Tag Archives: war

International, Technology, U.S.

World War 3: Israel develops ballistic missile, the target; Iran

November 3, Israel’s Defense Ministry said they had test fired a ballistic missile.  Observers say the latest test-firing is a warning against Iran’s nuclear program.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned of a “direct and heavy threat” posed by Iran’s nuclear program.

The testing of the ballistic missile was not announced in advance.  Some Israeli media sources say this is part of the Israeli government’s plan to attack Iran.  However officials in Netanyahu’s administration say regarding the missile test and Iran “The two things are separate”.

 

Fukushima

Corporate Incompetence: TEPCo retracts Fukushima melt down claim!

On 02 November 2011, Tokyo Electric Power Company said Reactor 2 at Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant was in melt down, again. Now they changed their mind!

TEPCo now says the level of xenon radiation they detected is too low to be from spontaneous fission.  Can these guys get anything right?

 

Fukushima

Government & Corporate Incompetence: Fukushima Reactor 2 going Critical, TEPCo pouring Boric Acid into reactor!

02 November 2011, Tokyo Electric Power Company announced that melt down has re-started in Fukushima Daiichi Reactor 2.

TEPCo detected radioactive xenon-133 and xenon-135, in the reactor’s containment vessel on 02 November.  They are produced during nuclear fission.  TEPCo poured a boric acid solution into Reactor 2 to suppress the nuclear fission (melt down).

Analysts are speculating that the other reactors at Fukushima Daiichi could also go critical.  Professor Okamoto Koji, of the University of Tokyo Graduate School, says the presence of xenon in the reactors leaves open the possibility that localized and temporary fission could still occur.

TEPCo claims that using the boric acid has cooled down the reactor.

 

 

 

 

International

World War 3: Israel to speed up construction of illegal settlements

November 1, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ordered speeding up construction of 2,000 illegal housing units in East Jerusalem (al Quds), Ma’aleh Adumim, and Gush Etaion.

This is a response to the United Nations making Palestine the 195th member of the UN.  Other retaliations planned by the Israelis include; curbing VIP status of senior Palestinian officials to cross Israeli checkpoints, greenlighting more settlement construction, and halting the transfer of tax money that Israel steals, I mean collects for the Palestinians.

If you think Israel will turn to violence then you’re too late.  For months now Israel has launched ground raids, and air strikes into Gaza and the West Bank, yet where’s the western media’s coverage of it?

International, U.S.

World War 3: Japan to send troops to South Sudan

Japanese Defense Minister Yasuo Ichikawa announced that he will send about 200 troops to the new country of South Sudan in 2012. They will take part in UN peacekeeping operations.

Interestingly Ichikawa said the international community has been asking Japan to take on more UN peacekeeping roles, however I’ve not noticed any mention of that in all the international media sources I keep track of.  It’s probably more that the United States, in spreading its own military so thin, is putting pressure on Japan to take on more international military roles (also, payback for all the free U.S. aid in dealing with Japan’s on going nuclear disaster).

Japan’s current constitution does not allow their troops to carry weapons in other countries, but the new right wing government is trying to change that.

Most of the 200 Japanese troops slated to go to South Sudan are engineers.

U.S.

Ron Paul salutes Wikileaks & whistleblowers, wins Iowa Straw Poll twice but loses Republican endorsment

On October 29, presidential candidate Ron Paul won the National Federation of Republican Assemblies’ (NFRA) Iowa Straw Poll, twice!  Yet they endorsed Rick Santorum!

What’s the point of holding an election if the winner (twice) is the loser?  I wonder how many Iowa republicans are thinking of jumping ship?

Was Paul ignored by the NFRA because of his praise of government whistleblowers?  He said whistleblowers are necessary so that we can get to the bottom of why things don’t go the way we were told they would, but more so because it could prevent war: “But the area that neither the Democrat nor the Republican leadership seems to welcome any whistle blowing is when there is an exposure on our foreign policy, the fallacies of why we go to war and what we do.”

