And Now … Special Adviser To Japanese Government: US Made ‘Strong Request’ To Dump Radioactive Water Into Ocean

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– Release of radioactive water made at request of U.S.: Cabinet adviser (Japan Times, May 18, 2011):

SEOUL — Japanese playwright Oriza Hirata, who serves as a special adviser to the Cabinet, claimed in a recent lecture given in Seoul that the dumping of low-level radioactive water into the Pacific Ocean followed a “strong request” from the United States, a person who attended the lecture said Wednesday.

The release of the water from the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant last month generated anxiety about the possible spread of radioactive contamination from the seaside power station.

Read moreAnd Now … Special Adviser To Japanese Government: US Made ‘Strong Request’ To Dump Radioactive Water Into Ocean

Fukushima Worker On His Measured Internal Radiation Level Of 30,000 CPM: ‘My Measured Value Exceeded The Standard Value By A Double-Digit Factor. That’s Never Happened Before’

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– Radiation tests lacking / Nuclear plant workers unsure of internal exposure levels (The Yomiuri Shimbun, May 19, 2011):

Nearly two months after the start of the crisis at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant, only 10 percent of workers there had been tested for internal radiation exposure caused by inhalation or ingestion of radioactive substances, due to a shortage of testing equipment available for them.

Tokyo Electric Power Co., operator of the crippled nuclear compound, is finding it impossible to use testing apparatus set up inside the facility because of high radiation levels recorded near the equipment.

A number of personnel working to overcome the nuclear crisis at the facility are increasingly alarmed by their lack of internal exposure testing. Some have said they may have to continue to work at the facility without knowing whether their radiation exposure levels have exceeded the upper limit set by the government.

On Tuesday, the government revealed a timetable for ending the nuclear crisis. The road map called for increased surveillance of the workers’ radiation levels, including a measure requiring TEPCO to periodically report such data to the government.

Internal exposure is caused by taking radioactive substances into the body via eating, drinking or breathing. Its unit, counts per minute (cpm), indicates the amount of radiation emitted per minute.

Regulations on preventing health problems caused by ionizing radiation require operators of power plants to conduct internal exposure tests every three months on plant employees who enter areas designated by laws and regulations on radiation-related health problems.

“My measured value [of radioactive exposure] exceeded the standard value by a double-digit factor. That’s never happened before,” said a plant worker in his 20s, recalling the time he saw the results of a test he took outside Fukushima Prefecture in early May.

The man, an employee of a company that works with TEPCO, installed power cables near a reactor building at the plant for a month beginning at the end of March.

The test is conducted by a device called a “whole-body counter.”

While a normal internal radiation level would range from several hundred cpm to 1,000 cpm, he was told his level was 30,000 cpm.

Read moreFukushima Worker On His Measured Internal Radiation Level Of 30,000 CPM: ‘My Measured Value Exceeded The Standard Value By A Double-Digit Factor. That’s Never Happened Before’

Scandal: The EPA’s Failed Radiation Detection System

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Related info:

– US RadNet Radiation Monitor System Unlikely To Detect Radiation As Close As 25 Feet Above Or Beside Them And There Are Only 125 Of Those Monitors For the Entire US!

See also:

– Nuclear Physicist: Most Of The Fallout From Dirty Plutonium MOX Fuel Will Drop On The US, Unless Very Strong Winds Take It Somewhere Else

– Watchdog criticizes Feds: ‘With the Japanese nuclear situation still out of control and expected to continue that way for months and with elevated radioactivity continuing to show up in the U.S., it is inexplicable that EPA would shut down its Fukushima radiation monitoring effort’

– Canada Joins US In Cutting Back Radiation Reporting, Testing Of Milk

– Fairewinds’ Founder Maggie Gundersen Interviews Environmental Scientist Marco Kaltofen: Radiation In Food Is Going To Be A Nationwide Problem In The US!

