On April 12, Japan’s nuclear safety agency raised the Fukushima meltdown to level 7, the highest category on the International Nuclear Event Scale. Level 7 was created expressly for the Chernobyl disaster, consisting of “a major release of radiation with a widespread health and environmental impact”.
A recent study was prepared for Greenpeace Germany by international nuclear safety expert Dr. Helmut Hirsch. Dr. Hirsch’s assessment, based on data published by the French government’s radiation protection agency (IRSN) and the Austrian government’s Central Institute for Meteorology and Geodynamics (ZAMG) found that the total amount of unstable radionuclides Iodine-131 and Caesium-137 released between March 11 and March 23 has been so high that the Fukushima crisis already equates to three INES 7 incidents.
Release of radiation from the stricken reactors has reached 10,000 teraBequerels (10,000 trillion Bequerels) per hour, measured for radioactive Iodine-131.
YouTube: “President Obama: ‘We Do Not Expect Harmful Levels of Radiation to Reach the U.S.’”
It should be noted the testing was performed on samples of organic milk.
Increased radiation has been reported in the municipal drinking water of at least 14 US cities. These are not restricted to the west coast of North America but have occurred in the US midwest and east coast. Where measured, rainwater in every US state and Canadian province have elevated radioactivity. In California, Geiger counter activity has trebled, from 7.5 to 22.5 clicks per minute.
Rainwater samples taken in San Francisco April 6 measured an increase of 18,100% above Federal standards and included measures of radioactive caesium and Tellurium-132. The west coast Canadian city of Vancouver ordered suspended all mobile radiation testing until further notice after levels of 10,000% safe levels of Iodine-131 were detected. The Canadian Food Inspection Agency refused to test British Columbia milk for radiation.
On April 4, Japanese government also has requested the Japan Meteorological Society and Japanese universities not to release data from radiation measurement to avoid “public panic”. Rainwater samples have all demonstrated elevated concentrations of radioactive Tellurium-02, Ruthenium-04 and Technetium-04.
280 sensors to measure radiation release from atomic bomb testing were established under the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty in 1996. These sensors are detecting levels equivalent to Chernobyl releases. One scientist, Gerhard Wotawa, noted, “I’ve never seen data like this in my career.”
So how do we deal with disaster? Austria, Germany, Canada and Australia have banned eight episodes of Matt Groening’s US anime series, The Simpsons, dealing with nuclear crisis. The Simpsons, now in its 24th season with 480 episodes, has been one of the few outlets to show the greed of nuclear operators, grovelling toadies and a complacent public to a mainstream television audience. Meltdowns caused by jelly doughnuts! See http://simpsons.wikia.com/wiki/Springfield_Nuclear_Power_Plant
Kopp Online, Xander News and other non-English news agencies are reporting that the EU implemented a secret “emergency” order without informing the public which increases the amount of radiation permitted in food by up to 20 times previous food standards.
Japan itself has now restricted rice planting in soil with more than 5,000 Becquerels per kilogram of radioactive caesium, the first time maximum radiation levels have been set for soil anywhere. The Fukushima prefectural government announced on April 6 that rice paddies 20-30 kilometers from the nuclear plant have shown as much as 15,031 Becquerels per kilogram of radioactive caesium.
It would appear TEPCO dumped 11,500 tons of radioactive runoff into the ocean, 100 times the permissible amount. Although the diplomatic corps was informed beforehand and the Japanese foreign minister stated the release does not violate international law, Iodine-131 was found in seawater at 7.5 million times and radioactive Caesium at 1.1 million times the legal limit. 60,000 tons of radioactive water remain.
In fact, such dumping clearly violates 1972 international law, the ”Convention on the Prevention of Marine Pollution by Dumping of Wastes and Other Matter”. As Natural News puts it, “Fukushima has become the dirty bomb of the Pacific.”
Fish in nearby waters are now being measured at 4,000% above the Codex Alimentarius limits for Iodine-131 and 447% of Caesium-137. Radioactive caesium has a half-life of 30 years. Radiation levels for the isotope are not considered “safe” for 10 to 20 times longer. The caesium released today will remain dangerous six centuries from now.
When one takes into account the conveyor currents of the north Pacific, all seafood will become contaminated. Radioactive seaweed has been found in Puget Sound. Goodbye, sushi!
We’re poisoning the mother of all life on Earth.
The nuclear operator has offered $12 each in compensation to nearby residents. This paltry offer was refused. Economists at Tyler Durden has reported an inevitable economic collapse for Japan following a plunge from 52.9 to 46.4 in private mortgage insurance.
However, what we’re seeing, according to the American NGO Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility is the application of new standards which will drastically raise the levels of radiation allowed in food, water, air and the general environment. Access to internal US Environmental Protection Agency communications has revealed a 1,000% increase for exposure to Strontium-90; a 3,000-100,000% rise for Iodine-131; a 25,000% rise for Nickel-63 in drinking water.
Any radiation has no safety threshold for human exposure and the EPA’s own numbers state that 25% of people exposed to these “new acceptable levels” would develop cancers. The EPA is not required to make its deliberation public or debated by Congress; all that is required to make this Federal regulation is simple publication of the changes in the US government gazette, the Federal Register. http://www.collapsenet.com/free-resources/collapsenet-public-access/item/723-fallout
This is being accomplished, of course, to protect the nuclear lobby and its stakeholders from threats to its financial health.
In addition to cancers, any radiation exposure correlates to an increase in immune system disorders. Thyroid diseases, diabetes, asthma, AIDS, hepatitis, multiple sclerosis, myalgic encephalomyelitis and a huge spectrum of non-specific neurological conditions are expected in the human population. Radioactive iodine attacks thyroid function while radioactive caesium mimics potassium uptake.
The ‘Petkau effect’ for ingestion of beta and alpha particles, discovered by Atomic Energy of Canada scientist Dr. Abram Petkau in 1972, draws ominous conclusions for human exposure. Dr. Petkau found that lower doses of ionising radiation are actually more efficient at disrupting human cell activity.
Uranium-234, previously unreported, has been detected in Hawaii, southern California and Seattle. This is likely to be a product of the alpha decay of the Plutonium-238 found in the Fukushima reactors but Plutonium-238, −239 and −240 have already been released into the atmosphere at Fukushima. Uranium-234 has a half-life 245,500 years, which means that radioactivity will be detectable for half a million years. There will certainly be no people to measure it! South Korea closed 130 schools starting April 7 due to radioactive rain at levels only 1/10 of California’s.
A further Richter 7.1 aftershock on April 8 in Japan, the largest since the March 11 9.0 earthquake, negatively affected at least a further five Japanese nuclear power facilities to varying degrees but some with loss of power. Will Japan become a new Atlantis?
International shipping has also already been affected with many shipping lines avoiding Japan to prevent radioactive contamination. However, further reports indicate that some irradiated ships have been found in European ports. Japanese cars imported into Russia have been found to have high levels of radiation.
Some scientists have already declared northern Japan, including Tokyo, uninhabitable and recommended its evacuation. Radiation in Tokyo has been doubling every day since March 11. Video report: http://vimeo.com/22003275 and http://vimeo.com/22003021. Evacuated to where, exactly?
On March 15, Germany bowed to enormous public protest and announced it will continue to phase out nuclear power and shut down, temporarily, seven of its oldest reactors. However, the final shutdown is not planned until 2020.
On April 12, China announced it was suspending all nuclear construction for 20 months, until December 2012. China had been expected to become the world’s largest user of nuclear power, supporting 40% of new development.
Thank you but this is both too little and, obviously, too late. Nuclear power must be legislated out of existence now or the robber barons and their politician friends will just be waiting until we get lazy and forget.
By ERIC TALMADGE and MARI YAMAGUCHI
Associated Press /source
AP Photo/Shuji Kajiyama
Business Video
SENDAI, Japan (AP) — Japan’s government revealed a series of missteps by the operator of a radiation-leaking nuclear plant on Saturday, including sending workers in without protective footwear in its faltering efforts to control a monumental crisis. The U.S. Navy, meanwhile, rushed to deliver fresh water to replace corrosive salt water now being used in a desperate bid to cool the plant’s overheated reactors.
Government spokesman Yukio Edano urged Tokyo Electric Power Co. to be more transparent, two days after two workers at the tsunami-damaged Fukushima Dai-ichi plant suffered skin burns when they stepped in water that was 10,000 times more radioactive than levels normally found near the reactors.
“We strongly urge TEPCO to provide information to the government more promptly,” Edano said.
The Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency, or NISA, said TEPCO was aware there was high radiation in the air at one of the plant’s six units several days before the accident. And the two workers injured were wearing boots that only came up to their ankles – hardly high enough to protect their legs, agency spokesman Hidehiko Nishiyama said.
“Regardless of whether there was an awareness of high radioactivity in the stagnant water, there were problems in the way work was conducted,” Nishiyama said.
NISA warned TEPCO to improve and ensure workers’ safety, and TEPCO has taken measures to that effect, Nishiyama said, without elaborating.
TEPCO spokesman Hajime Motojuku declined to comment.
The government’s admonishments came as workers at the plant struggled to stop a troubling rise in radioactivity and remove dangerously contaminated water from the facility, which has been leaking radiation since a massive earthquake and tsunami on March 11 knocked out the plant’s key cooling systems. Officials have been using seawater to try to cool the plant, but fears are growing that the corrosive salt in the water could further damage the machinery inside the reactor units.
TEPCO is now rushing to inject the reactors with fresh water instead, and to begin extracting the radioactive water, Nishiyama said.
Defense Minister Yoshimi Kitazawa said late Friday that the U.S. government had made “an extremely urgent” request to switch to fresh water. He said the U.S. military was sending water to nearby Onahama Bay and that water injections could begin in the next few days.
The U.S. 7th Fleet confirmed that barges loaded with 500,000 gallons of fresh water supplies were on their way.
The situation at the crippled complex remains unpredictable, Edano said Saturday, adding that it would be “a long time” until the crisis ends.
“We seem to be keeping the situation from turning worse,” he said. “But we still cannot be optimistic.”
Efforts to get the nuclear plant under control took on fresh urgency this week when nuclear safety officials said they suspected a breach in one or more of the plant’s units – possibly a crack or hole in the stainless steel chamber around a reactor core containing fuel rods or the concrete wall surrounding a pool where spent fuel rods are stored.
Such a breach could mean a much larger release of radioactive contaminants.
Radioactivity was on the rise in some units, Nishiyama said Saturday.
“It is crucial to figure out how to remove contaminated water while allowing work to continue,” he said, acknowledging that the discovery would set back delicate efforts to get the plant’s cooling system operating again.
Workers have begun pumping radioactive water from one of the units, Masateru Araki, a TEPCO spokesman, said Saturday.
Plant officials and government regulators say they don’t know the source of the radioactive water. It could have come from a leaking reactor core, connecting pipes, or a spent fuel pool. Or it may be the result of overfilling the pools with emergency cooling water.
But a breach in the chamber surrounding the reactor core seemed “more likely,” Nishiyama said.
TEPCO said late Saturday that a trace of radioactive water had leaked from the Unit 2 reactor building into a sewage line. It was not clear if the source of the water was the same as the other leakage. TEPCO said officials were investigating.
Radiation has been seeping from the plant since the magnitude-9 earthquake and tsunami struck more than two weeks ago. Since then, it has made its way into milk, seawater and 11 kinds of vegetables, including broccoli, cauliflower and turnips.
Tap water in several areas of Japan, including Tokyo, has shown higher-than-normal levels of radiation. In the capital, readings were at one point two times higher than the government safety limit for infants, who are particularly vulnerable to radioactive iodine.
But levels have fallen steadily since peaking Wednesday, and Tokyo metropolitan officials said Saturday that tap water was safe for babies to drink.
Just outside a reactor at the coastal nuclear plant, radioactivity in seawater tested about 1,250 times higher than normal, Nishiyama said. He said the area is not a source of seafood and the contamination posed no immediate threat to human health.
However, tests conducted 18 miles (28 kilometers) offshore found radioactive iodine-131 at levels nearing the regulatory limit set by the Japanese government, the International Atomic Energy Agency said. The tests also detected another radioactive substance, cesium-137, at lower levels.
IAEA experts said the ocean will quickly dilute the worst contamination. Radioactive iodine breaks down within weeks but cesium could foul the marine environment for decades.
The nuclear crisis has added to the misery and uncertainty facing Japan in the wake of the disastrous earthquake and tsunami.
Japanese soldiers and U.S. Marines were clearing away debris so they could keep searching for bodies and bury the dead. The official death toll was 10,418 Saturday, with more than 17,000 listed as missing, police said. Those lists may overlap, but the final death toll was expected to surpass 18,000.
Overwhelmed by bodies along the coast, government officials conducted more mass burials Saturday. In Yamamoto, relatives wailed and yelled their farewells as the first 11 caskets were buried in one end of a long mass grave in a vegetable patch, with at least 400 more burials planned in the coming days.
In Higashimatsushima, soldiers lowered plywood coffins into a ditch dug at a recycling plant as freezing rain fell on mourners weeping quietly under umbrellas. Funerals in Japan are a highly formalized Buddhist ceremony, and the mass burials are yet another tragedy for the hard-hit coastal towns.
The misery has extended to the hundreds of thousands whose homes were destroyed, many of whom now sleep on crowded school gymnasium floors with few comforts. Those living within a 12-mile (20-kilometer) radius of the plant have been evacuated.
Life was also tough in the ghost towns inside a larger voluntary evacuation zone, with most residents choosing to flee and wary truckers refusing to deliver goods.
In Minamisoma, a city of 71,000 about 20 miles (30 kilometers) north of the plant, all but one or two shops shut their doors because of a lack of goods and customers, city official Sadayasu Abe said.
“Commercial trucks are simply not coming to the city at all due to radiation fears,” he said.
Military troops and some private companies took up the task of delivering rice, instant noodles, bottled water and canned foods to eight central spots in the city, Abe said.
He said the city was urging the 10,000 or so still remaining to leave since the situation at the plant remains precarious.
“Life is very difficult here,” he told The Associated Press by telephone. “We have electricity, gas and running water, but no food.”
Muneyuki Munakata, a 58-year-old firefighter who was evacuated from his home near the plant, has been living in a shelter about 25 miles (40 kilometers) west of the nuclear complex for 15 days. Evacuees have plenty of instant noodles, but not enough rice or fuel for the stove, he said.
“People here are all exhausted,” he said. “We all talk about when we can go home, but I don’t know when because of uncertainty over the nuclear disaster.”
—
Yamaguchi reported from Tokyo, as did Associated Press writers Shino Yuasa, Kristen Gelineau, Jeff Donn, Mayumi Saito and Joji Sakurai. Jay Alabaster contributed to this report from Yamamoto.
The darkness is broken only by the flashing torchlight of the heroes who stayed behind.
These first images of inside the stricken Fukushima Dai-Ichi power plant reveal the terrifying conditions under which the brave men work to save their nation from full nuclear meltdown.
The Fukushima Fifty – an anonymous band of lower and mid-level managers – have battled around the clock to cool overheating reactors and spent fuel rods since the disaster on March 11.
Conundrum: Two of the Fukushima Fifty pour over plans as they try to work out how to fix the stricken plant
Despite sweltering heat from the damaged reactors, they must work in protective bodysuits to protect their skin from the poisonous radioactive particles that fill the air around them.
