“The Russians have taken the existence of tectonic plates into consideration in designing the Bushehr nuclear plant.”-Nasser Rastkhah, Atomic Energy Organization of Iran
Recently Russia helped Iran with loading of nuclear fuel rods into their plant. The Bushehr nuke plant is scheduled to power up by May. ‘Sensitive phases of operation’ would be conducted between May 5 through May 10.
Some Chinese farmers have decided to stop fighting Mother Earth’s climate change, and have rented out their farm land to movie studios.
In one area, the farmers gave up farming and now use their land as huge film studios. The former farmers also double as movie extras. They have made enough money to replace their old farm homes with big modern homes.
It’s not only crops that are suffering in China, because of drought. Bee keepers say they’re losing their bees as well.
Honey production is down due to a decrease in flower pollen production, thanks to climate change. Bee keepers say it will also mean a decrease in bees, because pollen is their food.
China has the largest rapeseed field in the world. Rapeseed is used to make canola oil. Farmers there say drought keeps seed production too low for use in canola oil production. It also keeps rapeseed flower growth too low for the bees.
More than 14,000 people are still missing, even after a massive three day search by military and police forces. Local governments are begging for another large scale search.
The search will be conducted on April 10. It will involve 22,000 personnel, 50 vessels and 90 aircraft. It will not cover the radiation danger zones.
In Aneyoshi there is a one hundred year old stone tablet that gives a dire warning: “High dwellings are the peace and harmony of our descendants. Remember the calamity of the great tsunamis. Do not build any homes below this point.”
The families living in Aneyoshi are glad they headed their ancestors advice. But thousands of others suffered the wrath of the tsunami. There are hundreds of these stone tablets all along the coastal areas of Japan. Some are 600 years old.
Many tablets are not as specific as the one at Aneyoshi. Some simply say beware of tsunami, or were blank. Some of those stone tablets have been washed away by the March 11 tsunami, which is an indicator of that it was probably the mother of all tsunamis to hit Japan for the past thousand years.
Thanks to a WikiLeaks release, tensions between the United States and Ecuador are heating up.
The WikiLeaks document showed that the U.S. ambassador to Ecuador, Heather M. Hodges, made some not so nice comments about their President. Apparently President Rafael Correa gave her a chance to retract, or explain, her statements, and she allegedly refused. She was then declared persona non grata (unwelcome) in Ecuador, but not officially kicked out.
Now the United States has actually kicked out the ambassador from Ecuador. The U.S. State Department says it’s in retaliation for Ecuador ordering Hodges out of the country, which President Correa disputes. Correa says they simply said she was no longer welcome, but they were not “kicking her out”.
This continues a long list of problems between Ecuador and the U.S. In the past few years the United States was pushing Ecuador to allow U.S. military bases to be set up on their soil. The official reason was to fight drugs in Columbia, but many people believe it was to encircle Hugo Chavez in Venezuela. President Correa responded, in 2009, by saying that the only way the U.S. could build bases in Ecuador, was if Ecuador was allowed to build bases in the United States.
Now we have the WikiLeaks/ambassador fiasco. What’s next, oil? Maybe!
Ecuador has oil! They have been fighting international legal battles to prevent oil companies from coming in and drilling. That’s right, they do NOT want anymore oil pumped out of their ground. Ecuador does have active oil fields, but they don’t want anymore. The oil corporations, backed by governments (Chevron/United States), are saying to bad so sad, you just a piddly country, what you gonna do about it?
So far Ecuador has been petitioning United Nations members, but not getting much support. There’s estimated to be hundreds of millions of barrels of oil still to be drilled and pumped out in Ecuador. And with the price of oil making it more tempting, could President Obama (or any other future U.S. president) be planning some kinda humanitarian military intervention in Ecuador?
“I want them to answer for my son, please, we’re a humble family, I need my son alive, I want justice, how can they just murder my innocent son?”-victim’s father
Bolivian anti-drug police shot and killed a 13 year old boy, and wounded five others, including the boy’s brother.
The father of the killed boy said he sons were going on a fishing trip with relatives.
Witnesses say the police drove along side the victim’s vehicle and started shooting with M16s. No warning was given, and no attempt to pull them over was made. At least 27 rounds were fired into the vehicle.
Angry residents protested by blocking off the highway where the shooting took place.
Police say they thought the family were drug dealers. The Official Bolivian government statement is that the police claimed the family shot at them first. Typical.
So far nearly 43 thousand hectares (106,255 acres) of Coahuila, Mexico has burned. The fire still rages.
“This is an unprecedented display. Surely we have not had so much equipment and so many people working in a fire.”-Juan Manuel Torres Rojo, CEO of the National Forestry Commission (Conafor)
Rojo says wildlife is being killed by the fire. They found a black bear that died from smoke inhalation. So far mostly wild grasses and similar plants have burned, but now the fire is getting close to Arizona Pine forest.
U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates was in Iraq today. He gave a speech to U.S. troops, but it wasn’t about leaving Iraq, it was about staying.
U.S. forces are scheduled to be out of Iraq by the end of 2011, under a 2008 deal negotiated by George Bush Jr.
But Gates told troops that the Iraqi government now wants the U.S. to stay longer, and Gates said: “We’re open to that.”
About 10,000 Iraqis protested Gate’s visit, demanding that U.S. “get out”.
Iraq invaded the base of the Pro-United States People’s Mujahideen Organization of Iran. The base is located inside Iraq, and has been there for 25 years (even during Saddam Hussein’s time, more proof how much the U.S. was involved with Saddam).
The U.S. has been supporting, covertly, the People’s Mujahideen Organization of Iran for decades, in their attacks against the Islamic Republic of Iran. Even though the U.S. supports the Iranian rebels, the U.S. also lists them as terrorists.
Iraqi forces claim they attacked the Iranian rebels because they rioted, and started throwing rocks at them. There’s no explanation of why they rioted.
The Iranian rebels say the Iraqi government was acting on the behalf of the Iranian government.
Iraqi forces say they killed at least 25 Iranian rebels, and wounded 320.