LM 18 juillet 2011: Économie: terroristes financiers, banqueroute des USA et de l'UE, montée en puissance de la Chine / Le nucléaire en déconfiture

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L'Autre Monde 18 juillet 2011: Économie: terroristes financiers, banqueroute des USA et de l'UE, montée en puissance de la Chine / Le nucléaire en déconfiture


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L'Autre Monde 18 juillet 2011
120 min / Radio de l'UQAM, CHOQ FM

	Diffusion en direct : Lundi à 15:00h Animation : François Marginean Réalisation :François Marginean Chronique : Stéphane Poutoire
Archives d'émission

Au programme cette semaine, 18 juillet 2011:

- Économie - Les terroristes financiers entreprennent de démolir l'économie mondiale et de tout privatiser, tout en volant et anéantissant la classe moyenne des pays occidentaux. Les États-Unis et l'Union Européenne sont sur le bord du gouffre financier. L'heure de la banqueroute et de l'écroulement du dollar US et de l'euro approche à grand pas alors qu'on observe la montée en puissance de la Chine;

- Actualité mondiale - Les médias en arrachent, souffrant de leurs mensonges et désinformation alors que le Pentagone déclare que l'Internet est maintenant un champ de bataille militaire;

- Le point sur Fukushima et la situation du nucléaire aux États-Unis; l'industrie de l'énergie nucléaire implose sous nos yeux.

C'est en rendez-vous le lundi dès 15h pour l'émission la plus écoutée de CHOQ FM, la radio officielle de l'Université du Québec à Montréal !

***Hyperliens vers les sources des informations discutées sur l'émission d'aujourd'hui:

Actualité:

'NYT' Traffic Declines With Pay Wall

The New York Times Web site saw the total number of page views decline 24.4% from March to April following the introduction of the new online pay wall on March 28, according to comScore figures cited by Ad Age.

The Internet Is Killing Local News, Says the FCC

"The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) regulates interstate and international communications by radio, television, wire, satellite and cable."

"The rise of the Internet has led to a 'shortage of local, professional, accountability reporting' (Here's the AP's version) says a 475-page report by the FCC, and the consequences could be 'more government waste, more local corruption,' 'less effective schools' and other problems. Even though there are more media choices today than ever, newspapers have been laying off reporters, leaving a gap that is yet to be filled."

The reason people are abandoning the TV stations for the internet is that the TV news claimed Saddam had nuclear weapons, while the internet sources reported correctly it was all a hoax. Just last week the TV news was all a twitter about the persecuted lesbian blogger in Syria, while the internet was already suspicious of a war-starting hoax, which turned out to be the case as the Syrian Lesbian Blogger turns out to be a married guy in Georgia.

TV News is dying because nobody likes a liar.

Dutch pass net neut law

The Dutch have passed a law prohibiting internet providers from slowing down traffic unless it's to ease congestion, preserve security or block spam.

Netherlands first to regulate on net neutrality

The Netherlands is likely to become the first European member state to successfully pass legislation that will ensure its internet remains neutral.

The legislation is expected to be signed off by the Dutch government next week, following a vote.

Net neutrality, which would see every internet packet treated equally, has been a hot topic for regulators and ISPs in recent months, but to date other EU countries have appeared more reticent to regulate.

But will this move by the Dutch government provoke other countries into creating their own legislation?

It might, but the Netherlands faces a unique set of circumstances that has partially paved the way for this move.

First, the country has an active internet rights organisation that has been good at lobbying for and promoting the issue.

In addition, a few weeks ago, KPN, the Dutch incumbent telecoms company, and Vodafone, were found to be using Deep Packet Inspection techniques to filter and kill off VoIP traffic.

Alex de Joode, security officer at LeaseWeb, the leading Netherlands-based hosting provider, said there was widespread outrage as a result.

"The whole country was amazed by this and, consequently, the issue has been framed in such a way that net neutrality was the only acceptable solution," he said.

Legislation criminalizing creation of computer viruses enacted

Japan's parliament enacted legislation Friday criminalizing the creation or distribution of computer viruses to crack down on the growing problem of cybercrimes, but critics say the move could infringe on the constitutionally guaranteed privacy of communications.

Senators Unconcerned About Massive Consequences Of Criminalizing Embedding YouTube Videos

This is really no surprise, but the same Senate Judiciary Committee that unanimously approved the PROTECT IP Act, despite worries from internet experts and major media about how it would break the internet, has now also unanimously approved the anti-internet streaming bill that makes it a felony to stream certain videos online -- potentially putting people in jail for embedding YouTube videos or just putting up YouTube lip synching videos...

Rupert Murdoch's Massive Spying Operations Finally Exposed

A powerful U.S. senator with jurisdiction over privacy and telecommunications issues late Tuesday urged regulators to look into whether News. Corp. had violated any U.S. laws when its British journalists gained unauthorized access to several individuals' voice mails to pursue stories.
"The reported hacking by News Corporation newspapers against a range of individuals--including children--is offensive and a serious breach of journalistic ethics," said Senate Commerce, Science & Transportation Chairman John D. Rockefeller in a press statement.

Why would Murdoch be interested in spying on 9/11 and 7/7 victims' families..?

That must be answered..

Was there a foreign country's hand in all of this..?

And, more to the point, is it time to question just exactly why FOX News was so eager to accede to AIPAC's request to bury Carl Cameron's story about the Israeli spy ring?

And, if you watch that Carl Cameron story, even as they admit to the existence of evidence that Israel knew of 9-11 in advance and did nothing to warn the US, note how the FOX commentators keep reminding the audience that Israel had nothing to do with 9-11, even though there is no factual basis for them to deny such a link, and at least one piece of evidence suggesting that Israel did indeed take part in 9-11 in that story!

"Evidence linking these Israelis to 9/11 is classified. I cannot tell you about evidence that has been gathered. It's classified information." -- US official quoted in Carl Cameron's Fox News report on the Israeli spy ring and its connections to 9-11.

Is Rupert Murdoch a Mossad asset, or at the very least a Sayan, protecting Israel with his media empire??

The Israeli Spy Ring - Did Rupert Murdoch prevent Carl Cameron from following the 9-11 evidence to Israel?

"Evidence linking these Israelis to 9/11 is classified. I cannot tell you about evidence that has been gathered. It's classified information." -- US official quoted in Carl Cameron's Fox News report on the Israeli spy ring and its connections to 9-11.

As you watch this story from 2001, note how every time the factual evidence suggests a link to Israel, how the FOX commentators immediately leap in to assure us that Israel could never ever have done such a terrible thing to the United States (which is what FOX news says every time the survivors of the USS Liberty attack speak out).

Israeli Press Mum On Murdoch

On July 10, Anshel Pfeffer, a columnist for Israel’s reputedly most liberal news site, Haaretz, wrote a straightforward, if scathing, news article about the accusations being levied against media mogul Rupert Murdoch. Pfeffer’s acerbic piece, aptly headlined “Shameful Journalism Puts Murdoch’s U.K. Empire at Risk,” like others making the front pages of newspapers and websites around the world, criticized the shady news gathering techniques engaged in by News of the World, a British division of Murdoch’s News International:

Pfeffer’s piece was yanked off the Haaretz English website after less than 24 hours, where many older pieces often linger for days, even weeks.

That alone tells us Murdoch was working for Israel.

Pentagon Declares the Internet a "War Domain"

The Pentagon released a long-promised cybersecurity plan Thursday that declares the Internet a domain of war but does not spell out how the U.S. military would use the Web for offensive strikes...

Pentagon to treat cyberspace as operational domain

Deputy Defense Secretary William Lynn unveiled a new U.S. strategy on Thursday for protecting military computer networks, moving away from a passive defense toward treating cyberspace as an "operational domain" in which trained forces defend against attacks.

Pentagon discloses largest-ever cyber theft

The Pentagon is revealing that it suffered one of its largest-ever losses of sensitive defense data this spring to a cyber attack that it blames on an unspecified foreign government.

Which means Israel is behind the attack, because if it were any government other than Israel, it would be specified. Only Israel can attack the United States and be protected by the US Government.

"Evidence linking these Israelis to 9/11 is classified. I cannot tell you about evidence that has been gathered. It's classified information." -- US official quoted in Carl Cameron's Fox News report on the Israeli spy ring and its connections to 9-11.

Pentagon Wants a Social Media Propaganda Machine

You don’t need to have 5,000 friends of Facebook to know that social media can have a notorious mix of rumor, gossip and just plain disinformation. The Pentagon is looking to build a tool to sniff out social media propaganda campaigns and spit some counter-spin right back at it.

On Thursday, Defense Department extreme technology arm Darpa unveiled its Social Media in Strategic Communication (SMISC) program. It’s an attempt to get better at both detecting and conducting propaganda campaigns on social media. SMISC has two goals. First, the program needs to help the military better understand what’s going on in social media in real time — particularly in areas where troops are deployed. Second, Darpa wants SMISC to help the military play the social media propaganda game itself.

More employers using firms that check applicants’ social media history

Like criminal background checks and drug tests, the social media check is quickly becoming an automatic part of the hiring process. Employers regularly run quick Google searches to vet applicants, but since September, California-based Social Intelligence has been contracting with corporations across the country to institute standard social media background checks — with the blessings of the federal government.

I would not even consider working for a company that required such a background check, because it betrays an opposition to the principles of free speech on which this nation is founded!

Économie:

The Second Declaration of Independence - Debt Declaration Against Banks

This is interesting...

The 5 Most Horrifying Things Corporations Are Taking Over

In 2007, BP funded a $500 million research center for green technology at UC Berkeley. At least one professor went on record as saying he would find his own damn funding rather than be subject to the demands of BP. Today he's making amazing breakthroughs in the squirrel-powered rickshaw industry.

#1.Science

#2.Doctors and Hospitals

#3.The News

#4.Prisons

#5.The Military

The Tentacles of Megas: Reaching from the Government to the Emasculated Watchdogs

by Sibel Edmonds

The mega billionaires of the mega corporations directly influence and control the mega public servants – think from presidents down to presidents’ appointees. Some aptly refer to these ‘megas’ collectively as the shadow government. The mega billionaires of the mega corporations set up mega foundations to channel, centralize and control grassroots dissent and activism in order to shield and protect their mega interests. The little watchdogs turned lapdogs and activists turned puppets run the nitty gritty errands, and do their dirty work under the pretense of activism and watchdog-ism for their mega masters while they dream of becoming mega NGOs. If we get past the illusions, all that pretense, and the entire smoke and mirrors settings, we see a mega country ruled and run by these mega elites and their errand boys making mega profits and with every passing day becoming even more mega. But that is a big ‘if.’ Because the mega tentacles of these megas have also wrapped themselves tightly around educational channels and media outlets – coercing them into producing mega lies and more illusions.

The Wal-Mart Class Action Gets Struck Down By the Supreme Court

This past week we learned of the United States Supreme Court decision in Wal-Mart v. Dukes. Basically, they ruled that the 1.6 million plaintiffs didn't have enough in common to be considered a class, which means more lawsuits and no ganging up on Wal-mart according to the 5-4 decision. There were probably a number of big corporations that were cheering the ruling.

What’s behind the global bankers’ austerity programs: Seizure of public property for corporations

What lies in store for Greece, Portugal, Spain, Ireland, Italy, and, in short order, the United States, is the wholesale sell-off of public property to private corporations at bargain basement prices. What the despots who gather in their secretive lairs at Davos, Cernobbio, Bilderberg, and G8/G20 are bringing about is a world where no property is owned by the state, which by default means the people. Total corporate control over every facet of life equals extreme fascism.

Before the globalists can drop the borders, all humans must work for the same low wages, and all currency be driven down to the same worthless level, and everyone must be a slave to the same global private central bank. This IS the New World Order.

Americans raiding retirement funds early

Despite increasing signs of a stabilizing U.S. economy, 19 percent of Americans -- including 17 percent of full-time workers -- have been compelled to take money from their retirement savings in the last year to cover urgent financial needs, the Financial Security Index found.

Webmaster's Commentary:

Yeah, and the Titanic stabilized too, once it reached the bottom.

Retirement As We Know it Is Dead

Michael Pento, senior economist at EuroPacific Capital says, "Retirement is on life support, if not indeed dead as we know it today."

"Americans are have negligible savings, the real estate market is still in secular decline, stock prices are in a decade's long morass, real incomes are falling, public pension plans are insolvent and our entitlement programs are bankrupt."

Are States' Pensions the Next Crisis?

Via Pension Pulse.

Just as America is finally showing signs of digging out of the financial meltdown and the Great Recession of 2008, there are already warning bells being sounded for the next possible scare: government pension programs.

Earlier this week, the Pew Center on the States issued the results of its “fiscal stress test” of the 50 state pension programs, and the results are troubling to say the least.

All told, the Pew center estimates that government pension funds and health care programs are underfunded by more than $1.2 trillion today, a clear sign that something must be done now to avoid a great deal of misery down the road.

Though the Pew study looked at pension funds during 2008 and 2009, the depth of the Great Recession, the results should serve as a wake-up call to political leaders across the nation, including here in the Commonwealth of Virginia.

The Pew center reports that 31 states are funding their government pension funds at levels below the point most experts consider safe, 80 percent of the plan’s expected needs.

Several states — California, Illinois and Ohio are among the worst — have shortfalls dangerously below safe levels. Illinois, the worst state, has only 51 percent of its plan’s projected needs currently funded.

You can read details on the Pew study by clicking here. Below are the highlights on The Trillion Dollar Gap Growing Wider:

Pensions bought into the mortgage-backed security scam and got burned, but whereas foreign banks have the clout to force Wall Street to make good on those fraudulent MBS, domestic pension plans are left begging for the last few table scraps after the feast is over.

Alabama Town Stops Paying Retirees' Pensions, Some Residents Destitute

A small town in Alabama, which has stopped paying its retirees' pensions, could be an early casualty in a coming pension disaster, the New York Times reports.

U.S. Postal Service to Stop Paying Into Pension Fund

The U.S. Postal Service, facing insolvency without approval to delay a $5.5 billion payment for worker health benefits, will suspend contributions to an employee retirement account to save $800 million this year.

At Novartis Corporation (NVS), Pensions are Out and Cash-Grabbing is in

Novartis (NVS) has begun to take for itself hundreds of millions of dollars it normally would have given its employees in pensions due to a complicated change in retiree benefits being rolled out across the company. In 2009, the company began considering a change from “defined benefit” to a “defined contribution” pension plan. The former pays retirees a guaranteed amount for the rest of their lives; the latter pays a fixed amount during the staffer’s employment, but after that the retiree is on his or her own.

