Tag Archives: war

International, U.S.

NATO member Turkey preps for invasion of Syria, massing more troops, recalling retired officers

Turkey, a member of the U.S. led NATO, has ordered more troops to the border with Syria, and is recalling retired officers to active duty.

Turkish leaders say the troop build up is officially for an anticipated wave of refugees coming out of Syria. Why are they anticipating a huge wave of refugees?  Is it because when NATO attacked Libya, European countries, like Italy and France, were swamped with refugees?

It’s interesting that the troop build up is being done at bases of “strategic importance”.  Turkish official do admit that any NATO action against Syria would put Turkey in a bad position with the Muslim world.

International

Israel threatens War with Syria, if the UN recognizes a Palestinian state

The Israeli Defense Forces believe they will have to go to war with Syria, if the United Nations recognizes the Palestinian state in September.

The IDF believes that Syria will send thousands of Palestinian supporters to the Israel/Syria border.  The IDF says they will respond by shooting anyone who tries to come in from Syria, and they believe Syria will use that as an excuse to invade.

Instead of not shooting at any future demonstrators on the Israeli/Syria border, in order to avoid a war, Israeli military officials are using this “scenario” to justify drawing up plans to invade Syria!

The IDF also said that they are increasing training in civil disturbances, especially toughening mental attitudes “…because the cadets learn primarily how to fight an armed enemy, and dealing with civilians requires different measures.”

Also, Israeli officials will increase military presence on Israel’s borders, and in the West Bank and Gaza, if the UN officially recognizes a Palestinian state in September.

 

Fukushima

Government Incompetence: Agency deliberately erased human radiation contaminaton data!

The Japanese Nuclear Safety Commission deliberately erased all the data collected regarding the radiation contamination of children in Fukushima Prefecture!

Officials claim that since the date was public it threatened the privacy of the families!

Since the nuclear disaster following the 11 March 2011 quake and tsunami, more than 1,000 children, aged 15 or younger, were being monitored for the effects of radiation on their thyroid.

The problem is that no one else was keeping such data, and now it’s gone!  The decision to delete the data is only justifying the growing lack of trust the Japanese have in their government.

Fukushima

Government Incompentence: Japanese official does 1-80, stops promoting Japanese food, now says no guarantee it’s safe to eat

Foreign Minister Takeaki Matsumoto has been working hard promoting Japanese food products to other countries, despite overwhelming evidence of radiation contamination.  Now Takeaki has ordered his own ministry to stop vouching for the safety of Japanese food products.

Takeaki Matsumoto says his 1-80 is the result of increased demands for food safety information from other countries, and the fact that it’s become impossible to guarantee food being exported from Japan is safe from radiation.

This is because many of the contaminated food products sold within Japan, were discovered after they were sold to consumers.

Fukushima

Corporate Incompetence: Reactor 3 melt down actually breached containment vessel, plutonium contamination!

First Tokyo Electric Power Company said there were no melt downs, as they struggled to cool the Fukushima Daiichi reactors with salty sea water.  Then TEPCo admitted there were melt downs in reactors 1 and 3, but said they were contained by the water at the bottom of the containment vessels.  Now an independent study says not so.

Tanabe Fumiya, an expert in nuclear safety, studied data from Reactor 3.  Reactor 3 uses MOX fuel.  Most of Reactor 3’s mixed uranium-plutonium oxide fuel might have made it through the containment vessel.  Fumiya says on 21 March 2011 TEPCo was unable to inject water to cool the reactor.  Over the next four days the fuel reheated and melted through.  This explains why plutonium is being found outside the reactors.

Fukushima, Technology

Corporate Incompetence: Fukushima Daiichi water decontamination system crashes!

Ever since Tokyo Electric Power Company  installed a water decontamination and recirculation system, they’ve had problems after problems.  Now the entire system has crashed.