– Radiation Forecast Overview And Update: Cesium-137 Buildup, Xenon In The Air On West Coast

RadNet or SadNet? The EPA’s Failed Radiation Detection System

* NO-BID MAINTENANCE CONTRACT TO FORMER DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE UNDER-SECRETARY

* SYSTEM NOT READY ON 3/11

RadNet – the EPA’s front-line, radiological detection network is severely flawed and suffers from maintenance and reliability issues.

The lack of consistent data and the number of units offline (a techie term for broken) at the time they were most needed shows that the EPA was not prepared for this emergency.

Besides that fact the broken system left us all unprotected; the confusion, apprehension and fear witnessed as people try to wade through the incomplete and inaccurate data online is evidenced by an exchange on the UC Berkely website over this RadNet graph:


(Click on images to enlarge.)

The graph shows that this monitoring station was one of the units actually running on  3/11 . The readings were significantly higher prior to 3/11 and drop to a much lower level  afterwards. This is an indication that the units were running in an uncalibrated condition and were adjusted only after the events at Fukushima.

Who is responsible for assuring that the system is up and running?  The EPA contracted this responsibility to a private company, Environmental Dimensions, Inc.

Read moreScandal: The EPA’s Failed Radiation Detection System

New Madrid Seismic Zone FLOODED, Several Shots Over 50 Miles (05/17/2011)

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Added: 17.05.2011

See also:

–FEMA Opens Disaster Help Center In St. Louis Missouri (05/14/2011)

– Wisconsin: Thousands Of Emergency Responders ‘Train’ For A POWER GRID ATTACK, FLOOD And EARTHQUAKE

– Worldwide Global Earthquake And Volcano Update And Overview (05/09/2011) – Pressure Buildup On The North American Plate, Yellowstone & Pacific Northwest Earthquake Activity & Magma Movement

– US: Massive Floods Extend Across Midwest, South

– THEY DID IT! James Bond ‘A View To A Kill’ Scenario Comes True: US Government Floods The New Madrid Fault!

– James Bond ‘A View To A Kill’ Scenario: US Government Floods The New Madrid Fault (04/30/2011)

– FEMA Wants to Buy 140 Million Pre-Packaged Meals For A Catastrophic Disaster Event Within The New Madrid Fault System (Required Shelf Life Only 36 Months???)

– FEMA Wants to Buy 140 Million Blankets For A Catastrophic Disaster Event Within The New Madrid Fault System

– FEMA Training Police That It is Perfectly Normal To Place People In FEMA Camps

– Jesse Ventura Conspiracy Theory: Police State (And FEMA Concentration Camps)

Below is a link to a google map showing the location where fields are flooded…. TO THE EAST of the line… and to the WEST.

Read moreNew Madrid Seismic Zone FLOODED, Several Shots Over 50 Miles (05/17/2011)

Weather Modification: HAARP VLF Rings From Kansas City / Belton, MO / St. Louis to Washington DC (05/18/2011)

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Added: 18.05.2011

Severe Weather at the CENTER of these areas listed within 24-48 hours from now 1000pm CST 5/18/2011

Kansas City, (belton mo) and Saint Louis Missouri.

Springfield, Illinois

Jackson to Hardshell, Kentucky

Cleveland, Wilmington and New Vienna Ohio

Frederic, Michigan

Salisbury, Maryland north to Washington DC.

Lake Monticello to Fork Union Virginia

Prof. Hiroaki Koide of Kyoto University: Molten Core Of Reactor No. 1 NOW Outside Of Containment Vessel

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– Hiroaki Koide of Kyoto University: “Melted Core Outside the Containment Vessel”:

Hiroaki Koide of Kyoto University Research Reactor Institute is quoted by Mainichi Shinbun as saying that the melted core of the Reactor 1 is not just out of the Reactor Pressure Vessel but out of the Containment Vessel.

From Mainichi Shinbun, Koide’s comments only (5/16/2011):

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Hiroaki Koide of Kyoto University Research Reactor Institute points out that “[TEPCO] could have foreseen the core melt at an early stage when the cooling of the reactor stopped due to the power failure. TEPCO’s assessment that the damage to the fuel was limited has turned out to be completely wrong. The disclosure of the data came too late.”