But as more radiation seeps into the atmosphere minute by minute, they know this job will be their last.
Five are believed to have already died and 15 are injured while others have said they know the radiation will kill them.
Darkness: A worker looks at gauges in the control room for Unit 1 and Unit 2 at the plant
Grainy: Workers collect data in the control room for Unit 1 and Unit 2. They must wear rubber suits to prevent as much radiation from entering their bodies as possible
The original 50 brave souls were later joined by 150 colleagues and rotated in teams to limit their exposure to the radiation spewing from over-heating spent fuel rods after a series of explosions at the site. They were today joined by scores more workers.
Japan has rallied behind the workers with relatives telling of heart-breaking messages sent at the height of the crisis.
A woman said her husband continued to work while fully aware he was being bombarded with radiation. In a heartbreaking email, he told his wife: ‘Please continue to live well, I cannot be home for a while.’
Teamwork: Outside the men connect transmission lines to restore electric power supply to Unit 3 and Unit 4
Aiming high: Workers in protective suits work on a transmission tower to restore electricity to Units 5 and 6
Damage: A collapsed eave lies outside the security gate for Unit 1 and Unit 2. Much of the plant was destroyed by the tsunami
One girl tweeted in a message translated by ABC: ‘My dad went to the nuclear plant, I’ve never seen my mother cry so hard. People at the plant are struggling, sacrificing themselves to protect you. Please dad come back alive.’
But it is becoming even more pressing that the Fukushima succeed after it was revealed today that Tokyo’s tap water has been contaminated by unusual levels of radiation.
The government have issued a warning to all mothers urging them not to let babies drink the tap water.
The warning came after it emerged last night that radioactive particles have reached Europe and are heading towards Britain in the wake of the catastrophe that officials say could cost up to £190billion – making it the costliest natural disaster in history.
And fresh safety concerns arose today as black smoke was spotted emerging from Unit 3 of the plant, prompting a temporary evacuation of all workers from the complex, operators Tokyo Electric Power company said.
Tokyo Water Bureau officials said levels of radioactive iodine in some city tap water contained 210 becquerels per litre of iodine 131 – two times the recommended limit for infants.
They warned parents not to give babies tap water, although they said it is not an immediate health risk for adults.
Nearly two weeks after the twin March 11 disasters, nuclear officials were still struggling to stabilise the damaged and overheated Fukushima Dai-Ichi plant, which has been leaking radiation since the disasters knocked out the plant’s cooling systems.
Radiation has seeped into vegetables, raw milk, the water supply and even seawater in the areas surrounding the plant.
Meanwhile, officials in Iceland have detected ‘minuscule amounts’ of radioactive particles believed to have come from Fukushima, the site of the worst nuclear accident in 25 years.
Last night the British Government said radiation from Japan had not been detected by the UK’s network of monitoring stations set up after the 1986 Chernobyl explosion. A spokesman said any signs of radiation were not expected in the next few days.
However, France’s nuclear agency said tiny amounts were likely to arrive in the country by today.
Water spray: Workers at Fukushima yesterday try to cool the plant
Smoke: Fresh safety concerns arose today as black smoke was spotted emerging from Unit 3 of the plant, prompting a temporary evacuation of all workers from the complex
The traces of radioactive iodine are being measured by a network of 63 monitoring stations as they spread east across the Pacific, over North America and into the North Atlantic.
Radiation from nuclear accidents and explosions is monitored by the UN’s Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty Organisation, based in Vienna.
A source said several stations had detected particles believed to have been released from Fukushima in the days after it was hit by the earthquake and tsunami.
‘Reykjavik is the first in Europe,’ the source added. The levels are about one millionth of the natural background radiation, and pose no threat to the public, experts said.
‘We are not expecting it to be detected in Britain in the next few days,’ a spokesman for the Department of Energy and Climate Change said.
Japanese officials said the health risk was low outside the plant, but were yesterday chastised by the International Atomic Energy Agency watchdog over a lack of information about how much radiation had been emitted.
Levels in Tokyo rose ten-fold in the days after the 9.0-magnitude earthquake earlier this month, and tiny traces have been detected in California and Washington DC.
The IAEA lacks data on the temperatures of the spent fuel pools of reactors 1, 3 and 4 at Fukushima.
Destroyed: A road in Naka, Iwake prefecture on March 11 shortly after being devastated by the earthquake
Transformation: The carriageway has already been reconstructed and tarmaced ready for use
It has been claimed the plant was storing more uranium than it was designed to hold, and had repeatedly missed mandatory safety checks.
The official death toll in Japan has exceeded 9,400. At least 13,200 people are still missing and 350,000 are in shelters.
Yesterday firemen connected electric cables to the plant in the hope of restarting cooling systems. Although hundreds of tons of water have been blasted into two of the damaged reactors, smoke and steam continue to pour out.
U.S. halts food imports from affected areas of Japan
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration says it will halt imports of dairy products and produce from the area of Japan where a nuclear reactor is leaking radiation.
The FDA says that those foods will be detained at entry and will not be sold to the public. The agency previously said it would just step up screening of those foods.
Other foods imported from Japan, including seafood, will still be sold to the public but screened first for radiation.
Japanese foods make up less than 4 percent of all U.S. imports, and the FDA has said it expects no risk to the U.S. food supply from radiation.
Contamination concerns: Various types of fish are sold at a shop near Tokyo’s Tsukiji fish market. The U.S. have halted all dairy imports from Japan and will screen all other foods before allowing entry
The Fukushima/Daiichi nuclear crisis continues, marked by confusion and a lack of information and transparency. Today, our team of nuclear experts and monitors followed reports of grey smoke coming out of the spent fuel pool of the nuclear plant’s reactor 3 for at least two hours. Authorities reported that they could not identify the cause of the smoke or what was burning but assured that radiation levels had not increased. All workers were apparently evacuated from the immediate area, and as far as we can observe, work was stopped overnight. From official monitoring reports our team of experts later concluded that radiation levels around the plant did increase significantly during the fire.
While the “Faceless 50″ – the heroic workers who are risking their health to contain the crisis – made news over the weekend, it now seems that as many as 700 workers have been working close to the site in order to restore power and cooling capacity and have probably received high doses of radiation.
Reactor 3 had already caused alarm on Sunday, when the plant’s owners, the Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) unsuccessfully fought rising pressure inside the reactor pressure vessel. Later on Sunday, NISA made assurances that relieving pressure by venting radioactive steam and air into the atmosphere was unnecessary and would not happen, claiming that the pressure rise was due to their increased pumping of seawater into the reactor.
Later statements from TEPCO said that the temperature of reactor 3 had been very high, reaching up to 385 Celcius, indiciating very high pressure inside the reactor close to its the design pressure. The Japan Atomic Industrial Forum (JAIF) reported that the pressure in reactor 3 was now ‘unknown’ instead of ‘stable’ as in Sunday’s report. This hardly reassuring either.
Also on Monday, reports came of a “white smoke” pouring from the building that houses reactor 2. TEPCO said that it “believed” that the smoke was “water vapour” and “probably did not originate from the reactor itself or the spent fuel pool”. This is yet another unclear situation – very little information has been available, but will keep monitoring.
Food safety
A World Health Organisation (WHO) spokesman was quoted as saying that contaminated food in Japan is a “serious situation” and that food contamination is no longer just a localised problem, as previously thought. Over the weekend, The WHO had called import screening unnecessary, saying there is no problem. Today, WHO changed its view, saying that “it’s a lot more serious than anybody thought in the early days when we thought that this kind of problem could be limited to 20 to 30 kilometers”. Japan’s government has issued orders for four prefectures to stop shipments of milk and two kinds of vegetables.
Meanwhile, radiation levels in the rest of Japan have stayed at roughly the same elevated levels as in previous days, although traces of radioactive substances have been detected in water in nine prefectures.
According to a TEPCO report, radioactive cesium and iodine many times higher than normal had been detected in seawater near the Fukushima plant. It is still too early to assess the contaminated seawater’s impact on fisheries.
Further information: To help you decipher the complex information around radiation and health we have created a radiation guide covering effects, safety and basics of the Fukushima 1 radiation releases.
EU expert says Fukushima is out of control as UK and France advise their citizens to leave Tokyo because of radiation fears
Rescue workers at a devastated factory area in Sendai. Britain and France have told their citizens in Japan to leave Tokyo because of radiation fears. Photograph: STAFF/Reuters
International concern that Japan has lost control over the nuclear crisis is escalating as Britain, France and other countries advised their citizens to “consider” leaving Tokyo because of heightened radiation levels.
Yukiya Amano, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, said he would visit the Japanese capital to gather information about the “very serious” situation at the Fukushima plant.
Conflicting reports from the damaged nuclear plant have deepened alarm over Japan’s management of the crisis, leading to charges that the authorities are actually making the situation worse.
Gregory Jaczko, who heads the US nuclear regulator, said Japan had failed to order a big enough evacuation. He told Congress the public should get at least 50 miles away from the stricken plant. The Japanese cleared a radius of 12 miles.
He raised further fears by saying that all the water had evaporated from one of the spent fuel pools at the nuclear plant, so there was nothing to stop the fuel rods from getting hotter.
Jaczko said officials believe radiation levels are extremely high, which could affect workers’ ability to stop temperatures rising.
The EU’s energy chief, Günther Oettinger, told the European parliament the situation was out of control. “We are somewhere between a disaster and a major disaster,” he said. “There could be further catastrophic events, which could pose a threat to the lives of people on the island.” He said it was impossible to “exclude the worst”, adding: “There is talk of an apocalypse and I think the word is particularly well chosen.”
The partial meltdown at Fukushima appeared more serious than the Three Mile Island accident in 1979, the US energy secretary, Steven Chu, told Congress.
China, which had been driving a global revival of the nuclear industry, announced it was putting construction on hold, and ordered safety reviews at existing facilities. The heightened concerns – six days after a devastating earthquake and tsunami plunged Japan into a humanitarian as well as a nuclear emergency – brought criticism of the authorities’ management of the situation at Fukushima.
Yuli Andreyev, former head of the agency tasked with cleaning up after Chernobyl, told the Guardian the Japanese had failed to grasp the scale of the disaster. He also said the authorities had to be willing to sacrifice nuclear response workers for the good of the greater public, and should not only be deploying a skeleton staff. “They don’t know what to do,” he said. “The personnel have been removed and those that remain are stretched.”
Kenneth Bergeron, a physicist who has done research on nuclear accident simulation, said Three Mile Island had shown the importance of bringing in outside experts. “I am concerned that the management of this accident was left to very local hands for a very long time,” he said. “Sometimes the managers and operators in place when the accident has taken place are not well qualified. They may have the inability to see the big picture.”
He criticised the rescue effort for not immediately working to restore the power to the reactors’ cooling systems. “What was really needed at Fukushima was restoration of the AC power to the emergency cooling system, and instead we saw them running fire hoses from the ocean. A jerry-rigged arrangement like that sounds to me like a move of real desperation.”
The Japanese did not assemble a dedicated crisis management team until Monday morning, Bergeron said. “You need a different kind of person and a different kind of training, and I didn’t see any evidence of that until it was very late.”
The decision to evacuate personnel when radiation levels spiked also attracted criticism. Arjun Makhijani, president of the Institute for Energy and Environmental Research, said: “How long can 50 workers last in trying to manage a disaster in four reactors?”
However, as Chu told Congress: “If workers have to be permanently evacuated from the site it is unclear if the damage can be effectively contained.”
The slow and limited information from the plant’s operator, the Tokyo Electric Power Company, also came under attack. Japan’s prime minister, Naoto Kan, erupted in front of reporters at the company’s lack of transparency.
Jim Riccio of Greenpeace said: “I can understand why they would not want to cause panic in the population. But in a disaster of this magnitude timely and accurate information is of the utmost importance.”
Andreyev accused Japan’s regulators of sacrificing safety for profits. “Producers always try to hide the danger. After Chernobyl happened, they also tried to hide it.”
An estimated 70 percent of the nuclear fuel rods have been damaged at the troubled No. 1 reactor of the Fukushima No.1 nuclear power plant and 33 percent at the No. 2 reactor, Tokyo Electric Power Co. said Wednesday.
The reactors’ cores are believed to have partially melted with their cooling functions lost after Friday’s magnitude 9.0 earthquake rocked Fukushima Prefecture and other areas in northeastern and eastern Japan.
A nuclear crisis at the quake-hit Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant deepened Tuesday as fresh explosions occurred at the site and its operator said water in a pool storing spent nuclear fuel rods may be boiling, an ominous sign for the release of high-level radioactive materials from the fuel.
The government ordered the plant’s operator, Tokyo Electric Power Co., on Tuesday night to inject water into the pool at the No. 4 reactor to cool it down ”as soon as possible to avert a major nuclear disaster.”
TEPCO said the water level in the pool storing the spent fuel rods at its Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant’s No. 4 reactor may have dropped, exposing the rods. Unless the spent fuel rods are cooled down, they could be damaged and emit radioactive substances.
The firm said it has not yet confirmed the current water level or water temperature in the pool and will try to pour water into the facility from Wednesday through holes that were created following an explosion earlier Tuesday in the walls of the building that houses the reactor.
Due to high radiation levels at the No. 4 reactor, workers on Tuesday were unable to prepare for the pouring of water into the troubled pool. Difficult conditions have led the utility to evacuate around 730 of the 800 workers from the site, according to TEPCO.
The firm said its workers were only able to remain in the central control rooms at the Fukushima plant for 10 minutes to avoid exposure to excessive radiation levels. They have retreated to a remote site to monitor data on the reactors, it added.
At 6:14 a.m. on Tuesday, a blast occurred at the No. 4 reactor and created two square-shaped holes about 8 by 8 meters in the walls of the building that houses the reactor. At 9:38 a.m., a fire broke out there and smoke billowed from the holes.
The utility said it could not deny the possibility that the early morning explosion was caused by hydrogen generated by a chemical reaction involving the exposed spent nuclear fuel and vapor.
Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano said at a press conference, ”We believe very high-level radioactive substances have not been emitted continuously from the No. 4 reactor,” citing radiation monitoring data at the plant.
The nuclear agency said the water temperature in the pool stood at 84 degrees C as of 4 a.m. Monday, higher than the normal level of 40 to 50 degrees. Usually, the upper tip of the fuel rods is at a depth of 10 meters from the surface of the pool, it said.
Agency officials said the fuel rods will not reach criticality again as they have been stored in racks containing boron to prevent it.
Edano said water temperatures in the pools at the No. 5 and No. 6 reactors at the Fukushima plant have been rising as well.
The three reactors were not in service when a magnitude 9.0 earthquake jolted Fukushima Prefecture and other areas in northeastern Japan on Friday.
The agency said among the three, the situation is the severest at the No. 4 reactor because all the fuel rods are stored in the pool due to the change of the reactor’s shroud. At the No. 5 and No. 6 reactors, up to one-third of the rods are being kept in the pools. The more fuel rods are kept in a pool, the more radioactive substances could be emitted.
The new development followed a critical situation at the No. 2 reactor at the Fukushima plant earlier in the day, in which part of the reactor’s containment vessel was damaged following an apparent hydrogen explosion at 6:10 a.m.
TEPCO said the problem could develop into a critical ”meltdown” situation, in which fuel rods melt and are destroyed, emitting massive amounts of radioactive materials into the air.
Prime Minister Naoto Kan urged people living within 20 to 30 kilometers of the plant to stay indoors, after radiation equivalent to 400 times the level to which people can be safely exposed in one year was detected near the No. 3 reactor at the plant.
Residents within a 20-km radius have already been ordered to evacuate the area following Saturday’s hydrogen blast at the plant’s No. 1 reactor. The transport ministry also banned aircraft from flying within 30 kilometers of the nuclear plant to prevent possible radiation exposure.
”The danger of further radiation leaks (from the plant) is increasing,” Kan warned the public at a press conference, while asking people to ”act calmly.”
Edano said the high radiation level detected at 10:22 a.m. after the explosions at the No. 2 and No. 4 reactors ”would certainly have negative effects on the human body.”
The utility firm said later in the day the massive radiation amount of 400 millisievert per hour, or 400,000 microsievert, was recorded around debris in front of the No. 3 reactor and that the material may have come from the nearby No. 4 reactor.
TEPCO has been continuing operations to pour seawater into the troubled No. 1, 2 and 3 reactors to prevent overheating and further damage to their containment vessels. But despite the injection of water, fuel rods in the three reactors remain partially exposed.
The cores of those three reactors at the plant are believed to have partially melted following the devastating quake.
The country’s strongest recorded quake, also one of the largest in global history, caused the three reactors, which were all operating at the time, to automatically shut down.
Japanese officials acknowledged for the first time that radiation released from damaged reactors was sufficient to be “harmful to human health.”
Continued from previous page
Update:
On a conference call with reporters prior to the explosion, Damon Moglen, director of the climate and energy project at Friends of the Earth, said that his organization had obtained a memo issued by the French government cautioning that if the worst-case scenario should occur, large amounts of radioactivity could reach densely populated Tokyo “within hours,” and advising its nationals to spend a few days elsewhere if they could.
Experts say there is minimal risk to human health on the West Coast of the US because the distance that radioactivity would have to travel is so great that it would be highly dispersed by the time it arrived. But earlier in the day, radioactivity was detected on the USS Ronald Reagan, which had been positioned off the coast of Honshu Island. The Ronald Reagan is the leading vessel in a group of ships from the 7th fleet that has been assisting the Japanese Self-Defense Force. Al Jazeera reports that as of Tuesday evening, “US 7th Fleet ships conducting disaster response operations in the area moved out of the downwind direction from the site.” Damon Moglen told reporters that the U.S. government hadn’t released any details about the type or quantity of contamination that was discovered on the ship, information he argued the public “has a right to know.”
JAPAN’S NUCLEAR AUTHORITIES say they believe that three reactors at the stricken Fukushima nuclear power plant are now melting.
A woman who fled from the vicinity of the Fukushima nuclear power plant sits at an evacuation center set in a gymnasium in Kawamata, Fukushima Prefecture in northern Japan, March 14, 2011. (REUTERS/Yuriko Nakao) The country’s chief cabinet secretary, Yukio Edano, said that although staff at the nuclear facility – where two containment buildings have been destroyed by hydrogen explosions – were unable to check for certain, it was “highly likely” that the nuclear cores at reactors, 1 2 and 3 at Fukushima I nuclear station had begun to melt.
Reuters had earlier reported that the cooling mixture of seawater and boron in the number 2 reactor had totally evaporated, with the reactor’s nuclear rods therefore totally exposed for a significant period of time.
The plant operator TEPCO had earlier said it couldn’t rule out the possibility of a nuclear meltdown in the reactor – and had admitted that a partial meltdown could already be underway.
Though authorities are adamant that the explosions at reactors 1 and 3 have not resulted in any leak, they believe the increased level of radioactive emissions detected outside the Onagawa plant 120 miles away may be a result of Saturday’s explosion at the number 1 containment building.
Authorities still maintain, however, that any meltdown can be contained by the various safety structures in place at each reactor, and that there is no significant chance of any release of radiation into the atmosphere.
AP explained that some experts would refuse to use the term ‘meltdown’ when referring to the plant, unless the nuclear fuel was to melt through the innermost chamber at each nuclear reactor.
A report in the NY Daily News cited a US military spokesman as saying 17 members of the US Navy had been contaminated with low levels of radiation during their first humanitarian efforts in Japan.
The US’s 7th Fleet, which is position around 100 miles northeast of Fukushima, had to move its ships further away in order to avoid ‘airborne radioactivity’.
The affected staff had been treated with soap and water, the military said, and “no further contamination was detected.”
The helicopters in which the marines had been travelling were also decontaminated.
Lack of radiation readings echoes pattern of secrecy employed after other major accidents such as Chernobyl.
March 14, 2011 |
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Nuclear experts have thrown doubt on the accuracy of official information issued about the Fukushima nuclear accident, saying that it followed a pattern of secrecy and cover-ups employed in other nuclear accidents. “It’s impossible to get any radiation readings,” said John Large, an independent nuclear engineer who has worked for the UK government and been commissioned to report on the accident for Greenpeace International.
“The actions of the Japanese government are completely contrary to their words. They have evacuated 180,000 people but say there is no radiation. They are certain to have readings but we are being told nothing.” He said a radiation release was suspected “but at the moment it is impossible to know. It was the same at Chernobyl, where they said there was a bit of a problem and only later did the full extent emerge.”
According to some reports, 17 helicopter crewmen helping in rescue efforts were contaminated with low-level radiation, but Japanese officials declined to comment.
The country’s government has previously been accused of covering up nuclear accidents and hampering the development of alternative energy.
In a newly released diplomatic cable obtained by WikiLeaks, politician Taro Kono, a high-profile member of Japan‘s lower house, tells U.S. diplomats that the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry – the Japanese government department responsible for nuclear energy – has been “covering up nuclear accidents and obscuring the true costs and problems associated with the nuclear industry.”
In 2008, Kono told them: “The ministries were trapped in their policies, as officials inherited policies from people more senior to them, which they could then not challenge.” He mentioned the dangers of natural disasters in the context of nuclear waste disposal, citing Japan’s “extensive seismic activity, and abundant groundwater, and [he] questioned if there really was a safe place to store nuclear waste in the ‘land of volcanoes.’”
“The Japanese government has always tended to underplay accidents. At the moment the Japanese claims of safety are not to be believed by anyone. The health effects of what has happened so far are imponderable. The reality is we just do not know. There is profound uncertainty about the impact of the accident.”
The cooling system pump hasstopped at the Tokai No.2 nuclear power plant in Japan’s Ibarakiprefecture, Kyodo news reported, in the wake of the massiveearthquake that has crippled other reactors in the country.[ID:nL3E7EC0D6] The plant, located about 120 km (75 miles) north of Tokyo,had suffered a nuclear accident in 1999.
|March 13, 2011
TOKYO, March 14 (Reuters) – The cooling system pump has stopped at the Tokai No.2 nuclear power plant in Japan’s Ibaraki prefecture, Kyodo news reported, in the wake of the massive earthquake that has crippled other reactors in the country. [ID:nL3E7EC0D6]
The plant, located about 120 km (75 miles) north of Tokyo, had suffered a nuclear accident in 1999. (Reporting by Kiyoshi Takenaka; Editing by Chris Gallagher)
What appears to be another hydrogen blast has occurred at a nuclear power plant in Fukushima. No damage to the reactor chamber has been reported, but 11 people have been injured.
The Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency says what it believes was a hydrogen blast occurred at 11:01 AM on Monday at the No.3 reactor of Tokyo Electric Power Company’s Fukushima No.1 nuclear power plant. The agency says it has so far observed no abnormal rise in radiation around the compound of the plant.
The company says the blast injured 11 people.
The Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency has advised anyone remaining within 20 kilometers of the power plant to take shelter inside buildings as soon as possible. About 600 people are thought to be still in the area.
6:23 PM EST
TOKYO — A meltdown may be under way at one of Fukushima Daiichi’s nuclear power reactors in northern Japan, an official with Japan’s Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency told CNN Sunday.
“There is a possibility, we see the possibility of a meltdown,” said Toshihiro Bannai, director of the agency’s international affairs office, in a telephone interview from the agency’s headquarters in Tokyo. “At this point, we have still not confirmed that there is an actual meltdown, but there is a possibility.”
Though he said engineers have been unable to get close enough to the core to know what’s going on, he based his conclusion on the fact that they measured radioactive cesium and radioactive iodine in the air Saturday night.
“What we have seen is only the slight indication from a monitoring post of cesium and iodine,” he said. Since then, he said, plant officials have injected sea water and boron into the plant in an effort to cool its nuclear fuel.
We have some confidence, to some extent, to make the situation to be stable status,” he said. “We actually have very good confidence that we will resolve this.”
A state of emergency has been declared for it and two of the other five reactors at the same complex, he said. Three are in a safe, shut-down state, he said. “The other two still have some cooling systems, but not enough capacity.”
WASHINGTON – US nuclear experts warned Saturday that pumping sea water to cool a quake-hit Japanese nuclear reactor was an “act of desperation” that may foreshadow a Chernobyl-like disaster.
Several experts, in a conference call with reporters, also predicted that regardless of the outcome at the Fukushima No. 1 atomic plant crisis, the accident will seriously damage the nuclear power renaissance.
“The situation has become desperate enough that they apparently don’t have the capability to deliver fresh water or plain water to cool the reactor and stabilize it, and now, in an act of desperation, are having to resort to diverting and using sea water,” said Robert Alvarez, who works on nuclear disarmament at the Institute for Policy Studies.
“I would describe this measure as a ‘Hail Mary’ pass,” added Alvarez, using American football slang for a final effort to win the game as time expires.
An 8.9 magnitude earthquake that struck Japan on Friday set off the emergency at the plant, which was then hit by an explosion Saturday that prompted an evacuation of the surrounding area.
Workers doused the stricken reactor with sea water to try to avert catastrophe, after the quake knocked out power to the cooling system.
What occurred at the plant was a “station blackout,” which is the loss of offsite air-conditioning power combined with the failure of onsite power, in this case diesel generators.
“It is considered to be extremely unlikely but the station blackout has been one of the great concerns for decades,” said Ken Bergeron, a physicist who has worked on nuclear reactor accident simulation.
“We’re in uncharted territory,” he said.
The reactor has been shut down but the concern is the heat in the core, which can melt if it is not cooled. If the core melts through the reactor vessel, Bergeron explained, it could flow onto the floor of the containment building. If that happens, the structure likely will fail, the experts said.
“The containment building at this plant is certainly stronger than that at Chernobyl but a lot less strong than at Three Mile Island, so time will tell,” he said.
Peter Bradford, former member of the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), said that if the cooling attempts fail, “at that point it’s a Chernobyl-like situation where you start dumping in sand and cement.”
The two worst nuclear accidents on record are the 1986 Chernobyl disaster in Ukraine and the partial core meltdown of the Three Mile Island reactor in the US state of Pennsylvania in 1979.
Early Sunday, nuclear plant operator Tokyo Electric Power said radiation levels had surpassed the legal limit at its Fukushima No. 1 plant, hit by a blast the previous day, Kyodo News reported.
“If it continues, if they don’t get control of this and… we go from a partial meltdown of the core to a full meltdown, this will be a complete disaster,” Joseph Cirincione, the head of the Ploughshares Fund, told CNN.
Cirincione said the presence of radioactive cesium in the atmosphere after the plant was vented indicated that a partial meltdown was under way.
“That told the operators that the fuel rods had been exposed, that the water level had dropped below the fuel rods and the fuel rods were starting to burn, releasing cesium,” he said.
Japan’s nuclear safety agency rated the Fukushima accident at four on the International Nuclear Event Scale from 0 to 7. The Three Mile Island accident was rated five while Chernobyl was a seven.
The government declared an atomic emergency and said tens of thousands of people living within 12 miles (20 kilometers) of the plant should leave after an explosion at the nuclear plant Saturday.
Paul Gunter is the US organization Beyond Nuclear, told Fox News that the evacuation zone might be too small: “If that containment is lost… this will spread a tremendous amount of radioactivity, and it will then be borne on the weather.”
The NRC said it has sent two experts to Japan — experts in boiling water nuclear reactors who are part of a broader US aid team sent to the disaster zone.
Bradford, the former NRC member, said: “This is obviously a significant setback for the so-called nuclear renaissance.”
“The image of a nuclear power plant blowing up before your eyes on the television screen is a first.”
But World Nuclear Association spokesman Ian Hore-Lacy told CBS News that the threat of a full meltdown is minimal.
“That possibility is remote at the best of times and is diminishing by the hour as the fuel gets cooler and generates less heat,” he said.
TOKYO (AP) — Inside the troubled nuclear power plant, officials knew the risks were high when they decided to vent radioactive steam from a severely overheated reactor vessel. They knew a hydrogen explosion could occur, and it did. The decision still trumped the worst-case alternative – total nuclear meltdown.
At least for the time being.
The chain of events started Friday when a magnitude-8.9 earthquake and tsunami severed electricity to the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear complex 170 miles (270 kilometers) northeast of Tokyo, crippling its cooling system. Then, backup power did not kick in properly at one of its units.
From there, conditions steadily worsened, although government and nuclear officials initially said things were improving. Hours after the explosion, they contended that radiation leaks were reduced and that circumstances had gotten better at the 460-megawatt Unit 1. But crisis after crisis continued to develop or be revealed.
Without power, and without plant pipes and pumps that were destroyed in the explosion of the most-troubled reactor’s containment building, authorities resorted to drawing seawater in an attempt to cool off the overheated uranium fuel rods.
Robert Alvarez, senior scholar at the Institute for Policy Studies and former senior policy adviser to the U.S. secretary of energy, said in a briefing for reporters that the seawater was a desperate measure.
“It’s a Hail Mary pass,” he said.
He said that the success of using seawater and boron to cool the reactor will depend on the volume and rate of their distribution. He said the dousing would need to continue nonstop for days.
Another key, he said, was the restoration of electrical power, so that normal cooling systems can be restored.
Officials placed Dai-ichi Unit 1, and four other reactors, under states of emergency Friday because operators had lost the ability to cool the reactors using usual procedures.
An additional reactor was added to the list early Sunday, for a total of six – three at the Dai-ichi complex and three at another nearby complex. Local evacuations have been ordered at each location. Japan has a total of 55 reactors spread across 17 complexes nationwide.
Officials began venting radioactive steam at Fukushima Dai-ichi’s Unit 1 to relieve pressure inside the reactor vessel, which houses the overheated uranium fuel.
Concerns escalated dramatically Saturday when that unit’s containment building exploded.
It turned out that officials were aware that the steam contained hydrogen, acknowledged Shinji Kinjo, spokesman for the government Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency. More importantly, they also were aware they were risking an explosion by deciding to vent the steam.
The significance of the hydrogen began to come clear late Saturday:
-Officials decided to reduce rising pressure inside the reactor vessel, so they vented some of the steam buildup. They needed to do that to prevent the entire structure from exploding, and thus starting down the road to a meltdown.
-At the same time, in order to keep the reactor fuel cool, and also prevent a meltdown, operators needed to keep circulating more and more cool water on the fuel rods.
-Temperature in the reactor vessel apparently kept rising, heating the zirconium cladding that makes up the fuel rod casings. Once the zirconium reached 2,200 degrees Fahrenheit (1,200 Celsius), it reacted with the water, becoming zirconium oxide and hydrogen.