Chicago taxpayers owe a staggering $108 billion for pension shortfall

This is simply mind-boggling...

US pension payments imperiled by debt crisis: Obama

WASHINGTON (AFP) - US President Barack Obama said Tuesday that payments to millions of retirees and others could be threatened if Congress fails to approve a debt ceiling increase by an August 2 deadline.

"I cannot guarantee that those checks go out on August 3 if we haven't resolved this issue," Obama said in an interview with CBS television. "Because there may simply not be the money in the coffers to do it."

"This is not just a matter of Social Security checks," he added. "These are veterans checks, these are folks on disability and their checks. There are about 70 million checks that go out."...

Obama to Stop Social Security Payments Aug. 3 if Budget Impasse Not Resolved!

Kissinger Tells Charlie Rose the Current Financial Crisis Can Be Used to Advance a New World Order

Henry Kissinger sits down in an interview with US talk show host, Charlie Rose, and bleats on about the great opportunity now in front of the Obama administration to seize the power of a crisis. Kissinger reflects with pride on America's leading role in advancing one-world governance and its working appendages; the UN, NATO, WHO, World Bank, IMF, etc. – all erected in the period immediately following WWII. Kissinger hopes that once again International Order can be advanced out of the current global financial crisis.

Or was the global financial crisis created (via Wall Street's Mortgage-Backed Securities fraud) to bring about Kissinger's Globalist Agenda?

Warning to Canada: "Austerity" (Government enforced poverty) on the way!

Conservative strength means tough austerity measures on the way.

Inflation hits 8-year high, pressures Bank of Canada

OTTAWA (Reuters) - Canadian inflation rose to its highest level in more than eight years in May, boosting the Canadian dollar and raising the prospect the central bank will raise interest rates sooner than previously expected.

Annual inflation hit 3.7 percent, well above expectations and far above the Bank of Canada's 2.0 percent target, according to Statistics Canada data on Wednesday.

Gasoline was the lead factor, but the core inflation that the central bank follows closely also rose to 1.8 percent from 1.6 percent in April, well ahead of the 1.4 percent it had predicted for the second quarter.

China Proposes To Cut Two Thirds Of Its $3 Trillion In USD Holdings

All those who were hoping global stock markets would surge tomorrow based on a ridiculous rumor that China would revalue the CNY by 10% will have to wait. Instead, China has decided to serve the world another surprise. Following last week's announcement by PBoC Governor Zhou (Where's Waldo) Xiaochuan that the country's excessive stockpile of USD reserves has to be urgently diversified, today we get a sense of just how big the upcoming Chinese defection from the "buy US debt" Nash equilibrium will be. Not surprisingly, China appears to be getting ready to cut its USD reserves by roughly the amount of dollars that was recently printed by the Fed, or $2 trilion or so. And to think that this comes just as news that the Japanese pension fund will soon be dumping who knows what.

From Xinhua:

China's foreign exchange reserves increased by 197.4 billion U.S. dollars in the first three months of this year to 3.04 trillion U.S. dollars by the end of March.

Xia Bin, a member of the monetary policy committee of the central bank, said on Tuesday that 1 trillion U.S. dollars would be sufficient. He added that China should invest its foreign exchange reserves more strategically, using them to acquire resources and technology needed for the real economy.

And as if the public sector making it all too clear what is about to happen was not enough, here is the private one as well:

China should reduce its excessive foreign exchange reserves and further diversify its holdings, Tang Shuangning, chairman of China Everbright Group, said on Saturday.

The amount of foreign exchange reserves should be restricted to between 800 billion to 1.3 trillion U.S. dollars, Tang told a forum in Beijing, saying that the current reserve amount is too high.

Tang's remarks echoed the stance of Zhou Xiaochuan, governor of China's central bank, who said on Monday that China's foreign exchange reserves "exceed our reasonable requirement" and that the government should upgrade and diversify its foreign exchange management using the excessive reserves.

Tang also said that China should further diversify its foreign exchange holdings. He suggested five channels for using the reserves, including replenishing state-owned capital in key sectors and enterprises, purchasing strategic resources, expanding overseas investment, issuing foreign bonds and improving national welfare in areas like education and health.

However, these strategies can only treat the symptoms but not the root cause, he said, noting that the key is to reform the mechanism of how the reserves are generated and managed.

The last sentence says it all. While China is certainly tired of recycling US Dollars, it still has no viable alternative, especially as long as its own currency is relegated to the C-grade of not even SDR-backing currencies. But that will all change very soon. Once the push for broad Chinese currency acceptance is in play, the CNY and the USD will be unpegged, promptly followed by China dumping the bulk of its USD exposure, and also sending the world a message that US debt is no longer a viable investment opportunity. In fact, we are confident that the reval is a likely a key preceding step to any strategic decision vis-a-vis US FX exposure (read bond purchasing/selling intentions). As such, all those Americans pushing China to revalue, may want to consider that such an action could well guarantee hyperinflation, once the Fed is stuck as being the only buyer of US debt.

China cuts holdings of US Treasurys for 5th month

China, the biggest buyer of U.S. securities, trimmed its holdings for a fifth straight month.

The Treasury Department said Monday that China cut its holdings by $9.2 billion to $1.14 trillion.

Looking at what is going on with the dollar, coupled with the fiscal and moral bankruptcy of this country, who can blame them?!?

Russia bans petrol exports amid shortages

decided on Thursday to halt premium petrol exports and switch the flow to the home market to fight shortages and a price rise that is coinciding with growing voter discontent.

Webmaster's Commentary:

Venezuela threatens to interrupt US oil supply

Venezuela's foreign minister warned late Tuesday that it could no longer guarantee regular oil shipments to the United States after Washington placed sanctions on the Venezuelan state oil company,

Petroleos de Venezuela SA (PDVSA), this week. The spat underscores long-running tensions over what Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez sees as America's disproportionate, unjust exercise of power on the world stage.

“There are several proposals that are being evaluated by President [Hugo] Chávez to respond to the United States’ imperialist pretensions,” said Foreign Minister Nicolás Maduro, according to the Miami Herald. A close associate of Chávez accused the US of trying to be "the world's policeman as it steps on the sovereignty of the people."

Energy Shortages Spreading: Rationing in China, Pakistan, Venezuela, Japan, Argentina; China Resorts to Punitive Prices to Curb Demand

Electric power shortages caused by insufficient water levels at hydroelectric stations in some places, and unaffordable oil prices in others, have led to rationing, blackouts, and other problems.

IEA Oil Dump A Disaster In The Making

In response, the IEA (International Energy Agency), an organization of 28 countries, has made a very sudden and startling announcement; each member nation will begin dumping their strategic crude oil reserves onto the global marketplace to flood the supply side of the equation, and, in theory, drive down overall oil prices. The IEA will release over 60 million barrels a day for at least 30 days into the markets, half of which will come directly out of the strategic reserves of the U.S. This is only the third time in the 37 year history of the IEA that this kind of action has been taken. Surely, governments around the world have finally realized that inflation in energy is going to completely derail what’s left of our financial structure, and they are working to prevent this, right…?

Some economists and many in the public will cheer this decision as a fast and decisive solution to the growing oil crises. These people would be foolish. But, perhaps we should look at the debate points from their side of the field, or even the U.S. government and the IEA’s side of the field. Below, we will look at the arguments made in support of the IEA oil dump so far, and why they are utter nonsense…

Lie #1: Oil Prices Are High Because The War In Libya Has Diminished Supply

Lie #2: The IEA Oil Dump Will Create A Supply Glut And Drive Down Prices

Lie #3: The IEA Oil Dump Was Designed To Hit “Speculators”, Who Are The “Real” Cause Of Energy Inflation

Third, there is very little stopping OPEC at this point from decoupling from the U.S. dollar completely, especially if crude prices continue to rise despite the IEA dump. The fact of currency inflation and dollar implosion will be so exposed that no one, not even “Tiny Tim” Geithner, will be able to deny it. Once the illusions of “limited supply” and “speculation” are cast aside, the global focus will end up squarely on the dollar, and the IEA dump will have sped up the process dramatically.

I find it hard to believe that the IEA and our government are not aware that their proposed strategies conflict with their own source data, or that they are completely oblivious to the destruction they are about to reap upon our economy. The latest IEA decision is just one more piece of evidence of an agenda of deliberate financial destabilization trending towards a disaster that serves the interests of a select few, to the detriment of all the rest.

Rare earth minerals prices skyrocket as China further cuts export quotas

BEIJING, June 23 (UPI) -- China has doubled or tripled the prices of some rare earth metals, raising concerns about global supplies of the 17 elements, crucial for green energy and high-tech components.

Just in the last three weeks europium oxide, used in the manufacturing of energy-saving light bulbs, plasma TVs and smartphones has nearly tripled in price from about $1,260 a kilogram to $3,400, The Guardian newspaper reports.

And dysprosium oxide, used for neodymium-iron-boron magnets found in wind turbines and computer hard drives, has doubled from about $720 a kilogram to $1,470.

Already, Beijing cut its export quotas on rare earths by 72 percent in the second half of last year, reducing them further by 35 percent in the first half of 2011.

The latest price hike followed an announcement by the Chinese government that it was closing 35 small mines in Inner Mongolia as part of a clampdown on illegal mining. More closures are expected, fueling fears that there will be more export quotas.

China began stockpiling rare earths in 2010, and the scheme could eventually store up to 200,000 tons of the elements, almost twice the country's annual production.

While China has about one-third of global rare earth deposits, it produces about 95 percent of the world's supply.

Chinese, Mexican defense ministers hold talks on military cooperation

Chinese Defense Minister Liang Guanglie met his Mexican counterpart Guillermo Galvan Galvan here Wednesday to promote bilateral military cooperation.

40 Signs The Chinese Economy Is Beating The Living Daylights Out Of The U.S. Economy

It is time to face the truth. The Chinese economy is simply beating the living daylights out of the U.S. economy. Whether you want to call it a rout, a slaughter or a thrashing, the reality is that the Chinese are absolutely embarrassing America on the global economic stage. At this point, the Chinese are playing economic chess while the Americans are playing economic checkers. China is poised to blow past the United States and become the largest economy in the world. Not only that, some economists are projecting that the Chinese economy could be three times larger than the U.S. economy by mid-century. The age of U.S. economic dominance is ending, and most Americans still don't even understand what is happening.

The following are 40 signs that the Chinese economy is beating the living daylights out of the U.S. economy....

#1 The Chinese economy has grown 7 times faster than the U.S. economy has over the past decade.

#2 According to the IMF, China will pass the United States and will become the largest economy in the world in 2016.

#3 According to one prominent economist, the Chinese economy already has roughly the same amount of purchasing power as the U.S. economy does.

#4 At the turn of this century the United States accounted for well over 20 percent of global GDP and China accounted for significantly less than 10 percent of global GDP. But since that time America's share of global GDP has been steadily declining and China's share has been steadily rising.

#5 Nobel economist Robert W. Fogel of the University of Chicago is projecting that the Chinese economy will be three times larger than the U.S. economy by the year 2040 if current trends continue.

#6 According to Stanford University economics professor Ed Lazear, if the U.S. economy and the Chinese economy continue to grow at current rates, the average Chinese citizen will be wealthier than the average American citizen in just 30 years.

#7 During 2010, we spent $365 billion on goods and services from China while they only spent $92 billion on goods and services from us.

#8 Since 2005, Americans have gobbled up Chinese products and services totaling $1.1 trillion, but the Chinese have only spent $272 billion on American goods and services.

#9 The United States has lost an average of 50,000 manufacturing jobs per month since China joined the World Trade Organization in 2001, and the U.S. trade deficit with China is now 27 times larger than it was back in 1990.

#10 Back in 1985, the U.S. trade deficit with China was 6 million dollars for the entire year. For the month of April 2011 alone, the U.S. trade deficit with China was 18.8 billion dollars.

#11 Since China entered the WTO in 2001, the U.S. trade deficit with China has grown by an average of 18% per year.

#12 According to a recent report from the Economic Policy Institute, between 2001 and 2008 the U.S. lost approximately 2.4 million jobs due to the growing trade deficit with China. Every single state in America experienced a net job loss due to our trade deficit with China during this time period.

#13 The United States had been the leading consumer of energy on the globe for about 100 years, but last summer China took over the number one spot.

#14 China produced 19.8 percent of all the goods consumed in the world last year. The United States only produced 19.4 percent.

#15 China now consumes 53 percent of the world's cement.

#16 Last year, China produced 11 times as much steel as the United States did.

#17 Since China joined the WTO, approximately 46,000 factories have been transferred from the United States to Asia.

#18 China now has the world’s fastest train and the world’s largest high-speed rail network.

#19 Is alternative energy the future? If so, the Chinese economy is positioned well. China is now the number one producer in the world of wind and solar power.

#20 Chinese solar panel production was about 50 times larger in 2010 than it was in 2005.

#21 Today, China controls over 90 percent of the total global supply of rare earth elements.

#22 85 percent of all artificial Christmas trees are made in China.

#23 Back in 1970, 25 percent of all jobs in the United States were manufacturing jobs. Today, only 9 percent of the jobs in the United States are manufacturing jobs.

#24 The United States has lost a staggering 32 percent of its manufacturing jobs since the year 2000.

#25 Between December 2000 and December 2010, 38 percent of the manufacturing jobs in Ohio were lost, 42 percent of the manufacturing jobs in North Carolina were lost and 48 percent of the manufacturing jobs in Michigan were lost.

#26 There are more pigs in China than in the next 43 pork producing nations combined.

#27 China now possesses the fastest supercomputer on the entire globe.

#28 Back in 1998, the United States had 25 percent of the world’s high-tech export market and China had just 10 percent. Ten years later, the United States had less than 15 percent and China’s share had soared to 20 percent.

#29 Manufacturing employment in the U.S. computer industry was actually lower in 2010 than it was in 1975.

#30 In 2002, the United States had a trade deficit in "advanced technology products" of $16 billion with the rest of the world. In 2010, that number skyrocketed to $82 billion.

#31 Over the past 15 years, China has moved up from 14th place to 2nd place in the world in published scientific research articles.

#32 According to one recent study, China could become the global leader in patent filings by next year.

#33 Do you remember when the United States was the dominant manufacturer of automobiles and trucks on the globe? Well, in 2010 the U.S. ran a trade deficit in automobiles, trucks and parts of $110 billion.

China no longer holds our debt -- it holds spendable US cash to spend here

The chinese don't own the debt any more -- they own new dollar deposits from the fed

the fed now owns the debt -- but the debt is no longer our problem -- trillions of ready American dollar liquidity (spendable cash) in the hands of China is the new hurricane on its way through the American's America.

Welcome to the liquidation sale of the United States of America.

(Any Chinese want to advertise on a popular alternative website and radio show? Dad was from Shanghai!)

Seriously ...

This deal only works for China if Bernanke has assured China that the value of the dollar will not fall until after China spends that cash Bernanke just gave them. The only way Bernanke can make that promise is if the Chinese are constrained to spend that cash either in the US stock market or American real estate; in the case of the latter to drive up the value of assets and pull more mortgages above water.

But China has to be smart enough to realize this is just another manufactured bubble and once the Chinese spending spree is over, gravity will reassert itself and the value of the assets will again plummet. China does not want to be stuck with bad assets any more than anyone else. China could be left holding a lot of real-estate they cannot sell, but they can always dump stocks. So I am going to speculate that the Chinese will pour most of that cash Bernanke gave them into the US Stock Market, driving prices up even higher, then when the Bernanke cash runs out, dump the stocks and take their profit. The US will then make China the bad guy for the crash even though Wall Street's Mortgage-backed security fraud created the mess, and Bernanke is baiting the Chinese in to take the blame for the market plunge.

China ratings house says US defaulting: report

AFP

A Chinese ratings house has accused the United States of defaulting on its massive debt, state media said Friday, a day after Beijing urged Washington to put its fiscal house in order...

China says the U.S. is already defaulting on debt

Forget the debt ceiling debate -- the U.S. is already in default, a Chinese ratings agency claims.
"In our opinion, the United States has already been defaulting," said Guan Jianzhong, president of Dagong Global Credit Rating Co. Ltd., reports AFP, describing that organization as "the only Chinese agency that gives sovereign ratings."

U.S. Treasury officials have already said that the government exceeded its $14.3 trillion debt ceiling in April, but that accounting procedures would finance obligations through Aug. 2.

The Chinese claim to contrary comes just two days another Chinese official warned that congressional Republicans are "playing with fire" in opposing efforts to increase the debt ceiling.

Russia to Lower U.S. Debt Holdings

Russia will likely continue lowering its U.S. debt holdings as Washington struggles to contain a budget deficit and bolster a tepid economic recovery, a top aide to President Dmitry Medvedev said Saturday.

Will Bernanke simply print up a bunch of spendable cash for the Russians the way he did with the Chinese, and will that trigger a Russian frenzy to buy up land and hard assets in the US?

9 TRILLION Dollars Missing from Federal Reserve, Fed Inspector General Can’t Explain

The Federal Reserve can’t answer simple questions about where the missing $9 Trillion in US taxpayer money used to bailout Wall street has gone.

The United States Borrows $58,000 Per Second

The Door is About to Shut for Americans

Anyone aware of the US Government's real financial situation knows that time is running out. The Government has $15.5 trillion in admitted debts but those debts, when calculated under Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP), or 'honest accounting', is over $70 trillion. $70 trillion divided by 300 million+ Americans works out to $233,000 per person in US Federal Government debt and obligations. Or nearly $1 million per family of four.

That does not included personal debt, state debt or municipal debt.

This debt plus an economy that has been completely hollowed out by the Federal Reserve system ensures that there is no way the US Government can ever pay off this debt. And, everyone knows it.

Obama’s Economists: ‘Stimulus’ Has Cost $278,000 per Job

In other words, the government could simply have cut a $100,000 check to everyone whose employment was allegedly made possible by the “stimulus,” and taxpayers would have come out $427 billion ahead.

Fed's Massive Stimulus Had Little Impact: Greenspan

The Federal Reserve's massive stimulus program had little impact on the U.S. economy besides weakening the dollar and helping U.S. exports, Federal Reserve Governor Alan Greenspan told CNBC Thursday.

Because it wasn't a stimulus; it was a buy-back of all the fraudulent mortgage-backed securities from the foreign banks and investment houses lured into purchasing them. So of course all that money spent would have no effect on the domestic situation.

The Fed's $600 Billion Stealth Bailout Of Foreign Banks Continues At The Expense Of The Domestic Economy, Or Explaining Where All The QE2 Money Went

In summary, instead of doing everything in its power to stimulate reserve, and thus cash, accumulation at domestic (US) banks which would in turn encourage lending to US borrowers, the Fed has been conducting yet another stealthy foreign bank rescue operation, which rerouted $600 billion in capital from potential borrowers to insolvent foreign financial institutions in the past 7 months. QE2 was nothing more (or less) than another European bank rescue operation!

Fed Halts Sales Of Toxic AIG Sludge Upon Realization Any Balance Sheet Unwind Crashes The Market

"The Federal Reserve Bank of New York is halting its sales of mortgage bonds acquired in the rescue of American International Group Inc. "Given prevailing market conditions” for residential mortgage-backed securities, “we do not anticipate any sales of bonds in the near term or until such time as the New York Fed deems it will achieve value for the public," Jack Gutt, a New York Fed spokesman said in an e-mail."

The phrase "Toxic Assets" is Wall-Street speak for the fraudulent mortgage-backed securities. Of course there is no way to 'achieve value for the public' off of these assets. There never was. The Federal Reserve simply bought back all the bad paper and stuck the American people with the losses. Claims that the holding of these toxic assets was just temporary and that eventually they would pay back the money were a lie, plain and simple. All today's announcement does is end the illusion that somewhere down the road the American people would get their money back.

They lied to you to rob you.

PIMCO's Bill Gross: "The U.S. National Debt Is $100 Trillion, We Are In Worse Financial Shape Than Greece"

CNBC Video - Bill Gross on the U.S. Fiscal Nightmare - June 13, 2011

When adding in all of the money owed to cover future liabilities in entitlement programs the US is actually in worse financial shape than Greece and other debt-laden European countries, Pimco's Bill Gross told CNBC Monday.

Much of the public focus is on the nation's public debt, which is $14.3 trillion. But that doesn't include money guaranteed for Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security, which comes to close to $50 trillion, according to government figures.

The government also is on the hook for other debts such as the programs related to the bailout of the financial system following the crisis of 2008 and 2009, government figures show.

Taken together, Gross puts the total at "nearly $100 trillion," that while perhaps a bit on the high side, places the country in a highly unenviable fiscal position that he said won't find a solution overnight.

US trade gap nears three-year high

The United States' trade deficit exceeded USD 50 billion in May, pointing to the widest such gap since October 2008, official data have shown.

A billion and a half a day!

US DEBT DEFAULT NOT "UNTHINKABLE." IT HAS HAPPENED BEFORE!

The first default of the United States was on its first issuance of debt: the currency emitted by the Continental Congress of 1775. In June of 1775 the Continental Congress of the United States of America, located in Philadelphia, representing the 13 states of the union, issued bills of credit amounting to 2 million Spanish milled dollars to be paid four years hence in four annual installments.

When this source of funding dried up, Congress defaulted on its domestic debt, starting on March 1, 1782.

Less than five months later, in January of 1862, the US Treasury defaulted on these notes by failing to redeem them on demand.

The Liberty Bond Default of 1934

The Momentary Default of 1979

Obama and the money-junkies (Title for the next Indiana Jones movie?) is trying to scare everyone into agreeing to more debt by saying default is unthinkable. But the truth is that it has happened before, most recently in 1979!

'War on terror' set to surpass cost of Second World War

The total cost to America of its wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, plus the related military operations in Pakistan, is set to exceed $4 trillion – more than three times the sum so far authorised by Congress in the decade since the 9/11 attacks.

And even though the wars are now winding down, add in future military spending and above all the cost of looking after veterans, disabled and otherwise and the total bill will be somewhere between $3.7 trillion and $4.4 trillion.

I think these numbers, as large as they may seem, are actually conservative, particularly in terms of those killed and injured in these wars.

But there is one thing which is certain; these immoral and illegal wars have left the US government morally and fiscally bankrupt.

The true cost of the war on terror: $3.7trillion and counting… and up to 258,000 lives

The cost of U.S. military action in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan will run to at least $3.7trillion, a study has revealed today.

The staggering figure could reach as high as $4.4trillion, with the deaths of up to 258,000 people, according to research by Brown University's Watson Institute for International Studies.

In human terms, 224,000 to 258,000 people have died directly from warfare - including 125,000 civilians in Iraq.

Many more have died indirectly, from the loss of clean drinking water, health care and nutrition.

Annual cost of air conditioning for US war soldiers greater than NASA budget

Excerpt below, article here. Following that is an economics argument from the Marine Corps' most decorated general on how to end US wars of choice, wars for empire (full article here to explain, document, and prove current US wars are Orwellian unlawful).

"The amount the U.S. military spends annually on air conditioning in Iraq and Afghanistan: $20.2 billion.

That's more than NASA's budget.

IMF bombshell: Age of America nears end

http://www.marketwatch.com/Story/story/print?guid=25965F12-6D1A-11E0-8CAB-00212804637C

For the first time, the international organization has set a date for the moment when the “Age of America” will end and the U.S. economy will be overtaken by that of China.

And it’s a lot closer than you may think.

According to the latest IMF official forecasts, China’s economy will surpass that of America in real terms in 2016 — just five years from now.

Put that in your calendar.

Mobius Says Financial Crisis ‘Around The Corner’

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-05-30/mobius-says-fresh-financial-crisis-around-corner-amid-volatile-derivatives.html

Mark Mobius, executive chairman of Templeton Asset Management’s emerging markets group, said another financial crisis is inevitable because the causes of the previous one haven’t been resolved.

The total value of derivatives in the world exceeds total global gross domestic product by a factor of 10, said Mobius, who oversees more than $50 billion. With that volume of bets in different directions, volatility and equity market crises will occur, he said.

This is why the banks were so keen to seize houses through foreclosure, to insure that they kept their balance sheets looking positive when they had to repay those financial institutions which had purchased the illegally created and bundled mortgage backed derivatives.

Yastrow: “We Are on the Verge of a Great, Great Depression”

he news that frequent CNBC guest Peter Yastrow of Yastrow Origer (and formerly with DT Trading) told CNBC that "We’re on the verge of a great, great depression. The [Federal Reserve] knows it" is going viral today.

The next, WORSE financial crisis - Ten reasons why we are doomed to repeat 2008

BOSTON (MarketWatch) — The last financial crisis isn’t over, but we might as well start getting ready for the next one.

Sorry to be gloomy, but there it is.

Why? Here are 10 reasons.

Wall Street is hit by another round of layoffs. What will a post–Dodd-Frank Wall Street will look like?

1. We are learning the wrong lessons from the last one.

2. No one has been punished. Executives like Dick Fuld at Lehman Brothers and Angelo Mozilo at Countrywide , along with many others, cashed out hundreds of millions of dollars before the ship crashed into the rocks. Predatory lenders and crooked mortgage lenders walked away with millions in ill-gotten gains. But they aren’t in jail. They aren’t even under criminal prosecution. They got away scot-free. As a general rule, the worse you behaved from 2000 to 2008, the better you’ve been treated. And so the next crowd will do it again. Guaranteed.

3. The incentives remain crooked.

4. The referees are corrupt. We’re supposed to have a system of free enterprise under the law. The only problem: The players get to bribe the refs. Imagine if that happened in the NFL. The banks and other industries lavish huge amounts of money on Congress, presidents and the entire Washington establishment of aides, advisers and hangers-on. They do it through campaign contributions. They do it with $500,000 speaker fees and boardroom sinecures upon retirement. And they do it by spending a fortune on lobbyists — so you know that if you play nice when you’re in government, you too can get a $500,000-a-year lobbying job when you retire. How big are the bribes? The finance industry spent $474 million on lobbying last year alone, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.

5. Stocks are skyrocketing again. The Standard & Poor’s 500 Index SPX -1.02% has now doubled from the March 2009 lows. Isn’t that good news? Well, yes, up to a point. Admittedly, a lot of it is just from debasement of the dollar (when the greenback goes down, Wall Street goes up, and vice versa). And we forget there were huge rallies on Wall Street during the bear markets of the 1930s and the 1970s, as there were in Japan in the 1990s. But the market boom, targeted especially toward the riskiest and junkiest stocks, raises risks. It leaves investors less room for positive surprises and much more room for disappointment. And stocks are not cheap. The dividend yield on the S&P is just 2%.

6. The derivatives time bomb is bigger than ever — and ticking away. Just before Lehman collapsed, at what we now call the height of the last bubble, Wall Street firms were carrying risky financial derivatives on their books with a value of an astonishing $183 trillion. That was 13 times the size of the U.S. economy. If it sounds insane, it was. Since then we’ve had four years of panic, alleged reform and a return to financial sobriety. So what’s the figure now? Try $248 trillion. No kidding. Ah, good times.

7. The ancient regime is in the saddle. I have to laugh whenever I hear Republicans ranting that Barack Obama is a “liberal” or a “socialist” or a communist. Are you kidding me? Obama is Bush 44. He’s a bit more like the old man than the younger one. But look at who’s still running the economy: Bernanke. Geithner. Summers. Goldman Sachs. J.P. Morgan Chase. We’ve had the same establishment in charge since at least 1987, when Paul Volcker stood down as Fed chairman. Change? What “change”? (And even the little we had was too much for Wall Street, which bought itself a new, more compliant Congress in 2010.)

8. Ben Bernanke doesn’t understand his job. The Fed chairman made an absolutely astonishing admission at his first press conference. He cited the boom in the Russell 2000 Index RUT -0.98% of risky small-cap stocks as one sign “quantitative easing” had worked. The Fed has a dual mandate by law: low inflation and low unemployment. Now, apparently, it has a third: boosting Wall Street share prices. This is crazy. If it ends well, I will be surprised.

9. We are levering up like crazy. Looking for a “credit bubble”? We’re in it. U.S. corporations borrowed $513 billion in the first quarter. They’re borrowing at twice the rate that they were last fall, when corporate debt was already soaring. U.S. nonfinancial corporations overall are now deeply in debt, to the tune of $7.3 trillion. That’s a record level, and up 24% in the past five years. And when you throw in household debts, government debt and the debts of the financial sector, the debt level reaches at least as high as $50 trillion. More leverage means more risk. It’s Econ 101.

10. The real economy remains in the tank. The second round of quantitative easing hasn’t done anything noticeable except lower the exchange rate. Unemployment is far, far higher than the official numbers will tell you (for example, even the Labor Department’s fine print admits that one middle-aged man in four lacks a full-time job — astonishing). Our current-account deficit is running at $120 billion a year (and hasn’t been in surplus since 1990). House prices are falling, not recovering. Real wages are stagnant. Yes, productivity is rising. But that, ironically, also helps keep down jobs.

