirms this issue, reporting some terrible cases that occur mainly in province of Punjab. Sidra Bibi, 14 year old Christian in the district of Sheikhupura in Punjab, is the daughter of a worker in the cotton industry. A Muslim from the village had his eye on her and began to molest her, and eventually abducted and raped her before threatening her with death. Physically and psychologically abused, the girl became pregnant. She managed to escape from her tormentor and is now back, in a state of exhaustion, with her family. Police have refused to accept her complaint and now the CLAAS lawyers are handling the case.Hmmmm.......The 'people' the Obama administration is supporting.Read the full story here.
- Turkey protests anti-immigrant party’s poster in Belgium.The Turkish Embassy in Brussels has condemned a far-right party after it used posters depicting Turkish and Moroccan immigrants as a sheep being kicked out of Europe. The poster was presented at a conference of the anti-immigrant Flaman Vlaams Belang party over the weekend. It features a white sheep that symbolizes European states exiling a red sheep with printed flags of Turkey and Morocco. It reportedly is based on a similar poster used earlier in another European country, Switzerland.Turkish Ambassador to Belgium Murat Ersavcı said in a statement that Turkey condemned the poster, saying it was racist and xenophobic and that it stirs ethnic hatred. “It thus constitutes a crime under Belgian law,” the ambassador said, underlining that Turkey was in contact with the Belgian Foreign Ministry and other authorities to express its objections over and seek action against the poster.Speaking at the weekend conference, Vlaams Belang leader Bruno Valkeniers said Flemish cities have begun to look like Moroccan cities, with mosques mushrooming all over the region, and called on the Belgian government to shut the country’s doors to immigrants. Valkeniers also proposed the establishment of an anti-immigration network bringing together other like-minded parties across Europe.Vlaams Belang is only one of the far-right parties denouncing immigration that has been witnessing a surge in their electoral support in the past years in Europe. In liberal Sweden, the far-right Sweden Democrats, a party with a neo-Nazi history, won 20 seats in the parliamentary elections in September. In the Netherlands, the country’s center-right minority government depends on support from anti-Islam politician Geert Wilders’ Party for Freedom, and polls show the party is second only to the Liberals.Source .
- HT:Sweasel.Millionaires’n'billionaires! Cut together all the times Obama mentioned the wealthy in his “budget” speech tonight .Wow. I thought this would be funny. Actually, it makes me want to start slapping and then slap some more and then give him a big ol’ slap. Slappity-slappity-slappity, mister class warrior man.Two observations — he frequently made references to “as long as I’m president” and things that will happen in 2014, as though his next term is in the bag. And he repeatedly used the brain-hurty expression “spending reductions in the tax code” which, apparently, means new taxes (update: Joe Collins tells me this means elimination of some deductions and shelters).Did he think that would fly?Hmmm......Does anyone still believe his BS?Read and see the full story here.
- HT:IsraelMatzav.Dubai police beat British tourist to death... for cursing.I hope that reader will now consider avoiding Dubai for the sake of his own safety. These people are nuts. A British tourist was beaten to death by officers in a Dubai police station after being arrested for swearing, it was claimed yesterday.Lee Bradley Brown, 39, was on holiday at a £1,000-a-night hotel in the Arab state when he was thrown into a filthy cell.Police sources say he was ‘badly beaten up’ by a group of police officers, leaving him unconscious on the floor.Inmates told how they watched officers bundle him into a body-bag and drag him out of the building.During Mr Brown’s six days in Bur Dubai police station, guards refused to give him enough food and water and did not let him see a lawyer, it is alleged.His sister learned about the attack when she received a phone call from an inmate on Sunday, claiming her brother had been beaten.The prisoner found her phone number on a photocopy of her brother’s passport which had been left behind in the cell.She contacted the British Embassy in Dubai, and on Monday an official was sent to visit Mr Brown at the police station.But the official was turned away by an officer who claimed Mr Brown did not want to see him and had ‘declined consular assistance’.His sister, who did not want to be named, received another phone call from the inmate saying he had seen her brother’s body being taken out in a body-bag.A source told the Daily Mail last night: ‘He suffered a really bad beating which must have caused some terrible internal injuries.‘The poor bloke stood no chance at all. At one stage he was thrown against the concrete wall of a cell and landed badly.‘Then the guards tried to hush it up and pretend nothing had happened.’Hmmmm......"See Dubai and die?"Read the full story here.More here .
- From the Bosphorus: Straight - The need to avert a new flotilla crisis.We reported in our Wednesday paper that Gaby Levy, Israel’s ambassador to Turkey, has called on Turkey not to allow the human rights organization İHH to send another aid convoy to Gaza in the form of a flotilla, noting that the move would be a “provocation.”The ambassador emphasized that Israel has no problem with transporting humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip through legal means, praising the work that Türk Kızılay, the Turkish Red Crescent, is doing there. We hope that the aid flotilla, which is scheduled to depart in June, probably after the elections in Turkey, does not fall victim to political “provocations” from any of the parties who hold a stake in what is a tricky situation with multiple layers.We believe that Israel should give up on its illegal blockade of Gaza and allow materials like concrete to reach Gazans who want to rebuild their shattered infrastructure. However, we are also weary of the political motivations behind the sending of the flotilla.The fiasco that became of last year’s Gaza aid flotilla came as a shock even to some top diplomats in Turkey and Israel who were in close contact prior to the Israeli raid on the Mavi Marmara ship that left eight Turks and one Turkish-American dead. As we have over a month to go before the proposed aid flotilla sets out, we hope that all the actors involved have learned valuable lessons from last year’s disaster and that cooler heads can prevail. Given the political turmoil and uncertainty racking the region, revisiting a “Turkish-Israeli” crisis now would be the last thing any responsible person would seek. As people throughout the region demonstrate their yearning for a say in the political process, Turkey and Israel, both with well-established democratic traditions, should set a good example for the region by narrowing their differences through dialogue.One possible solution that has been proposed is that Israel allow a flotilla to deliver materials to Gaza so long as İHH submits the ships to international inspectors who can verify that the ships pose no national security threat to Israel, politics excluded. We believe this may be an elegant solution, and one that will benefit Gazans the most.Hmmmmmm......"Elegance" like in 'Tirez les premiers Messieurs les Israéliens'?Read the full story here.
- Iran: Bill banning dogs from public places introduced in parliament.Tehran, 13 April (AKI) - Members of Iran's parliament have sponsored a bill barring dogs from public places because they are "unclean" and keeping pets is an "un-Islamic" custom, according to Iran's state news agency Irna.Under the bill, dog owners will be banned from taking their pets out into public spaces and in vehicles. First-time offenders will be fined five million riyals (around 4,800 dollars) and will be given 10 days to dispose of their dog.If the dog owner fails to comply with these rules, health authorities will be called in to remove the dog from its owner. It is unclear what would be done to the dog.The health ministry has been asked to enforce the rules, as have city councils and the 280-member parliament’s culture committee, Irna reported.Besides being “unclean,” keeping dogs as pets goes against Iranian values, as it is a pratice which indicates the influence of Western culture, according the 39 MPs who tabled the bill.Hardliners have moved to crack down on dog ownership, which has been on the rise in recent years in Iran, especially among citizens in the affluent neighborhoods of the capital, Tehran.In June 2010, Iran’s Grand Ayatollah Naser Makarem Shirazi issued a fatwa or religious edict against keeping dogs as pets, and police have fined dog owners and confiscated pets from streets and parks.An exception has been made for working canines such as guard dogs and sheep dogs.Hmmmm......Next it will be the NY cabbies who will refuse 'unclean' dogs?Read the full story here.
