Tag Archives: u.s.

International, U.S.

Iraqi officials say again, U.S. get out

Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari, said the United State needs to get its troops out of Iraq by the agreed date of December 2011.

Zebari denied that the Iraqi government was working with the U.S. to keep troops past the 2011 deadline.  Recently Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al Maiki said that the only way U.S. troops could stay is if the U.S. and Iraq agreed to a new withdrawal date.

Also recently, Russian and Iraqi officials announce deals that include military equipment.  Iraq might be trading one military super power for another, getting a better deal from the Russians.

Fukushima, U.S.

U.S. nuclear plant under NRC scrutiny

The Brown’s Ferry nuke plant in Alabama, is under investigation by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.  Investigators say a cooling system failure is of “high safety significance”.

Last October the plant had a cooling valve problem, in reactor 1, that cause it to shut down.  Operators say the valve is fixed.  But there are concerns especially since the Brown’s Ferry plant is similar to the GE designed Fukushima Daiichi plant in Japan.

Also, Brown’s Ferry Reactor 1 had been shut down for 22 years before being put back into operation in 2007.

 

 

 

Fukushima

TEPCo finds out hard way that it’ll take much longer to get control of Fukushima Daiichi

On 17 April, Tokyo Electric Power Company issued a plan to control the damaged Fukushima Daiichi plant.  That plan involved 51 steps, so far as of 10 May, only one is being done; the continued pumping of water to try and cool the reactors and fuel pools.

TEPCo admitted they did not expect such high levels of radiation inside the reactor buildings, and that has been the big hold up.  They can’t do much with such high levels of radiation.

Workers have finally entered the building of Reactor 1, but that is only to help with the water injection and cooling operation.  In other words, still stuck on step one of their 51 step plan.

Fukushima

Government instructs schools to simply bury their radioactive top soil! government experts have their head up their a…

Schools near the damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuke plant have found radiation contamination in the top soil of their playgrounds.

Normally you remove the top soil and have it hauled away in sealed containers, as nuke waste.  But that’s not what the Japanese government is suggesting.

School officials are being told by the government to simply bury the radioactive soil deeper in the ground.  They say by burying it 50 cm (19.6 inches) into the ground, it will reduce the detectable radiation by 90%.  The suggestion is being made by the Japanese Education and Science Ministry (can you believe that!).

Hello, what happens when a child digs it up?  Or a dog?  This sounds like an expedient way to simply reduce detectable radiation levels, it’s still there waiting for someone to accidentally dig it up!

What about water soaking down through the soil, eventually hitting the ground water?  It’s going to pass through the buried radiation contamination, dragging some of it along with it to the ground water.

 

Fukushima

More than half Japan’s nuclear plants down!

How could a few shut down nuclear plants have such drastic affects on Japan’s industries?  When it’s more than a few, try 60%.

Electrical power shortages will continue thru summer.  Japan has 54 commercial nuke plants, right now 32 are shut down.  Some, like Fukushima Daiichi, were shut down by the 11 March disasters.  Others are down for scheduled maintenance, or government orders.

On top of that, six more plants are scheduled to shut down for maintenance this summer.

 

Fukushima

Radiation contamination in fuel pool coming from reactor core!

Tokyo Electric Power Company admits high levels of radiation contamination in Reactor 3 spent fuel pool, are coming from the reactor’s core!

TEPCo recently tested the water of the spent fuel pool, and found radiation that was not present prior to the 11 March disasters, which damaged the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant.

The readings are 140,000 becquerels of radioactive cesium-134, 150,000 becquerels of cesium-137 and 11,000 becquerels of iodine-131 per cubic centimeter.  The clue that the radiation is coming from the reactor core is the iodine.  Iodine is a short life radioactive isotope, and is created during nuclear fission.  (don’t confuse iodine with iodide)

Fukushima

Radioactive fallout map of Japan released

The U.S. Department of Energy, and the Japanese Science Ministry, have put together a map of the fallout pattern of cesium.  The damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant has been spewing cesium.

The map shows the cesium fallout extends north west of the plant, in a large area. It is depicted with the colors yellow and red. NHK has a report.

Official say radiation levels from the Fukushima Daiichi plant have dropped enough that it is time to conduct more testing of soil for levels, and types, of radiation contamination.

 

International, U.S.

Argentina says slave trade being run by U.S.

Argentina is demanding help from the United Nations, in helping to fight slave trades, run mainly by organizations from the United States.

Argentina claims that U.S. organized crime is using Argentina as a recruiting grounds, and transit point, for human trafficking.  Poor people are promised well paying jobs in the U.S., but end up working for little pay, if any, and long hours.

The workers, men, women and children, not only work in industries like textiles, but, according to the U.S. Bureau of Statistics 80% end up as sex workers in the United States.

Other countries that are destination points for human trafficking are Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Belgium, Israel, Japan and Thailand.

International, Opinion

Tens of thousands of Mexicans continue to protest Drugs War

It’s interesting how the main stream U.S. media reported the number of Drugs War protesters, over the weekend, as in the “hundreds”.  It was tens of thousands!

Reports out of Mexico vary from 20,000 to 85,000.  The latest protests took place from May 5-8, in several Mexican cities.  The people were not only protesting drug gangs, but the police and military as well.

Most of the victims in the Drugs War have been innocent civilians, especially migrant workers from Central American countries.  Which, when you think about it, doesn’t make sense.  Why would drug dealers, police or military want to kill civilians and migrant workers?  So far many local police have been arrested in connection with the mass killings of migrant workers.  It makes you wounder if this is really a Drugs War.

Now the main stream U.S. media is running reports that Mexicans support their President’s Drugs War policy.  In actuality the percent of supporters is slightly down from 2010.  Makes you wonder why the U.S. media seems to be downplaying a war in Mexico that has killed more people than the wars in Afghanistan & Iraq combined, in the past few years.

 

Business/Economics, International, U.S.

Iran joins China in blaming U.S. Federal Reserve quantitative easing policy for bad economy

Iran is joining China in blaming the U.S. bank, Federal Reserve, for destroying the world economy.

Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, says the “paper money” policy of the Federal Reserve is playing a part in the increase of poverty around the world, by forcing most international trades to use U.S. dollars.  He says the Federal Reserve injected into the world economies $32 trillion in “worthless” paper money.

President Ahmadinejad believes the Federal Reserve policy is part of a plan that forces poorer countries to pay the debts of the West.