Bernanke: Fed May Launch New Round of Stimulus

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke told Congress Wednesday that a new stimulus program is in the works that will entail additional asset purchases, the clearest indication yet that the central bank is contemplating another round of monetary easing.

Translation: The Fed is going to buy back more of those fraudulent mortgage-backed securities and dump the losses on the people. You think losing 48% of the dollar's value in the last three years was bad; you ain't seen nothing yet! The Wiemar Republic inflation (caused by a private central bank and debt-based currency) and Zimbabwe's inflation (caused by a private central bank and debt-based currency) are going to look like a summer picnic compared to what the crash of the US economy (caused by a private central bank and debt-based currency) is about to do to you.
See that word "Reserve" above? That is the sound of the doom of the nation whose currency has that mark of the money-junkies on it!

Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe

When I expressed my opinion that the US Government ought to invoke its constitutional authority to issue money rather than go further into debt to the privately-owned Federal Reserve, I was flooded with denunciations (by the Fed's PR shills I suspect) screaming that government issuing its own money would bring doom and disaster for us all (like the IMF and Federal Reserve have not?) and holding up the terrible inflation of Wiemar, Germany and Zimbabwe as examples. But, as this article shows, Zimbabwe has a privately-owned central reserve bank issuing money as debt quite similar to the Federal Reserve, and of course, a private central bank and debt-based currency was imposed on Germany after WWI by the treaty of Versailles. It was only after Hitler started issuing a government currency based on units of value that the "German Miracle" occurred and turned the German economy around.

So the lesson here is that it is the privately-owned central banks issuing all currency as the proceeds of an interest-bearing loan that have crashed the economies of the world. That is what happened in Wiemar, Germany and Zimbabwe, Greece, Egypt, Iceland, and here in the United States.

Any five-year old boy knows that if you put ten marbles into a tin can, you can only take ten marbles back out. The IMF operates on the principle that they can put ten marbles (dollars) into a tin can (the world) and magically get 15 marbles back out. Thus, the bankers at the IMF are dumber than five-year old boys!

While public is told banking system is healthy FDIC quietly grows troubled bank list by 180 and adds over 1,600 employees in the last two years to deal with bank failures.

The repeal of Glass-Steagall has been an absolute failure for allowing this commingling of financial functions. I find it interesting that while we get a public stance that all is well on the banking front, we find that the FDIC keeps adding employees to handle bank failures and the number of problem institutions continues to grow. Of course this is the kind of information that is buried deep in websites and financial statements while most of the press focuses on distractions.

USA has record $61.6 TRILLION in unfunded obligations; $534,000 per household.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2011-06-06-us-owes-62-trillion-in-debt_n.htm?loc=interstitialskip

The federal government's financial condition deteriorated rapidly last year, far beyond the $1.5 trillion in new debt taken on to finance the budget deficit, a USA TODAY analysis shows.

Note that USA Today only comments on the cost of social programs like Medicare and fails to mention the high cost of the wars, Israel, and the $27 trillion Wall Street's fraudulent mortgage-backed securities have cost the nation.

CHART - The Real National Debt Is $202 Trillion

Using CBO data, Kotlikoff says the real national debt is $202 trillion.

The United States is bankrupt. Time to repudiate the entire debt and start over.

U.S. runs $43 billion deficit in June - Year-to-date deficit nears $1 trillion mark

And that's just through June - The fiscal year lasts through October.

Lost But Not Found - $2.3 Trillion Still Missing At Pentagon

I hate Rumsfeld - Whatever happened with this story anyway?

U.S. can't account for $8.7 billion of Iraq's money: audit

The U.S. Department of Defense was unable to account properly for $8.7 billion of Iraqi oil and gas money meant for humanitarian needs and reconstruction after the 2003 invasion, according to an audit released on Tuesday.

The figure is nearly 96 percent of the $9.1 billion funneled to the Pentagon from the Development Fund for Iraq (DFI), said the audit report from the U.S. Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction (SIGIR).

President Obama To Hold Press Conference Friday 11 AM EDT About Debt Ceiling and Budget Meetings 15 July 2011 –

President Obama will be holding a press conference at 11am EDT Friday morning 15 July 2011 to try and explain to the nation the status of USA debt negotiations and debt ceiling talks between his administration and the GOP leaders.

The ongoing impasse between the political franchises, as well as, the President’s agenda for the nation during the rest of his administration – has not found any give from either side.

On 13 July by the end of the day, the President abruptly ended the meeting, and the remark that made it into the headlines was: “Don’t call my bluff.”

As of this writing, MSNBC is reporting that Obama has canceled the debt ceiling working meeting for tomorrow and demanded a "working plan" from the Congress in the next 36 hours.

The press of time may be because more and more Americans have been asking why we need to borrow money from a private central bank that simply prints it up at interest, when the US Government has the constitutional authority to create their own money and spend it into circulation interest free. Lincoln did it. Kennedy did it. Obama is refusing to do it because he works for the money-junkies, not you!

Obama has hit the panic button and is grandstanding, trying to bluff (his words) the Congress that the people of the United States will support his strong stance or react in fear to the scare tactics even now pouring forth from the TV sets of America.

As I type these words, MSNBC's Lawrence O'Donnell is trying to paint a portrait of utter doom and destruction if the debt ceiling is not raised, including the shut off of Social Services (but of course no mention of scaling back the wars). At one point in the tirade, Lawrence O'Donnell was even claiming that the debt ceiling could be raised without any increase in taxes, which of course is nonsense.

But MSNBC, like every other corporate TV network, bows to corporate interests and the corporations want an increase in the debt ceiling so that the government can go on buying whatever they have to sell, and of course, the bankers are rubbing their hands in glee at shoving that debt hook up the rear end of Americans just a bit further.

Obama is planning a press conference tomorrow morning to beg the American people to pressure Congress to plunge the nation further in debt. We are already hearing the claim that "Default is unthinkable" and that is indeed the problem. They were not thinking. The US Government borrowed and borrowed and borrowed in the certain belief that some other administration would deal with the problem of repayment.

Bottom line is that raising the debt ceiling does not solve the problem; it merely prolongs it. If Obama demands you call Congress and ask for the debt ceiling to be increased I ask you to call Congress and demand the debt ceiling stay where it is, and end the wars to balance the budget.

This is a fight for the very soul of the nation. Who will prevail? The American people, or the money-junkies? Only you can decide and you will decide by way of your actions over the next 36 hours!

U.S. may lose top credit rating soon

The United States could lose its top notch credit rating and that has made its largest creditor, China, nervous.

Standard & Poor's has warned U.S. lawmakers privately that it would downgrade the country's debt if the Treasury Department is forced to prioritize payments because Congress does not raise the debt limit, a congressional aide said Thursday.

This talk of raising the debt ceiling is missing the point entirely.

The US government can print its own currency with which to pay its bills without going to the Federal Reserve, which has been printing up money as though there were no tomorrow, and charging every single taxpayer the interest.

Lincoln did it; Kennedy did it; why can't President Obama do it?!?

President Obama abruptly walks out of debt ceiling talks

President Barack Obama abruptly walked out of a stormy debt-limit meeting with congressional leaders Wednesday, a dramatic setback to the already shaky negotiations.

“He shoved back and said ‘I’ll see you tomorrow’ and walked out,” House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) told reporters in the Capitol after the meeting.

On a day when the Moody’s rating agency warned that American debt could be downgraded, the White House talks blew up amid a new round of sniping between Obama and Cantor, who are fast becoming bitter enemies.

It looks as though the Federal government may well be headed for a default, courtesy of stupidity, shortsightedness, and a complete lack of candor on the part of all concerned.

What Happened to the $2.6 Trillion Social Security Trust Fund?

Well, either Obama and Geithner are lying to us now, or they and all defenders of the Social Security status quo have been lying to us for decades. It must be one or the other.

Here’s why: Social Security has a trust fund, and that trust fund is supposed to have $2.6 trillion in it, according to the Social Security trustees. If there are real assets in the trust fund, then Social Security can mail the checks, regardless of what Congress does about the debt limit.

I have been telling you the truth for years now. The US Government embezzled your retirement money.

The following excerpt is from the 1998 Senate Budget Committee session. Note the underlined portions.

BEGIN EXCERPT

HOLLINGS: Well, the truth is...ah, shoot, well, we all know there's Washington's math problem. Alan Sloan in this past week's Newsweek says he spends 150%. What we've been doing, Mr. Chairman, in all reality, is taken a hundred billion out of the Social Security Trust Fund, transferring it over to the spending column, and spending it. Our friends to the left here are getting their tax cuts, we getting our spending increases, and hollering surplus, surplus, and balanced budget, and balanced budget plans when we continue to spend a hundred billion more than we take in.

Would you have approved?

If any other of our presidents had doubled the national debt, which had taken more than two centuries to accumulate, in one year, would you have approved?

Hell no. And I did not approve this time. Nobody asked me. Had they asked, I would have said 'no', followed by a thick coat of tar and feathers.

Remember the Templars? One of my ancestors was Master of a Commanderie in Portugal, one of only two nations on Earth (Scotland being the other) where Philip IV's orders to exterminate the Templars were not carried out. My ancestor lived during the time when the surviving Knights Templars were changing their name to the Knights of Christ and refocusing their energies on maritime enterprises. Columbus' wife was from one of those Templar families and it is thought by some that Columbus learned of the New World from the Templars, who learned of it from the Arabs who learned of it from their commerce with the Norsemen. This knowledge was concealed from the ordinary people of Europe by the church, which would never admit to the existence of other civilizations that flourished without Christian rule. Indeed, when Marco Polo returned from the Orient, he was imprisoned by the Dominicans because his knowledge of the great empire of China was deemed a threat to the church's power. Only when other travelers spread the word of the existence of China was Marco Polo released.

But I digress

The point is that it is important to remember just WHY Philip IV tried to exterminate the Templars. Debt! For whatever reason the Pope had looked the other way when the Templars started to practice usury; loaning money at interest. The Templars euphemistically called it "rent", but at the time, usury was banned by Christians as it was banned by Muslims. Usury destroyed societies. Usury had brought down Rome. Being the only group with tacit approval to loan at interest in Christendom, the Templars quickly grew fabulously rich while the people and kings succumbed to induced debt, just exactly what we are seeing today in the EU and the United States at the hands of the IMF, ECB, and the Federal Reserve.

Now, I have a great deal of sympathy for my ancestors and hold a bit of a grudge against Philip IV for his tortures of same, but in looking at how today;s money junkies have driven the entire world into a false poverty with their "eleventh marble" I have to admit that Philip IV had a legitimate beef with the Templars, and his final solution is pretty much what Andrew Jackson, Abraham Lincoln, and John Kennedy all tried to do, albeit carried to a more violent extreme.

So many world leaders, especially the Christian zealots seem to want to take us back to the dark ages. Normally I am opposed, but after reading about Bernanke ready to start up those printing presses again, maybe a short visit back to the 13th of October 1307 is not entirely inappropriate! :)

CHART: Inflation Hits 10% In February According To CPI Calculations From Volcker Era - 1980

You can absorb the chart in about 2 seconds. The upshot to this story is that inflation is currently above 10% and this data is proof.

Moody's Weighs Downgrading U.S. Credit Rating as Obama Says He 'Won't Yield' in Debt Talks

Leading credit rating agency Moody's said Wednesday that the U.S. government's impeccable credit rating was under review for a potential downgrade as tensions boil over in Washington with time running out to raise the nation's borrowing limit.

Let me see if I have this right. Moody's is saying that refusing to go deeper into debt will LOWER the government's credit rating?

Why can't I get that deal?

If I could get a better credit rating by going deeper into debt I would be the most trustworthy man in the universe!

CHART: Inflation Hits 10.6% In Latest Month According To CPI Calculations From Volcker Era - The REAL Number

The chart has been updated to include data for the most recent month.

Source - John Williams' Shadow Government Stats

40 Facts That Prove The Working Class Is Being Systematically Wiped Out

OPEC Meeting in Shambles as Iran and Venezuela Push Their Agendas

Saudi Arabia’s more-or-less stable hand guiding OPEC was yanked from the tiller at the oil producers’ meeting today in Vienna.

For the first time in two decades, OPEC’s stated mission of “ensuring the stabilization of oil markets,” has been replaced by a politicized agenda and the desire by some states (primarily Iran and Venezuela) to increase revenues now, regardless of long-term consequences. The schism comes at a bad time for the still-fragile (and still-oil-addicted) global economy.

The standoff in Vienna that left oil production levels unchanged translates into higher oil prices — Iran’s and Venezuela’s poke-in-the-eye of the U.S. and Saudi Arabia.

European Debt Freedom Imminent: If Karlsruhe Rules that Europe's 500bn Bail-out Breaches Germany's Basic Law (Grundgesetz) In Any Significant Way, Southern Europe's Debt Edifice Could Crumble - UK Telegdraph

Germany's judges hold the euro's fate in their hands ... Whether or not Europe's monetary union survives in its current form, shrinks to a Carolingian core, or shatters, depends as much on abstruse legal arguments put forward on Tuesday in Germany's constitutional court as it does on the parallel drama unfolding on Greek streets.

U.S. Stocks In Selloff - Dow Down Almost 200 Points

The Bond Vigilante - WHY THE MAN WHO RUNS THE WORLD'S LARGEST MUTUAL FUND SOLD ALL HIS TREASURY BONDS

Outstanding story from the Atlantic - Goes into great detail on why he has sold ALL his US Treasuries as well as what he sees ahead regarding US bankruptcy.

British bank shares plunge 5% as Italy and Spain woes ratchet up eurozone debt crisis

Shares in Britain's banks fell by as much as 5 per cent today amid increasing fears that the eurozone debt crisis could spread to Italy or even Spain.

The two countries - the third and fourth largest economies in the eurozone - are widely seen as too big to bail out if they are unable to keep up with their debt payments, as some market commentators suggest.

BREAKING - Eight banks fail Europe’s stress tests; 16 more almost fail

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/eight-banks-fail-europes-stress-tests-2011-07-15

And 16 more almost fail. Don't believe the lies. Essentially every bank in Europe and the U.S. is insolvent. I have provided links showing this for the past 32 months.

Greece and the Euro: Towards Financial Implosion

On the 4th of July, the credit agency Standard & Poor called Greece what it is, i.e. a country in de facto financial bankruptcy. No slight of hand, no obfuscation, no debt reorganization and no “innovative” bailouts can hide the fact that the defective rules of the 17-member Eurozone have allowed some of its members to succumb to the siren calls of excessive and unproductive indebtedness, to be followed by a default on debt payments accompanied by crushingly higher borrowing costs.

EU slams US credit rating 'oligopoly'

While the US finds itself in danger of a credit ratings downgrade due to a national debt crisis, a number of European countries have seen their status fall even further.

Stand & Poor's, Moody's and Fitch - the three largest US-based credit rating agencies - have been criticised by European policymakers who say they have been too quick to downgrade indebted EU states during the euro zone debt crisis.

Rainer Bruederle, the head of German Chancellor Angela Merkel's coalition partners in parliament, has put forward a proposal on Friday to to launch a privately funded, independent European agency to break the dominance of the three main US houses, according to Handelsblatt, a German newspaper.

10 Tipping Points Which Could Potentially Plunge The World Into A Horrific Economic Nightmare

The Economic Collapse

The global economy has become so incredibly unstable at this point that it is not going to take much to plunge the world into a horrific economic nightmare. The foundations of the world economic system are so decayed and so corrupted that even a stiff breeze could potentially topple the entire structure over. Over the past couple of months a constant parade of bad economic news has come streaming in from Europe, Asia and the United States. Signs of an impending economic slowdown are everywhere. So what "tipping point" will trigger the next global economic downturn? Nobody knows for sure, but potential tipping points are all around us...

Tipping Point #10: Drought

A lot of people that read my articles doubt that we will ever see a major global food crisis.

But one is coming.

It is just a matter of time.

Even now, many areas of the world are experiencing very serious droughts. The following is from a recent Bloomberg article....

Parts of China, the biggest grower, had the least rain in a century, some European regions are the driest in 50 years and almost half the winter-wheat crop in the U.S., the largest exporter, is rated poor or worse. Inventory is dropping 8.8 percent, the most in five years, Rabobank International says. Prices will advance 20 percent to as high as $9.25 a bushel by Dec. 31, a Bloomberg survey of 14 analysts and traders shows.

Are you concerned yet?

You should be.

Oil falls as euro zone woes, dollar pressure

Brent crude futures fell sharply on Friday as Europe's debt problems helped the dollar index rebound, extending losses into a second day after consuming nations announced they were tapping strategic reserves.

Poll: Only 19% of Germans Have Faith in the Euro

Mark 'Set For a Comeback' as German Euro Crisis Deepens

Euros - Wikimedia Commons Image
Martyn Brown
UK Express

ALMOST three-quarters of Germans doubt that the euro has a future, a poll reveals.

They also believe rescue attempts are futile as billions more euros will be paid to bail out Greece...

Brzezinski: Middle Class Unrest To Hit U.S.

“I don’t want to be a prophet of doom — and I don’t think we are approaching doom — but I think we’re going to slide into intensified social conflicts, social hostility, some forms of radicalism, there is just going to be a sense that this is not a just society,” Brzezinski said, adding that civil unrest would begin when the lower middle class becomes severely affected by the economic fallout and rising unemployment.

Magnificent grasp of the obvious. And this guy gets paid for this?

No recession for Obama's 454 White House aides - They'll make $37 Million this year

Details on Obama White House pay for czars and assistants vs. that of Bush.

There is NO recession in Washington.

CNN Investigation Reveals Congressional Staffers Received $6.1 Million In Bonuses

Despite all the talk of belt-tightening in Washington, CNN’s Lisa Desjardins dug through many Congressional expense reports and discovered up to $6.1 million was paid out in bonuses to Congressional staff members during the beginning of the year, at the height of talks about a potential government shutdown.

European Commission spends millions on private jets, luxury holidays and cocktail parties

The European Commission has spent more than £8 million on private jet travel, luxury holiday resorts and cocktail parties, an investigation has disclosed.

Commissioners travelled in limousines, stayed in five star hotels and splashed out on lavish gifts including Tiffany jewellery as their member states faced savage budget cuts and rising EU taxes.

An investigation by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism into spending by the EU executive has shown that more than €7.5m (£6.6m) was spent on private jet travel for commissioners between 2006 and 2010.

JP Morgan made 5.4 Billion Dollars In The 2nd Quarter of 2011

Rupert Murdoc's Newscorp made 10 billion dolars in profit. Total taxes paid? Negative 4.5 billion, that's right we paid them.

NPR
British investigators continue to dig for details in the News Corp. hacking scandals.Reuters news service columnist David Cay Johnston, meanwhile, says an investigation of the company's public financial figures shows it has consistently made money at tax time over the past four years. And, he says, it's all legal. Johnston says the company's tricky accounting has netted it billions of dollars."News Corporation made over $10 billion in profits over the last four years. And their tax came to $4.8 billion, negative," Johnston says. "That is, they made $4.8 billion from tax refunds."

A NEW Addition to the List of Tax Loopholes - Futures Traders Pay Just 23% Tax On Income

Versus the 35% that everyone else must pay on regular stock trades.

Monsanto's Net Profit Up 77%

Bloomberg

Monsanto Co. (MON), the world’s largest seed company, raised its full-year profit forecast and posted third-quarter earnings that topped analysts’ estimates on higher sales of Roundup weed killer and genetically modified seeds...

Europe braced for MEPs' expenses storm

Publication of suppressed report could undermine efforts to deal with eurozone debt crisis.

All across the world we here the cry for "Austerity", which is just a fancy word for government ordered poverty, and now we see that those screaming for you to make do with less so the bankers can have more are themselves living lives of luxury on your backs!

Harper takes $11,000 per hour private jet to hockey game

Prime Minister Stephen Harper should have seen this one coming.

The Conservative leader was at TD Garden on Wednesday night as the Bruins tried to even their best-of-seven series with the Vancouver Canucks in Boston.

But word of Harper's flight to Bean Town with his daughter Rachel and Heritage Minister James Moore on a government jet had opposition critics stepping up to the Tory blue-line to lower the boom.

Opposition MPs were incensed that Harper — who used to rail about government abuse of its executive jets — is flying to Boston on the taxpayers' dime for a hockey game even as his government is on a mission to slash some $4 billion per year in "fat" from federal programs and services.

"Excuse me, aren't we in a time of tightening our belts? Aren't we in a time of making sure that we use our money wisely?" fumed Liberal MP Jim Karygiannis.

"The whole world would love to be in his shoes, but we are not and he is the man saying again and again ... we are going to do things differently," said Angus. "Well, there's two rules, there is one for Mr. Harper and his gang and one rule for everyone else."

Turnabout being fair play, Rae stepped up Wednesday.

"I've got nothing against people going to watch a hockey game but ... I don't think you can hardly say that's an official visit by the prime minister of Canada to the United States."

Harper showed up to TD Garden with a significant security detail of eight to 10 people.

Environment Minister Peter Kent maintained the trip to Boston is more than just a personal junket for the hockey-obsessed prime minister.

"He's representing Canada," Kent said.

"It is a major sporting event. Certainly, for many Canadians it's the equivalent to the final hockey game in Olympic competition and the prime minister has made the commitment that he's paying his own way."

Given the oft-cited Conservative figure of $11,000 per hour to fly the Challenger, Harper's commercial airfare won't begin to cover the cost.

Defence department officials could not immediately provide the current per-hour operating cost of the Challenger.

Military documents, obtained in 2007 through Access to Information, suggested at the time the cost of operating the jets range from $9,124 to $11,541 per hour.

The High Gas Prices Are The Results Of Money Printing - Peter Schiff on CNBC Fast Money 4/25/11

Oil price rises sharply after Opec meeting collapses in disarray

• Proposal to increase production rejected by 6 of 12 members
• Analysts foresee Opec's power base weakening

Terry Macalister and Heather Stewart
Guardian

Hopes that Opec would bring relief to motorists and wider western economies from soaring energy prices were today dashed when a crunch meeting of the oil cartel broke up in disarray without the expected agreement to increase crude output...

Fuel sales fall by a BILLION litres (which is a £637m hole in the Treasury's tank)

The Treasury is facing a £637 million deficit after fuel sales dropped by one billion litres this year, the AA revealed.

Service stations in the UK sold 835 million fewer litres of petrol and 247 million fewer litres of diesel in January to March 2011 compared to the same period three years earlier.

British Gas raises gas and electricity prices

Mike O’Connor, chief executive of Consumer Focus, said that consumers no longer trusted energy companies to pass on fair prices.

“Wholesale costs have gone up but they are still around a third lower than their 2008 peak,” he pointed out. “Yet, in this time, British Gas’ prices alone have risen by around 44 per cent on gas and 21 per cent on electricity and suppliers have made healthy profits.”

Bilderberg 2011: Full Official Attendee List

Belgium
Coene, Luc, Governor, National Bank of BelgiumDavignon, Etienne, Minister of StateLeysen, Thomas, Chairman, Umicore

China
Fu, Ying, Vice Minister of Foreign AffairsHuang, Yiping, Professor of Economics, China Center for Economic Research, Peking University

Denmark
Eldrup, Anders, CEO, DONG Energy
Federspiel, Ulrik, Vice President, Global Affairs, Haldor Topsøe A/S
Schütze, Peter, Member of the Executive Management, Nordea Bank AB

Germany
Ackermann, Josef, Chairman of the Management Board and the Group Executive Committee, Deutsche Bank
Enders, Thomas, CEO, Airbus SAS
Löscher, Peter, President and CEO, Siemens AG
Nass, Matthias, Chief International Correspondent, Die Zeit
Steinbrück, Peer, Member of the Bundestag; Former Minister of Finance

Finland
Apunen, Matti, Director, Finnish Business and Policy Forum EVA
Johansson, Ole, Chairman, Confederation of the Finnish Industries EK
Ollila, Jorma, Chairman, Royal Dutch Shell
Pentikäinen, Mikael, Publisher and Senior Editor-in-Chief, Helsingin Sanomat

France
Baverez, Nicolas, Partner, Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP
Bazire, Nicolas, Managing Director, Groupe Arnault /LVMH
Castries, Henri de, Chairman and CEO, AXA
Lévy, Maurice, Chairman and CEO, Publicis Groupe S.A.
Montbrial, Thierry de, President, French Institute for International Relations
Roy, Olivier, Professor of Social and Political Theory, European University Institute

Great Britain
Agius, Marcus, Chairman, Barclays PLC
Flint, Douglas J., Group Chairman, HSBC Holdings
Kerr, John, Member, House of Lords; Deputy Chairman, Royal Dutch Shell
Lambert, Richard, Independent Non-Executive Director, Ernst & Young
Mandelson, Peter, Member, House of Lords; Chairman, Global Counsel
Micklethwait, John, Editor-in-Chief, The Economist
Osborne, George, Chancellor of the Exchequer
Stewart, Rory, Member of Parliament
Taylor, J. Martin, Chairman, Syngenta International AG

Greece
David, George A., Chairman, Coca-Cola H.B.C. S.A.
Hardouvelis, Gikas A., Chief Economist and Head of Research, Eurobank EFG
Papaconstantinou, George, Minister of Finance
Tsoukalis, Loukas, President, ELIAMEP Grisons

International Organizations
Almunia, Joaquín, Vice President, European Commission
Daele, Frans van, Chief of Staff to the President of the European Council
Kroes, Neelie, Vice President, European Commission; Commissioner for Digital Agenda
Lamy, Pascal, Director General, World Trade Organization
Rompuy, Herman van, President, European Council
Sheeran, Josette, Executive Director, United Nations World Food Programme
Solana Madariaga, Javier, President, ESADEgeo Center for Global Economy and Geopolitics
Trichet, Jean-Claude, President, European Central Bank
Zoellick, Robert B., President, The World Bank Group

Ireland
Gallagher, Paul, Senior Counsel; Former Attorney General
McDowell, Michael, Senior Counsel, Law Library; Former Deputy Prime Minister
Sutherland, Peter D., Chairman, Goldman Sachs International

Italy
Bernabè, Franco, CEO, Telecom Italia SpA
Elkann, John, Chairman, Fiat S.p.A.
Monti, Mario, President, Univers Commerciale Luigi Bocconi
Scaroni, Paolo, CEO, Eni S.p.A.
Tremonti, Giulio, Minister of Economy and Finance

Canada
Carney, Mark J., Governor, Bank of Canada
Clark, Edmund, President and CEO, TD Bank Financial Group
McKenna, Frank, Deputy Chair, TD Bank Financial Group
Orbinksi, James, Professor of Medicine and Political Science, University of Toronto
Prichard, J. Robert S., Chair, Torys LLP
Reisman, Heather, Chair and CEO, Indigo Books & Music Inc. Center, Brookings Institution

Netherlands
Bolland, Marc J., Chief Executive, Marks and Spencer Group plc
Chavannes, Marc E., Political Columnist, NRC Handelsblad; Professor of Journalism
Halberstadt, Victor, Professor of Economics, Leiden University; Former Honorary Secretary General of Bilderberg Meetings
H.M. the Queen of the Netherlands
Rosenthal, Uri, Minister of Foreign Affairs
Winter, Jaap W., Partner, De Brauw Blackstone Westbroek

Norway
Myklebust, Egil, Former Chairman of the Board of Directors SAS, sk Hydro ASA
H.R.H. Crown Prince Haakon of Norway
Ottersen, Ole Petter, Rector, University of Oslo
Solberg, Erna, Leader of the Conservative Party

Austria
Bronner, Oscar, CEO and Publisher, Standard Medien AG
Faymann, Werner, Federal Chancellor
Rothensteiner, Walter, Chairman of the Board, Raiffeisen Zentralbank Österreich AG
Scholten, Rudolf, Member of the Board of Executive Directors, Oesterreichische Kontrollbank AG

Portugal
Balsemão, Francisco Pinto, Chairman and CEO, IMPRESA, S.G.P.S.; Former Prime Minister
Ferreira Alves, Clara, CEO, Claref LDA; writer
Nogueira Leite, António, Member of the Board, José de Mello Investimentos, SGPS, SA

Sweden
Mordashov, Alexey A., CEO, Severstal
Bildt, Carl, Minister of Foreign Affairs
Björling, Ewa, Minister for Trade
Wallenberg, Jacob, Chairman, Investor AB

Switzerland
Brabeck-Letmathe, Peter, Chairman, Nestlé S.A.
Groth, Hans, Senior Director, Healthcare Policy & Market Access, Oncology Business Unit, Pfizer Europe
Janom Steiner, Barbara, Head of the Department of Justice, Security and Health, Canton
Kudelski, André, Chairman and CEO, Kudelski Group SA
Leuthard, Doris, Federal Councillor
Schmid, Martin, President, Government of the Canton Grisons
Schweiger, Rolf, Ständerat
Soiron, Rolf, Chairman of the Board, Holcim Ltd., Lonza Ltd.
Vasella, Daniel L., Chairman, Novartis AG
Witmer, Jürg, Chairman, Givaudan SA and Clariant AG

Spain
Cebrián, Juan Luis, CEO, PRISA
Cospedal, María Dolores de, Secretary General, Partido Popular
León Gross, Bernardino, Secretary General of the Spanish Presidency
Nin Génova, Juan María, President and CEO, La Caixa
H.M. Queen Sofia of Spain

Turkey
Ciliv, Süreyya, CEO, Turkcell Iletisim Hizmetleri A.S.
Gülek Domac, Tayyibe, Former Minister of State
Koç, Mustafa V., Chairman, Koç Holding A.S.
Pekin, Sefika, Founding Partner, Pekin & Bayar Law Firm

USA
Alexander, Keith B., Commander, USCYBERCOM; Director, National Security Agency
Altman, Roger C., Chairman, Evercore Partners Inc.
Bezos, Jeff, Founder and CEO, Amazon.com
Collins, Timothy C., CEO, Ripplewood Holdings, LLC
Feldstein, Martin S., George F. Baker Professor of Economics, Harvard University
Hoffman, Reid, Co-founder and Executive Chairman, LinkedIn
Hughes, Chris R., Co-founder, Facebook
Jacobs, Kenneth M., Chairman & CEO, Lazard
Johnson, James A., Vice Chairman, Perseus, LLC
Jordan, Jr., Vernon E., Senior Managing Director, Lazard Frères & Co. LLC
Keane, John M., Senior Partner, SCP Partners; General, US Army, Retired
Kissinger, Henry A., Chairman, Kissinger Associates, Inc.
Kleinfeld, Klaus, Chairman and CEO, Alcoa
Kravis, Henry R., Co-Chairman and co-CEO, Kohlberg Kravis, Roberts & Co.
Kravis, Marie-Josée, Senior Fellow, Hudson Institute, Inc.
Li, Cheng, Senior Fellow and Director of Research, John L. Thornton China Center, Brookings Institution
Mundie, Craig J., Chief Research and Strategy Officer, Microsoft Corporation
Orszag, Peter R., Vice Chairman, Citigroup Global Markets, Inc.
Perle, Richard N., Resident Fellow, American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research
Rockefeller, David, Former Chairman, Chase Manhattan Bank
Rose, Charlie, Executive Editor and Anchor, Charlie Rose
Rubin, Robert E., Co-Chairman, Council on Foreign Relations; Former Secretary of the Treasury
Schmidt, Eric, Executive Chairman, Google Inc.
Steinberg, James B., Deputy Secretary of State
Thiel, Peter A., President, Clarium Capital Management, LLC
Varney, Christine A., Assistant Attorney General for Antitrust
Vaupel, James W., Founding Director, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research
Warsh, Kevin, Former Governor, Federal Reserve Board
Wolfensohn, James D., Chairman, Wolfensohn & Company, LLC

Hillary Clinton interested in becoming head of World Bank?

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/8567112/Hillary-Clinton-wants-to-quit-to-run-World-Bank.html

Hillary Clinton has been in discussions with the White House about stepping down from her job as Secretary of State to become head of the World Bank, according to reports.

Mrs Clinton, the former First Lady, Senator for New York and rival to President Barack Obama in the 2008 Democratic primary race, is said to be eager to become the first female president of the World Bank should the post become vacant next year.

"Hillary Clinton wants the job," a source close to Mrs Clinton told Reuters, which broke the news of the possible move.

Robert Zoellick, a former Bush administration official, is believed to be ready to step down as president at the end of his term in the middle of next year.

Mrs Clinton has made clear she does not want to remain US Secretary of State, a gruelling job demanding months of world travel each year, beyond Mr Obama's first term.

Another source told Reuters that Mr Obama supported her taking the helm at the World Bank, which is traditionally led by an American.

US denies Clinton seeking to be World Bank chief

WASHINGTON (AFP) - Top US administration officials Thursday vehemently denied a report by the Reuters news agency that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was in talks to become the next head of the World Bank.

"It's 100 percent untrue, Reuters is wrong," Philippe Reines, a close advisor to Clinton, told AFP.

"To be crystal clear," he added in a second statement, "Secretary Clinton has not had any conversations with the president, the White House or anyone about moving to the World Bank.

"She has expressed absolutely no interest in the job. She would not take it if offered."

White House spokesman Jay Carney also chipped in, saying: "The story is completely untrue." ...

IMF and World Bank: Global Loan Sharks and the Media

Serving as a conduit for money from Western governments and banks and bondholders (with the United States as the biggest single source of funds), the IMF and World Bank require that recipient nations adhere to strict "structural adjustment" programs. They include easing limits on foreign investment, increasing exports, suppressing wages, cutting social services such as health care and education, and keeping the state out of potentially profitable endeavors.

IMF Financial Terrorism

Stephen Lendman, Contributing Writer
Activist Post

In July 1944, the IMF and Bank for Reconstruction and Development (now the World Bank) were established to integrate developing nations into the Global North-dominated world economy in ways other than initially mandated.

Under a new post-war monetary system, the IMF was created to stabilize exchange rates linked to the dollar and bridge temporary payment imbalances. The World Bank was to provide credit to war-torn developing countries. Both bodies, in fact, proved hugely exploitive, using debt entrapment to transfer public wealth to Western bankers and other corporate predators.

Leading Financial Advisers and Trend Forecasters Urge People to Protect Themselves from the Coming Unrest

Preface: I was raised to be against gun ownership. But I have changed my mind, especially after learning:

Two of the best-known promoters of nonviolence in history were not opposed to guns. Specifically, Mahatma Gandhi wrote in his book, An Autobiography (page 446):

Among the many misdeeds of the British rule in India, history will look upon the Act depriving a whole nation of arms, as the blackest … if we want to learn the use of arms, here is a golden opportunity.

Fukushima:

http://www.centpapiers.com/japon-sols-hautement-contamines/76444

Du 24 mai au 3 juin 2011, une équipe scientifique de la Criirad est allée au Japon, dans les préfectures d’Ibaraki et de Fukushima. Composée de Bruno Chareyron, ingénieur en physique nucléaire et responsable du laboratoire de la Criirad, et de Christian Courbon, technicien spécialiste des investigations de terrain, cette mission d’étude avait un triple objectif : évaluer les niveaux d’irradiation, former et équiper des citoyens et des associations japonaises au contrôle radiologique, et limiter au maximum l’exposition des personnes.

Au moment où la Criirad édite la vidéo d’une conférence faite fin juin pour faire connaître le compte rendu de la mission, l’IRSN publie une synthèse sur la pollution radioactive sur terre, un article du site d’Alexander Higgins dévoile une contamination importante du sol de la banlieue de Tokyo et l’Acro met à jour les résultats de ses propres analyses. Il est donc intéressant de comparer leurs différentes approches.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EDktcbrIMJY

Vidéo de la conférence de la Criirad du 29 juin 2011 à Lyon avec Bruno Chareyron (1/2 h)

1) Informations données lors de la conférence de la Criirad

Selon Bruno Chareyron, les Japonais ont été très mal informés et très mal protégés. Très peu de pastilles d’iode ont été distribuées pour éviter les cancers de la thyroïde. Des doses extrêmement élevées de radiations ont été relevées seulement 10 jours après le début de la catastrophe, ce qui est inacceptable car on a laissé la population dans l’ignorance du danger des retombées.

La Criirad ne comprend pas comment cela a pu se passer dans un pays moderne, riche comme le Japon, ayant des ingénieurs en radioprotection. Cela est inacceptable 25 ans après Tchernobyl.
Par ailleurs, la simulation de l’IRSN du 17 mars a laissé penser qu’il ne fallait évacuer personne, alors qu’on était en pleine contamination. La simulation a été faite sans chiffres fiables, puisqu’encore aujourd’hui, on ne connaît pas exactement la réalité de cette contamination.

Fin mai 2011, les mesures de terrain et analyses de sol effectuées par le laboratoire de la Criirad sur la ville de Fukushima, située à 60-65 km de la centrale nucléaire de Fukushima Daiichi, indiquent que les retombées de césium 134 et 137 radioactif sont de plusieurs centaines de milliers de Bq/m2 : 490 000 Bq/m2 sur la pelouse de l’école primaire Moriai ; plus de 700 000 Bq/m2 dans le quartier Watari.
Les débits de dose relevés à 1 mètre du sol, en extérieur, sont plus de 10 fois, voire plus de 20 fois supérieurs à la normale (supérieurs à 1 et 2 ?Sv/h). L’irradiation est encore mesurable dans les étages des bâtiments. Des mesures effectuées au 4ème étage d’un immeuble ont montré un excès de radiation qui augmente lorsqu’on se rapproche des fenêtres, même fermées.
Les maisons ne sont donc pas vraiment des protections, car les rayonnements gamma des radionucléides qui sont sur le sol à l’extérieur sont très puissants et traversent les murs et les fenêtres. A l’intérieur d’une maison individuelle du quartier Watari, la Criirad a mesuré un débit de dose plus de 3 fois supérieur à la normale au contact du tatami dans la chambre des enfants (0,38 ?Sv/h) et 6 fois supérieur dans le salon à 1 mètre du sol (0,6 ?Sv/h). Devant la maison, on mesure 2,2 ?Sv/h dans le jardin d’agrément et 2,9 ?Sv/h au niveau de la pelouse d’une école proche (mesures à 1 mètre du sol).

Un prélèvement sous une balançoire de la ville de Fukushima a donné un taux de radioactivité en césium de 370 000 Bq/kg, donc la terre de cette école peut être considérée comme un déchet radioactif.

La centrale de Fukushima Daiichi souffre également d’un manque de contrôle de la radioactivité de l’air : la balise qui se trouve devant la centrale ne fonctionne que 20 minutes par jour. Tepco répond à ce problème en prétendant qu’ils n’ont pas assez de personnel disponible pour changer les filtres.
Selon la Criirad, les autorités japonaises n’ont pas lancé de critères d’évacuation obligatoire suffisants. Si rien n’est fait, les habitants de la ville de Fukushima pourraient subir dans les douze mois à venir une irradiation externe de plusieurs milliSieverts alors que la dose au-delà de laquelle le risque de cancer est jugé inacceptable par la CIPR (Commission Internationale de Protection Radiologique) est de 1 milliSievert par an, ce qui correspond à 5 décès pour 100 000 personnes exposées.

Or les autorités japonaises ont fixé une limite de dose de 20 milliSieverts comme critère pour décider d’évacuer définitivement ou non les populations. Ceci correspond à un risque de cancer mortel à terme 20 fois supérieur au risque acceptable en France. Ceci est d’autant plus grave que les habitants de Fukushima ont déjà été fortement exposés. Il faut également tenir compte des doses liées à la contamination interne que ces populations continuent à subir par ingestion de denrées contaminées et des risques liés à l’inhalation de poussières à partir du sol contaminé.

L’intérêt de la mission de la Criirad au Japon a été de permettre aux Japonais qui ont rencontré Bruno Chareyron et Christian Courbon d’intellectualiser cette menace invisible, afin de mieux s’en prémunir.

2) Le rapport de l’IRSN

« Synthèse des informations disponibles sur la contamination radioactive de l’environnement terrestre japonais provoquée par l’accident de Fukushima Dai-ichi »
13 juillet 2011
http://www.irsn.fr/FR/Actualites_presse/Actualites/Documents/IRSN-NI_Fukushima-Consequences_environnement_Japon-13072011.pdf
Selon ce rapport que vous pouvez consulter avec le lien ci-dessus, il n’est pas dangereux de boire du thé faiblement radioactif. Les amateurs de thé apprécieront, j’en suis certain !

Par ailleurs, l’IRSN utilise différentes unités de mesures de radioactivité, soit des Bq/kg (densité massique), soit des Bq/m² (densité surfacique) ce qui ne permet pas de lire le document de façon aisée puisque l’on saute de l’une à l’autre sans explication ni données de comparaison. Il est évident qu’il serait plus juste de donner uniquement des mesures de densité surfacique, car c’est sur le sol que les hommes vivent.

Toutefois, on pourrait quand même comparer ces mesures en transformant les densités massiques en densité surfacique. Mais, petit problème, il manque deux données essentielles : la densité de la terre prélevée et la hauteur du prélèvement. Seul le prélèvement de l’ACRO comporte l’information de profondeur (2 cm). Il faut donc utiliser une densité minimale pour la terre superficielle d’environ 1200 kg/m3 (densité de la terre végétale = 1200, densité de l’argile ou du sable = 1700) pour ensuite envisager de convertir la mesure de 86 680 Bq/kg pour l’iode 131 (prélèvement du 31 mars à Iitate Maeda) avec cette formule : Bq/kg (radioactivité massique) x kg/m3 (densité de la terre) x m (profondeur de prélèvement) = Bq/m² (radioactivité surfacique)

Ce qui donne :
86 680 x 1200 x 0,02 = 2 080 320 Bq/m²

Eh oui, 2 080 320 Bq/m², ça fait plus mal aux yeux dans un rapport que 86 600 Bq/kg ! Voilà comment les scientifiques manient les chiffres pour manipuler les gens.
Quant aux autres données de l’IRSN en Bq/kg, impossible d’en tirer quoi que ce soit puisqu’il n’est jamais mentionné la profondeur du prélèvement. Dommage, ça aurait été intéressant, car plus le prélèvement est profond, plus la radioactivité massique baisse !
Pour la ville de Fukushima, si on compare les mesures faites par la Criirad et celles fournies par l’IRSN, voici ce que l’on constate :
Selon la Criirad (Ville de Fukushima, fin mai 2011, césium 134 et 137) :
- 490 000 Bq/m² sur la pelouse de l’école primaire Moriai
- Plus de 700 000 Bq/m2 dans le quartier Watari.
Selon l’IRSN (Ville de Fukushima) :
- 48 Bq/m² en césium 134 du 29 au 30 mai 2011,
- 70 Bq/m² en césium 137 du 30 au 31 mai 2011, soit un total pour le césium de 118 Bq/kg.