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According to TEPCO, the data analysis shows that damage to the RPV is not extensive. However, Koide thinks “The RPV has been completely damaged, the melted core bore a hole at the bottom of the Containment Vessel, causing the large amount of contaminated water to leak into the ground beneath the reactor building.”

Fukushima: Technetium (Half Life Of 210,000 Years!) Detected, Plutonium MOX Fuel In No.3 Reactor May Have Burned Through The Pressure Vessel

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Related info:

– Nuclear Physicist: Most Of The Fallout From Dirty Plutonium MOX Fuel Will Drop On The US, Unless Very Strong Winds Take It Somewhere Else

– IAEA Scientists Interested In Fukushima Technetium-99 (Half Life Of 210,000 Years!) And Iodine-129 (Half Life Of 14 Million Years!) Releases

– Prof. Chris Busby On RT: ‘Situation At Fukushima Out Of Control’ – ‘There Have Been Nuclear Explosions’ – ‘Ongoing Nuclear Reaction Taking Place NOW’”

– Meltdowns also likely occurred at No. 2, No. 3 reactors of Fukushima plant (Asahi, May 18, 2011):

Data shows meltdowns occurred at the No. 2 and No. 3 reactors of the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant, creating huge problems for the plant operator that had presented a more optimistic scenario.

And like the No. 1 reactor, the melted fuel appears to have created holes in the pressure vessel of the No. 3 reactor, according to the data of Tokyo Electric Power Co. released May 16.

Read moreFukushima: Technetium (Half Life Of 210,000 Years!) Detected, Plutonium MOX Fuel In No.3 Reactor May Have Burned Through The Pressure Vessel

Nuclear Physicist: Most Of The Fallout From Dirty Plutonium MOX Fuel Will Drop On The US, Unless Very Strong Winds Take It Somewhere Else

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Don’t miss:

– Prof. Chris Busby On RT: ‘Situation At Fukushima Out Of Control’ – ‘There Have Been Nuclear Explosions’ – ‘Ongoing Nuclear Reaction Taking Place NOW’”

“Only the mass media can put the kind of pressure on TEPCO and the Japanese government to bring about major change. This will cost at least 10 billion dollars if not 20-30 billion to clean up. It will take at least 10 years if not 20 and roughly 10,000 people working on the cleanup. The nuclear business is global. This needs an international effort to clean up Fukushima.”
— Nuclear Engineer Akira Tokuhiro


In an email today, Japanese born, U.S.-educated nuclear engineering professor Tokuhiro wrote the following:

I want to bring up a sensitive point to many who are (may be) identified below.

There is a difference amongst the following: nuclear physicist, nuclear engineer, nuclear reactor operator, nuclear non-proliferation specialist.

During the current crisis, all these ‘experts’ have been in the media.

The ranking of ‘experts’ who REALLY know how the reactor accident took place is as follows.

1) Nuclear reactor operator (he/she is really the forensic surgeon, the auto mechanic who can build and drive the car)
2) Nuclear engineer (he/she is the forensic and internal/external medicine practitioner; the automobile design and analysis engineer)

As for the other two, they only understand the principles. It is as if they know the principles of driving a car but have never driven the car nor designed a car nor repaired a car.

Would you ask a podiatrist about a medical heart condition? Would you ask a medical ethicist? I think you get my point.

Read moreNuclear Physicist: Most Of The Fallout From Dirty Plutonium MOX Fuel Will Drop On The US, Unless Very Strong Winds Take It Somewhere Else

TSA Full Body Scanner Radiation Safety Tests Were Rigged

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(NaturalNews) It can now be revealed by NaturalNews that the TSA faked its safety data on its X-ray airport scanners in order to deceive the public about the safety of such devices.

As evidenced by recent events in Washington, we now live in an age where the federal government simply fakes whatever documents, news or evidence it wants people to believe, then releases that information as if it were fact. This is the modus operandi of the Department of Homeland Security, which must fabricate false terror alerts to keep itself in business — and now the TSA division has taken the fabrication of false evidence to a whole new level with its naked body scanners (see below).

Even physics professors question the TSA’s obvious cover-up

The evidence of the TSA’s fakery is now obvious thanks to the revelations of a letter signed by five professors from the University of California, San Francisco and Arizona State University. You can view the full text of the letter at: http://www.propublica.org/documents…

The letter reveals:

• To this day, there has been no credible scientific testing of the TSA’s naked body scanners. The claimed “safety” of the technology by the TSA is based on rigged tests.

• The testing that did take place was done on a custom combination of spare parts rigged by the manufacturer of the machines (Rapidscan) and didn’t even use the actual machines installed in airports. In other words, the testing was rigged.

• The names of the researchers who conducted the radiation tests at Rapidscan have been kept secret! This means the researchers are not available for scientific questioning of any kind, and there has been no opportunity to even ask whether they are qualified to conduct such tests. (Are they even scientists?)

Read moreTSA Full Body Scanner Radiation Safety Tests Were Rigged

TEPCO Lied And Will Continue To Lie To The Public And The Entire World About Fukushima Crisis

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Related info:

– TEPCO: Complete Meltdown In Reactor 1 Within Hours After March Earthquake

Flashback:

On the day the tsunami hit it has been known that there was a meltdown going on:

Listen to the interview with the former editor of the Japan Times Yochi Shimatsu on March 12:

– Japan: Full Core Meltdown Will Send Radiation Over United States

– Japan And US Try To Coverup Nuclear Catastrophe

– Tepco Misleading Public Over Nuclear Crisis (Bloomberg, May 18, 2011):

Tokyo Electric Power Co. has made misleading statements about when it will stabilize its nuclear reactors crippled by the March 11 earthquake and tsunami, said Tetsuo Ito, head of the Atomic Energy Research Institute at Kinki University in western Japan.

Read moreTEPCO Lied And Will Continue To Lie To The Public And The Entire World About Fukushima Crisis

Doomsday Fears Trigger ‘Survival Bunker’ Boom

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See also:

– Swiss Nuclear Bunker Houses World’s Toughest Server Farm

– The BBC Nuclear Bunker They Don’t Want You to Know About

– Apocalypse Bunker Mentality: The Ultimate Underground Shelter

– Former Governor Jesse Ventura – Secret Underground 2012 Base at Denver Airport

– Doomsday fears spur spate of bunker building (San Francisco Chronicle):

Terrorism can be good for bunker builders. An apocalypse can be even better for business.

Danila Andreyev started building “panic rooms” three years ago, when fears of terrorist attacks and commercial disputes turning violent created demand in Russia. Now he’s selling “survival bunkers” for as much as $400,000 each to capitalize on angst over theories the world will end next year.

“I myself am not a believer in doomsday scenarios,” Andreyev, 31, whose Spetsgeoproekt company is completing 15 bunkers at hidden locations across Russia, said at his office in central Moscow. “But when you start hearing clients talking about the end of the world, it gets you thinking.”

Read moreDoomsday Fears Trigger ‘Survival Bunker’ Boom

Fukushima Workers Enter No.2 Reactor Building, Had To Leave The Building In 14 Minutes (Video)

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Watch the video here.

– Workers enter No.2 reactor building (NHK, May 18, 2011):

Workers have entered the No.2 reactor building at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant for the first time since an explosion there on March 15th.

The Tokyo Electric Power Company, or TEPCO, sent 4 workers into the building on Wednesday morning to check radiation levels and other conditions.

The utility says data on radiation levels in the building are necessary to proceed with a revised plan the firm announced on Tuesday to circulate water leaked from containment vessels back into reactors as coolant.

TEPCO says the maximum radiation level in the building was 50 millisieverts per hour, and that the workers’ exposure was between 3 and 4 millisieverts, which the firm says is not high.
But it says the workers had to leave the building in 14 minutes because it filled with steam.