- HT:IsraelMatzav.Assad playing Saudis and Iran off against each other? Syrian President Bashar al-Assad headed for Saudi Arabia on Wednesday for a meeting with Saudi King Abdullah. The embattled Syrian President Bashar al Assad, is heading to Riyadh on Wednesday to meet with Saudi King Abdallah bin Abdel Aziz, according Okaz newspaper.The meeting, according to the Saudi paper will highlight bilateral relations at the political, economic and trade levels; in addition, to discussing the Palestinian peace process and dialogue and the developments in the Arab world.Note what apparently was not on the agenda: What is going on in Syria itself.Ah, but you thought that Assad was in Iran's court and that Iran and Saudi Arabia are rivals. Well, that's true too.Iran is secretly helping Syrian President Bashar al-Assad put down pro-democracy demonstrations, according to U.S. officials, who say Tehran is providing gear to suppress crowds and assistance blocking and monitoring protesters' use of the Internet, cellphones and text-messaging.Secretly?Hmmmmm......Read the full story here.
Morning Posting.
- Live broadcast info from Japan directly ! Here.
- Updated !Aftershocks between 4.8 and 5.9 epicenters of four of them near nuclear plants more info here.
- Updated : The wind direction will change this might blow radiactive contamination towards the Philippines on friday. Here.
- Latest Situation Update No. 36. On 16.03.2011 at 09:34 GMT+2
Bushido the way of the warrior.Since the disaster struck in Japan, about 800 workers have been evacuated from the damaged nuclear complex in Fukushima. The radiation danger is that great. However, CBS News correspondent Jim Axelrod reports that a handful have stayed on the job, risking their lives, to try to save the lives of countless people they don't even know. Although communication with the workers inside the nuclear plant is nearly impossible, a CBS News consultant spoke to a Japanese official who made contact with one of the 50 inside the control center. The official said that his friend, one of the Fukushima 50, told him that he was not afraid to die, that that was his job. Cham Dallas, who led teams responding to the Chernobyl disaster, said that kind of response is not out of the normal for some workers in the nuclear energy sector. "(In) my experience of people in the action area of nuclear power is much like that," Dallas said. The 50 are working amid decreasing but still dangerously high levels of radiation. "The longer they stay the more dangerous it becomes for them," said expert Margaret Harding. "I think it is a testament to their guts for them to say, 'We'll stay and if that means we go, we go.'" If the contamination threat isn't contained in a few weeks, finding enough workers willing to face the risks could become a crucial challenge. Dallas said he expects that in that scenario, the Japanese energy authorities may have to find volunteers willing to undergo similar dangers, which will be hard to do, but not impossible. Keep in mind they'd be volunteering to head into a place so potentially dangerous, that anyone within 20 miles of it was just asked to evacuate.
Situation Update No. 35 On 16.03.2011 at 03:51 GMT+2
Fires broke out at the Fukushima Daiichi plant's No. 4 reactor in Japan on Tuesday, according to the Tokyo Electric Power Company. The first fire caused a leak of concentrated radioactive material, according to the Japanese prime minister, Naoto Kan. The first fire broke out at 9:40 a.m. local time on Tuesday, and was thought to have been put out, but another fire was discovered early on Wednesday, believed to have started because the earlier one had not been fully extinguished. In a televised statement, the prime minister told residents near the plant that "I sincerely ask all citizens within the 20 km distance from the reactor to leave this zone." He went on to say that "[t]he radiation level has risen substantially. The risk that radiation will leak from now on has risen." Kan warned residents to remain indoors and to shut windows and doors to avoid radiation poisoning. The French Embassy in Japan reports that the radiation will reach Tokyo in 10 hours, with current wind speeds.
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Situation Update No. 34
On 16.03.2011 at 03:29 GMT+2
The operator of Japan's stricken Fukushima Dai-Ichi nuclear power plant says a fire has broken out again at its No. 4 reactor unit. Tokyo Electric Power Co. spokesman Hajimi Motujuku says the blaze erupted early Wednesday in the outer housing of the reactor's containment vessel. Fire fighters are trying to put out the flames. Japan's nuclear safety agency also confirmed the fire, whose cause was not immediately known. On Tuesday, a fire broke out in the reactor's fuel storage pond – an area where used nuclear fuel is kept cool – causing radioactivity to be released into the atmosphere. Reuters reported that two workers are missing inside the plant, and a Japanese official said that there was a crack in the roof of the No. 4 reactor. Officials are struggling to address the failure of safety systems at several of the plant's reactors after Friday's massive earthquake and tsunami.
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Situation Update No. 33
On 15.03.2011 at 15:25 GMT+2
France's ASN nuclear safety authority said on Tuesday the nuclear accident at Tokyo Electric Power Co's Fukushima Daiichi plant could now be classed as level six out of an international scale of one to seven. On Monday, the ASN had rated the ongoing accident at the plant, located 240 km (150 miles) north of Tokyo, as a five or six. Level seven was used only once, for Chernobyl in Ukraine in 1986. The 1979 accident at the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant in the United States was rated a level five. "We are now in a situation that is different from yesterday's. It is very clear that we are at a level six, which is an intermediate level between what happened at Three Mile Island and Chernobyl," ASN President Andre-Claude Lacoste told a news conference in Paris on Tuesday. "We are clearly in a catastrophe," Lacoste added, citing the deterioration of the containment structure at Daiichi 2 as one of the key elements supporting the ASN's more pessimistic assessment. Two reactors exploded on Tuesday at the Fukushima Daiichi plant after days of frantic efforts to cool them. Japan, which rated the accident a four on Saturday, is under global scrutiny over its handling of a nuclear crisis triggered by a huge earthquake and tsunami that crippled three reactors and raised fears of an uncontrolled radiation leak.
Situation Update No. 32
On 15.03.2011 at 15:24 GMT+2
Japan's nuclear crisis is equivalent to number six on the INES scale of nuclear accidents from one to seven, Kyodo news agency quoted the French Nuclear Agency as saying. The 1986 Chernobyl disaster was a seven and Three Mile Island a five.
- Cooling Efforts to Resume at Japan Nuke Plant Following Radiation Spike.Radiation levels decreased at Japan’s stricken Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear facility Wednesday evening, allowing workers to resume efforts to prevent reactors from melting down.The workers at the forefront of the fight had been regularly rotated in and out of the danger zone to minimize their radiation exposure from the nuclear power plant crippled by Friday’s 9.0-magnitude earthquake and subsequent tsunami.But a surge in radiation Wednesday afternoon forced workers to suspend their efforts and remain inside until the danger had passed.Later Wednesday, national broadcaster NHK showed military helicopters lifting off to survey radiation levels above the complex, preparing to dump water onto the most troubled reactors in a desperate effort to cool them down.But the broadcaster later reported that the helicopters were called back after a drop onto Fukushima’s Unit 2 reactor was deemed too dangerous.Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano had already warned that dropping water via helicopter might not work."It's not so simple that everything will be resolved by pouring in water. We are trying to avoid creating other problems," he said."We are actually supplying water from the ground, but supplying water from above involves pumping lots of water and that involves risk. We also have to consider the safety of the helicopters above," he said.Meanwhile, officials in Ibaraki prefecture, just south of Fukushima, said radiation levels were about 300 times normal levels by late morning. While those levels are unhealthy for prolonged periods, they are far from fatal.Days after Friday's twin disasters, millions of people were struggling along the coast with little food, water or heat, and already chilly temperatures dropped further as a cold front moved in. Up to 450,000 people are staying in temporary shelters, often sleeping on the floor of school gymnasiums.More than 11,000 people are officially listed as dead or missing, but most officials believe the final death toll will be well over 10,000 people.In the city of Fukushima, about 40 miles inland from the nuclear complex, hundreds of harried government workers, police officers and others struggled to stay on top of the situation in a makeshift command center.An entire floor of one of the prefecture's office buildings had been taken over by people tracking evacuations, power needs, death tolls and food supplies.In one room, uniformed soldiers evaluated radiation readings on maps posted across a wall. In another, senior officials were in meetings throughout the day, while nuclear power industry representatives held impromptu briefings before rows of media cameras.Wednesday's radiation spike was apparently the result of a release of pressure that had built up in the complex's Unit 2 reactor, officials said. Steam and pressure build up in the reactors as workers try to cool the fuel rods, leading to controlled pressure releases through vents -- as well as uncontrolled explosions.A U.S. nuclear expert said he feared the worst."It's more of a surrender," said David Lochbaum, a nuclear engineer who now heads the nuclear safety program for the Union of Concerned Scientists, an activist group. "It's not like you wait 10 days and the radiation goes away. In that 10 days things are going to get worse.""It's basically a sign that there's nothing left to do but throw in the towel," Lochbaum said.Edano said the government expects to ask the U.S. military for help, though he did not elaborate. He said the government is still considering whether to accept offers of help from other countries."We have received so [much] support from across the globe," Noriyuki Shikata, the Japanese prime minister’s spokesman, told Fox News' Bret Baier on Special Report. "U.S. forces in Japan have been actively been helping the Japanese people."Hmmmmm.......Which elements exactly are in the radioactive clouds?Where the detailed info for the public?Is it Iodine, strontium and caesium or a coctail of all of them?They have half-lives of 8 days, 29 years, and 30 years respectively.Last but not least "there were over 100 radioactive elements released into the atmosphere when Chernobyl’s fourth reactor exploded "Read the full story here.
