Nissan/Renault announced they plan to expand their global market share by 8% (an increase of about 10 million cars by 2017). How are they going to do that? Definitely not by selling more cars in the United States.
Nissan/Renault says it will expand sales in China, India and Brazil. They will boost production in China and India, and build a new factory in Brazil, that will produce 200,000 cars per year.
They will also buy more than 50% stake in Russian car maker Avtovaz.
According to a Fortune article, some counties across the United States are trying to save their budgets by jacking up property taxes. As a resident of Bannock County, Idaho, I can vouch for that! Recently Bannock County announced they were jacking up farmland property taxes by at least 90%!!!
The National Association of Counties found that 15% of U.S. counties admitted to arbitrarily raising property taxes, for this year alone.
Real estate analysts say it’s the wrong thing to do, not just ethically, but economically: “Given the situation we’ve been in for the past few years, increasing property taxes is not likely to aid in the short-term recovery of the housing market.” McKay Price, real estate finance analyst Lehigh University
The fear by analysts is that by increasing property taxes homes sales will drop even more. The National Association of Counties says the trend of counties raising property taxes, as property values fall, is increasing.
The Lancet Journal reporting that despite efforts to stop diabetes, world rates have only gone up. There are now 347 million people considered diabetic.
The United States and Russia clam 36 million of those diabetics, but China and India beat the U.S. and Russia by 100 million. China and India have 138 million diabetics.
UN World Health Organization officials were not expecting such a high number of diabetics. They had estimated about 285 million, not 347 million that the study came up with.
Type 2 diabetes is the fastest growing form, and is always blamed on being fat and lazy. But there’s a problem with that reasoning: 138 million diabetics in China and India, where not that many people are fat or lazy!
Anyone who understands the diet of most people in China and India, and knows how hard they work, should question the standard reasons for getting type 2 diabetes. There must be something else going on to cause this explosion of diabetes.
This has really gone too far! CNN reports Transportation Security Administration agents forced a cancer stricken 95 year old woman to remove her adult diaper.
“My mother is very ill, she has a form of leukemia. She had a blood transfusion the week before, just to bolster up her strength for this travel.”-Jean Weber, daughter of victim of TSA
Agents said they thought they felt something in the diaper when they did a patdown. No sh*t Sherlock! Turns out the diaper was doing its job! Jean Weber cried because her ill mother ended up without underwear for the flight.
How can any self respecting person willingly do what TSA agents have to do? Not only does it violate the rights, and dignity of travelers, but it has to be humiliating for the TSA agents! If I were working for the TSA I would’ve quit a long time ago. So not only is the United States a police state, but it’s a sicko police state!
Last week the Pentagon presented Congress with a plan to provide African countries with up to $145 million in military aid. The aid, in money and equipment, is for so called counter terrorism operations.
The $145 million, to be split between several African countries, doesn’t compare to what just one country got last year. Yemen, on the Arabian Peninsula, got $155 million in aid last year, paid for by taxpayers. And this year the Pentagon wants give Yemen $200 million!
Out of the $145 million in military aid going to African countries, only $600,000 is for ‘human rights training’.
26 June 2011, an accident at the Fort Calhoun nuclear power plant resulting in the expanding Missouri River flooding into the compound. The water hit the nuke plant’s electrical transformers, cutting off power.
Electricity is still needed to keep the spent fuel pools cool. Plant officials say they are now running on back up generators.
Forth Calhoun officials ordered the installation of a water filled artificial levee (berm). The Nuclear Regulatory Commission did not approve the artificial levee. At about 1:25 am, 26 June, workers broke the water filled berm, allowing the Missouri River to flood in.
This natural disaster is the latest bad news for the Fort Calhoun nuke plant. In April plans to refuel its reactors were halted, over concerns of flooding by the Missouri River. Then, on 07 June, a fire broke out in one of the reactor control rooms. An inspection two years ago revealed that plant operators were not properly prepared for a flood.
After several months of spewing radiation all over northern Japan, Tokyo Electric Power Company is finally going to use boric acid on one of the Fukushima Daiichi reactors.
Actually TEPCo is pouring a borci acid/water mix into the spent fuel pool above Reactor 3. By Monday evening, 27 June 2011, they will have used 90 tons of the mixture.
What is happening in the fuel pool is that radioactive concrete debris, from the hydrogen explosions, were stored in the fuel pool. TEPCo has discovered that calcium hydrate from the concrete debris has made the water highly corrosive, increasing the chances of structural failure of the fuel pool. They fear the racks holding the spent fuel rods will collapse, causing the rods to crash into each other, thus causing “re-criticality”.
So what if Obama is actually going to withdraw troops from Afghanistan, they’re just going to be used somewhere else.
In response to continued attacks against Syrian police and army troops (three mass graves filled with hundreds of Syrian cops and soldiers have been found), and the fact that Turkey is allowing the build up of NATO forces on a Turkish air base, the Syrian government is massing troops along the Turkish border.
There are reports that Syrian forces attacked impromptu refugee camps along the border. The United States is warning Syria that their actions could escalate the situation (as if that isn’t what the U.S. wants).
“Unless the Syrian forces immediately end their attacks and their provocations that are not only now affecting their own citizens but (raising) the potential of border clashes, then we’re going to see an escalation of conflict in the area.”-Hillary Clinton, U.S. Secretary of State
The Syrian refugees fled into Turkey. Last week Turkey said it could handle the refugee situation, up to a point. A Turkish official said they could handle about 10,000 refugees, if the refugee situation escalated beyond that Turkey would have to take action (the official didn’t specify what “action” would be taken).
According to a BBC report, Turkey (a member of the U.S. led NATO) is now massing troops on the border.
A group of doctors tested people living in the Fukushima Prefecture of Japan. That’s where the damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant is. They discovered people living outside the evacuation zones are internally contaminated with radiation.
The doctors tested people in two cities; Iitate Village and Kawamata Town. They are about 40 kilometers (24 miles) from the nuclear plant. They tested their urine, to check for internal radiation contamination. They found the people have three times what is considered normal exposure for one year.
The doctors are telling the people of Fukushima Prefecture to stop eating the locally grown vegetables.
Yesterday I speculated that Tokyo Electric Power Company probably installed their water radiation filters backwards. Today NHK reporting that incorrect settings of the system are the cause of TEPCo’s problems.
At least twice TEPCo had to stop their decontamination of water, at Fukushima Daiichi, because they were getting the reverse effect; an increase in radiation levels in the water. Another time they stopped because they broke a water pump.
It turns out all those problems were caused by the incorrect setting of valves. The result was that less than half of the filter chambers were being used. TEPCo blames their throwaway workers for misunderstanding the “open” and “shut” indicators on the U.S. designed system!