Read moreFukushima Workers Enter No.2 Reactor Building, Had To Leave The Building In 14 Minutes (Video)

Bill Gates Says Vaccine Investment Offers Best (Depopulation) Returns

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Related info:

Here is what Gates is really talking about:

– Bill Gates Admits Vaccines Are For Depopulation

See also:

– Top billionaire club in bid to curb overpopulation (Los Angeles Times):

America’s richest people meet to discuss ways of tackling a ‘disastrous’ environmental, social and industrial threat

SOME of America’s leading billionaires have met secretly to consider how their wealth could be used to slow the growth of the world’s population and speed up improvements in health and education.

The philanthropists who attended a summit convened on the initiative of Bill Gates, the Microsoft co-founder, discussed joining forces to overcome political and religious obstacles to change.

Described as the Good Club by one insider it included David Rockefeller Jr, the patriarch of America’s wealthiest dynasty, Warren Buffett and George Soros, the financiers, Michael Bloomberg, the mayor of New York, and the media moguls Ted Turner and Oprah Winfrey.

Related article: Ted Turner Repeats Call For Population Curb

These members, along with Gates, have given away more than £45 billion since 1996 to causes ranging from health programmes in developing countries to ghetto schools nearer to home.



– Gates says vaccine investment offers best returns (Reuters):

(Reuters) – Bill Gates called on Tuesday for strengthened immunization programs against infectious diseases to save 4 million lives by 2015 and 10 million lives by 2020, saying it was the best possible investment in global health.

The Microsoft founder and philanthropist said five or six new vaccines could be available by the end of the decade and urged pharmaceutical manufacturers to make them affordable for poor countries.

“If donors are generous, we will prevent 4 million deaths by 2015. By 2020, we can prevent 10 million deaths,” Gates, co-chair of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, said.

Read moreBill Gates Says Vaccine Investment Offers Best (Depopulation) Returns

JP Morgan’s Hunt For Afghan Gold … With Help From The Pentagon

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Wait, there is more:

– Afghanistan Discovers 1.8 Billion Barrel Oilfield (Reuters):

Afghanistan hopes that untapped mineral deposits valued at $3 trillion could help reduce the need to rely on Western cash for bankrolling its impoverished economy and for its soldiers to maintain security when foreign troops draw down numbers.

Flashback:

– Former UK ambassador: CIA sent people to Uzbekistan for extreme torture, to be ‘raped with broken bottles,’ ‘boiled alive’ and ‘having their children tortured in front of them’:

“The consultant who was organizing this for Unocal was a certain Mr. Karzai, who is now president of Afghanistan,” Murray noted.

Murray said part of the motive in hyping up the threat of Islamic terrorism in Uzbekistan through forced confessions was to ensure the country remained on-side in the war on terror, so that the pipeline could be built.

“There are designs of this pipeline, and if you look at the deployment of US forces in Afghanistan, as against other NATO country forces in Afghanistan, you’ll see that undoubtedly the US forces are positioned to guard the pipeline route. It’s what it’s about. It’s about money, it’s about oil, it’s not about democracy.”

The Trans-Afghanistan Pipeline is slated to be completed in 2014, with $7.6 billion in funding from the Asian Development Bank.

A team of bankers starts to tap the country’s vast mineral riches, with help from the Pentagon.


Villagers assembled for a ribbon-cutting ceremony at the gold mine in Qara Zaghan. The U.S. government estimates that minerals worth nearly $1 trillion lie beneath Afghanistan’s soil.

FORTUNE — Qara Zaghan, Afghanistan: The four Black Hawk helicopters sweep down on this remote river valley, flying fast and single file. Snow covers the mountains’ peaks, but the lower slopes look like rust — dry, rocky, and bare. As we bank around the river bend, we see our first flash of green in the fields below and then the rectangular mud huts of the village, where hundreds of Afghans mass to greet us.

“That’s the mine over there,” one of my companions says, pointing to the cliffs rising above the village.

That’s it? That’s the gold mine? It doesn’t look all that different from the forbidding country we’ve been traversing: just another pile of rocks and scree. The jet-lagged man in the seat across from me knows better. His sleepy eyes are suddenly alert. If anyone can wrest a fortune from Afghanistan’s rubble, it is this man, Ian Hannam.

Arriving in a developing nation with his iPad and his enigmatic smile, Hannam personifies the soft side of Western power. He doesn’t bend people to his will with weapons or threats. But there is no mistaking the dealmaker’s impact: In his wake, mountains are razed, villages electrified, schools built, and fortunes made.

To Hannam, chairman of J.P. Morgan Capital Markets, Afghanistan represents a gigantic, untapped opportunity — one of the last great natural-resource frontiers. Landlocked and pinioned by imperial invaders, Afghanistan has been cursed by its geography for thousands of years. Now, for the first time, Hannam believes, that geography could be an asset. The two most resource-starved nations on the planet, China and India, sit next door to Afghanistan, where, according to Pentagon estimates, minerals worth nearly $1 trillion lie buried. True, there is a war under way. And it’s unclear how the death of Osama bin Laden will impact the country’s political and economic environment. But Hannam is not your usual investment banker: A former soldier, he has done business in plenty of strife-torn countries. So have all the members of his team, two of them former special forces soldiers who have fought here.


Attending the ribbon cutting were (from left) mine owner Sadat Naderi; Mining Minister Wahidullah Shahrani; J.P. Morgan’s Ian Hannam; and (behind Hannam) investor Pairoj Piempongsant.

Read moreJP Morgan’s Hunt For Afghan Gold … With Help From The Pentagon

US Government Vaccine Compensation Payouts Prove Autism Link

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(NaturalNews) The federal government has been publicly denying any link between autism and vaccines for over two decades, while it has quietly been paying out damages for vaccine injury to children with autism, a study released May 10th shows. The study underscores the need for Congressional hearings and independent scientific research into the connection between autism and vaccines (http://www.news-medical.net/news/20…).

The federal government’s Vaccine Injury Compensation Program was created in 1989 to act as a “no fault” taxpayer-funded alternative for those seeking compensation for proven vaccine injury. The new peer-reviewed study, published May 10th in the Pace Environmental Law Review, looked at cases of vaccine injury that have been monetarily compensated by the VICP. The study looked at 1300 cases of children with brain injury resulting from vaccines where the court’s records referenced autism, symptoms of autism or disorders commonly associated with autism — twenty-one cases outright stated “autism or autism-like symptoms” in the court records. The researchers then identified and contacted 150 of the families that were compensated to find out whether the children had autism. 62 of the families they contacted (greater than 40 percent of their sample) reported children with autism, for a total of 83 cases of autism. (http://www.prnewswire.com/news-rele…).

“What we did is we looked at the people who the government said are clearly vaccine injuries and awarded them compensation,” said Lou Conte, the vaccine compensation recipient who helped coordinate the study.

“We asked the next question and that question was: Do some of these people also have autism?” said Conte. “We found that in 83 of the cases we were able to locate, the families report that their children have autism and symptoms of autism.” (http://www.myfoxdc.com/dpp/health/n…)

Read moreUS Government Vaccine Compensation Payouts Prove Autism Link

US $14.3 Trillion In Red, Hits Debt Limit, Treasury Must Stop Borrowing

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– $14.294 trillion in the red, so US Treasury must stop borrowing (Independent):

After months of hand-wringing, the US Government has reached its debt limit, forcing lawmakers to embark on a series of emergency measures to prevent public finances from going into immediate default.

A tranche of roughly $72bn in bonds and notes issued by the US Treasury yesterday left the national coffers exactly $14.294tr in the red, meaning that there is for the time being no capacity for additional public borrowing. The Treasury Secretary, Timothy Geithner, said he would pull an accounting trick, suspending investment in two large federal retirement funds and allowing the Government to meet its financial obligations until 2 August.

Read moreUS $14.3 Trillion In Red, Hits Debt Limit, Treasury Must Stop Borrowing

US Government Raids Civil Service Pension Fund As It Hits $14.3 Trillion Debt Limit

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The US has suspended payments into a civil service pension fund to free up almost $150bn (£92bn) as the major debtor nation approaches its legal borrowing limit.


Congress needs to raise the legal debt ceiling, which will require Republicans and Democrats reaching agreement over an issue that bitterly divides them Photo: Reuters

Timothy Geithner, the US Treasury Secretary, announced the move in a letter on Monday to Congressional leaders as he explained that the move extends the government’s breathing space to August 2 to avoid an unprecedented default on its borrowings.

The US Treasury expected to reach the $14.3 trillion limit on on Monday. Congress needs to raise the legal debt ceiling beyond its current limit, which will require Republicans and Democrats reaching agreement over an issue that bitterly divides them. President Barack Obama warned over the weekend that failure to raise the ceiling risks unravelling the world’s financial system.

Read moreUS Government Raids Civil Service Pension Fund As It Hits $14.3 Trillion Debt Limit

IAEA Scientists Interested In Fukushima Technetium-99 (Half Life Of 210,000 Years!) And Iodine-129 (Half Life Of 14 Million Years!) Releases

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From the article:

“Scientists from the International Atomic Energy Agency are also interested in learning more about releases of Technetium-99, which has a half life of 210,000 years, and Iodine-129, which has a half life of 14 million years. The Japanese have released no information about those isotopes.”

• Radioactive Isotopes Expected to Reach U.S. Coast In One To Two Years

• Woods Hole Institute To Send Research Vessel To Japan

– Scientists Will Track Fukushima Radiation To Study Ocean Currents (Forbes):

May 17 — Oceanographers know that the Kuroshio current sweeps west from Japan to the Central Pacific and then toward the U.S. West Coast, but they’re less certain how it behaves after it branches toward Alaska and California.

Radiation still leaking into the sea from the damaged Fukushima nuclear power plant will help them document the ocean’s circulatory system.

“By the time that current reaches the Central Pacific, there are branches heading more towards Alaska and the South—that gets harder to predict,” said Ken Buesseler, a senior scientist with the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute.

Read moreIAEA Scientists Interested In Fukushima Technetium-99 (Half Life Of 210,000 Years!) And Iodine-129 (Half Life Of 14 Million Years!) Releases

Japan Times – SENTAKU MAGAZINE: Obama Administration Urged Japan Japanese Government To Take Steps To Prevent A Further Decline In TEPCO Stock’

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– The new enervated Tepco (Japan Times – SENTAKU MAGAZINE):

If worse comes to worst, Tepco share certificates would become worthless sheets of paper for 600,000 shareholders as well as for many corporate pension funds that have included Tepco stock in their portfolios. The steep drop in Tepco’s stock price has already dealt a blow to investment funds in the United States. Nearly 20 percent of its stock is held by non-Japanese investors. This has reportedly led the Obama administration to urge the Kan government to take steps to prevent a further decline in Tepco stock.

High Levels Of Radioactive Cesium Detected In Tea Leaves Picked Outside Of Tokyo On May 15

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– Radioactive substance detected in green tea leaves in Ibaraki towns (Mainichi Daily News):

MITO — Higher levels of radioactive cesium than the national provisional limit were detected in green tea leaves harvested in Daigo and Sakai in northern Ibaraki Prefecture, the prefectural government announced May 16.

The government said radioactive cesium of 894 becquerels per kilogram was detected in green tea leaves picked May 15 in Sakai and that of 570 becquerels per kilogram in Daigo in green tea leaves picked May 14, compared with the official interim limit of 500 becquerels per kilogram.

The prefectural government ordered the two towns May 16 to halt shipments of green tea leaves.

Meanwhile, radioactive cesium of 3 becquerels was detected in the hot extracts of green tea in Sakai and 30 becquerels in Daigo against the provisional limit of 200 becquerels for drinking water under the Food Sanitation Law.

Green tea in Sakai and Daigo bears the brand names of Sashima tea and Okukuji tea, respectively.

Meanwhile, the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare, alarmed by the high levels of the radioactive substance in tea leaves, ordered Tokyo and 13 prefectures in northeastern and eastern Japan to check steam dried green tea known as “Aracha.”