-When the hydrogen-filled steam was vented from the reactor vessel, the hydrogen reacted with oxygen, either in the air or water outside the vessel, and exploded.
A similar “hydrogen bubble” had concerned officials at the 1979 Three Mile Island nuclear disaster in Pennsylvania until it dissipated.
If the temperature inside the Fukushima reactor vessel continued to rise even more – to roughly 4,000 degrees Fahrenheit (2,200 Celsius) – then the uranium fuel pellets would start to melt.
According to experts interviewed by The Associated Press, any melted fuel would eat through the bottom of the reactor vessel. Next, it would eat through the floor of the already-damaged containment building. At that point, the uranium and dangerous byproducts would start escaping into the environment.
At some point in the process, the walls of the reactor vessel – 6 inches (15 centimeters) of stainless steel – would melt into a lava-like pile, slump into any remaining water on the floor, and potentially cause an explosion much bigger than the one caused by the hydrogen. Such an explosion would enhance the spread of radioactive contaminants.
If the reactor core became exposed to the external environment, officials would likely began pouring cement and sand over the entire facility, as was done at the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear accident in the Ukraine, Peter Bradford, a former commissioner of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, said in a briefing for reporters.
At that point, Bradford added, “many first responders would die.”
—
AP National Writer Jeff Donn reported from Boston.
TOKYO (Reuters) – A quake-hit Japanese nuclear plant reeling from an explosion at one of its reactors has also lost its emergency cooling system at another reactor, Japan’s nuclear power safety agency said on Sunday.
The emergency cooling system is no longer functioning at the No.3 reactor at Tokyo Electric Power Co’s Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power facility, requiring the facility to urgently secure a means to supply water to the reactor, an official of the Japan Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency told a news conference.
On Saturday, an explosion blew off the roof and upper walls of the building housing the facility’s No. 1 reactor, stirring alarm over a possible major radiation release, although the government later said the explosion had not affected the reactor’s core vessel and that only a small amount of radiation had been released.
The nuclear safety agency official said there was a possibility that at least nine individuals had been exposed to radiation, according to information gathered from municipal governments and other sources.
(Reporting by Risa Maeda; Editing by Edmund Klamann)
A massive explosion has struck a Japanese nuclear power plant after Friday’s devastating earthquake.
A huge pall of smoke was seen coming from the plant at Fukushima and several workers were injured.
Japanese officials fear a meltdown at one of the plant’s reactors after radioactive material was detected outside it.
A huge relief operation is under way after the 8.9-magnitude earthquake and tsunami, which killed more than 600.
Hundreds more people are missing and it is feared about 1,300 may have died.
The offshore earthquake triggered a tsunami which wreaked havoc on Japan’s north-east coast, sweeping far inland and devastating a number of towns and villages.
Japan’s Prime Minister Naoto Kan declared a state of emergency at the Fukushima 1 and 2 power plants as engineers try to confirm whether a reactor at one of the stations has gone into meltdown.
It is an automatic procedure after nuclear reactors shut down in the event of an earthquake, allowing officials to take rapid action.
Television pictures showed a massive blast at one of the buildings of the Fukushima 1 plant, about 250km (160 miles) north-east of Tokyo.
A huge cloud of smoke billows out and large bits of debris are flung far from the building.
Japan’s NHK TV showed before and after pictures of the plant. They appeared to show that the outer structure of one of four buildings at the plant had collapsed after the explosion.
The Tokyo Electric Power Co, the plant’s operator, said several workers had been injured.
Cooling systems inside several reactors at both the Fukushima plants stopped working after Friday’s earthquake cut the power supply.
Japan’s nuclear agency said on Saturday that radioactive caesium and iodine had been detected near the number one reactor of the Fukushima 1 plant.
The agency said this may indicate that containers of uranium fuel inside the reactor may have begun melting.
Air has been released from several of the reactors at both plants in an effort to relieve the huge amount of pressure building up inside.
Mr Kan said the amount of radiation released was “tiny”.
Thousands of people have been ordered to evacuate the area near the plants. BBC correspondent Nick Ravenscroft said police stopped him 60km from the Fukushima 1 plant.
Analysts say a meltdown would not necessarily lead to a major disaster because light-water reactors would not explode even if they overheated.
The 8.9-magnitude tremor struck in the afternoon local time on Friday off the coast of Honshu island at a depth of about 24km, 400km (250 miles) north-east of Tokyo.
It was nearly 8,000 times stronger than last month’s quake in New Zealand that devastated the city of Christchurch, scientists said.
Some of the same search and rescue teams from around the world that helped in that disaster are now on their way to Japan.
Japan finds radioactive material leak at quake-hit Fukushima plant
TOKYO, March 12, Kyodo
Radiation rose to an unusually high level in and near Tokyo Electric Power Co.’s Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant Saturday following the powerful earthquake that hit northern Japan the previous day, the nuclear safety agency said, making it the first case of an external leak of radioactive substances since the disaster.
While the agency denied the radiation amount will pose an immediate threat to the health of nearby residents, the impact of the quake appeared to widen as the agency added the area close to the Fukushima No. 2 nuclear plant as a zone that requires evacuation.
Given the adjacent No. 2 plant also has quake-triggered malfunctions, the operator of the two plants in Fukushima Prefecture is set to release pressure in containers housing their reactors under an unprecedented government order, so as to avoid the plants sustaining damage and losing their critical containment function.
But the action would involve the release of steam that would likely include radioactive materials.
The amount of radiation reached around 1,000 times the normal level in the control room of the No. 1 reactor of the Fukushima No. 1 plant, the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency said.
The agency also said radiation has been measured at more than eight times the normal level near the main gate of the plant.
The authorities expanded the evacuation area for residents in the vicinity of the No. 1 plant from a 3-kilometer radius to 10 km on the orders of Prime Minister Naoto Kan, who visited the facility.
The government also declared that the Fukushima No. 2 plant is under a state of atomic-power emergency, in addition to the No. 1 plant, and expanded the evacuation area to include the vicinity of the No. 2 plant.
The instruction covers residents living in a radius of 3 kilometers of the Fukushima No. 2 plant. Those living in a radius of 3-10 kilometers of the plant have also been advised to stay inside.
Volcanoes have reportedly erupted in Japan, Indonesia, and Kamchatka Russia today, presumably due to the massive Japanese earthquake. There have been no reports of damage from the eruptions.
In addition, there are problems at three Japanese nuclear power plants.
“The situation is still several stages away from Three Mile Island when the reactor container ceased to function as it should,” said Tomoko Murakami, leader of the nuclear energy group at Japan’s Institute of Energy Economics
Two other Japanese nuclear reactors are now in trouble as well.
Coolant systems failed at three quake-stricken Japanese nuclear reactors Saturday, sending radiation seeping outside one and temperatures rising out of control at two others.
Radiation surged to around 1,000 times the normal level in the control room of the No. 1 reactor of the Fukushima Daichi plant, Japan’s Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency said. Radiation — it was not clear how much — had also seeped outside, prompting widening of an evacuation area to a six-mile radius from a two-mile radius around the plant. Earlier, 3,000 people had been urged to leave their homes.
Tokyo Electric Power Co. said Saturday that the temperatures of its No.1 and No.2 reactors at its Fukushima Daini nuclear power station were rising, and it had lost control over pressure in the reactors.
***
About an hour after the plant shut down, however, the emergency diesel generators stopped, leaving the units with no power for important cooling functions.
***
Hours after the evacuation order, the government announced that the plant will release slightly radioactive vapor from the unit to lower the pressure in an effort to protect it from a possible meltdown.
TOKYO — Japan warned there could be a small radiation leak from a nuclear reactor whose cooling system was knocked by Friday’s massive earthquake, but thousands of residents in the area had been moved out of harm’s way.
NUCLEAR EMERGENCY — Evacuation underway in the area surrounding Japan’s Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant. Underscoring grave concerns about the Fukushima plant some 240 km (150 miles) north of Tokyo, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said the U.S. air force had delivered coolant to avert a rise in the temperature of the facility’s nuclear rods.
Pressure building in the plant was set to be released soon, a move that could result in a radiation leak, officials said. Some 3,000 people who live within a 3 km radius of the plant had been evacuated, Kyodo news agency said.
“It’s possible that radioactive material in the reactor vessel could leak outside but the amount is expected to be small and the wind blowing towards the sea will be considered,” Chief Cabinet Yukio Edano told a news conference.
“Residents are safe after those within a 3 km radius were evacuated and those within a 10 km radius are staying indoors, so we want people to be calm,” he added.
Prime Minister Naoto Kan was set to visit the plant on Saturday morning and also fly over the quake-hit area.
Tokyo Electric Power Co said pressure had built up inside a reactor at the Fukushima-Daiichi plant after the cooling system was knocked out by the earthquake, the largest on record in Japan.
Pressure had risen to 1.5 times the designed capacity, the Japan Nuclear Safety agency said. Media also said the radiation level was rising in the turbine building.
The cooling problems at the Japanese plant raised fears of a repeat of 1979′s Three Mile Island accident, the most serious in the history of the U.S. nuclear power industry. Experts, however, said the situation was, so far, less serious.
Equipment malfunctions, design problems and human error led to a partial meltdown of the reactor core at the Three Mile Island plant, but only minute amounts of dangerous radioactive gases were released.
“The situation is still several stages away from Three Mile Island when the reactor container ceased to function as it should,” said Tomoko Murakami, leader of the nuclear energy group at Japan’s Institute of Energy Economics.
Toshiaki Sakai, director of the Japan Atomic Industrial Forum International Cooperation Center, said global nuclear power companies around the globe have since the U.S. accident implemented over 53 safety improvements to avert a repeat.
Reactors shut down due to the earthquake account for 18 percent of Japan’s nuclear power generating capacity.
Nuclear power produces about 30 percent of the country’s electricity. Many reactors are located in earthquake-prone zones such as Fukushima and Fukui on the coast.
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) estimates that around 20 percent of nuclear reactors around the world are currently operating in areas of significant seismic activity.
The IAEA said the sector began putting more emphasis on external hazards after an earthquake hit TEPCO’s Kashiwazaki-Kariwa plant in July 2007, until then the largest to ever affect a nuclear facility.
When the earthquake hit the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa nuclear power plant four reactors shut down automatically. Water containing radioactive material was released into the sea, but without an adverse effect on human health or the environment, it said.
TEPCO had been operating three out of six reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant at the time of the quake, all of which shut down.
The spokesman added that there were no concerns of a water leak for the remaining three reactors at the plant, which had been shut for planned maintenance.
TOKYO (AFP) – The strongest quake on record to hit Japan Friday unleashed a terrifying 10-metre tsunami that claimed hundreds of lives, with a nuclear plant and petrochemical complex among multiple sites set ablaze.
The monster wall of water generated by the 9.0-magnitude earthquake — the seventh biggest in history — pulverised the northeastern city of Sendai, where police reportedly said that 200-300 bodies had been found on the coast. Kyodo News said the final death toll was likely to pass 1,000.
The 10-metre (33-foot) wave of black water sent shipping containers, cars and debris crashing through the streets of Sendai and across open farmland, while a tidal wave of debris-littered mud destroyed everything in its path.
At least 337 people were killed in the earthquake and subsequent tsunamis, police and press reports said.
The National Police Agency said 137 people had been confirmed dead and 531 missing, with 627 others injured in the tremor, and a spokesman said this did not include the bodies reportedly found on the Sendai coast.
“The damage is so enormous that it will take us much time to gather data,” an official at the agency told AFP.
Japan’s military mobilised thousands of troops, 300 planes and 40 ships for the relief effort.
An armada of 20 naval destroyers and other ships was headed for the devastated Pacific coast area of Honshu island, while air force jets flew reconnaissance missions over the disaster zone.
The wave set off tsunami alerts across the Pacific, as far away as South America, New Zealand and Hawaii, which was hit by a surge of up to 1.8 metres (six feet) after authorities evacuated low-lying areas. California and Oregon were also on alert, with the Los Angeles county fire captain warning a surge could impact the coastline.
A Japanese ship with 100 people aboard was reportedly carried away, more than 300 houses were destroyed in the remote city of Ofunato and a dam broke in the northeast prefecture of Fukushima, with homes washed away.
“It was the biggest earthquake I have ever felt. I thought I would die,” said Sayaka Umezawa, a 22-year-old college student who was visiting the port of Hakodate, which was hit by a two-metre wave.
The government said the tsunami and quake, which was felt in Beijing some 2,500 kilometres (1,500 miles) away, had caused “tremendous damage”, while aerial footage showed massive flooding in northern towns.
Prime Minister Naoto Kan, wearing an emergency services suit in a national television address, said he had established an emergency headquarters for disaster response and called for calm from the public.
The quake, which hit at 2:46 pm (0546 GMT) and lasted about two minutes, rattled buildings in greater Tokyo, the world’s largest urban area and home to some 30 million people.
Millions who had earlier fled swaying buildings in the capital were left stranded after the earthquake shut down the city’s vast subway system. The mobile phone network was strained to breaking point.
The government used loudspeaker alerts and TV broadcasts to urge people to stay near their workplaces rather than risk a long walk home, as highways leading out of the city centre were choked and hotels rapidly filled up.
There was also major disruption to air travel and bullet train services. A passenger train with an unknown number of people aboard was unaccounted for on a line outside Sendai, Kyodo News reported.
The government insisted there was no risk of radiation leaking from Japan’s network of advanced nuclear power plants, which are designed to shut down as soon as the earth shakes in one of the world’s most quake-prone countries.
Authorities ordered 2,000 residents living by a nuclear plant in Fukushima to evacuate after a reactor cooling system failed, though Jiji Press later reported the system was expected to return to normal.
A fire broke out in the turbine building of another nuclear plant in Onagawa.
The tsunami also reached Sendai airport, submerging the runway while a process known as liquefaction, caused by the intense shaking of the tremor, turned parts of the ground to liquid.
Plumes of smoke rose from at least 10 locations in Tokyo, where four million homes suffered power outages.
Hours after the quake struck, TV images showed huge orange balls of flame rolling up into the night sky as fires raged around a petrochemical complex in Sendai.
A massive fire also engulfed an oil refinery in Iichihara near Tokyo as the quake brought huge disruption to Japan’s key industries. Tokyo share prices plummeted and the yen was down against the dollar.
The first quake struck just under 400 kilometres (250 miles) northeast of Tokyo, the US Geological Survey said. It was followed by more than 60 aftershocks, one as strong as 7.1.
“We were shaken so strongly for a while that we needed to hold on to something in order not to fall,” said an official at the local government of the hardest-hit city of Kurihara in Miyagi prefecture.
“We couldn’t escape the building immediately because the tremors continued… City officials are now outside, collecting information on damage.”
US President Barack Obama led international offers of sympathy and aid in what he called Japan’s “time of great trial”, while the Kan government called on help from US forces stationed in the country.
Japan sits on the “Pacific Ring of Fire”, which is dotted with volcanoes, and Tokyo is in one of its most dangerous areas, where three continental plates are slowly grinding against each other, building up enormous seismic pressure.
The government has warned of a 70 percent chance that a great, magnitude-eight quake will strike within the next 30 years in the Kanto plains, home to Tokyo’s vast urban sprawl.
