Tag Archives: banks

Fukushima

60 tons of water sprayed, more Fire Fighters on their way

Officials say the water trucks sprayed about 60 tons of water, so far, on reactor 3 at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant.

That isn’t going to be enough:  Each spent fuel pool can hold up to 2000 tons of water, so you can see it’s going to take a lot of water (there are 6 reactors and several spent fuel pools).

Another problem is that even if they get outside power hooked to the plant, most of the power panels, and cooling pumps, have been destroyed by the tsunami.  So they are now working to fix that problem as well.

Business/Economics, Fukushima

Japanese Banks limiting access to cash

NHK has been reporting that banks around Japan are limiting ATM withdrawals.

Many Japanese are angry because they are having a hard time getting access to their money, in order to buy necessities.

Banks say their clients can still walk in, during limited hours, to make larger withdrawals.  The banks are blaming the disaster situation, including power outages, for the reason for limiting access to ATMs.

Just one more reason to keep your money under the mattress.

Fukushima

Hospitals within evacuation zone still waiting for help, More proof you can’t rely on the government

A hospital in Minami-Soma, Fukushima Prefecture, inside the zone where people have been instructed to stay indoors, more than half the hospital’s staff have evacuated.  But, about 170 inpatients are still at the hospital.

“We’re reaching the limits of our ability to provide treatment,” hospital director Yukio Kanazawa said. Only a small number of hospital staff stayed behind to care for the patients.

Ohmachi Hospital staff is now less than 40%.  The hospital is rationing meals for patients, two meals a day.

Doctors who normally work at Tono Hospital, cannot get there because of a fuel shortage.

Ninohe Hospital has run out of supplies, including heating fuel.  “It’s as if some enemy is starving us out,” a hospital official said.

Kunihiro Mashiko, chief of the emergency treatment center of Nippon Medical School Chiba Hokusoh Hospital says “Lives that were saved once may be lost because of the shortage of both doctors and medicine.”

At Ishinomaki Hospital, tap water, electricity and gas have been cut off.  Requests for help with about 120 inpatients were declined.

 

 

International

Concerns over volcano may unite North & South Korea

The 9.0 quake/tsunami has officials in North and South Korea concerned over possible eruption of the Baekdu volcano in North Korea.

The last time it erupted was in 1903.

The increase seismic activity in the area, including volcanic activity in Japan and Eastern Russia, has Korean officials worried so much that it has become part of their unification discussions.  However, both sides are downplaying it.

Korea is directly due west of the Japanese state of Honshu.

Fukushima

Russians trapped in Sendai, asking for air rescue

150 Russians, including rescue workers sent to help Japan, and Russian news reporters, are trapped in Sendai, dozens of kilometers from the Fukushima Daiichi plant.

They ran out of fuel for their vehicles, and where apparently left behind by rescue workers from other countries.  It sounds as if there was a panic to escape the area after the Japanese government order evacuations.

Idaho, U.S.

Open Carry Gun Law Idaho

Every now and then, a new law enforcement officer in Idaho mistakenly arrests someone for OPEN possession of a gun.  As well, sometimes a citizen freaks out and calls in the police after seeing someone in OPEN possession of a gun.

In Idaho OPEN CARRY of guns is legal.  Open carry, as opposed to concealed carry, means you can carry a gun in public as long as it is visible.

Idaho Constitution, Article I Section 11: “….No law shall impose licensure, registration or special taxation on the ownership or possession of firearms or ammunition….”

Of course they are limits to Idaho’s open carry law, like being a convicted felon, being intoxicated and being under the age of 18.

As far as Idaho’s concealed carry licensing, it seems it applies only to handguns. 

International

Iran may act to stop Sunni Arab invasion of Shia Bahrain

“The Saudi’s should know for a fact that Tehran will use all the power and potentials at its disposal to halt the oppression of the people of Bahrain.”said Iranian lawmaker Hossein Naqavi.

Majority Sunni Arab countries invaded majority Shia Arab Bahrain, in order to protect the Sunni rulers there from the Shia revolution.  Iran and Bahrain are majority Shia Muslim countries.

Iran has asked the UN to take action.  The United Nations, pushed by France, U.K. & U.S.,  has authorized military force against Libya, supposedly to protect the revolutionaries there.

A Bahraini women, who is Sunni, is supporting the Shia rebels; “The government is making this a sectarian issue. I see the way my [Shia] friends are treated and I came here to show solidarity.”

The headquarters of the U.S. 5th Fleet is in Bahrain.

Fukushima

Workers fighting nuclear disaster in Japan expected to die, being called ‘Kesshitai’

A Japanese newspaper (Sankei Shimbun) has named the workers fighting the nuclear disaster ‘Kesshitai’. It means ‘unit that expects to die’.

A daughter of one of the workers says her father told the family that he will die.  The wife of another worker received a message that said: “Please continue to live well, I cannot be home for a while.”

So far, at least 20 people are confirmed to have radiation contamination.