TEPCO: Complete Meltdown In Reactor 1 Within Hours After March Earthquake

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– Fukushima No.1 rods “completely melted” (Xinhua)

BEIJING, May 17 (Xinhuanet) — The operator of the Fukushima Nuclear plant, TEPCO, says it’s trying to determine whether the facility was actually damaged by the earthquake on March 11th, rather than the resulting tsunami.

TEPCO also says fuel rods in the facility’s number one reactor have completely melted down.

A spokesman for TEPCO has outlined a new analysis of the crisis.

A review of data suggests the number 1 reactor’s fuel rods were fully exposed within five hours of the quake, causing them to heat rapidly.

By the next morning – just 16 hours later – the rods had largely melted down. If the new data analysis is correct, it means the facility was mainly damaged by the quake itself – NOT the resulting tsunami, as previously thought.

The No. 2 and No. 3 reactors are thought to have gone through a similar process, but with only 30 percent damage to their fuel rods.

Flashback:

On the day the tsunami hit it has been known that there was a meltdown going on:

Listen to the interview with the former editor of the Japan Times Yochi Shimatsu on March 12:

– Japan: Full Core Meltdown Will Send Radiation Over United States

– Japan And US Try To Coverup Nuclear Catastrophe

Was Fukushima a China Syndrome? (TIME)

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The China Syndrome refers to a scenario in which a molten nuclear reactor core could could fission its way through its containment vessel, melt through the basement of the power plant and down into the earth. While a molten reactor core wouldn’t burn “all the way through to China” it could enter the soil and water table and cause huge contamination in the crops and drinking water around the power plant. It’s a nightmare scenario,the stuff of movies. And it might just have happened at Fukushima.

Last week, plant operator Tepco sent engineers in to recalibrate water level gauges in reactor number 1. They made an alarming discovery: virtually all the fuel in the core had melted down. That means that the zirconium alloy tubes that hold the uranium fuel and the fuel itself lies in a clump—either at the bottom of the pressure vessel, or in the basement below or possibly even outside the containment building. Engineers don’t know for sure, though current temperature readings suggest that fission inside the reactor core has definitely ceased for good (i.e. there will be no further melting).

Read moreWas Fukushima a China Syndrome? (TIME)

BBC: Reactor No. 1 Meltdown Happened Within Hours After Earthquake, Tsunami

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A ‘cold shutdown’ within months???

– TEPCO’s ‘Cold Shutdown’ Lie And What They ‘Forgot’ To Tell You About Fukushima:

“Cold shutdown” means the reactor cores – and the used fuel pools – decrease in temperature through 100 degrees C and continue to go down after a couple of days without additional cooling.  If that doesn’t happen within 48 hours, it isn’t going to.  E-V-E-R. The reactors are still ‘in service’ – which means the fuel is still reacting.  It hasn’t happened at Fukushima and it never will.

Lies, lies, partial truth and more lies.

May 17 — Japan still believes it can end its nuclear crisis within months, while accepting damage from March’s quake and tsunami was worse than first thought.

The government and the operator of the Fukushima Daiichi power plant recently revealed the No 1 reactor suffered a near complete meltdown within hours of the disaster.

But they still believe a “cold shutdown” is possible by January.

The crisis forced 80,000 people who lived within 20km of the plant to flee.

This week evacuations began from towns further away from the stricken plant in northern Japan, with the government saying a build-up of radiation could pose a danger to health, says the BBC’s Roland Buerk in Tokyo.
Melted floor

In recent days the plant’s operator has revealed that the damage sustained by the reactors immediately after the magnitude-9.0 earthquake and tsunami was far more severe than initially thought.

Officials from the Tokyo Electric Power Company (Tepco) say fuel rods at the plant began to melt down as early as six hours after the 11 March tsunami knocked out vital cooling systems.

Within 16 hours most of the fuel in reactor 1 had melted to the floor of the pressurised chamber housing the reactor, creating a hole that allowed 3,000 tonnes of contaminated water to leak into the basement of the building.

Officials said the fuel in reactors number 2 and 3 was also exposed to the air and might have largely melted too.

Read moreBBC: Reactor No. 1 Meltdown Happened Within Hours After Earthquake, Tsunami