The system includes filters and pumps designed in the United States and France.  The idea is to decontaminate the massive amount of radioactive water flooding into the basements of the reactor buildings, then re-use that water to cool the unstable reactors.

The most common problem, in the many weeks since it’s installation, has been the fact that the decontamination part is not working well, the radiation levels are not being reduced to a level TEPCo would like (this is another proof that radiation levels coming out of the reactors are much higher than TEPCo would like to admit).

The next most common problem is that pumps keep failing.  This time all the pumps have failed, including the back up pumps.

Beginning Thursday, 04 August 2011, pumps began failing.  By Saturday, 06 August, all the pumps were down.  As usual TEPCo does not know why, and is investigation to find out why!!!

TEPCo is planning on hooking up a Japanese designed filters and pumps to the system, as if that’s the solution.

International, U.S.

Preping for Syrian invasion: Germany tells fellow EU members to get their diplomats out of Syria

“In order to increase the political pressure on Damascus and to give a signal to Syrian society, I would welcome the withdrawal of European politicians.”-Ruprecht Polenz, chairman of the German parliament’s foreign affairs committee

“I do not believe that there can be a political future for Assad that would be supported by the Syrian people.”-Guido Westerwelle, German Foreign Minister

These statements by German officials come after Syrian officials announced they will hold new elections.  Also, the Syrian government is allowing the forming of new political parties.

As usual “western” leaders are not going to give them a chance, especially after U.S. Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, announced that Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad, is no longer considered “legitimate” by the U.S. government.  That’s a sure sign military intervention will happen.

International, U.S.

United Police States of America & Hypocrisy in the War on Terror: Convicted U.S. soldier who led abuse at Abu Ghraib released from prison early

U.S. Army Reserve specialist, Charles Graner, led a six member team at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.  Maybe you’ve forgotten all those pics of prisoners being terrorized by U.S. soldiers?

Graner was found guilty and sentenced to ten years in prison.  Now he’s being released after only 6 and a half years.  Iraqis have warned the U.S. should be prepared for riots against U.S. troops, at the news of Graner’s early release.

I wonder how all those people still imprisoned at Guantanamo Bay (GITMO) would react to hearing that a convicted U.S. terrorist is being let loose after serving less time than they’ve spent at GITMO, and they still haven’t been charged with anything!!!

Fukushima

Government Incompetence: Rice becomes the new Gold in Japan, add another notch to the tightening famine belt

Now that it’s become clear that most of Japan’s upcoming rice harvests are most likely to be contaminated with cesium, Japanese are holding onto last years rice like it was gold.

Japanese retailers are reporting that bags of last year’s rice are flying off the shelves, because consumers don’t think there will be any rice available from this year’s harvests.

The Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Ministry says it’s working to ensure the safety of this year’s rice harvests.  But so far the government has a real bad track record of proving their incompetence regarding nuclear contamination.

Lack of rice in Japan, yet another notch in the tightening belt of the global food crisis.

Fukushima

Government Corruption: Japanese officials “fixed” public hearings on nuclear energy with fake supporters from the utility companies

The recent announcement that three top government officials will lose their jobs, comes after weeks of blame games between the Japanese nuclear agencies and the nuclear power utility companies.  The issue is that many weeks ago it was revealed that public hearings to determine if the Japanese people wanted nuclear power, were fixed to make it look like there was strong support of nuclear power.

Initially the utility companies were blamed, because it was their employees, and subcontractors that flooded the public hearings with support for nuclear energy. Now it turns out that the utility companies were ordered to do so by the very government agencies that were supposed to be regulating them.

05 August 2011, the Minister of the Economy, Trade, and Industry Ministry, Banri Kaieda, announced an investigation into the actions of the three top officials who were effectively fired the day before.

Specifically, a third party will investigate the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency.  That agency was the one who set up the public hearings, and, according to several electric power companies, ordered the utilities to flood the hearings with supporters of nuclear power.  The Japanese media is calling this a case of “influence peddling” on the part of the government.