- Facts on Iodine-131 (131I), also called radioiodine (though many other radioactive isotopes of this element are known), is an important radioisotope of iodine. Its uses are mostly medical and pharmaceutical. It also plays a role as a major radioactive hazard present in nuclear fission products, and was a significant contributor to the health effects from open-air atomic bomb testing in the 1950s, and from the Chernobyl disaster. This is because I-131 is a major uranium fission product, comprising nearly 3% of the total products of fission.131I decays with a half-life of 8.02 days with beta and gamma emissions. (Meaning that after 8 days it is only half as powerfull)This nuclide of iodine atom has 78 neutrons in nucleus, the stable nuclide 127I has 74 neutrons. On decaying, 131I transforms into 131Xe.Iodine in food is absorbed by the body and preferentially concentrated in the thyroid where it is needed for the functioning of that gland. When 131I is present in high levels in the environment from radioactive fallout, it can be absorbed through contaminated food, and will also accumulate in the thyroid. As it decays, it may cause damage to the thyroid. The primary risk from exposure to high levels of 131I is the chance occurrence of radiogenic thyroid cancer in later life. Other risks include the possibility of non-cancerous growths and thyroiditis.The risk of thyroid cancer in later life appears to diminish with increasing age at time of exposure. Most risk estimates are based on studies in which radiation exposures occurred in children or teenagers. When adults are exposed, it has been difficult for epidemiologists to detect a statistically significant difference in the rates of thyroid disease above that of a similar but otherwise unexposed group.The risk can be mitigated by taking iodine supplements, raising the total amount of iodine in the body and therefore reducing uptake and retention in tissues and lowering the relative proportion of radioactive iodine. Unfortunately, such supplements were not distributed to the population living nearest to the Chernobyl nuclear power plant after the disaster, though they were widely distributed to children in Poland.Within the USA, the highest 131I fallout doses occurred during the 1950s and early 1960s to children who consumed fresh sources of milk contaminated as the result of above ground testing of nuclear weapons. The National Cancer Institute provides additional information on the health effects from exposure to 131I in fallout, as well as individualized estimates, for those born before 1971, for each of the 3070 counties in the USA. The calculations are taken from data collected regarding fallout from the nuclear weapons tests conducted at the Nevada Test Site.A common treatment method for preventing iodine-131 exposure is by saturating the thyroid with regular, non-radioactive iodine-127. This prevents the thyroid from absorbing the radioactive iodine-131, thereby avoiding the damage caused by radiation to the body. This treatment method is most commonly accomplished by administering potassium iodide to those at risk.Source .
- Q&A - Radiation exposure and the effects on human health.A look at what could happen to people who are exposed to radiation in the Japanese nuclear crisis.As engineers have fought to avert a meltdown at the earthquake- and tsunami-crippled Fukushima No. 1 (Daiichi) power plant, nuclear authorities have reported that spikes of radiation have escaped from the facility at levels that can be dangerous to human health. Authorities have evacuated more than 170,000 people within 12 miles of the plant and have warned those within 20 miles to stay indoors and close off ventilation systems. They have also issued iodine tablets to those who have remained in the area and those at evacuation centers. At least 200 people have been exposed to radiation. Here's a look at the potential radiation exposures and effects on human health.Read the full story here.
- Workers briefly abandon Japan nuclear plant as crisis worsens.TOKYO (Reuters) – Workers were ordered to withdraw briefly from a stricken Japanese nuclear power plant on Wednesday after radiation levels surged, Kyodo news reported, a development that suggested the crisis was spiraling out of control.Just hours earlier another fire broke out at the earthquake-crippled plant, which has sent low levels of radiation wafting into Tokyo in the past 24 hours, triggering both fear in the capital and international alarm.France urged its nationals either to leave Japan or head to the south and asked Air France to provide planes for evacuation. In a statement, the French embassy in Tokyo said two planes were already on their way to the capital.Academics and nuclear experts said the solutions being proposed to quell radiation leaks at the Daiichi nuclear plant in Fukushima were last-ditch efforts to stem what could well be remembered as one of the world's worst industrial disasters."This is a slow-moving nightmare," said Dr Thomas Neff, a research affiliate at the Center for International Studies, which is part of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.Workers were trying to build a road so fire trucks could reach the stricken reactor No. 4 which was on fire on Wednesday.Japanese officials said they were talking to the U.S. military about possible help at the plant, 240 km (150 miles) north of Tokyo.Concern had earlier been mounting that the skeleton crews dealing with the crisis might not be big enough, or were possibly exhausted after working for days since last Friday's massive earthquake damaged the facility. Authorities withdrew 750 workers on Tuesday, leaving only 50.All those remaining were pulled out for almost an hour because radiation levels were too high, but later allowed to return, officials said.The plight of hundreds of thousands left homeless by the quake and devastating tsunami that followed worsened overnight following a cold snap that brought snow to some of the worst-affected areas.While the official death toll stands at around 4,000, more than 7,000 are listed as missing and the figure is expected to rise.In the first hint of international frustration at the pace of updates from Japan, Yukiya Amano, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, said he wanted more timely and detailed information."We do not have all the details of the information so what we can do is limited," Amano told a news conference in Vienna. "I am trying to further improve the communication."Several experts said the Japanese authorities were underplaying the severity of the incident, particularly on a scale called INES used to rank nuclear incidents. The Japanese have so far rated the accident a four on a one-to-seven scale, but that rating was issued on Saturday and since then the situation has worsened dramatically.France's nuclear safety authority ASN said on Tuesday it should be classed as a level-six incident.Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan on Tuesday urged people within 30 km (18 miles) of the facility.Officials in Tokyo said radiation in the capital was 10 times normal at one point but not a threat to human health in the sprawling high-tech city of 13 million people. Levels dropped to minimal on Wednesday, but nerves were shaken by a 6.0 earthquake which shook buildings. But residents have nevertheless reacted to the crisis by staying indoors. Public transport and the streets are as deserted as they would be on a public holiday, and many shops and offices are closed. Winds over the plant will blow from the north along the Pacific coast early on Wednesday and then from the northwest toward the ocean during the day, the Japan Meteorological Agency said. Fears of transpacific nuclear fallout sent consumers scrambling for radiation antidotes in the U.S. Pacific Northwest and Canada. Authorities warned that people would expose themselves to other medical problems by needlessly taking potassium iodide in the hope of protection from cancer. The nuclear crisis and concerns about the economic impact from the quake and tsunami have hammered Japan's stock market. The Nikkei index was up nearly 4 percent after closing down 10.6 percent on Tuesday and 6.2 percent the day before. The fall wiped some $620 billion off the market.Authorities have spent days desperately trying to prevent the water which is designed to cool the radioactive cores of the reactors from evaporating, which would lead to overheating and the release of dangerous radioactive material into the atmosphere. Levels of 400 millisieverts per hour had been recorded near the No. 4 reactor, the government said. Exposure to over 100 millisieverts a year is a level which can lead to cancer, according to the World Nuclear Association. A Sony spokeswoman said only 120 out of the usual 6,000 staff were working at the main Tokyo building. There were "no petrol" signs dotting roads from Tokyo to Chiba as well as chained off gas stations, while the sole open petrol had a queue 100 meters long.The full extent of the destruction from Friday's earthquake and tsunami was becoming clear as rescuers combed through the region north of Tokyo where officials say at least 10,000 people were killed. Whole villages and towns have been wiped off the map by the wall of water, triggering an international humanitarian effort of epic proportions. There have been hundreds of aftershocks and more than two dozen were greater than magnitude 6, the size of the earthquake that severely damaged Christchurch, New Zealand, last month. About 850,000 households in the north were still without electricity in near-freezing weather, Tohuku Electric Power Co. said, and the government said at least 1.5 million households lack running water. Tens of thousands of people were missing. Hmmmm.....Japan is dealing with it's worst crisis in it's history and the American President go's to party in Rio ,isn't there a single American politician with true grit left in America to speak up?Read the full story here.