[ Il y a comme un problème de mesure pour l’un ou pour l’autre ! A la même date (fin mai), les mesures données par l’IRSN sont 5 000 fois inférieures à celles de la Criirad. Certes, il peut y avoir des écarts énormes entre des endroits très rapprochés mais quand même, cela est très surprenant. Cela voudrait-il dire que l’IRSN ne retient que les « bons » endroits ou que la Criirad ne retient que les « mauvais » (en dessous d’une balançoire par exemple) ? ]

Correction du 15 juillet 2011 13h : suite à un commentaire pertinent d’un lecteur, je supprime ce paragraphe car on ne peut effectivement pas comparer un flux avec un dépôt. La Criirad donne une somme de dépôts radioactifs accumulés sur le sol alors que l’IRSN donne le flux, c’est-à-dire l’apport de poussières radioactives en une journée. L’erreur provient de l’utilisation de la même unité « Bq/m² » dans les deux mesures. Pour un flux, il faudrait plutôt utiliser « Bq/m²/j » pour plus de clarté.

Peut-être y verra-t-on plus clair avec les mesures effectuées par un Japonais dans la banlieue de Tokyo ?

3) Article “52,547 Bq/Kg of cesium radiation found in soil just outside Tokyo – 135 miles south of Fukushima”

http://blog.alexanderhiggins.com/2011/07/13/52547-bqkg-cesium-radiation-soil-tokyo-135-miles-south-fukushima-34691/

Je ne vais pas développer cet article écrit en anglais, mais simplement résumer l’information la plus importante : selon l’auteur de l’article, Alexander Higgins, un Japonais a fait analyser un échantillon de terre prélevé à Kashiwa, à une trentaine de km au nord-est de Tokyo. Les résultats du laboratoire montrent un rayonnement de 52 547 Bq/kg de césium : 23 663 Bq/kg de césium 134 et 28 884 Bq/kg de césium 137.

?52 547 Bq/kg, ça fait vraiment beaucoup ! Il doit être, au même titre que la terre sous la balançoire de Fukushima, considéré comme un déchet radioactif (limite maximale au Japon fixée à 8000 Bq/kg).

Si on essaie de comparer ces mesures alarmantes avec celles de l’IRSN, eh bien on ne peut pas, tout simplement, car cette « synthèse » n’en fournit pas. Le rapport mentionne simplement que « dans la grande majorité des préfectures japonaises (dont Tokyo), le césium 134 et le césium 137 ne sont plus détectés dans les retombées atmosphériques collectées ». Mais il ne parle pas des mesures faites au sol. Pourquoi ? Dans quel but l’IRSN laisse-t-il les habitants de Tokyo dans l’ignorance ?

4) Résultats des mesures de l’ACRO : mise à jour au 13 juillet 2011

http://www.acro.eu.org/OCJ_fr.html#resultats%201ere%20campagne

Ce laboratoire indépendant a reçu des échantillons en provenance des provinces de Fukushima et de Miyagi qui mettent en évidence une contamination alarmante, ce qui ne contredit en rien les relevés de la Criirad.

Je ne peux reproduire ici tous les tableaux, il est préférable de consulter le site directement à l’aide du lien donné ci-dessus.

Quant à la ville de Kashiwa, l’Acro relève que la contamination surfacique des sols en césium 137 est supérieure à la limite biélorusse de 37 000 Bq/m2 qui implique un contrôle radiologique périodique et qu’il conviendrait de faire une étude plus détaillée de la contamination de cette zone. Cette conclusion ne contredit pas non plus les résultats de l’analyse décrite plus haut par Alexander Higgins.

Pour conclure, il semble prudent de conseiller aux Japonais de ne pas tenir compte des mesures officielles. Elles sont souvent prises trop en hauteur (sur les toits par exemple), en dehors de la réalité de la vie humaine qui se passe la plupart du temps au sol. Quant on compare les données officielles aux mesures des organisations indépendantes des intérêts liés à l’industrie nucléaire, on se rend compte qu’il y a une manipulation des données pour désinformer la population. Il existe enfin un site qui rassemble des centaines de milliers de mesures réalisées au Japon par les citoyens volontaires avec des compteurs Geiger. C’est le site http://safecast.org/présentant des cartes interactives.

Northwest sees 35% infant mortality spike post-Fukushima

Physician Janette Sherman, M.D. and epidemiologist Joseph Mangano published a report Monday highlighting a 35% spike in northwest infant mortality after Japan's nuclear meltdown.

The United States Federal Government is planning a radiation survey of Washington State. The bad news is that if they find anything, they will not make it public!

Northwest sees 35% infant mortality spike post-Fukushima
June 17, 2011, Q13 FOX-TV (Seattle FOX Network affiliate)
http://www.q13fox.com/news/kcpq-northwest-sees-35-infant-mortality-spike-postfukushima...

Physician Janette Sherman, M.D. and epidemiologist Joseph Mangano published a report Monday highlighting a 35% spike in northwest infant mortality after Japan's nuclear meltdown. The report spotlighted data from the CDC's Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report on infant mortality rates in eight northwest cities, including Seattle, in the 10 weeks after Fukushima's nuclear meltdown. The average number of infant deaths for the region moved from an average of 9.25 in the four weeks before Fukushima' nuclear meltdown, to an average of 12.5 per week in the 10 weeks after. The change represents a 35% increase in the northwest's infant mortality rates. In comparison, the average rates for the entire U.S. rose only 2.3%.

Skipjack Tuna Caught Off Fukushima: Zero; Catch Sold Elsewhere As 'Local'

Original commentary. See also 'Back in Business': Skipjack Tuna Company Recovers After Tsunami With Seasonal Catch

Fukushima is not, shall we say, the most advantageous place for your fish to have been caught, if you want it sold. No one wants to buy fish from Fukushima for some reason. Solution? Haul your catch to another port! 'Caught in the waters of...' Insert the name of the new port.

Around half of the world's skipjack is caught yearly off Japan's coasts. Skipjack is the MAJOR ingredient in katsuobushi -- fermented, concentrated, and used to make miso.

How Digital Detectives Deciphered Stuxnet

Suspicions of course were growing that Israel and the U.S. were behind Stuxnet and had used the malware as a devious alternative to bombing Iran’s nuclear plant.

...

If the malware’s aim had been to destroy centrifuges in Iran and cripple the country’s ability to produce a nuclear weapon, the consensus is that it failed. A physical attack would have been much more effective, though obviously much less stealthy or politically expedient. But if its intent was simply to delay and sow uncertainty in Iran’s nuclear program, then it appeared to succeed — for a time.

Utility planted 'citizens' to support restart of reactors

About 50 Kyushu Electric Power Co. employees and affiliates were involved in attempting to orchestrate an email campaign, posing as ordinary citizens, in support of the restart of its nuclear reactors on a government-sponsored TV program, according to an internal investigation by the utility.

Radiation In Japan Beef Being Detected With Levels Above International Nuclear Waste Limits

Radiation levels in beef from various locations in Japan is being detected at levels above international legal limits for nuclear waste and the Japanese government is allowing farmers to still sell the beef.

Leak forces Tepco to temporarily halt water decontamination system

Tokyo Electric Power Co. said Sunday it temporarily halted the system to decontaminate radioactive water at the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in Fukushima Prefecture after discovering that about 50 liters of contaminated water and chemicals used in the system were leaking from a pipe after a part broke.

Expert: Appears that more nuclear fuel damaged at Fukushima than all other reactor accidents in history combined (VIDEO)

Duxbury Presentation with Gundersen, Fairewinds, July 1, 2011:

• At 7:27 in: It appears that more fuel damaged at Fukushima than all other reactor accidents combined
• At 34:40 in: Fukushima probably worse than I ever thought could happen
• At 36:15 in: Fukushima was well beyond what we could have ever anticipated
• At 1:02:00 in: During April, the people in Seattle could have just as easily been in Tokyo for the amount of hot particles that were there

Duxbury Presentation with Gundersen from Fairewinds Associates on Vimeo.

Cows fed hay with radioactive cesium at 250 times legal limit — 75,000 bq/kg

Cesium found in hay fed to cattle, NHK, July 11, 2011:

Radioactive cesium far exceeding the legal limit has been detected in hay that was fed to cattle at a farm in Fukushima Prefecture. [..]

They say 75,000 becquerels per kilogram of cesium has been detected in the feed. This far exceeds the government’s safety limit of 300 becquerels per kilogram. [...]

Elderly woman hangs herself over nuclear crisis — Please tell your readers why she committed suicide, son tells Mainichi

Elderly Fukushima woman kills self ‘to evacuate to grave’, Mainichi, July 9, 2011:

A 93-year-old woman, dejected over the ongoing nuclear crisis, was found hanged at her home in Minamisoma, Fukushima Prefecture, in late June, leaving behind suicide notes that said in part, “I will evacuate to the grave. I am sorry.”

After hydrogen explosions at the Fukushima No. 1 Nuclear Power Plant in March, the woman was forced to evacuate to the house of her second daughter in Soma and was later hospitalized for two weeks before returning May 3 to her house in Minamisoma, subject to a possible emergency evacuation order due to the nuclear disaster.

“If we have to evacuate again, elderly people (like me) will become a drag,” her suicide note said. [...]

Her four suicide notes addressed to her family, ancestors and a close neighborhood friend were later found in the house. “My heart is in my mouth everyday due to news of the nuclear power plant,” she wrote to her family. [...]

Her son and his wife told the Mainichi, “Please tell your readers why she killed herself.”

Japan Nuclear Disaster Update 30: It was, is, and will be worse than you thought

Perhaps the most interesting single thing on the table in today's update is the revelation that at least one of Fukushima's reactors suffered sufficient damage from the earthquake that hit the region ... prior to the tsunami ... to have likely gone out of control or melted down. This is hard to assess because the tsunami caused so much additional damage as to obscure earlier damage, and because cleanup efforts are not proper forensic methods to reconstruct what happened there, and because we can assume at this point that the untrustworthy TEPCO will cover up whatever it can, and it is in their interest to ignore any evidence that the earthquake itself resulted in significant damage.

High level contamination in reactor building found

The operator of the troubled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant says it has detected airborne radioactive materials up to 65 times above the government's standard inside the No. 2 reactor building.

On Monday, the plant operator said robots have detected airborne cesium-134 inside the No.2 reactor building ranging from 40 to 65 times above the government's standard.

Makeshift equipment at Fukushima hit by problems

The operator of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant has been struggling for months to bring the plant's troubled reactors under control using makeshift equipment.

Shock? Cow meat with high levels of radiation now circulating all over Japan — Cattle had previously only been screened for radioactivity on skin

Radioactive Beef Distributed Nationwide in Japan, Arirang, July 12, 2011:

Various Japanese media outlets reported Tuesday that beef containing radioactive cesium was found to have been distributed nationwide, including major cities such as Tokyo and Osaka.

Media reports say that some 190 kilograms of meat has already been distributed and a good amount has gone into the hands of Japanese consumers, leaving them, as well as the government, in shock. [...]

Radioactive meat circulating on Japanese market, CNN, July 12, 2011:

A Japanese health official downplayed the dangers Tuesday after cesium contaminated meat from six Fukushima cows was delivered to Japanese markets and probably ingested. [...]

Up until now, cattle in Fukushima were only subject to a screening test, to inspect for radioactive particles adhering to the skin, and farmers were ordered to self-report how it the cattle feed was being stocked. [...]

On Saturday, the health and welfare office at Tokyo Metropolitan government found that meat from 11 cows from a Fukushima farm, which was about to be delivered, contained high levels of radiation. As a precaution, the office was ordered to trace meat from six cows from the same farm and realized that the meat is now circulating not only in Tokyo, but all over Japan.

Radioactive ash at 70,000+ bq/kg found near Tokyo — Collected in late June and early July

Radioactive ash found in waste plants near Tokyo, AFP, July 12, 2011:

Japanese waste incineration plants near Tokyo [200 km from Fukushima plant] have found high levels of radiation in ash, and officials said Tuesday it may be from garden waste [...]

[T]he radioactive ash collected in late June and early July, at concentrations of up to 70,800 becquerels per kilogramme [...]

The level is far higher than the government’s 8,000-becquerel per kilogramme limit [...]

TEPCO razed a hill to build Fukushima on low ground

Japan's Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant was devastated by a tsunami in March - but before the plant was built the owners had cleared away a 35-metre hill that would have shielded it.

So, they HAD a hill at the site that would have kept those generators above the water AND THEY @#$ING TORE IT DOWN?!?!?!?

Report: 50,000+ Bq/kg of radioactive cesium found in soil near Tokyo — “Terrifying” that sample was from side of street where children walk everyday

Radiation check in Japan, asuperdry, July 12, 2011:

I got the test results back from the 2 different labs that I sent soil samples to, and it was found to be much higher. 23,663 Bq/Kg of Cesium-134 and 28,884 Bq/Kg of Cesium-137

52,547 Bq/Kg Off Cesium Radiation Found In Soil Just Outside Tokyo, Alexander Higgins, July 13, 2011:

[Emphasis Added]

I live in japan 135 miles / 220 Km south of Fukushima, in Kashiwa. I had the soil in Kashiwa professionally tested here are the official results for the levels of Cesium-137 and 134 and Iodine-131 only. No lab in Japan offers testing for any of the other dangerous radioactive elements like Plutonium / Strontium / Tellurium or Curium, all elements that were released in the explosion Use these results as you see fit, yes I know the results are nothing less than horrifying, what is even more terrifying is that the soil sample was taken from the side of the street where children walk everyday and not from where the elements could accumulate. This is the Cesium-137/134 and Iodine-131 levels of the soil in Kashiwa, that I had sent in and officially tested by a lab here in Japan. Jon-in-Japan

Food-safety concerns increasing after gov’t mishandles radioactive beef problem: Industry official

Beef Contaminated by Radiation Intensifies Food-Safety Concerns in Japan, Bloomberg by Aya Takada, July 14, 2011:

About 437 kilograms (963 pounds) of [radiation-contaminated] beef from a farm in Minami-Soma city, 30 kilometers from the stricken Fukushima Dai- Ichi nuclear station, was consumed in eight prefectures, according to the Tokyo metropolitan government [...]

“The government’s mishandling of the issue is deepening food-safety concerns,” Susumu Harada, senior director at the U.S. Meat Export Federation’s Tokyo office, said in an interview. [...]

Entire area of major city 60km from Fukushima meltdown to be decontaminated — Officials expect process may take 20 years

Fukushima to decontaminate entire city, Yomiuri Shimbun, July 14, 2011:

The Fukushima municipal government likely will decontaminate the city’s entire area in response to the ongoing crisis at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant, according to city government sources. [...]

Fear of radioactive contamination is widespread among the city’s residents as radiation levels in some areas of the city have been confirmed as higher than those within the 20-kilometer-radius no-entry zone surrounding the nuclear power plant. [...]

The city government expects it will take at least several years–and possibly close to 20–to decontaminate the whole city. [...]

Wikipedia: As of 2003, the city has an estimated population of 290,866 [...] Fukushima City is about 63 kilometres (39 miles) north-west of Fukushima I Nuclear Power Plant.