The last time a “Big One” hit Tokyo was in 1923, when the Great Kanto Earthquake claimed more than 140,000 lives, many of them in fires. In 1855, the Ansei Edo quake also devastated the city.
In 1995 the Kobe earthquake killed more than 6,400 people.
More than 220,000 people were killed when a 9.1-magnitude quake hit off Indonesia in 2004, unleashing a massive tsunami that devastated coastlines in countries around the Indian Ocean.
However, small quakes are felt every day somewhere in Japan and people take part in regular drills at schools and workplaces to prepare for a calamity.
Image: Energy distribution from Japan’s quake, as depicted by the NOAA.
The Hidden Evil (The financial elite’s covert war against the civilian population)
Isn’t she beautiful ?
Revolution ( in the US a constitutional right )
The 1776 Declaration of Independence stated that when a long train of abuses by those in power evidence a design to reduce the rights of people to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, it is the peoples right, in fact their duty to engage in a revolution.
……………………
and ….. JFK in his own words !
In a speech to the Newspaper Publishers Association in 1961, President Kennedy said:
“No president should fear public scrutiny of his program, for from that scrutiny comes understanding, and from that understanding comes support or opposition; and both are necessary. . . . Without debate, without criticism, no administration and no country can succeed, and no republic can survive. That is why the Athenian law makers once decreed it a crime for any citizen to shrink from controversy. And that is why our press was protected by the First Amendment.”
Abraham Lincoln said, just before his assassination:
I see in the near future a crisis approaching that unnerves me and causes me to tremble for the safety of my country...Corporations have been enthroned, an era of corruption in high places will follow, and the money-power of the country will endeavor to prolong its reign by working upon the prejudices of the people until the wealth is aggregated in a few hands and the Republic is destroyed."
Hmmmm.
“Only after the last tree has been cut down, Only after the last river has been poisoned, Only after the last fish has been caught, Only then will you find that money cannot be eaten”. Cree Indian Prophecy
(SurvivingTheMatrix) – Part 1 of 4 Part 2 of 4 Part 3 of 4 Part 4 of 4 Related posts: Max Igan – Radio SkidRow – Jan16th, 2012 Max Igan on Vinny Eastwood Show – April 5th, 2012 Max Igan – Truth Frequency Interview – Jan 14th, 2012 Related posts: Max Igan – Radio SkidRow – Jan16th, 2012 Max Igan on Vinny Eastwoo […]
(SurvivingTheMatrix) – May, 18th, 2012 Part 1 of 4 Part 2 of 4 Part 3 of 4 Part 4 of 4 Related posts: Systems of Control and Social Subtext – Max Igan The Discarding of Humanity – Max Igan Max Igan Discussing Trance-Formation on Truth Frequency Related posts: Systems of Control and Social Subtext – Max Igan The Discarding of Humanity […]
(Rys2Sense) – In light of Jesse Benton sending out an Email saying Paul quit this is the guy saying Paul wanted to move the capital in Israel that Paul wants a deal with Romany bla bla and hes the guy that went on CSPAN to “defend” Ron Paul and did so with the most piss [...] Related posts: Mass media bias Against Paul Again – Ryan Da […]
Damaged Mentality from Manufactured Reality Reality, Reality, Wherefore Art Thou, Reality? All the Experts Running the World, Why is All Calamity? Bogus Facts Mass-Produced Trying to Give Credence, Made by Those Who Benefit, Hence Forced Obedience, Science Prostituted Itself, Sacrificed On the Altar, Ensuring Eco-Grants Come In, Consensus doesn’t Falte […]
(LiveStream) – Related posts: The Thom Hartmann Program – April 18th, 2012 The Thom Hartmann Program – March 12, 2012 The Thom Hartmann Program – April 3, 2012 Related posts: The Thom Hartmann Program – April 18th, 2012 The Thom Hartmann Program – March 12, 2012 The Thom Hartmann Program – April 3, 2012
(SouthernAvenger) – Not pursuing further primary states but still collecting delegates in caucus states is not “dropping out.” Related posts: Ron Paul Wins First Caucus: MSM Changes Rules, Reports Romney Wins Ron Paul Not Suspending Campaign, It is a Media Hoax Paul Campaign Points To Anomalies In Romney Maine “Victory” Related posts: Ron P […]
(RussiaToday) – The Health Ranger is interviewed on RT America about the Michigan DNR conducted armed raids on Michigan farms, forcing farmers to shoot their own baby pigs in cold blood. v Related posts: Armed Authorities Coerce Farmers To Massacre GMO Free Organic Livestock – Mike Adams Health Ranger on Alex Jones Show, interview with [...] Rela […]
(CelenteChannel) – Gerald Celente – Brian Sussman KFSO May 15th, 2012 Gerald Celente – Morning news with Tony Cruise May 16, 2012 Related posts: Gerald Celente with Tony Cruise – November 21st, 2011 Gerald Celente – Jeff Rense Radio Gerald Celente – ABC Australia Adelaide Related posts: Gerald Celente with Tony Cruise […]
(MediaRoots) – The feverish hysteria of the “red scare” during the 1950s and 1960s prompted the Central Intelligence Agency to do some dirty deeds, not the least of which was a pet project called Operation Midnight Climax. The C.I.A. conducted the operation in the hopes of finding a truth serum by dosing civilians with psychotropic [...] Related posts […]
(DemocracyNow) – In a rare move, a federal judge has struck down part of a controversial law signed by President Obama that gave the government the power to indefinitely detain anyone it considers a terrorism suspect anywhere in the world without charge or trial — including U.S. citizens. Judge Katherine Forrest of the Southern District [...] Rel […]
Abdel Basset al-Megrahi died on 20 May 2012 of cancer at the age of 60. He was the only person convicted of the bombing of PanAm flight 103, which exploded over Lockerbie on 21 December 1988, killing 270 people. Taking advantage of the vacuum left by NATO's annihilation of the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya, Agence France Presse has written: "In 2003, the […]
Thousands of people rallied in Chicago against NATO on the opening day of its Summit meeting. The massive anti-NATO demonstrations aim to boycott the event. Thousands of peaceful protesters, including peace activists and war veterans, have marched through the second largest city in the U.S. carrying banners against NATO and demanding the dissolution of the A […]
Yossef Bodansky, the U.S.-Israeli expert who wrote the official history of Al Qaeda, is back. The one who had explained with a straight face that bin Laden was both an Iraqi and Iranian agent, and that Saddam Hussein had financed the attacks of September 11, no longer works for the U.S. Congress and the Defense Department, but for the Institute Strategie für […]
The future is here and this is not a butterfly on your wall, as Israeli drones are getting tiny. Their latest project – a butterfly-shaped drone weighing just 20 grams - the smallest in its range so far – can gather intelligence inside buildings. The new miniscule surveillance device can take color pictures and is capable of a vertical take-off and hover fli […]
The National Security Agency is under no obligation to disclose the nature of its relationship with Google, confirmed a Washington D.C. federal appeals court on 11 May 2012. A three-judge panel ruled that in view of NSA's special status, any arrangement with the Internet giant can remain secret. "Any information relating to the relationship between […]
Ceasefire violations Anti-government activists talk about bombardments by Syrian Arab Army in Al-Sultanieh and Jobar neighborhoods and in Rastan area of Homs Explosions are heard in several neighborhoods of Homs this morning including Rastan area of Homs countryside. News says one shell is fired on the electronic bakery in Rastan area Ahmad Al-Qaai gets kill […]
The Obama administration imposed the most draconian police state legal structures in U.S. history before summoning the heads of NATO to Chicago. NATO accounts for 70 percent of military spending on the planet – combining the capacities of yesterday's imperialists and the current superpower. According to the Executive Editor of Black Agenda Report, “The […]
On July 5 last year Kelly Thomas, a 37-year-old schizophrenic homeless man, was so badly beaten and stun-gunned by Fullerton California police officers that he was left unrecognizable. He died 5 days later from blunt force trauma to the head. Up to 5 police officers assault him with batons, tasers and fists. When the unconscious and bloodied body of Thomas w […]
Ceasefire violations Anti-government activists say that a mortar shell was fired on Douma area which killed 5 members of Al-Shanwani family. Clashes between the Syrian Army and insurgents took place last night in Daraya and continued on this evening; anti-government activists talk about causalities. Gunmen assassinated last night Sergeant Imad Shkaira in Al- […]
Across the United States the exploitation of gas and oil from shale rocks using Halliburton's hydraulic fracturing technology continues amid rising disasters. Unregulated drilling practices, rendered legal by the "Halliburton Loophole" engineered in 2005 by Vice President Dick Cheney, have had staggering health and environmental effects. Lured […]
Facebook's $104 billion initial public offering on Friday transformed thousands of young people into instant millionaires - as well as a few billionaires - and already the booming luxury market in Silicon Valley is experiencing an upswing. Multi-million dollar mansions and $100,000 Porsches are flying off local shelves in the Palo Alto, Santa Clara and […]
Here's what happens when corporations begin to control education. "When I approached professors to discuss research projects addressing organic agriculture in farmer's markets, the first one told me that 'no one cares about people selling food in parking lots on the other side of the train tracks,'" said a PhD student at a large […]
When government officials insist on making science-based decisions in food and agricultural policy, what happens when the research is increasingly funded by huge corporations with a vested interest in the results? According to a new report by GAP coalition partner Food & Water Watch, almost 25 percent of agricultural research funding at land-grant univer […]
What would you do if your 3-year old son was stricken with brain cancer? Most parents wouldn't think twice about bringing their child to a mainstream doctor, only to undergo modern-day cancer 'treatments' such as chemotherapy. This is what one father, Mike Hyde, from Montana did when his 3 year old was diagnosed with brain cancer, but the fath […]
Trio accused of making petrol bombs and plotting attacks, but supporters say suspect materials were beer-making kit. Three protesters arrested in a late-night raid days before the start of this weekend's 60-nation NATO summit in Chicago have been charged with terrorism for possession of explosive devices, police and their attorney have said. The men hav […]
Chicago, Illinois -- Nan Wigmore brought her walker and packed her sign, "Grateful Great Grandmas Circle The Wagons, Support Occupy," and rode on a bus for some three days, sleeping in the same clothes, to make it to the NATO protests in Chicago. The 75-year-old from Portland, Ore., says she couldn't imagine being anywhere else despite the dis […]
Are the worldwide protests helping or hurting? That is the question. As Alexander Haig once stated "they can protest all they want so long as they pay their taxes". This statement is pretty telling in my opinion. Now accompany that statement with the question, has protesting and hitting the streets really brought any change in policy, banking, wars […]
The police state's framework for suppressing information and opinion arguably threatens all forms of independent thought and appears poised to intensify as the "war on terror" continues. As the recent emergence of US plans for indoctrination in reeducation camps reveals, Western governments' actual enemy is the capacity for a people to ex […]
Under cover of the night around twelve police cars stopped five journalists when they were heading back to where they are staying in Chicago during the NATO summit. All five have been covering protests against the NATO summit for the past few days. The five journalists included Luke Rudkowksi, who streams as @Lukewearechange, Tim Pool, who streams as @Timcas […]
Midwestern rural communities are being devastated by energy companies searching for a form of sand to use in their destructive fracking operations elsewhere in rural America.
Not all politicians are created equal. And not all are treated equally. Therein lies an issue deserving a closer look: whether vulnerable Democrats are targeted for destruction.
Much like the NATO summit, the system is set up not to spread wealth but to preserve and protect it, not to relieve chaos but to contain and punish it.
Bill Moyers talks to Simon Johnson, once chief economist of the International Monetary Fund and now MIT professor, about the (possible) fall of Jamie Dimon and JPMorgan.
Rahm Emanuel runs Chicago like he ran the Obama White House: with an iron fist and a foul mouth – and the NATO summit, being held in the Windy City, is the perfect occasion for him to demonstrate just how “tough” he can be. “Never let a serious crisis go to waste. What I mean [...]
A three-judge panel has rejected evidence that could help clear Vice President Tareq al-Hashemi of terrorism charges, causing Hashemi's team of lawyers to quit the case in protest. Meanwhile, at least two Iraqis were killed and eight more were wounded.
Hopes by Iran hawks here to get the U.S. Congress to wield the threat of a U.S. military attack on the Islamic Republic on the eve of next week’s critical negotiations on Tehran’s nuclear program appear to have fallen unexpectedly short. While the House of Representatives voted overwhelmingly Thursday to reject "any U.S. policy that [...]
I strongly oppose H Res 568, a resolution "expressing the sense of the House of Representatives regarding the importance of preventing the Government of Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapons capability." Once again we see on the "suspension" calendar, which is customarily reserved for non-controversial legislation, a resolution designed t […]
On what is now the 17th day of our walk from Madison to Chicago, the number 165 does not seem to encapsulate all the progress we have made. We are 17 days and 165 miles away from the day I drove into Madison, where news arrived that Air Force One had descended on pre-dawn Kabul [...]
The Report of the The International Commission of Inquiry on Libya has been issued and provides some interesting reading. A few initial comments: Tawerghans – to be ‘wiped off the face of the planet’ The report supports Human Rights Investigation’s position regarding the crimes committed against the Tawerghans. The report confirms our […]
According to NATO figures, coalition aircraft delivered 415 key strikes on the town of Sirte between Sunday 28th August and Thursday 20th October. We have compared this to the bombing of Guernica and other comparisons have been made to the widely condemned levelling of Grozny. In addition, the rebels, described in NATO circles as a [...]
Colonel Muammar al-Gaddafi was reportedly captured and shot dead 20 October. As the evidence below shows the Libyan leader and his son Mutassim were summarily executed by the rebels, sharing the fate of so many Libyans in this conflict. NATO involvement NATO have said that a French jet bombed 2 military vehicles in a convoy leaving the area [...]
التطهير الُعرقي و الإبادة الجماعيّة و التورخا هيومن رايتس إينفستيخاشيون (HRI) تُتابٍع عن كثب الوضع في منطقة ا”لتورخا”، وهنا نلفتُ معاً المعلومات، ونجِدُ، ، استناداً إلى تقارير الشهود والصحافيين والعاملين في مجال حقوق الإنسان ، بأنّ حالة ا”لتورخا” ليست مُجرد حالة تطهير عُرقي ولكن وفقاً للتعريف القانوني، إِبادة جماعيّة. HRI لديها مخاو […]
Below is a repost from Craig Murray’s excellent blog . Craig, has a very clear knowledge of the Karimov regime as he was British Ambassador there from 2002 to 2004. Uzbekistan is a state with widespread torture, kidnapping, murder, rape by the police, financial corruption, religious persecution, censorship, and other human rights abuses. In 2002, accor […]
The background to the video and image below is the ongoing bombardment of Sirte by NATO aircraft in support of the rebel brigades who are indiscriminately firing tank, mortar and artillery shells into this urban, civilian-populated area. NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen has refused to comment on why NATO is not fulfilling its UN mandate [...]
The Nobel Peace Prize has long been a nonsense and has been accused of being a kind of tool of Norwegian foreign policy. Who can forget the farcical scenes as Barack Obama was awarded the prize (about which Martin Luther King would have had a few things to say) or that it was once awarded to Henry Kissinger, or that Mahatma [...]