International, U.S.

World War 3: UN recognizes Palestine. U.S. & Israel retaliate by cutting funding for UN

The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) granted Palestine full UN membership on October 31!

The United States quickly retaliated against the UN by refusing to pay the U.S. share of funding for UNESCO.  Israel also ended its funding of UNESCO.

Palestine is now the 195th member of the U.S. created organization known as the United Nations.  Ironically, the UN has become something the U.S. doesn’t want to belong to, anymore (I guess the U.S. doesn’t want to play by the very rules it helped to create!).

The total amount of funding that UNESCO will lose, from the U.S. and Israel, is about one quarter its yearly budget.

The move by the U.S. is not a knee jerk reaction.  The pro-Israeli U.S. Congress created laws back in 1990s that stated if Palestine ever became a member of the UN, then the U.S. would end its funding.  Today, both Republicans and Democrats, in the U.S. Congress, denounced the UNESCO decision.

Who abstained from the UNESCO vote?  United Kingdom (Britain), Poland, Portugal, Denmark, Italy, Japan, South Korea, Ukraine, Switzerland, Romania and Latvia.

Who voted against recognizing Palestine?  United States, Germany, Australia, Canada, Sweden, Netherlands and Israel.

 

 

International, U.S.

World War 3: U.S. Navy to establish new base in South Korea, China the target

“There is a growing resentment in the two Koreas, and also in Okinawa and Guam. Everywhere people are saying, ‘We have had enough of the US military occupation, it is time to close down the bases and time to find different ways for achieving security.'”-Christine Ahn, Korea Policy Institute

To remember the 2010 sinking of a South Korean ship, South Korea commemorated a new naval base.  It will be the United States who uses that new base.

Local Koreans are opposed to the base.  The base will be completed by 2015.  Analyst say it will increase tensions between the U.S. and China: “If this base is tied to the U.S. missile defense system, it might be part of the U.S. strategy to contain China. Beijing is concerned with the U.S. military getting closer to its territories.  This deal is going to foment a regional arms race, which pits Korea in between the U.S. and China.”- Christine Ahn, Korea Policy Institute

Who said Obama was a man of peace?

 

 

 

International, U.S.

World War 3: Obama increases U.S. troops in Africa, kill so called ‘Christian’ militia leader, it’s really about the oil

U.S. President Barack Obama is sending 100 troops to central Africa, officially to fight terrorism.

According to the Associated Press the U.S. troops will be stationed in the Central African Republic, Congo and the newly independent South Sudan.

Former U.S. President George Bush Jr established the U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM).  The creation of AFRICOM was greatly influenced by a January 2002 report from the African Oil Policy Initiative Group (whose purpose is to find new oil sources for the U.S. in Africa).  Now Obama, the man who said he’d reverse Bush’s policies, is expanding its operations.

Officially Obama says the troop increase is to take out the Lord’s Resistance Army, a “christian” militia group that’s been accused of just about every human rights violation you can think of.  The goal is to remove the group’s leader, Joseph Kony, “from the battlefield.”

I find it interesting that the civil wars in central Africa have been going on for decades, and now the United States wants to do something about it?

 

 

Fukushima

Government & Corporate Incompetence: More radiation in Yokohama, this time school lunches!

Shiitake mushrooms used in school lunches have tested positive for 350 becquerels per kilogram of radioactive cesium.  That’s below the government limit of 500 becquerels, but Yokohama school officials are getting rid of them anyway.

Yokohama is about 250 kilometers (155 miles) from the damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant.

At a Ibaraki Prefecture mushroom farm, 830 becquerels per kilogram of radioactive cesium were found on the mushrooms there.  The farm is about 170 km (106 miles) from the damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant.

Earlier in the week mushrooms in Chiba Prefecture were found to be contaminated with cesium, higher then the government safe limits.  Clearly, after almost seven months, radiation is still spreading from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant.