A Kuwaiti newspaper reports that Israel has threatened to kill Syrian President Bashar Assad. The threat was delivered via Turkish officials to Syria.
Israelis are concerned over the mass movements of Syrian military forces, including ballistic missiles aimed at Israel. Israeli officials fear President Assad might attack Israel as a diversion for the internal fighting going on in Syria. Israel said if Syria attacks them they will assassinate Assad.
French military spokesman, Colonel Thierry Burkhard, admits France is violating the UN resolutions by arming Libyan rebels. He says they’ve been airdropping weapons to the rebels.
In 2009 Nicolas Sarkozy made France a member of the U.S. led North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). Four decades ago Charles de Gaulle pulled France out of NATO, citing sovereignty issues.
UN resolution 1973 allows NATO “to take all necessary measures, notwithstanding paragraph 9 of resolution 1970 (2011), to protect civilians and civilian-populated areas under threat of attack in the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya.” Paragraph 9 of UN resolution 1970 imposed an arms embargo on the Libya. Therefore France has violated both UN resolutions.
There are also reports that France supplied rebels with tanks.
June 30, Japan: In an exclusive interview, NHK discovered that the Iraqi government might let U.S. troops stay. For months U.S. officials have been pushing Iraq to ‘request’ that U.S. troops be kept past the current withdraw date.
Under the terms of the last agreement, the only way that U.S. forces would stay, is if the Iraqi government requested them to stay. Officially Iraqi officials have stated that they want the U.S. out.
Iraqi government spokesperson, Ali al-Dabbagh, told NHK that some Iraqi officials now believe their troops need more U.S. training. This is exactly the reasoning U.S. officials have been telling Iraqi officials to use.
The Iraqi Parliament is set to vote on the issue, it’ll take a majority of support for the request to become official.
Several militia groups, some very powerful, stated they will go on the war path if U.S. troops do not leave by the end of 2011. Already attacks against U.S. troops have increased since Defense Secretary Robert Gates began pressuring the Iraqi government to let U.S. troops stay. June, 2011, has become the deadliest month for U.S. forces since 2009. Some economist say the U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have cost the U.S. economy $3 trillion.
“We have told them (US officials) to leave the air base.”-Chaudhary Ahmed Mukhtar, Pakistan Defense Minister
June 29, Mukhtar orders the CIA to vacate the once secret Shamsi air base. That’s where the Central Intelligence Agency has been launching drone attacks against supposed terrorists in Pakistan. The reality is that many hundreds of civilians have been killed instead.
Another reason the Pakistan government wants the U.S. to get out; they claim the United States has not been forthcoming with promised payments from a War on Terror coalition fund. Pakistani officials are now re-thinking their relationship with the U.S., in regards to the War on Terror.
In 2009, The times of London revealed that the CIA was using Shamis air base to launch drone attacks. The Times used Google Earth to spot drones parked on the runway.
Nishiyama Hidehiko, spokesman for Japan’s Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency, has been removed from his job. It turns out that while the Japanese people were looking to the government for information on the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster, Nishiyama was having an affair with a young woman.
A Japanese magazine broke the story. The woman said Nishiyama was worried about loosing his hair and thought “vigorous sex” would prevent it. He apologized for the media finding out about his affar, and said: “I am sorry if this gave any misperceptions or concerns that I have been laying down on the job.”
I think he should have said something other than “…laying down on the job”. Talk about ‘fiddling’ while Rome burns!
About 90 households have been told they need to leave, because of increasing radiation levels. The evacuation affects three districts in the city of Date. The city is 60 kilometers (37 miles) from Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant.
The Japanese government is trying to minimize mass evacuations by testing each residential property when radiation levels near unsafe limits. The government explained the new evacuation determination to about 400 people in the affected districts. If a residential property is determined unsafe then the people living there will evacuate, the government promises to provide support to them.
Most of the people at the meeting basically said they think they should just mass evacuate all the families, after all what if you live in a house next to another house that’s just been evacuated, but you’re told you’re going to stay? The increasing, and spreading radiation levels shows that Fukushima Daiichi is still spewing radiation into the air.
For at least the third time Tokyo Electric Power Company had to stop water decontamination at Fukushima Daiichi, this time because pipes were leaking.
You might not think that’s such a big deal, but how does one ton of radioactive water leaking out within two minutes sound? That’s what happened. But to make that worse it didn’t have to happen. Turns out that TEPCo decided to skip what should have been a routine check of pipe fittings before starting the decontamination. According to an NHK report, four kilometers (8 miles) of pipe were loose (that’s how you dump one ton of water in two minutes).
A few months ago it was reported that waste incinerators (which is how Japan handles its trash) were finding high levels of radiation in the ash of the burned trash. The disaster at Fukushima Daiichi was blamed.
Today, waste incinerators as far south as Tokyo are still emitting cesium through their exhaust stacks. One incinerator in Edogawa ward registered 9,740 becquerels of cesium per kilogram! The incinerator handles only household trash. This is an indicator that cesium is still being spewed into the air, and it’s settling as far south as Tokyo.
For the first time strontium 89 and 90 have been found on the seabed near the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant.
Tokyo Electric Power Company tested the soil at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean, on 02 and 03 June 2011, at locations 20 kilometers (12 miles) from the nuke plant.
While this is the first time strontium has been found in the seabed, it is not the first time it’s been found in the water.
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’.