A major thread running through the story of the Libyan conflict has been the information war – propaganda spread by intelligence agencies, military, media and political groups designed to encourage hatred, conflict, war, foreign intervention, death and destruction. One sad aspect of the propaganda war has been the role played by Amnesty International a […]
As is now well documented, the rebellion in Libya began with violent attacks on police stations, such as this one in Al-Bayda where people locked inside were reportedly burnt to death: An intensive propaganda campaign systematically distorted the facts on the ground, including in particular allegations that the Libyan airforce was bombing peaceful protestors […]
Human Rights Investigations has been following the situation of the Tawergha closely and here we draw the information together and find, based on the reports of witnesses, journalists and human rights workers, the situation of the Tawergha is not just one of ethnic cleansing but, according to the legal definition, genocide. HRI has grave concerns, not only f […]
President Barack Hussein Obama made a speech in Cairo in June 2009, which was widely hailed as marking a new beginning; as the great speech of a true humanitarian and worthy of a Nobel Peace Prize. Here are some key passages from that profound, deep and moving speech, which gave hope to the people of [...]
On Saturday 17th September, as reported by Al Jazeera, Ahmed Bani, the interim government’s military spokesman, said gave army personnel still loyal to Gaddafi a last chance to join the ranks of former rebel fighters: “The soldiers and officers who will not heed this last call will be accused of high treason.” The invocation of [...]
NATO arrives everywhere violently. Chicago was no exception. During summit activities, city cops are enforcers. They specialize in serving wealth, power, and imperial interests. more...
Another entry from USA in The GREEN WALL Activist Contest 2012. Write in a public place WWW.GREENCHARTER.COM and send us photos of evidence showing before and after, and we will publish it here more...
Photo: Police hit and run a man as wide spread police violence against peaceful anti-war protesters takes shape ahead of NATO military summit in Chicago more...
Failure to uphold international laws has allowed nations like the US to get away with crimes against humanity, writes Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad, former Prime Minister of Malaysia (photo, right, with Mathaba News founder and editor, left) more...
Israel`s long known open secret is its formidable nuclear arsenal. Less is known about its chemical and biological weapons (CBW) capability. Mathaba Analyst Stephen Lendman takes a look. more...
DAMASCUS, (SANA) – Russia, as a creditor of the UN World Food Program, decided to dedicate the majority of its remaining contributions to the Program for sending urgent humanitarian relief to Syria
DUBAI, (SANA)- A militant group called 'al-Nusra Front', which is connected with al-Qaeda, claimed responsibility for the suicide bombing which targeted the city of Deir Ezzor, eastern Syria, that killed nine people and injured more than 100 others
MOSCOW, (SANA) – The Syrian community in Russia condemned on Sunday the terrorist attacks witnessed in Syria, the latest of which was the terrorist bombing in Deir Ezzor province, stressing that these attacks will not defeat the determination of the Syrian people.
MOSCOW, (SANA) – Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said that during the G8 Summit in Camp David, Russia adhered to its stance which states that the situation in Syria cannot be resolved through exerting pressure via force or otherwise on the Syria government
CAMP DAVID, U.S, (SANA)- The Group of 8 Summit called on all sides in Syria to immediately halt violence and carry out the plan of the UN envoy Kofi Annan
MOSCOW, (SANA)- Russia on Friday expressed condemnation of the terrorist attempt that targeted the international observers in Syria, saying it was aimed at foiling the plan of the UN envoy to Syria, Kofi Annan
PROVINCES, (SANA)- Head of the UN observer mission to Syria, Gen. Robert Mood, said on Friday the mission is working at finding a successful way to be deployed in Syria thanks to the advanced level of cooperation by the Syrian government, the UN Presidency and the contributor countries
TUNIS, (SANA) – Tunisian authorities on Friday admitted that there are Tunisian citizens who were killed or arrested in Syria, and that they were members of the armed terrorist groups
[ PIC 21/05/2012 - 09:37 AM ] NABLUS, (PIC)– Israeli occupation forces (IOF) arrested seven Palestinian citizens in the West Bank at dawn Monday including a 70-year-old man in Nablus, local sources said. Eyewitnesses told the PIC reporter in Nablus city that IOF soldiers stormed the city before dawn and withdrew after taking away four [...]
Maan News Agency | May 21, 2012 (updated) BETHLEHEM (Ma’an) — An Israeli human rights group released footage on Sunday of settlers firing on Nablus-village a day earlier, and called on Israel’s military to investigate the assailants, as well as the army’s role. Settlers entered Asira al-Qibliya on Saturday and threw rocks at propertie […]
LIVE BLOG ▶ PALESTINIANS ON HUNGER STRIKE | #PalHunger LIVE BLOG ▶ Commemorating 64 Years of Catastrophe in Palestine | #Nakba64 LIVE BLOG ▶ Israel Attacks Gaza May 17, 2012 & lies about it | #GazaUnderAttack continuous updated آخر الأخبار والتحديثات May 21, 2012 | 23382 Days Since Al-Nakba & Gaza has been under siege [...]
[ PIC 20/05/2012 - 08:45 PM ] THE HAGUE (PIC)– The Palestinian community in the Netherlands held, on Saturday, a conference to mark the 64th anniversary of the Palestinian Nakba in the capital Amsterdam, with the participation of the former PM of Netherlands, Dries van Agt, and with a large presence of the Palestinian community [...]
Al-Qassam Website | 21-05-2012,08:37 Al Qassam website (PressTV) – Palestinian refugees want their next generation to go back home to a free “Palestinian state” and to build their country themselves, a young Palestinian refugee tells Press TV. The comment comes as Palestinians commemorated the 64th anniversary of Nakba Day on May 15; when over 750,000 […]
Monday May 21, 2012 03:31 by Saed Bannoura – IMEMC Palestinian medical sources reported Sunday that a Palestinian youth was injured near the Etzion Israeli settlement, between Bethlehem and Hebron in the occupied West Bank. The soldiers then stepped on his palms to pose for pictures as the resident continued to bleed. Salah Sghayyar – [...]
[ PIC 20/05/2012 - 08:06 PM ] OCCUPIED JERUSALEM (PIC)– A Palestinian researcher revealed that more than two thirds of Jerusalemites owe money to the Israeli occupation’s different organs and departments. The Jerusalemite activist and researcher, Fakhri Abu Diab, said that Israeli official data showed that there are over 43 thousand debt files in […]
LIVE BLOG ▶ PALESTINIANS ON HUNGER STRIKE | #PalHunger LIVE BLOG ▶ Commemorating 64 Years of Catastrophe in Palestine | #Nakba64 LIVE BLOG ▶ Israel Attacks Gaza May 17, 2012 & lies about it | #GazaUnderAttack continuous updated آخر الأخبار والتحديثات May 20, 2012 | 23381 Days Since Al-Nakba & Gaza has been under siege [...]
[ PIC 20/05/2012 - 05:44 PM ] AL-KHALIL, (PIC)– A Palestinian teen was seriously injured near Gush Etzion settlement to the north of Al-Khalil after Israeli occupation forces (IOF) fired at him. Medical sources said that the 17-year-old youth Salah Zaghir was seriously wounded in his abdomen after an Israeli soldier fired at him near [...]
[ PIC 20/05/2012 - 05:52 PM ] GAZA, (PIC)– Spokesman of Hamas in Gaza Fawzi Barhoum has charged that the Jewish settlers’ storming of the Aqsa mosque on Sunday fell in line with the religious war waged by the Israeli occupation government against the Palestinian people. Barhoum told the PIC that the repeated visits by [...]
New Delhi, May 21, IRNA – Terming the cultural relations between India and Iran as “extensive” and “uninterrupted”, an Indian scholar Monday emphasized the need to further strengthen the ties between the two nations.-1391/03/01-16:06
Mahshahr, Khuzestan Prov, May 21, IRNA – Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said here on Monday that the Iranian nation is well capable of reaching the industrial and scientific peaks in the world.-1391/03/01-13:17
Tehran, May 21, IRNA — UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon in his message on the International Day for Biological Diversity, May 22, 2012, while warning that between 30 and 35 per cent of critical marine environments are estimated to have been destroyed called for national and international actions to preserve marine biodiversity.-1391/03/01-11:24
Vienna, May 21, IRNA -- Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Yukiya Amano, says he is positive about visiting Iran.-1391/03/01-00:25
Commander of the Iranian Army’s Ground Forces Brigadier General Ahmad Reza Pourdastan has announced the army’s plans for a military drill in the central province of Isfahan.
Small British companies say the government is shutting them out of the Olympics trade boost despite earlier ‘selling’ the games to taxpayers as an economic boon.
China's oil imports from Iran have increased by 53.2 percent in April to 388,034 barrels per day (bpd) from 253,302 bpd a month earlier, Chinese customs data shows.
China has urged all parties involved in the upcoming talks between Iran and six major world powers in Baghdad to make efforts to “build up mutual trust.”
Military authorities at Britain’s RAF Kinloss army base in Scotland have kept silent on the risk of chemical weapons contamination at the base, which is shortly to host more than 900 army personnel.
Protesters have interrupted a commencement speech by former British Prime Minister Tony Blair at Colby College in Maine, the US, where he was advising audience to serve others.
The Pentagon’s global military design is one of world conquest. The military deployment of US-NATO forces is occurring in several regions of the world simultaneously.
The dumping of highly radioactive water into the Pacific Ocean constitutes a potential trigger to a process of global radioactive contamination... Eventually all major regions of the World will be affected.
The Economic Collapse | During an appearance on Meet The Press on Sunday, Jim Cramer of CNBC boldly predicted that "financial anarchy" is coming to Europe.
The American Dream | With the way that things are heading in this country, it is not surprising that there are approximately 3 million preppers in the United States today.
The horror stories about the Transportation Security Administration are indisputable. In the post 911 environment, civil liberties routinely ignored or eliminated, become a mere memory in a country that once prided itself as the beacon of freedom for the entire world. The TSA is part of the Department of Homeland Security. FEMA, the Federal Emergency [...]
When Cohen attempts to bond with his protagonist Dictator Aladeen, he actually speaks in his mother tongue, Hebrew. Cohen speaks Hebrew because Aladeen is not an Arab dictator, he is actually an Israeli patriot like Cohen himself.
By Dr. Ismail Salami In an organized act of brutality, a number of US soldiers went on a house-to-house shooting spree in Zangabad village, Kandahar in March and massacred 16 people including nine children while they were sleeping and all Washington had to say were a few words of condolence and apology nonchalantly strung together [...]
There is much to both question and criticize about NATO but primary is the fact that America has created an international organization that is not answerable to international or constitutional laws and is still mired in a cold war mentality.
My Recent Comment on Prof. Richard Falk's Blog Highlighting the Failures of the Mainstream Media to Cover the Hunger Strike Aimed a Calling Attention to Israel's Violations of the Universal Human Rights of Palestinians.
Russian Aurora has discharged a preemptive salvo against the Atlantic freedom vultures in America, which have camped out at sweet home Chicago. No, it wasn’t another Bolshevik mutiny at the legendary cruiser in St Petersburg; it was an audacious Russian think tank, Institute for Foreign Policy Research & Initiatives, www.invissin.ru that boarded ritzy Ma […]
Fed Prez Who Owns Over $1 Million in Gold Greek Bailout May Have to Be $19.7 Billion Higher Greece misses another bailout deadline - Reuters Foreclosure deal deadline arrives, not all states are...
Video - Sen. Rand Paul on the Senate Floor - Jan. 31, 2012 This law is approximately 40 years overdue, and it took a neophyte Senator to be the first to propose such legislation in the history of...
Video - Nigel Farage - Feb. 1, 2012 Transcript "Well, Congratulations everybody. Davud Cameron had you worried for a bit. You thought he was even a eurosceptic. But it's okay, you had a quiet word...
Counterfeit Value Derivatives: Follow the Bouncing Ball Bailout Battle - The IMF vs. Germany Summary of Bernanke's testimony before Congress Bernanke: Deficit reduction must be top priority 47...
In the matter of the Scarborough Shoal mess, the Philippines started it and the infamous Chinese nine-dash line encompassing almost the entire South China Sea looks like an audacious claim drawn from an appetite for aggression. A closer look reveals that there is some genuine method to Beijing's madness, and a chance that gas and greed, rather than inte […]
The North Atlantic Treaty Organization hopes that If you can't beat them in Pashtunistan, you can at least corral them in the home of the blues, with NATO's Chicago summit planned to instill in members the "common values" behind drone warfare and base expansion. As riot police lock down the city, some partners likely fear they've mar […]
Hopes by Iran hawks for the United States Congress to provide enough ammunition to threaten Iran with a military strike on the eve of critical talks over Tehran's nuclear program have fallen unexpectedly short. The House has retracted its talons, while over in the Senate a new sanctions bill was blocked by Republicans because it wasn't sufficiently […]
The possibility of direct talks between the United States and Iran emerged in January when new sanctions gave the White House political cover to revert to a policy of engagement. However, Tehran's profound mistrust of American sincerity hampers progress. The only sensible way forward is to let bygones be bygones and work through an intermediary such as […]
China's refusal to use its leverage as North Korea's friend and protector to halt its provocations strengthens the United States alliance system that Beijing considers a tool of encirclement. As Pyongyang blithely continues with missile launches and other acts that undermine China in the international arena, it seems hard to image a policy more dam […]
What the US Can Learn from China by Ann Lee This book forces the reader to confront China's growth in the midst of America's decline, drawing attention to the reasons US politics became too self-serving, too short-sighted and too partisan. The author doesn't argue the Chinese approach is flawless, but she does hold up China's single-minde […]
The transition to a new constitution and the rule of law cannot be achieved overnight (South Africa's model constitution was seven years in the making). Yet the rush to get Nepal's new code into shape has been seemly, with the result that it will not have legitimacy, simply because politicians have failed to hear the dissenting voices of the people […]
Western opinion has largely greeted China's early attempts at innovation with skepticism. Yet companies such as Tsing Capital and Chrysalix Venture Capital are discovering entrepreneurs whose concepts represent a potential next wave of innovative technologies that could impact the world. - Benjamin A Shobert
The United States is to permit investment by US companies in Myanmar, while a ban will remain on imports from the still largely military-run country. Critics say the move is too early, with armed conflict still raging in the north, and will inevitably benefit human-rights abusers.- Carey L Biron
Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg is now officially worth close to US$20 billion after successfully bringing off the initial public offering for his young social network site. Fans keen to grab a piece of the company may have to pay 50% more than the initial price when the shares start trading Friday. Martin J Young surveys the week's developments in com […]
The Secretary General of the Arab League, Dr. Nabil Al-Arabi, arrived in Sudan on Sunday for discussions with President Omar Al-Bashir and senior Sudanese officials. The agenda will cover the crisis with South Sudan and the latest political and security developments in Darfur. A press release from the Arab League revealed that Al-Arabi had a meeting on Frida […]
South Africa's University of KwaZulu-Natal (UKZN) has pulled the plug on the Israeli deputy ambassador to South Africa, Yaakov Finkelstein. This is yet another blow to Israel-South Africa relations that have recently become tense. Finkelstein was due to speak at UKZN later on today, Monday (21 May 2012), but yesterday afternoon, UKZN's Deputy Vice […]
EXCLUSIVE PICTURES Schoolgirls from the Muhammad Tufaha School in Nablus have held a craft exhibition under the title "Flowers of Spring", which featured their work from across the academic year. The exhibition was supervised by craft instructor Maha Al-Qadomi and was attended by local officials, parents and students. Many of the exhibits underline […]
Recently, millions of Egyptians crowded round TV sets in Cairo to watch two presidential candidates debate their country's future. For citizens more used to having a political system imposed on them than joining in the discussion, they seem to have adapted quickly. Cheers and applause broke out as the candidates each exploited their opponent's weak […]
Introduction The status of prisoners of war is a very complicated issue in international humanitarian law. Many people think - wrongly - that all of the Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails are to be considered as prisoners of war. International humanitarian law, in particular the Third Geneva Convention of 1949 and its protocols, gives a very precise defi […]
khalid@memonitor.org.uk (Dr Abdulrahman Muhammad Ali)
Love it or hate it, the BBC is perhaps the most powerful media institution in the world. Not even the Murdoch empire in its heyday matched the scale and impact of the BBC's operations. Yet, in the last week, it has suffered two embarrassing setbacks in the aftermath of which its funders, the British public, are entitled to a change of policy. For almost […]
A group of illegal Jewish settlers, accompanied by an Israeli government minister and a number of members of the Knesset (Israeli parliament), broke into the courtyards of Al-Aqsa Mosque on Thursday morning, 17 May, amid a state of alert and while being heavily guarded by Israeli occupation forces. Mahmoud Abu Atta, a spokesman for the Al-Aqsa for Endowment […]
A poll conducted by the BBC World Service has ranked Israel in third place among the worst countries in the world, keeping company with North Korea and only just ahead of Iran and Pakistan. The results of the global poll, organised by the BBC and covering 22 countries, showed that Israel stands among the countries with the most negative influence on the worl […]
A report on Israel radio has revealed that manifestations of racial discrimination are widespread across Israeli society. The racism is particularly evident between Jews and Arabs, but there is also evidence of racism between Jews themselves and against African refugees who come to work in Israel. The report noted instances of attempted arson attacks on buil […]
Hebrew media sources have revealed the extent of support in Israel's parliament, the Knesset, for a law which would ban the commemoration of the Palestinian Nakba (Catastrophe) in Israeli universities and educational institutions. Yedioth Ahronoth reported that the Chairman of the Knesset Education Committee, Alex Miller, is behind the introduction of t […]
Reports indicate a single suicide bomber who detonated powerful explosives amid a crowd of soldiers rehearsing for an upcoming parade in Yemen's capital city of Sanaa left at least 96 dead and perhaps 300 or more wounded. "We are hearing reports that 96 people were killed and many more injured. There have been requests for blood donations and the d […]
The City of Chicago has filed charges against three Occupy activists, Jared Chase, Brent Beterly, and Brian Jacob Church, including possession of explosives or incendiary devices, material support for terrorism, and conspiracy. Chicago police during anti-NATO protests. (photo: Mikasi) read more
The local press was quickly at the scene but Twitter broke the story first. Though the hour was late, Yemen’s social media was still very much awake. A US drone’s missiles had just slammed into a convoy of vehicles in a remote part of Yemen, killing three alleged militants. read more
See below for livestream and Twitter updates... Thousands of protesters are in Chicago today for a "People's G8" in a call led by National Nurses United (NNU) to demand an economy for the 99% and heal the "financial traumas faced by real people at the hands of Wall Street." read more […]
Today, the Cornucopia Institute released a report titled The Organic Watergate, revealing widespread corruption in the USDA's organic food monitoring panel -- the National Organic Standards Board (NOSB). read more
Updated: 6:15 p.m. EST with a clarified quote*. In the seemingly endless war over abortion rights in America, battles are waged in legislatures, in courts and, most recently, on the Internet. The strategy of using abortion-related keywords to send a woman searching the web for abortion information More...
On Monday, Federal Communications Commission chairman Julius Genachowski announced changes that would modernize the agency’s Lifeline program to give greater broadband Internet access to low-income Americans. Lifeline has traditionally provided “discounts on one basic monthly telephone service (wireline or wireless) for qualified subscribers.” While announci […]
Sangeeta Ghosh, assistant corporate counsel for Kent County, Mich., says should the 51-year-old man charged in two cases of failing to disclose his HIV-positive status to sexual partners make bail, the county is prepared to ask a court to force him to take antiretroviral medications. “The county is More...
Former Michigan state Rep. Jack Hoogendyk is likely to announce next week that he will challenge Congressman Fred Upton (R-St. Joseph) in the GOP primary in August. Hoogendyk unsuccessfully challenged Upton for the seat two years ago, when he was able to garner only 43 percent of the vote, More...
The Foundation for Government Accountability debuted a new website Monday — an online database of the salaries of Florida’s public employees: FloridaOpenGov.org. The website is almost a replica of a project by Foundation President Tarren Bragdon at his last place of employment, the Maine Heritage Policy Center. More...
Going to court may be “the best way” to resolve a dispute over water rights between the U.S. Forest Service and the National Ski Areas Association, according to a former Forest Service ski area permit coordinator. “Frankly, litigation may be the best way forward on this issue,” Ed Ryerson More...
Arkansas Attorney General Dustin McDaniel has blocked the state’s Personhood affiliate from introducing a bill that would define life from the moment of conception, on the grounds that it is “too vague” as written. Though “fetal personhood” measures across the country have been criticized for that very reason, Personhood Arkansas More...
With the beginning of session only days away, Florida legislators have been busy filing a slew of anti-abortion bills. Add yet another to the list: a measure outlawing race- and gender-based abortions. The bill was filed by state Rep. Scott Plakon, R-Longwood. House Bill 1327, or the “Susan B. More...
Kalley King Yanta, a former anchor for a Minneapolis-based television station and an anti-abortion-rights activist, has joined the Minnesota for Marriage group to anchor videos intended to convince Minnesotans to vote for the anti-gay-marriage amendment on the ballot in 2012. The videos — and Yanta — have come under More...
An alleged admission by a 51-year-old Comstock Park, Mich., man that he attempted to infect hundreds of people with HIV through unprotected sexual activity and needle-sharing has sparked a media feeding frenzy, which HIV activists and legal experts have roundly censured as “sensationalist.” In spite of the national condemnation, More...
[Oxfam] As the Camp David G8 Summit winds down, international agency Oxfam criticized G8 leaders for failing to renew measurable funding and policy commitments to help address global food security. Leaders were unwilling to continue current efforts to invest in developing country agriculture, even as they set a new goal of helping 50 million people lift them […]
[Garowe Online] Mogadishu - Multiple explosions in Mogadishu's busy Bakara market and another blast in east Mogadishu killed 8 and injured more than 15 on Saturday, Radio Garowe reports.
[Daily News] SOME 35 NGOs have teamed up to petition the government, urging it to allocate adequate budget for maternal and newborn health during the 2012/2013 financial year.
[Aswat Masriya] Cairo - Campaign of presidential candidate Hisham Bastawisi denied reports that he may withdraw for another candidate, insisting on his intention to run the race until the end.
[UN News] The United Nations envoy in Somalia, Augustine P. Mahiga, today expressed concern over recent violent clashes in the northern city of Hargeisa, located in Somaliland, between Somaliland security forces and citizens which allegedly resulted in the deaths on both sides.
[Sudan Tribune] Khartoum - The chairman of the African Union High-Level Implementation Panel (AUHIP) saw little change in Khartoum's position regarding the resumption of negotiations with Juba during his talks today with Sudanese president Omer Hassan al-Bashir.
[African Arguments] Meles Zenawi is the cleverest and most engaging president in Africa - at least when he talks to visiting outsiders. When he speaks to his fellow Ethiopians, he is severe and dogmatic.
[Sudan Tribune] Juba - South Sudan on Sunday said it is time the international community imposes "steep sanctions" on the government of neighbouring Sudan for its "deliberate" failure to comply with a UN Security Council (UNSC) resolution calling for an end to hostilities and the immediate withdrawal of troops from the contested region of […]
[West Cape News] MPs are set to invite the Department of State Security to debate proposed changes made by political parties to the controversial Protection of State Information Bill.
[AEP] Libyans are scheduled to go to the polls in June 2012 to elect 200 members of the National Public Conference in the country's first democratic elections since Col. Muammar Gaddafi took the reign of power in 1969.
Vocational school students of SMKN 3 Mataram, West Nusa Tenggara, have managed to assemble 2,000 laptops for fellow students in schools throughout the region since 2009.The students have worked with ...
The government will accurately describe its human rights record in a report to be given to the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) later this week, a top Palace official says.“The Office of ...
Contrary to her controversial and eye-catching image, Lady Gaga is actually very modest, according to a representative from local concert promoter Big Daddy Entertainment.“For instance, she ...
Local Internet and multimedia service provider PT Indosat Mega Media (IM2) plans to expand its market into the small and medium enterprises (SMEs) segment for future growth.IM2 president director ...
With uncertainty surrounding US singer Lady Gaga’s upcoming concert scheduled in Jakarta, it has been rumored that her promoter has switched the venue to Bali instead. Bali officials, however, ...
The Indonesian national futsal team is ready to compete in the 2012 Asia Cup in Dubai, which will run from May 25 to June 1."We began training in April. Our team is ready to compete and to do their ...
Tangerang regency police (Polresta Tangerang) have arrested two of the seven members of Pitam Kuning, a gang that has allegedly been involved in a number of armed robberies targeting minimarkets ...
Millions in Asia and the western United States watched as a rare "ring of fire" eclipse crossed their skies.The annular eclipse, in which the moon passes in front of the sun leaving only a golden ...
At the tender age of 11, Cecilia Moseley already appears versed in the virtues of fitness. But she was left star-struck Sunday after first lady Michelle Obama and an audience of global leaders ...
Authorities say a guard was killed and, at one point, hostages were taken during a riot at a Mississippi prison that holds illegal immigrants.The Sunday riot at the privately run prison in southwest ...
A spokesperson from the Israel Foreign Ministry refuted an Anatolia news agency news report which said the Israeli president has requested permission to deploy at least 20,000 soldiers to Greek Cyprus in exchange for building a gas terminal on the island.
A group of masked assailants threw a Molotov cocktail onto a public bus along the Taksim-Osmanbey route when the bus stopped at a red light near the Okmeydanı Şark Kahvesi, setting the bus on fire, in İstanbul's Şişli district on Sunday.
Six teenagers attending a picnic organized by a district Quran course drowned over the weekend in İskenderun, Hatay, when they were swept away by strong currents after going for a swim in the sea.
Turkish-Iraqi ties have been further strained after the burning of a Turkish flag during a protest near the Turkish Consulate General in Basra on Saturday and threats by protesters against Turkish firms operating in the city.
Residents of a Beirut suburb fired heavy machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades at each other on Sunday, the latest violence to raise fears that Syria's turmoil was spilling over the border into its neighbour.
A special ops team officer was killed and five other security personnel were wounded in a clash with the terrorist Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) in the Kulp district of Diyarbakır province on Monday.
Turkish police on Monday detained three people, including two Turks, for their suspected involvement in a plot to abduct a defected Syrian colonel who fled to Turkey.
Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan arrived in Pakistan's capital city Islamabad late on Sunday as the formal guest of his Pakistani counterpart, Yousuf Raza Gilani.
Syria briefly closed its Bab al-Hawa border gate with Turkey on Saturday, apparently because of a military operation carried out by Syrian troops against a village near the border.
Former member of the Egyptian Brotherhood Abolfotoh leads in the presidential elections held by Egyptian embassies abroad, according to partial results.
European shares bounced back from five-month lows today as investors bought into some stocks and sectors that had been particularly badly hit in the previous week's sell-off.
Thousands of people in northern Italy slept in tents and cars overnight as more than 100 aftershocks rocked the area hit by a magnitude 6.0 earthquake that killed seven people and inflicted heavy damage to centuries-old cultural sites.
French prosecutors said today they had opened an inquiry into allegations of group rape by Dominique Strauss-Kahn and three friends, as part of an investigation into his ties to a suspected prostitution ring in the northern city of Lille.
French President Francois Hollande and like-minded euro zone leaders are expected to promote the idea of mutualised European debt at an informal summit in Brussels this week, increasing pressure on German Chancellor Angela Merkel to drop her opposition to the proposal.
Italy is likely to register a strong protest vote against belt-tightening in local elections that will provide a fresh snapshot of Europe's changing political landscape a year ahead of a national ballot.
British nuke submarine HMS Talent was dispatched last night to the Malvinas Islands with Tomahawk warheads on what could be a warning signal to Argentina, according to UK’s sensationalist tabloid The Sun.
The UN nuclear supervisor flies to Tehran looking for a deal to inspect suspected weapons sites - a potential breakthrough that Iran may hope could persuade the West to start lifting sanctions and deflect threats of war.
Former Vice-President Julio Cobos said he believes Buenos Aires governor Daniel Scioli “is the most presidential candidate in the Justicialist Party,” therefore his deputy governor “tries to put bumps in the road.”
Venezuela's economy grew 5.6% in the first quarter of 2012 confirmed planning and finance minister Jorge Giordani and Venezuelan Central Bank (BCV) president Nelson Merentes on Thursday. read more
A German news website has revealed that the German government has been pushing for Eurozone countries to adopt a more active role in backing the current Venezuelan opposition coalition, the Roundtable of Democratic Unity (MUD), in the run up to this year’s presidential elections. read more
A total of 312,725 international tourists have visited Venezuela between January and April 2012, a figure which represents almost a 50% increase compared with the same period last year. read more
The government has revealed that there are about 3.7 million independent workers in Venezuela who could potentially benefit from the reforms to the Law on Social Security in Venezuela, enacted on April 21 by President Hugo Chávez. read more
Government representatives and private media have said opposition presidential candidate Henrique Capriles’ campaign is “stagnating” as he fails to gain support, while journalists also marched yesterday protesting violent attacks committed against them by Capriles’ supporters. read more
Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez returned to Venezuela on Friday night, announcing a successful conclusion to his radiotherapy treatment in Cuba and his intention to return to the frontline of Venezuelan politics. Meanwhile, polls show him extending his advantage over rival Henrique Capriles Radonski. read more […]
Venezuelan alternative news website Aporrea.org reached its tenth anniversary today, marking a milestone in Venezuela’s Bolivarian revolution. read more
The Canadian Boat to Gaza, in cooperation, with international initiatives in the US, Australia and other countries, is launching a new initiative to challenge the illegal and inhumane Israeli blockade of Gaza, the only Mediterranean port closed to shipping. This new initiative: Gaza’s Ark, will build a boat in Gaza, using existing resources. A crew of intern […]
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE (London, May 4, 2012) Last summer, “Omer” posted a video saying he had been turned down as a passenger on board one of Free Gaza’s boats because he is gay. Within a few days, he was discovered to be a fake, apparently recording his statement coordinated with the Israeli government press office. Yesterday, Jon Ronson from the Guardian, f […]
April 11, 2012 During the Israeli “Operation Cast Lead” in Dec. 2008 – Jan. 2009, Dr. Gilbert was one of only two outside doctors in Gaza. Last week the International Criminal Court, to the protests of Amnesty International and other groups, stated it would not issue prosecutions for the Israeli Operation. Recently Gilbert, co-author of “Eyes in Gaza,” retur […]
I spent the early afternoon at a demonstration attended by several thousand people. The Hamas authorities refused to allow the people to march to the border, and clashes broke out with the police. .When we finally found a way to get around the Hamas cordon, we found shabob (Kids from roughly the age of 12 to 25) at Erez Crossing. They were throwing stones a […]
We don't usualy post blogs, but this one from Audacity of Hope passenger, Johnny Barber, is eloquent and timely. He is currently in Gaza as a photojournalist and puts a face and a family to the murdered men, women and children from last week. http://onebrightpearl-jb.blogspot.fr/2012/03/hey-will-never-beg.html
How long before South Africans are accused of being anti-Semites? South Africa to ban labeling West Bank settlement products as 'made in Israel', Amira Hass Minister of Trade and Industry says South Africa recognizes the State of Israel only within … Continue reading →
Inspired by the donkeys of the Gaza zoo, Israeli architect Malkit Shoshan exposes the inhumanities of Zionism in a Dutch exhibit that has stirred critics across Europe
Time magazine crowns Benjamin Netanyahu in its latest cover article, although he comes across as the leader of a country on the verge of a nervous breakdown.