- HT:BigPeace.Will Japan’s Catastrophe Cause A US Financial Earthquake?Japan is still trying to figure out the extent of the massive human toll of the tragedy that has befallen that country. The toll will reach biblical proportions. But in a few weeks they will need to begin charting plans to rebuild. Japan’s financial house in not in great shape, so they will need to borrow capital, plenty of it. But how much will be available? There is also speculation in Japan that to finance the rebuilding, Tokyo will sell off a portion of its huge holdings of U.S. Treasuries to cover the cost.Guess what? There is almost $1.8 trillion in US Treasury debt maturing this year. Fully 50% of American debt comes due in the next three years. Governments such as China have already indicated that they are will interested in buying U.S. debt than in the past. And if Japan sells off a portion of its US debt? We need to be concerned about the human toll right now. But pretty soon we will need to confront the reality that the Japanese catastrophe and the American debt crisis may collide on international financial markets. It’s just another reason we ought to be ashamed of ourselves and get our fiscal house in order. Japan is going to need to borrow heavily because they just got hit by an earthquake and tsunami. What’s our excuse?Hmmmm.......Try Obama's 'Change' as an excuse?Read the full story here.
- A Major Earthquake in North America Imminent?NEIL CAVUTO, HOST: Boy oh, boy, just what Japan does not need. An imminent earthquake warning just issued for several regions of the country. On edge there, on edge here, because it really didn't start with Japan. Take a look at what experts are increasingly calling the so-called ring of fire that is encircling the entire Pacific Ocean. You remember Chile's massive earthquake about a year ago. Then we had that big one in New Zealand just last month. Then of course Japan.If this clockwise trend continues, my next guest says North America looks to be on tap next. Don't laugh. Geologist Jim Berkland is worried. When he worries, you should worry too. Jim accurately predicted, get this, the 1989 so-called World Series earthquake four days before it shook the San Francisco Bay Area. And Jim says this month is of particular concern. Why, Jim?Jim Berkland , geologist : The month of October, March, and April are the three most devastating earthquakes in terms of damage in the San Francisco Bay Area in history. And we are having on the 19th of this month not only the full moon, but within an hour the closest approach of the moon to the earth until the year 2016. The next day is the equinoctial tides. So you're bringing together three of the maximum tide raising forces. We know about the ocean tides. But there is also an Earth tide. And there is a tide in the ground water. All of these help to release sudden, built up strain, and cause earthquakes.
CAVUTO: But that would seem to imply that we could be looking at a very imminent event in the United States within the next week or two? Is that right?
BERKLAND: Yes. My -- what I call a seismic window, this top seismic window in years is developing between the 19th and 26th of this month. And this was 7.0 monster and it says geologist had warned about it. And a week earlier, the they were talking about the tides, not to worry about the really tides coming up. I think there is worry here too.
CAVUTO: So let me just understand. You're a genius. I'm not. I want to follow your fine brain on this.
BERKLAND: Not a genius.
CAVUTO: What you're saying is that there is certain order to this, even though it doesn't appear like order? For a lot of folks, it just seems like random events. But you're saying there is a process unfolding here? For California --
BERKLAND: Absolutely.
CAVUTO: California, Oregon or whatever, would that mean? What type of quake or disturbance or disruption would that be?
BERKLAND: Well, if it was, one in the northwest, in the Cascadia Trench, like we had in 1700, that would be a nine magnitude quake. I'm not predicting that. But I'm saying we just had a massive fish kill. Maybe a million fish died in Redondo Beach. They had a massive fish sweep in Mexico. We just had a bunch of whales come in close to San Diego.CAVUTO: What does that presage? When you have events like that, what does that generally mean? What's going on in the waters?
BERKLAND: Changes -- changes in the magnetic field that off then precede larger earthquakes. Most animals have the mineral magnetite in their bodies, including people. But it causes homing pigeons to enable them to get home. Just before big quakes, they often can't get home. There is the delay factor. So we look for those kinds of things.Just before the World Series quake there was very unusual beaching of rare whales in the Ocean Beach, in San Francisco. Just after that, a equally rare pigmy sperm whale washed up at Santa Cruz, within about five miles of the epicenter of the World Series quake. That kind of beaching had never occurred before nor since. So we're looking for strange fish coming into from deepwater to the shallow water, wild animals coming into cities.I used to just scoff at these kinds of things, because I was a mainstream geologist until I found out that earthquakes are fitting a pattern. The big earthquake in the Indian Ocean followed massive beachings of whales in Taiwan -- not Taiwan, but New Zealand and Australia and Tasmania. And then within couple of days, they had a 8.3 in south of New Zealand, and then came the 9.1 in the Indian Ocean, with the big tsunami, on the very day of the fool moon.
CAVUTO: Wow.
BERKLAND: The previous big quake and tsunami was in Alaska, which is a 9.2 magnitude event, on the day off the full moon, on the 27th of March.
CAVUTO: Jim, bottom line, we have a lot to watch. Believe me, you're track record compels us to watch it. Jim, thank you very much. I hope you're wrong, buddy. I really hope your wrong but your record --
BERKLAND: Especially at this time, world history, not good.Hmmmm.....Let's hope he's wrong but i'm inclined to say yes the 'supermoon' and the equinoctial tides will have an serious influence.Read the full story here.
- The tsunami that struck Japan was the third in a series of events that now put California at risk.There was a horrifically destructive Pacific earthquake in New Zealand on Feb. 22, and an even more violent magnitude-8.8 event in Chile almost exactly a year before. All three phenomena involved more or less the same family of circum-Pacific fault lines and plate boundaries—and though there is still no hard scientific evidence to explain why, there is little doubt now that earthquakes do tend to occur in clusters: a significant event on one side of a major tectonic plate is often—not invariably, but often enough to be noticeable—followed some weeks or months later by another on the plate’s far side. It is as though the earth becomes like a great brass bell, which when struck by an enormous hammer blow on one side sets to vibrating and ringing from all over. Now there have been catastrophic events at three corners of the Pacific Plate—one in the northwest, on Friday; one in the southwest, last month; one in the southeast, last year.That leaves just one corner unaffected—the northeast. And the fault line in the northeast of the Pacific Plate is the San Andreas Fault, underpinning the city of San Francisco.All of which makes the geological community very apprehensive. All know that the San Andreas Fault is due to rupture one day—it last did so in 1906, and strains have built beneath it to a barely tolerable level. To rupture again, with unimaginable consequences for the millions who live above it, some triggering event has to occur. Now three events have occurred that might all be regarded as triggering events. There are in consequence a lot of thoughtful people in the American West who are very nervous indeed—wondering, as they often must do, whether the consent that permits them to inhabit so pleasant a place might be about to be withdrawn, sooner than they have supposed.Hmmmm.....Read the full story here.
- Japan quake shifts Antarctic glacier.The major earthquake that hit Japan on Friday caused a massive ice stream in Antarctica to momentarily speed up.As the surface seismic waves generated by the quake travelled around the world, they appear to have given the Whillans ice stream in West Antarctica a nudge, causing it to slide by about half a metre.The movement was picked up by Jake Walter of the University of California, Santa Cruz, and his colleagues, who monitor the glacier remotely from California. They say the event is an "interesting insight", but are not suggesting it will destabilise the ice stream in any way.The Whillans ice stream drains ice from the West Antarctic Ice Sheet into the Ross Ice Shelf. Since 2007, Walter and colleagues have been using GPS field stations on the ice sheet to monitor its movements. They have shown that the ice stream speeds up twice a day in slip events which last about 30 minutes.The glacier normally creeps along at an average speed of about 1 metre per day. But during a slip event, it slides almost half a metre in one go. The sudden slips are related to the tides, and are strong enough to generate seismic waves that are recorded by stations at the South Pole and the Antarctic Dry Valleys.Now it looks like the magnitude 9.0 earthquake that shook Japan last Friday caused the glacier to slip in a similar way.When Walter and his colleagues were analysing GPS data from the ice stream on Monday, they noticed that one slip event had happened earlier than expected. Further analysis revealed that it happened exactly when surface seismic waves generated by the Japanese earthquake would have hit Antarctica.Read the full story here.
- Obama administration obeys Sharia law and pays Diyya bloodmoney to release Davis!Officials say an American CIA contractor detained on suspicion of murder has been released after families of the two Pakistanis he killed pardoned him in exchange for compensation.Raymond Allen Davis has been in jail since Jan. 27, seriously straining ties between Pakistan and the United States.Punjab Law Minister Rana Sanaullah says Davis was charged with murder on Wednesday but was then pardoned by the families of the victims in exchange for compensation payment.Chaudhry Mushtaq, superintendent at Kot Lakhpat jail, says Davis had left the jail in the company of U.S. consulate officials.U.S. officials were not available for comment.Hmmmm....No word as how much has been payed in this shocking precedent!No doubt many suits will follow now in Pakistan for civilans killed by US weapons!Read the full
scandal story here.
- Iran denies sending arms ship.'Jerusalem occupation is regime of lies,' says chief of staff, who hopes Israel 'will sink into sea'.The Iranian army's chief of staff, General Atallah Salhi, denied on Wednesday Israel's claims that his country had sent the arms ship Victoria, intercepted by the IDF en route to Gaza with 50 tons of weaponry on board."The Jerusalem occupation regime is a regime of lies, production of lies, and dissemination of lies. We reject all of these mendacious reports," he told IRNA. The general also took the opportunity to express his hopes for Israel's future. "God willing, this regime will sink into the Mediterranean Sea like the regime of the pharaohs in Egypt," he said. "Israel is the only one harmed by the rise of Islam in the countries of the Middle East and North Africa." Officials believe the Victoria was sent by Tehran because of the sophisticated surface-to-sea missiles found on board together with Farsi-language manuals, which are attired with the emblem of Iran's Revolutionary Guards.In addition, a Nasr-1 cruise missile was found to have a serial number close to that with which Iranian Defense Minister Ahmad Vahidi was pictured in January 2010, when Iran began producing the missile originally made by China. Israeli officials believe Iran sent the Victoria in an attempt to take advantage of the upheaval in Egypt, hoping that it would be allowed to pass through to Gaza's terror organizations unchecked. Hmmmm.....If Israel sinks in the sea,would that mean that Gaza was swallowed first?Read the full story here.
- It might be economically impossible to pay for Obama's budget.A lot of people these days are writing or saying that we're not really broke. Underlying this argument is the notion that we can tax rich people some more. Nick Gillespie at Reason lays out some facts about this belief, and how it ties into Obama's budget : Obama is projecting an unsustainable level of revenue that still won't come close to matching outlays. Since 1950, total federal revenues have averaged 17.8 percent of GDP. There has been only one year when it exceeded 20 percent of GDP (and only two years when it reached 20 percent). Yet Obama says that's where we're headed.Obama's budget foresees the government taxing 20 % of GDP and spending 23 percent of GDP. That means if we spend as much as Obama wants, we would be increasing our debt every year, unless Washington could somehow get 23 percent of GDP through tax receipts. This might not be impossible, but history shows that no matter how much you tax the rich, 20 percent is a stretch and 23 percent is impossible without some major change to our tax system -- like adding a value-added tax (VAT).Hmmmm....."I will not raise taxes" and we all know what his promises are worth?Read the full story here.
- NRA Refuses to Meet With Obama: “Why Should We Sit Down With People Who’ve Spent a Lifetime Trying to Destroy the Second Amendment?”More than two months after the Tucson shootings, the administration is calling together both the gun lobby and gun safety groups to find common ground. But President Obama has no plans to take the lead in proposing further gun control legislation, aides say, and the nation’s major gun rights group is snubbing the invitation.On Tuesday, officials at the Justice Department will meet with gun control advocates in the first of what will be a series of meetings over the next two weeks with people on different sides of the issue, including law enforcement, retailers and manufacturers, to seek agreement on possible legislative or administrative actions.The effort follows Mr. Obama’s call, in a column on Sunday in a Tucson newspaper, to put aside “stale policy debates” and begin “a new discussion” on ways to better enforce and strengthen existing laws to keep mentally unstable, violent and criminal people from getting guns.But the National Rifle Association, for decades the most formidable force against proposals to limit gun sales or ownership, is refusing to join the discussion — possibly dooming it from the start, given the lobby’s clout with both parties in Congress. Administration officials had indicated they expected that the group would be represented at a meeting, perhaps on Friday.“Why should I or the N.R.A. go sit down with a group of people that have spent a lifetime trying to destroy the Second Amendment in the United States?” said Wayne LaPierre, the longtime chief executive of the National Rifle Association.He named Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, who has almost no role in gun-related policies, and Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr.“It shouldn’t be a dialogue about guns; it really should be a dialogue about dangerous people,” Mr. LaPierre said, adding that his group has supported proposals to prevent gun sales to the mentally ill, strengthen a national system of background checks and spur states to provide needed data.Hmmmm......All he wants is control 'We The People' ,it's not about the guns.Read the full story here.
- HT:PowerlineBlog.USA Inc. If the United States were a company, what financial shape would it be in? And what would it make sense to do to put the company on a sounder footing? These are the intriguing questions that a group of investment analysts from Kleiner Perkins, headed by Mary Meeker, set out to answer. The resulting report, which includes 460 Power Point slides, is here. It is titled "USA Inc."I asked a friend who is extremely knowledgeable about finance to evaluate the product and point out some highlights. Here is his response.Hmmm.....Behold the Obamination!Read and SEE the full story here.
- 9/11 Firefighter Helps Forge Final Battle to Stop New York City 'Ground Zero Mosque'.In a last-chance effort to stop the so-called "Ground Zero Mosque," opponents were in court Tuesday arguing the building where the mosque is to be built should be a historic landmark -- thus making it ineligible for new construction."Why did they insist on building this mosque on the graveyards of our friends?" asked New York City firefighter Tim Brown, a 9/11 survivor who was among those that brought the lawsuit to New York State Supreme Court, along with the American Center For Law and Justice. "I'd like it to be an historical landmark to teach America about what happened here," Brown told Fox News.The suit maintains the 152-year-old building should have been declared an official landmark by the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission. It claims the project's developers colluded with the administration of New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg to push the project through in a move of political correctness, and allow the construction of an Islamic center in the shadow of Ground Zero. Brown's lawyer, Jack Lester, charged there was "active participation" between the Bloomberg administration and project developers.That claim was refuted by city officials. "As our court papers demonstrate, Landmarks Commission's decision not to designate the building a landmark is irrefutably rational," according to a spokesman for the New York City Law Department.Supporters of the project, known as Park51, contend the opposition is the result of "pure bigotry," and said the decision not to grant the structure landmark status was appropriate."Imagine, instead of building a community center with a mosque in it, they were building a grocery store. Do you think Timothy Brown would be in this case?" asked attorney Adam Leitman Bailey. "We only have a case today because they don't want Muslim people building a few blocks away from Ground Zero."As for the building, "there is nothing about it that deserves architectural integrity," maintained Leitman Bailey.Leitman Bailey, meanwhile, argued Brown had no standing in the case. "Because his friends died on that day does not give him standing. He has no case. The building is not historic." He also said the building is "not in the Ground Zero area," but is two blocks away and an "eight-minute walk."But Brown remained unswayed, and called the mosque's supporters un-American. "It's disgusting. It angers me ... I think that their claim that they are sensitive bridge-builders is a lie."A decision in the case is expected in about a month.Hmmm......Anyone taking a bet that Bloomberg will also choose for the Turkish Muslim new yellow cabs?Read the full story here.
- You shall not kill!It was 2010, and Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan was speaking, as tempered as always, to a crowd as tempered as the prime minister could be.“These [people] even see babies in their cradles as a threat. They have killed babies in their mothers’ arms,” he boomed.“These people,” naturally, were the Israelis.Addressing Israel’s leaders from a public rally in Turkey, Mr. Erdoğan said in both Turkish and English: “You shall not kill.” Then he showed his linguistic capabilities and went on: “You still don’t get it? Then I shall speak to you in your own language: Lo tir’tsach!” He was referring to the sixth of the 10 commandments in the Old Testament.In various other speeches, Mr. Erdoğan claimed that his fits of anger toward the death of children were “indiscriminative” of race and religion. “Wherever, whenever,” he often said, “a child has been killed,” he would fiercely stand against the murderers. All the same, he has been mute since Saturday.In the early hours of Saturday, a Palestinian broke into a house in the settlement of Itamar and stabbed to death a couple and their three children, aged 3 months, 4 years and 10 years old. The slain bodies were discovered by the couple’s 12-year-old daughter who was not at home when the murder was committed.The “Imad Mughniyeh” cell, with alleged links to the al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigade, claimed responsibility for the attack. The terrorist group is named after the “phantom” terrorist Imad Mughniyeh who was killed in a car bomb attack in Damascus which Hezbollah blamed on Israeli agents. Mr. Mughniyeh, or the “Shia bin-Laden,” was one of the world’s most wanted men (wanted in 42 countries) while he was enjoying a safe haven in the Syrian capital prior to his assassination.Most predictably, we have not heard Mr. Erdoğan saying "You shall not kill" in Arabic, and we probably never will. That’s hardly surprising since we have never heard Mr. Erdoğan speaking “indiscriminately” in the past against the killing of children and defenseless people in Itamar, or elsewhere in Israel – for Saturday’s attack in Itamar was not the first of its kind. In May 2002, a Palestinian killed a 14-year-old boy and wounded another teenager in the same settlement. A month later, another Palestinian killed a woman and her three children. In July the same year another Palestinian stabbed and wounded a couple. And in August 2004, a Palestinian killed a resident of Itamar.The hypocrisy over the killing of innocent people is not coincidental in any way. Last month, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad hosted, in Tehran, a delegation from the disastrous Turkish flotilla Mavi Marmara, comprising the “Mavi Marmara mujahedeen, ghazis and families of the shahids.”The delegates participated in Iran's Revolution Day ceremonies, and the head of the Turkish delegation noted that: “We are here today with the longing and the determination to build a Middle East without Israel and America, and to refresh our pledge to continue on the path of the Mavi Marmara shahids.”On Feb. 12, the same Mavi Marmara activist reiterated “the promising words of the President of the Islamic Republic of Iran… that 'only a short time is left for the building of a Middle East without Israel or America in it, and we are praying for the quick arrival of that bright day, when all of us will meet in a free al-Quds [Jerusalem].’”With five “Jooos” having disappeared from earth after the Itamar attack, that bright day must be arriving sooner.I am still curious, however, about what rank the 3-month old Israeli “soldier” held. Captain? Lieutenant colonel? Certainly too young to be a general?Hmmmm.......Erdogan "Muslims don't commit genocide" and crows wear stiletto heels?Read the full story here. HT : Amnon and Jonathan.
- Israel Land Fund: Netanyahu is Already Dividing Jerusalem.The Israel Land Fund organization presented on Tuesday, during the Jerusalem Conference, a video which the organization says proves that the Netanyahu government has already begun to divide Jerusalem.“I came here on behalf of the Israel Land Fund in order to wake up the Jewish nation that loves Jerusalem and came to the Jerusalem Conference, and to make it well-known to the public that the Likud government, the present government of Israel, already divided Jerusalem,” said Israel Land Fund Chairman Aryeh King, during a conversation with Israel National News TV.“We have eight neighborhoods in Jerusalem that Jews are not allowed to enter,” he explained. “There are areas where the Palestinian Authority policemen are present every day and nobody kicks them out. It means there are areas that if you as a Jew want to enter, you need to be escorted by the IDF.”King noted that this “is illegal. It’s against the Jerusalem law and we came here to wake up the people who love Jerusalem and have them put some public pressure on the Likud party.”Hmmmm.......The Obama 'effect'?Read the full story here.
- HT:AhmadiyyaTimes.Pakistan: Blasphemy-convicted Christian's death 'not due to natural causes'.A Christian convicted of blasphemy in Pakistan has died in mysterious circumstances in a jail in the southern city of Karachi.Qamar David was serving a life sentence in Karachi's central jail for insulting the Koran and the Prophet Muhammad.Officials say he died of a heart attack but his family say that as a fit and healthy man, this is unlikely be true.Pakistan's penal code prescribes punishments up to death for blasphemy against Islam and the Prophet.The law has elicited strong criticism - although recently liberals are more nervous about speaking out against it.That appears to be especially the case since the murder of Minority Affairs Minister Shahbaz Bhatti - a Christian - earlier this month, an event preceded by the murder of another liberal, Punjab Governor Salman Taseer in January.David was convicted of making blasphemous comments against the Koran and the Prophet in a text message to a business rival.'Threats'"My client was in perfect condition the last time I met him," Qamar David's lawyer Pervez Chaudhry told the BBC."I have spoken to the family and we don't believe he died a natural death."He had been receiving threats against his life."I had submitted an application in this regard in court - my client had also mentioned that prison officials were involved."Mr Chaudhry's arguments have been backed up by the dead man's family."I visited him quite regularly and he had never complained of any illness," Shahid Sagar, David's cousin, told the BBC."He was certainly not in the kind of condition that would make him drop dead all of a sudden. I can't accept this report of him dying of a heart attack."But prison officials are adamant that David died of natural causes.Qamar David worked as a supplier of cosmetics to local shops in Karachi.He was a resident of Lahore - where his family now lives - but was kept in jail in Karachi, which is part of Sindh province.Mr Chaudhry said that David's wife is now on her way to Karachi and is expected to ask for a post mortem examination when she arrives on Wednesday.Hmmmm.....Read the full story here.
- HT:AhmadiyyaTimes.Pakistan assassinations highlight sway of radical clerics.PESHAWAR, Pakistan — Yousaf Qureshi made international headlines in December when he offered $6,000 to anyone who killed a Pakistani Christian woman convicted of blasphemy. This month, the cleric told worshipers packed into his 17th-century mosque here that extremists had done a “marvelous job” days before, by assassinating a cabinet minister who had defended the woman.Those statements might count as incitement to violence under Pakistani law. But no government or law enforcement officials have confronted him, Qureshi said on a recent morning.“I can announce that we are coming to the street with 4,000 armed students,” said Qureshi, a jolly man whose eyes are rimmed with black liner and who, as caretaker of a historic building, is on the provincial government payroll. “What can the government do?”In a recent meeting with foreign journalists, federal information minister Firdous Ashiq Awan blamed extremism on government coalition partners, provincial officials, stingy international donors and CIA drone strikes. But she appeared unable to cite government actions to counter the problem.“Why not tell your electorate that this is a very serious existential fight, and let’s go and fight it?” said Ali Dayan Hasan, the Pakistan representative for Human Rights Watch.Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gillani said authorities would do their “utmost” to find and punish Bhatti’s killers. But in an ominous sign, police said no witnesses to the attack agreed to provide statements for the initial report.Radical clerics, meanwhile, continue to call publicly for the deaths of liberal politicians. A court declined to issue arrest warrants for two clerics who inspired Taseer’s killer. In interviews, police officials in Lahore and Islamabad said they monitor sermons, but imams are rarely punished.Abdul Qudoos, a spokesman for a group of 13,000 madrassas, said clerics continue to disdain the idea of government oversight of religious schools. “They have failed everywhere,” Qudoos said of the government. “Why should it be different with this?”That air of untouchability is echoed by Qureshi, the Peshawar imam, who also runs a 700-student madrassa that teaches only the Koran. Studying other topics, he said, would instill materialism in students.Qureshi said his reward offer for the killer of Asia Bibi, the Christian woman, still stands, and he boasted he could collect the money from worshipers in 15 minutes. He said he already has $1 million in a briefcase, ready for anyone who kills a Danish cartoonist who drew the prophet Muhammad.Qureshi said his rhetoric has occasionally led local officials to briefly bar him from sermonizing. But they always buckle when his congregation starts rumbling.“I have 10,000 followers. All are holy warriors,” he said. “They will come out to the streets without thinking, just in the name of Islam.”Hmmmmm.....These are the people the Obama administration works with.Read the full story here.
- Bahrain opposition: 5 dead in 'war of annihilation'.Soldiers, police drive out hundreds of anti-government protestors in Pearl Square using tear gas, armored vehicles.At least five protesters have been killed and hundreds wounded in a crackdown by Bahraini forces on Wednesday, the head of the Shiite Muslim opposition bloc in parliament said."This is a war of annihilation. This does not happen even in wars and this is not acceptable," Abdel Jalil Khalil, a senior politician in Bahrain's largest Shiite party Wefaq, said. Khalil told Reuters by telephone that, apart from clearing protesters from the Pearl roundabout, troops had fanned out across Bahrain, cutting off streets and arresting or firing at people who tried to cross.Khalil said that private homes and funeral parlors were receiving casualties as troops had surrounded several hospitals and called on qualified doctors to head to their nearest health centre to help treat casualties.Soldiers and riot police used tear gas and armored vehicles to drive out hundreds of anti-government protesters occupying a landmark square in the capital, a day after emergency rule was imposed in the violence-wracked Gulf kingdom. State TV broadcast video showing military vehicles in the square flying Bahrain's red-and-white flag as security officials moved through the wreckage of the encampment, set up at the base of a towering monument to the country's history as a pearl diving center. The video showed the ground littered with debris, including satellite dishes and charred tent poles.Read the full story here.More here.
- White House wants new copyright law crackdown.The White House today proposed sweeping revisions to U.S. copyright law, including making "illegal streaming" of audio or video a federal felony and allowing FBI agents to wiretap suspected infringers. In a 20-page white paper (PDF), the Obama administration called on the U.S. Congress to fix "deficiencies that could hinder enforcement" of intellectual property laws.The report was prepared by Victoria Espinel, the first Intellectual Property Enforcement Coordinator who received Senate confirmation in December 2009, and represents a broad tightening of many forms of intellectual property law including ones that deal with counterfeit pharmaceuticals and overseas royalties for copyright holders.Some of the highlights:
• The White House is concerned that "illegal streaming of content" may not be covered by criminal law, saying "questions have arisen about whether streaming constitutes the distribution of copyrighted works." To resolve that ambiguity, it wants a new law to "clarify that infringement by streaming, or by means of other similar new technology, is a felony in appropriate circumstances."
• Under federal law, wiretaps may only be conducted in investigations of serious crimes, a list that was expanded by the 2001 Patriot Act to include offenses such as material support of terrorism and use of weapons of mass destruction. The administration is proposing to add copyright and trademark infringement, arguing that move "would assist U.S. law enforcement agencies to effectively investigate those offenses."
- • Under the 1998 Digital Millennium Copyright Act, it's generally illegal to distribute hardware or software--such as the DVD-decoding software Handbrake available from a server in France--that can "circumvent" copy protection technology. The administration is proposing that if Homeland Security seizes circumvention devices, it be permitted to "inform rightholders," "provide samples of such devices," and assist "them in bringing civil actions."
The term "fair use" does not appear anywhere in the report. But it does mention Web sites like The Pirate Bay, which is hosted in Sweden, when warning that "foreign-based and foreign-controlled Web sites and Web services raise particular concerns for U.S. enforcement efforts."The usual copyright hawks, including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, applauded the paper, which grew out of a so-called joint strategic plan that Vice President Biden and Espinel announced in June 2010. At the same time, Democratic politicians tend to be a bit more enthusiastic about the topic. Biden was a close Senate ally of copyright holders, and President Obama picked top copyright industry lawyers for Justice Department posts. Last year, Biden warned that "piracy is theft." No less than 78 percent of political contributions from Hollywood went to Democrats in 2008, which is broadly consistent with the trend for the last two decades, according to OpenSecrets.org.Hmmmm......It's also a great way to silence any Blogger from the opposition who streams a vid,welcome to the Obama policestate?Read the full story here.
- Mideast Turmoil: China Anxious Over Oil.On Thursday, Libyan authorities sent a Chinese oil tanker back to China without its intended cargo of 2 million barrels of oil, according to Reuters. The ship will go to Algeria instead, to purchase oil there.Events like this, arising out of the turmoil in the Mideast, are of great concern to China because of its enormous dependence on imported oil.China imports about 2.9 million barrels of oil a day from the Mideast, including 1.1 million barrels a day from Saudi Arabia alone, according to the Wall Street Journal (Access). So the turmoil in the Mideast, and especially in Saudi Arabia, represents something of an existential threat to the Chinese. China’s dependence on the Mideast is only going to increase, because China’s oil imports will increase.The increasing anxiety on the part of the Beijing government over its dependence on imported oil is undoubtedly a big part of the reason why China has become extremely aggressive in claiming sovereignty over large regions in the South China Sea and the East China Sea.
Last year, a confrontation was growing with China on one side, and with the US, Vietnam and other Asian countries on the other side. (See “24-Jul-10 News — US confronts China on South China Sea claims.”)China is very aggressively claiming that the entire South China Sea region, including the Paracel and Spratly Islands and some 200 other islands, is China’s sovereign terrority, and that they have the right to prohibit foreign ships from entering that region.
The islands themselves may be of little value, but the region is suspected of being rich in oil and gas. Thus, they’re claimed in whole or in part by China, Taiwan, Brunei, the Philippines, Vietnam and Malaysia.Now that confrontation is growing once again.On Tuesday of last week, the heads of state for Indonesia and the Philippines met in Jakarta to discuss cooperation on combating terrorism, but also to discuss forming a common front to counteract China’s claims to the Spratly and Paracel islands, according to the Asia Sentinel.Just as important as the oil and gas rights to the region is the issue of freedom of navigation across the South China Sea, one of the world’s busiest waterways. If China were allowed to assert sovereignty over the region, then the interests of all Asian nations, as well as those of the United States, would be harmed.China repeated its previously stated hard line on the issue. A Chinese Foreign Ministry official is quoted as saying that they’re willing to talk about it, but the bottom line is: “China holds indisputable sovereignty over the South China Sea islands and their adjacent waters.”China is not stopping with claims to the islands in the South China Sea. China also is in a simmering dispute with Japan over the issue of sovereignty over the Senkaku Islands (called the Diaoyu Islands by the Chinese) in the East China Sea. In 2005, the dispute became so bitter that military action was being threatened on both sides. (See “China and Japan head for military confrontation over disputed islands.”)Then a new confrontation developed last year, when the Japanese arrested a Chinese fishing trawler captain, but was forced by the Chinese to return him to China. (See “26-Sep-10 News — China turns the screws on a humiliated Japan.”)Last week, the conflict flared again, when Japanese jets confronted Chinese planes near the disputed islands. However, the Chinese planes didn’t enter Japanese air space, and so the Japanese decided not to lodge a complaint, according to the BBC.This conflict could end up involving the United States. The disputed islands are currently administered by the Japanese, and last year Secretary of State Hillary Clinton confirmed that America is committed to defending Japan, under a 1960 treaty, if China attacks the disputed islands.So the turmoil in the Mideast doesn’t just threaten the world with having to shiver in winter. It also threatens military confrontations between China and other Asian nations, as well as the United States.Hmmmm.....How do you like the 'Change' now?Read the full story,
- Bahrain Declares State of Emergency; Recalls Ambassador To Iran Because of ‘Interference’.Events continue to heat up in Bahrain. Saudi Arabia has sent forces to the island to help quell violent protests. Iran has now voiced its support for the protesters. Khaleej Times (United Arab Emirates) reports:“His Majesty King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa of Bahrain on Tuesday enforced the National Safety Act (emergency law) for three months in all parts of the Kingdom as two died in fresh violence and the country recalled its ambassador from Iran in protest against Tehran’s interference.The Act was declared in the wake of the major political unrest and sectarian tensions which Bahrain has been witnessing since February 14.In a Royal Decree, King Hamad assigned the Commander-in-Chief of the Bahrain Defence Force (BDF) to take all necessary measures in order to implement the Act. Beside the BDF, public security, National Guard and other forces will be deployed if their services are required, the decree said.A statement carried by the Bahrain News Agency attributed enforcement of the Act to the threats citizens and expatriates have been exposed to because of street violence that have not spared religious places and educational institutions.On the diplomatic front, Bahrain recalled its ambassador to Tehran after the Iranian government condemned the arrival of Gulf Arab forces in the archipelago and defended the “legitimate” demands of pro-democracy protesters. Hamad Al Hamer, Undersecretary of Foreign Affairs for Regional Affairs, told the Press on Tuesday that such a statement is interference in Bahrain’s internal affairs and should not come from a country with good relations. He said Bahrain strongly condemned the statement and highlighted that the GCC Peninsula Shield Forces came as part of strong ties among Gulf countries.A source at Salmaniya Hospital, which has been receiving most of the casualties, confirmed an earlier report that a Bahraini man was killed. It also said a Bangladeshi man had died in clashes in the town of Sitra.Meanwhile, the Ministry of Interior said that a “group of vandals” had opened fire with automatic weapons on police patrols in the region of Buri, south of Manama, adding that no injuries were reported. A security official said police had begun “reopening roads closed by the demonstrators” in the southern Shia regions. But “no decision has yet been taken regarding Pearl Square,” the epicentre of protests.Read the full story here.
- HT:BigPeace.Former Minister of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards: Kill the Americans!We must give a directive to the people of the various regions that they should, without hesitation, kill the first American who steps foot on their land.In an interview with the defense reporter from the Iranian regime-run Fars News Agency, Mohsen Rafiqdoost, the former minister of the Revolutionary Guards, discussed the Islamic uprisings in the Middle East and Iran’s corresponding role:When people gain awareness and rise up, they become victorious. It is this populist support, as well as the support offered by the Iranian government to these protests, that is enough; we do not need to directly meddle.Rafiqdoost, in reference to the 1979 Islamic Revolution in Iran, stated: Our revolution, in comparison to the movements that people in the region have undertaken, was much greater. Our people rose up against the fifth largest non-nuclear army in the world and won.He continued : We fought for a full year on the streets and then we found ourselves climbing up the tanks; but the Egyptians climbed the tanks too soon in their movement. I hope they do not get fooled and are not diverted from their path and mission….The fact that our people and our government support these protests emboldens the citizens of those countries and will make them victorious.Rafiqdoost added:We must publicize the issue of a possible U.S. military attack on Libya and announce that anytime the U.S. military’s presence is felt, it should be turned into their graveyard. We must give a directive to the people of the various regions that they should, without hesitation, kill the first American who steps foot on their land. I had openly said this during the imposed war (Iran-Iraq) as well, and it is for that reason that I cannot travel abroad.As a side note: Mohsen Rafiqdoost, as the minister of the Revolutionary Guards, was personally responsible for establishing ties with various terrorist groups around the world, as well as funding and arming them. Also, four years after the Marine barracks bombing in Beirut, Mohsen Rafiqdoost boasted that “both the TNT and the ideology, which in one blast sent to hell 400 officers, NCOs, and soldiers at the Marines headquarters, were provided by Iran.”Hmmmmm........Obama "Lets go to Rio"there's radiation heading towards the USA.Read the full story here.
- Egypt - Muslim Brotherhood Sticks to Ban on Christians and Women for Presidency.A leading figure in the Muslim Brotherhood (MB), Egypt's largest opposition group, said on Monday that the MB's new "Freedom and Justice Party" would continue to stick by its view that Christians and women are unsuitable for the presidency.Saad al-Husseini, a member of MB's Guidance Bureau, the highest executive authority within the group, said the new party program will be announced late March after it is approved by the MB's Guidance Office and Shura Council. Al-Husseini said that although they stick by this view, they "respect all opinions"."Our adherence to the jurisprudential opinion refusing the appointment of women or Christians as president does not mean we impose this opinion on the people, who have inherent jurisdiction in this regard," he said."I personally accept for Copts to be appointed in hundreds of positions, including sensitive leadership positions in the country in accordance with the criterion of efficiency and competence, regardless of their proportion in society."Meanwhile, MB spokesman Mohamed Morsi said the group is pushing for a civil state, without the tutelage of the clergy. Morsi said the group does not call for a religious state.During an interview on state-owned television on Sunday night, Morsi said, "The civil state sought by Islam and the MB would ensure equal rights for Copts."He pointed out that the new party will not discriminate in its membership between Muslims and Christians, or males and females, and that it will represent the politically focused side of the group, while the MB will continue to practice all of its social and preaching activities.Hmmmm....The people Obama pledges to give 1,57 billion Dollar in 2012!Read the full story here.
- And now for something completely different!Video: In the epic battle of Zionist Boobs vs. Snake: Boobs 1, Snake 0.It should have been an alluring photoshoot between two of nature's beautiful creatures as a model wrapped herself in a snake.But surgically enhanced Israeli model Orit Fox got more than she bargained for when the massive boa constrictor took objection to her over familiarity and reacted by biting into her breast.However, it was the snake who came off worse because, while Ms Fox need a tetanus shot in hospital, the reptile later died from silicone poisoning.That will teach snakes to bite a Zionist! Hmmmm......Makes you wonder if it kills a snake,can it be healthy in your body?Read the full story here. HT : TheJawaReport.