Suspect linked to rape of two women in north Israel on Sunday surrenders to officers near his home; attorney of man suspected of aiding to alleged rapists says alibi solid
During Knesset session on wave of violence, Commander Aharon Aksol says employing foreign migrants would curb phenomenon. MK Danon: Solution is simple – deportation
Palestinian cell indicted in attempted kidnapping of Yael Shahak and 8-year-old daughter, now she recalls incident: 'Look in his eyes changed and he became crazed'
Robert ScheerEven after it was known that Jamie Dimon’s bank blew more than $2 billion, Barack Obama still had praise for the intellect of his political backer.
The EditorsThe president’s endorsement of same-sex marriage is a testament to the generations of activists who waged a brave and often lonely battle for gay rights.
Chris MooneyPolitical watchdogs like PolitiFact and the Washington Post's "Fact-Checker" are accused of favoring Democrats—but it is the facts themselves that have a liberal bias.
Nato has told AFP that a US warship in the Mediterranean armed with interceptor missiles and a radar system in Turkey have come under Nato command out of a base in Rammstein, Germany. The move is phase one of a Europe-based missile shield system to be fully operational by 2018.
Nato should consider opening up its Partnership for Peace scheme to post-Arab-Spring democracies, writes Jos Boonstra.Related StoriesEU takes aim at Israeli settler productsObama presses EU leaders on growth
French far-right leader Marine Le Pen may lose her parliamentary seat to far-left leader Jean-Luc Melenchon in next month's parliamentary elections. An Ifop-Fiducial poll showed Le Pen would win 34% of first round votes to 29% for Melenchon but would be beaten 55-45% in the 17 June second round.
Denmark is planning to label products from Israeli settlements in the West Bank, foreign minister Villy Søvndal told Politiken Friday. In a similar move, South Africa's trade ministry Saturday said Israeli products made on Palestinian land must be marked "Made in Occupied Palestinian Territories." Israel described the move as "racist. […]
Iranian filmmaker Asghar Farhadi was awarded the European Union's Media Prize at this year’s film festival in Cannes. The 60,000 euro prize is meant to help fund his next film.
More than 20,000 people demonstrated in Frankfurt on Sunday against austerity measures in Europe and the power of banks. Activists from the ”Occupy Frankfurt” set up tents outside the European Central Bank’s headquarter after police cleared out an earlier encampment at the same place last week.
French leader Hollande has said he will call for joint eurozone debt at Wednesday's EU summit, despite German opposition.Related StoriesGreece struggling to manage asylum seekersEuropean Commission should be EU government, says GermanyObama presses EU leaders on growth
A weekend summit of G8 leaders stressed the need for the eurozone to focus on keeping Greece inside the euro. But plans are reportedly being drafted to deal with its potential exit.Related StoriesEuropean Commission should be EU government, says GermanyHollande to confront Merkel on eurobonds at EU summit[Opinion] Nato: Do what you do best
Turkey Thursday accused Israeli airplanes of violating the airspace of northern Cyprus - recognised only by Turkey. Ankara said the Israeli plan was driven off by Turkish fighter planes. The incident happened on Monday and comes as Turkey and Israel's relations have soured recently.
The space agency Nasa is training a team of astronauts to land on asteroids after a three million mile journey – dwarfing the mere 239,000 miles travelled to the moon. The mission, planned for the next decade, would land on an asteroid travelling at more than 50,000 miles an hour. The astronauts will drive vehicles [...]
The European banking industry has suffered another crushing blow after Moody’s ratings agency downgraded the credit ratings of 16 Spanish banks, citing the weakened government’s ability to support some banks. The agency downgraded the long-term debt and deposit ratings by one to three notches for 16 Spanish banks and Santander UK PLC, a UK-domiciled subsidia […]
NASA’s Kepler space telescope has recorded the number of superflares or enormous releases of magnetic energy that can damage a nearby orbiting planet. According to the report published in the journal Nature, superflares are much less frequent on slow-rotating stars like our Sun. The biggest recorded flare on the Sun happened on September 1, 1859 [...]
For the first time in US history, racial and ethnic minorities outnumber its white majority – white births make up fewer than half the children born in the country, according to the US Census Bureau. The new 2011 census, which was made public on Thursday, reveals non-Hispanic whites accounted for 49.6 per cent of all [...]
Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev has warned the West against launching ‘hasty wars’, which may increase regional tensions and even trigger a nuclear war. “Sometimes these [military] actions — which undermine state sovereignty — could result in a fully-fledged regional war, and even — although I do not want to scare anyone […]
New poll results released on Monday showed former U.S. House speaker Newt Gingrich on top of the GOP field and benefiting from the exit of Herman Cain from the presidential campaign.
Egyptian Prime Minister Kamal al-Ganzouri has completed the line-up of the new cabinet, state TV reported Monday. Ganzouri led the Egyptian gov't under the Mubarak regime from Jan. 1996 to Oct. 1999.
The most senior security policy adviser to British Prime Minister David Cameron told a committee of the Houses of Parliament on Monday that it was highly unlikely that there would be any British military intervention in Syria.
Obama Monday urged Republican lawmakers in Congress to join Democrats and approve the extension of payroll tax cuts next year to revive the U.S. economy.
Abbas announced Monday that the Palestinians are ready to present their visions concerning all the permanent status issues to end the conflict with Israel.
Europe's powerhouses France and Germany agreed Monday on a series of reforms aimed at changing the European Union (EU) treaty to impose tough control of eurozone budgets.
Russia's Central Election Commission (CEC) announced Monday that the ruling United Russia party won 49.54 percent of the votes after 95.71 percent of the ballots were counted.
Syria has responded positively to the Arab League (AL) protocol on an observer mission, but proposed "minor amendments" to the plan, a foreign ministry spokesman said Monday.
Pakistan said on Monday that it wants solid outcome of Bonn Conference on the future of Afghanistan to promote peace and reconciliation in the war- shattered country.
Irish Prime Minister Enda Kenny on Sunday called for tougher measures for next year's budget, reminding the public that the country is running a deficit of 16 billion euros (21.46 billion U.S. dollars).
Seit 2007 habe ich gezögert von folgendem zu berichten und meine damalige Einsicht immer wieder verdrängt. Aber irgendwann kommt alles Verdrängte an die Oberfläche. Zunächst einmal wird dem aufmerksamen Leser aufgefallen sein, daß ich in meiner Besprechung des skandalösen Begleitbandes zu OROP Wüste den zweiten Teil des Büchleins, der von Richard Blasband zu […]
Einer der brillantesten Wissenschaftler, Rassenkundler und Kenner der jüdischen Geschichte: Houston Stewart Chamberlain. Houston Stewart Chamberlain (* 9. September 1855 in Portsmouth, England; † 9. Januar 1927 in Bayreuth) war ein Schriftsteller, Verfasser zahlreicher populärwissenschaftlicher Werke, unter anderem zu Richard Wagner, Immanuel Kant und Johann […]
Um den Tag der energetischen Wurzel des Neuanfanges mitgestalten zu können, gibt es viele Möglichkeiten… Die Intuition einer lieben Leserin brachte uns auf die Idee, Orte ausfindig zu machen, die Pfingstsonntag um 14:30 Uhr durchaus eine Reise wert sind! Für den Süden Deutschlands sind zwei Orte zu nennen, an denen wir Pfingstsonntag um 14:30 Uhr [...] […]
Grausamer Drogenkrieg in Mexiko: Im Norden des Landes wurden 23 Tote gefunden. Mehrere Leichen hingen von einer Autobahnbrücke, die Köpfe der anderen Opfer lagen vor einem Rathaus. Neue Gewaltexzesse im mexikanischen Drogenkrieg: 23 Tote sind in der Grenzstadt Nuevo Laredo in Nordmexiko entdeckt worden. Neun Menschen hingen am Freitag von einer Autobahnbrück […]
Der Sozialist Hollande setzt mit der 30prozentigen Kürzung ebenso ein Zeichen wie die konservative Kanzlerin mit der 5,7prozentigen Erhöhung Es ist eine symbolische Geste, wenn der frisch gewählte französische Präsident Hollande sich und seinen Ministern zu Beginn schon einmal eine 30prozentige Gehaltskürzung verordnet. Gleichwohl setzt die neue Regierung da […]
Blockupy – Erfolg oder Niederlage? Mehr als 25.000 Menschen sollen heute (gestern) in der Frankfurter Innenstadt nach Veranstalterangaben gegen die Politik der EU-Troika demonstriert haben Das Spektrum der Demonstranten reichte von Gewerkschaften, der Linkspartei, Attac bis den außerparlamentarischen Bündnissen Ums Ganze und der Interventionistischen L […]
Der Dreiteiler basiert auf dem Roman “Joseph Balsamo” von Alexandre Dumas Abenteurer, Hochstapler, Magier, Goldmacher, Geisterbeschwörer – “Graf” Cagliostro suchte im 18. Jahrhundert fast alle Hauptstädte und Höfe Europas heim. Im Jahre 1791 wurde er von der Inquisition verurteilt und verschwand bis an sein Lebensende hinter Ker […]
Wir verlangen, dass wir genau wie die Frauen mit einem Tag geehrt werden, da wir ständig Opfer von Missbrauch, Demütigungen, verbalen, physischen und sexuellen Attacken sind. Außerdem muss folgendes beachtet werden: Wer ist der Einzige der sich traut, alles aufzuessen, was ihm vorgesetzt wird, ohne zu mucksen ? Der selbstlose Mann ! Wer hebt die [...]
Dokumentation: Die Rede von Parkschützer Matthias von Herrmann auf der heutigen 124. Montagsdemonstration der Stuttgarter Bürgerbewegung für den Kopfbahnhof und gegen das verkehrsindustrielle Umbauprogramm "Stuttgart 21" (S21).
Rund 500 Demonstranten versammelten sich vor dem Haus des Bürgermeisters von Chicago Rahm Emanuel, um gegen die kürzliche Schliessung der psychiatrischen Kliniken als Teil einer Reihe von Kundgebungen und Märsche zeitgleich mit einem NATO-Gipfel zu protestieren. Die Menschen hatten Transparente mitgebracht mit den Slogans “food not bombs”, “seize the peace” […]
Griechenland: Nachdem vorher der Botschafter der Berliner Republik in Athen, Wolfgang Dold, und der deutsche EU-Parlamentspräsident Martin Schulz (SPD/SPE) bei ihm rausgeschlichen kamen, hat der Vorsitzende der Koalition der Radikalen SYRIZA, Alexis Tsipras, auch dem britischen "Guardian" eine Audienz gegeben. Auszüge des Interviews im Wortlaut: […]
Sea Shepherd Conservation Society warnte am 17.Mai davor, dass Paul Watson in Costa Rica nicht sicher ist und um sein Leben fürchten muss. Die taiwanesische Haifang-Mafia hat seit Jahren ein Kopfgeld in Höhe von 20.000 Dollar auf den Captain ausgesetzt. “Wir wissen, dass der Arm der taiwanesischen Fischerei-Mafia nicht nur bis zur illegalen Fischerei in Cost […]
Sie hat nichts mit dem Ereignis zu tun, das ihm den Namen gab: Die riesige Rallye für Frieden , an deren Ende die Ermordung Yitzhak Rabins war. Diese Rallye war in jeder Hinsicht anders. Es war ein fröhliches Ereignis. Dutzende von NGOs, viele von ihnen klein, einige von ihnen etwas größer, jede mit einer anderen Agenda, kamen zusammen, um den sozialen Prote […]
Heute hat Angela Mutti Merkel versucht, ihrem griechischen Volk ein Referendum zu geben.. Leider gab es da ein kleines Mißverständnis. Dabei will sie nur ständig das Beste. Und zwar mit Zinsen. Heute hat also Mutti – wer würde ihr schon was antun? Einfach abwählen?! Niemals! Ihr Muttimörder! – dem griechischen Volk ein Referendum über blühende [. […]
Videos und updates In ganz Frankfurt und Randgebiete ist das Recht auf Bewegungsfreiheit, Meinungsäusserungen und Pressefreiheit ausser Kraft gesetzt, denn die Repressalien der Polizei erstrecken sich auf Kontrollen und Platzverweise für alle Besucher, einschliesslich Touristen und Einwohner. Auch am heutigen Freitag kamen tausende Menschen in die Innenstadt […]
Liedermacher Konstantin Wecker auf dem Paulsplatz zu den Blockupy-Protesten: Wecker: “Begräbnis demokratischer Rechte” Livestreams und updates von den “Bloccupy”-Protesten. Ohrfeige nach Karlsruhe aus der Main-Metropole: die Bürger verhalten sich wie Bürger, die zur Verteidigung der Verfassung sowie für das Gemeinwohl der Gesellschaft […]
Mit diesem 565 Seiten umfassenden Gesetz wäre ein Freibrief durch einen kurzen Paragraf in Statut 1021 für das Militär in Kraft getreten, jeden Bürger auf unbestimmte Zeit ohne ein ordentliches Gerichtsverfahren zu inhaftieren, dem vorgeworfen wird, wissentlich oder unwissentlich Unterstützung des Terrorismus zu leisten.
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Rescue workers at a devastated factory area in Sendai. Britain and France have told their citizens in Japan to leave Tokyo because of radiation fears. Photograph: STAFF/Reuters
A woman who fled from the vicinity of the Fukushima nuclear power plant sits at an evacuation center set in a gymnasium in Kawamata, Fukushima Prefecture in northern Japan, March 14, 2011. (REUTERS/Yuriko Nakao) The country’s chief cabinet secretary, Yukio Edano, said that although staff at the nuclear facility – where two containment buildings have been destroyed by hydrogen explosions – were unable to check for certain, it was “highly likely” that the nuclear cores at reactors, 1 2 and 3 at Fukushima I nuclear station had begun to melt.
“There is a possibility, we see the possibility of a meltdown,” said Toshihiro Bannai, director of the agency’s international affairs office, in a telephone interview from the agency’s headquarters in Tokyo. “At this point, we have still not confirmed that there is an actual meltdown, but there is a possibility.”
NUCLEAR EMERGENCY — Evacuation underway in the area surrounding Japan’s Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant. Underscoring grave concerns about the Fukushima plant some 240 km (150 miles) north of Tokyo, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said the U.S. air force had delivered coolant to avert a rise in the temperature of the facility’s nuclear rods.
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