‘Unbelievable’: Shock over revelations that radiation contamination occurred so far away from Fukushima meltdown

Finding that radiation-tainted straw was produced far from nuclear plant causes shock, Mainichi, July 15, 2011:

Revelations that radiation-contaminated rice straw used as feed for beef cattle was produced far away from the crippled Fukushima No. 1 Nuclear Power Plant have sent shockwaves through the livestock farming community in Fukushima Prefecture.

Consumers have also been filled with a sense of growing distrust in the government over delays in responding to the problem of radiation-tainted beef. [...]

The rice straw had been supplied by a farmer in Shirakawa, about 75 kilometers away from the tsunami-hit nuclear power station.

“It’s unbelievable that this (contamination) occurred in an area so far away from the nuclear plant,” said a 34-year-old man who has run a livestock farm in Minamisoma, Fukushima Prefecture, for nearly 10 years. [...]

More radioactive cows: “New scandal appears to be much wider” — 70 km from meltdown (VIDEO)

Beef Contamination Spreads in Japan After Fukushima Radiation Taints Straw, Bloomberg, July 15, 2011:

More beef from cattle in Japan that ate straw tainted by radiation has found its way into the food supply [...]

Cattle at the farm in Asakawa, about 60 kilometers from the crippled Fukushima Dai-Ichi nuclear station, were fed with rice straw containing 97,000 becquerels of cesium per kilogram, compared with the government standard of 300 becquerels, said Hidenori Ohtani at the livestock division of the Fukushima prefectural government. [...]

Nuclear reactor in Fukui Pref. to be halted manually over glitch

A reactor at Kansai Electric Power Co.'s Oi nuclear power plant in Fukui Prefecture will be manually halted due to a problem with its cooling system, prefectural government officials said Saturday.

Monju reactor project faces the ax

The government may suspend development of the troubled Monju prototype fast-breeder reactor in consideration of the Fukushima nuclear crisis, science minister Yoshiaki Takaki indicated Friday.

Fukushima to scrap nuclear plants

Fukushima Prefecture vowed to shift away from nuclear power plants in its vision compiled Friday for reconstruction after the March 11 quake and tsunami.

The about-face came after Prime Minister Naoto Kan's declaration Wednesday of pursuing a society free from dependence on nuclear energy and is expected to affect the policies of other prefectures that host atomic plants.

Indoor mushrooms contain 1,770 bq/kg of radioactive cesium — Gov’t “determining the cause”

Radioactive cesium detected in Fukushima shiitake, NHK, July 16, 2011:

Radioactive cesium exceeding the government standard has been detected in shiitake mushrooms grown indoors in 2 cities in Fukushima Prefecture, about 60 kilometers from the troubled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant. [...]

The Fukushima prefectural government says 1,770 becquerels per kilogram of radioactive cesium was detected in mushrooms grown in Date City. The level is more than 3 times the provisional government limit [...]

Fukushima officials are to ask the farmers to recall their produce and refrain from making new shipments while determining the cause.

Japan reactor forced to shutdown after loss of pressure in tank

Japan Operator Shutting Down Nuclear Reactor After Malfunction, New York Times, July 16, 2011:

Japan’s second-largest nuclear operator said Saturday that it was manually shutting down a reactor in central Japan after a technical malfunction. [...]

[Yoshihiko Kondo, a spokesman for the plant’s operator, Kansai Electric Power] said that a loss of pressure had been detected late Friday in an accumulator tank needed to cool the reactor core in an emergency, forcing the utility to shut down the reactor. [...]

Reactor No. 3: Containment vessel not holding air pressure — Gas may be leaking from damaged part of container, says TEPCO (VIDEO)

TEPCO checking for gas leak from No. 3 reactor, NHK, July 15, 2011:

[...] Tokyo Electric Power Company has injected more than 200 cubic meters of nitrogen into the [No. 3] reactor’s containment vessel since Thursday evening. But it says the interior air pressure has increased very little.

TEPCO says gas may be leaking from a damaged part of the container. [...]

Watch video here.

États-Unis:

Le prophète Al Gore qui sévit très fortement en ce moment va sûrement en incriminer le Réchauffement Global Anthropique. Nous avons donc beaucoup d’alertes nucléaires en ce moment aux USA, la série fatale:

- Dans le New-Jersey. Alerte nucléaire, défaillance du système de refroidissement de la centrale nucléaire de Salem.

- Dans le Tennessee. La centrale nucléaire de Ferry Brown rencontrent énormément de problèmes depuis les passages des tornades sur le sud-est des USA.

- Dans le Nebraska. Centrales nucléaires de Cooper et de Fort Calhoun. L’eau qui monte, qui monte, qui monte encore.

- En Caroline du sud. Fuite à la centrale nucléaire de V. C. Summer.

- En Caroline du nord. Fuite radioactive au centre nucléaire de l’Université.

- Dans la région de Los Alamos, au Nouveau-Mexique, la panique est totale. Certains incendies ont fait place à des inondations et les groupes locaux luttent pour établir des barrages de sacs de sable afin que les sols archi-contaminés par 60 années de plutonium et d’uranium (les déchets radioactifs étaient bennés dans le bon vieux temps) ne dévalent pas avec les eaux de ruissellement en contaminant toute la région.

- Dans le Nevada. Incendie dans la zone 19 du centre nucléaire de Las Vegas.

Kokopelli

Germany to shovel climate fund dollars into coal plants

Less than a month after the failed Bonn UN climate confab, Germany has announced a most audacious energy policy: in order to shutter nuclear plants (but not completely scuttle their economy), the German government will direct climate fund cash to building coal and natural gas plants. You can’t make this stuff up.

Radiation Data From Aerial Radiological Survey In Washington State May Be Classified For National Security Purposes

Aerial Radiological Survey for King and Pierce Counties, Washington Department of Health, July 2011:

The U.S. Department of Energy’s Remote Sensing Laboratory Aerial Measurement System, overseen by The Department Of Homeland Security, will be used during aerial radiation readings in Washington State that may be classified for national security purposes.

A helicopter will be flying through both King and Pierce Counties carrying the radiation detection equipment that can record gamma radiation readings. If the readings are normal they could be used as baseline levels in the event of a future emergency.

It will gather radiological readings July 11-28, 2011. The U.S. Department of Energy’s Remote Sensing Laboratory Aerial Measurement System will collect baseline levels of radioactive materials. [...]

Some of the data may be withheld for national security purposes. [...]

h/t Anonymous tip via Capitol Hill Seattle

NRC admits it routinely does not share reports from nuke industry with public — Including info about radiation leaks

NRC, nuke industry criticized for skirting public, Associated Press, July 10, 2011:

When a nuclear watchdog group asked the Nuclear Regulatory Commission for a study on leaks of radioactive water at the Vermont Yankee plant, it was told the NRC had seen the report but had never officially taken custody of it – so it wasn’t public. [...]

An NRC spokeswoman confirmed the agency routinely sees industry reports that it does not share on its public web site. [...]

Local TV: Feds accused of failing to keep public informed of radiation from Fukushima (VIDEO)

High levels of radiation detected in Northwest rainwater, KING 5, July 11, 2011:

A Seattle nuclear watchdog group is accusing the federal government of failing to keep the public informed of radiation from the Fukushima nuclear disaster. [...]

“Our government said no health levels, no health levels were exceeded.When in fact the rain water in the Northwest is reaching levels 130 times the drinking water standards,” said [Gerry Pollet from Heart of America Northwest]. [...]

But EPA officials say the data was there for anyone to read on their website. [...]

Forbes.com: Leading biophysicist casts critical light on gov’t reassurances that Americans were never at risk from Fukushima fallout

Harm from Fukushima Radiation: A Matter Of Perspective, Forbes, July 9, 2011:

A leading biophysicist has cast a critical light on the government’s reassurances that Americans were never at risk from Fukushima fallout, saying “we really don’t know for sure.”

When radioactive fallout from Japan’s nuclear disaster began appearing in the United States this spring, the Obama Administration’s open-data policy obligated the government to inform the public, in some detail, what was landing here.

Covering the story, I watched the government pursue what appeared to be two strategies to minimize public alarm:

1. It framed the data with reassurances like this oft-repeated sentence from the EPA: “The level detected is far below a level of public health concern.” The question, of course, is whose concern.

2. The EPA seemed to be timing its data releases to avoid media coverage. [...]

Fukushima highly radiated United States water, food cover-up by feds continues

In KING 5 TV's report Tuesday on high levels of radiation detected in Northwest rainwater, the United States government is accused of continuing to fail to tell the public about Fukushima dangerous radiation blanketing parts of the United States, a coverup that led grassroots projects and independent reporters to gather and present data for public well-being. University of California Nuclear Engineering Department Forum began asking on Tuesday for people in the Los Angles area to come forward with any dangerous radiation readings that may have been detected after local peaches were highly radioactive.

Report: North Carolina nuclear facility with superheated uranium leaking ten gallons of radioactive cooling water per hour

A nuclear research reactor at North Carolina State University (NCSU) in Raleigh, NC, was recently shut down after it was discovered that the plant has been leaking about ten gallons of nuclear cooling water per hour for at least the past week. Officials from the university, however, claim that the leak, which stems from the 15,000 gallons of water used to cool the superheated uranium reactor core, poses "no public health threat."...

Army Corps warns of forecast calling for up to 3 inches of rain in Missouri River basin — Record dam releases to continue as reservoirs “so close” to crest

Corps Warns Of Possible Heavy Rainfall In Upper Basin, Press & Dakotan, July 11, 2011:

The Corps of Engineers is maintaining record releases at both Fort Randall Dam in Pickstown and Gavins Point Dam in Yankton amidst a forecast calling for as much as 3 inches of rainfall in the Missouri River basin. [...]

“The reservoirs, especially at Oahe and Fort Randall, are so close to the crest that we have very limited flexibility with releases downstream,” [Jody Farhat with the water management office in Omaha] said.

Army Corps predicts Missouri River will overflow up to 70 more levees

Experts expect more Missouri River levee failures, Associated Press, July 9, 2011:

The Corps predicts that the river will eventually rise high enough to flow over some 18 to 70 levees, mostly in rural areas of southeast Nebraska, southwest Iowa and Missouri. Other levees will become saturated, and water can erode their foundations, seep underneath or find other flaws to exploit. [...]

Even stronger urban floodwalls and levees can falter against the destructive force of floodwaters. As a precaution, officials in Omaha and across the river in Council Bluffs, Iowa, have developed plans to evacuate roughly 40,000 people from areas near the river in case a levee fails. [...]

Miltary helicopters looking for new signs of trouble at flooded Ft. Calhoun nuke plant

Soldiers watch over levees, Omaha World Herald, July 10, 2011:

The military helicopter’s black shadow dances on an engorged Missouri River as the aircraft slowly loops the flood-encircled Fort Calhoun Nuclear Station — the same left-leaning turns the pilot navigated two days prior.

Warrant Officer Boe Searight, 32, with the Nebraska Air National Guard [...] and his colleague Chief Warrant Officer 2 Eric Schriner also are looking for new signs of trouble for the flooded plant.

“Keep daily eyes on it and see if anything changes,” says Schriner, 31. [...]

Los Alamos lab begins removing radioactive soil from canyons to prevent contamination from spreading after fire

Contaminated soil a concern at Los Alamos lab, Reuters, July 11, 2011:

[...] crews at the Los Alamos National Laboratory have begun removing contaminated soil from nearby canyons out of a concern that flash flooding could wash toxins into the Rio Grande [that supplies drinking water for Santa Fe and many other communities] officials said on Monday. [...]

The soil in the canyons above Los Alamos National Laboratory, the linchpin of American’s nuclear weapons industry, contains materials with trace amounts of radiation [...]

Over the weekend, about 1,200 cubic yards of contaminated soil was removed primarily from two canyons — Los Alamos and Pajarito — that run through lab property, [ Fred deSousa, spokesman for the lab's environmental control division] said.

An Assessment of Los Alamos National Laboratory Waste Disposal Inventory, Radioactive Waste Management Associates, November 2009:

Since the beginning of its operations LANL has disposed of millions of gallons of radioactive and hazardous waste throughout the laboratory grounds and in the canyons that surround the laboratory. [...]

The waste discharge at LANL began in 1944 during the development of the atomic bomb. Due to time pressures, secrecy of the project, and general lack of knowledge at the time about the dangers of radioactive materials, the laboratory took poor precautions in its disposal of radioactive and other hazardous wastes during its early years of operations. Initially, the waste, in the form of liquids, drums and cardboard boxes, was released into the canyons or deposited into unlined pits completely untreated; poor records were maintained about the volumes and activities of these releases. By the 1960s, the waste disposal practices significantly improved and better records were kept. [...]

This report compiles the available information about the waste disposed of at each Material Disposal Area and into the three canyons, including any recent soil and water sampling results. Some of the sites with the highest deposits of radioactive contaminants include MDA’s C, G, and H with respective inventories of up to 49,679 curies, 1,383,700 curies, and 391 curies. Routine sampling of soil and water is regularly performed and radionuclide contamination above background levels is often found at the burial sites (e.g. TA-21). [...]

Hundreds of stacks throughout the laboratory released unfiltered gaseous waste directly from plutonium-processing hoods. The LAHDRA Project Team has developed a system of priority indices and determined that between 1944 and 1966, plutonium was the most significant contaminant released. LAHDRA estimated that the total amount of plutonium released by LANL throughout its history, even with the improved filtering systems in later years, exceeded 170 curies. [...]

The potential for LANL-origin contaminants to reach the Rio Grande River may vary, depending on the underground formations and the types of waste disposed of at each disposal site. The potential may be quite large, as the 2006 Santa Fe Water Quality Report stated a “qualified detection of plutonium-238”was detected in Santa Fe drinking water supplies4. The US DOE has also reported the detection of LANL radionuclides in Santa Fe drinking water since the late 1990s5. Plutonium is the main ingredient in the core or trigger of the nuclear weapons that were developed and produced at LANL, and approximately 423,776 cubic feet (ft3) (12,000 cubic meters (m3)) of plutonium contaminated waste is buried in unlined disposal pits, trenches, and shafts at the LANL site. This early detection of plutonium in Santa Fe drinking water may be an indicator of an approaching plutonium contamination plume in Santa Fe groundwater. And of course, plutonium is only one of many LANL-origin contaminants. [...]

As previously discussed, information pertaining to the wastes disposed of by LANL is not always complete or fully available and so many of the types and quantities of waste disposed of at various LANL technical areas remain unknown. [...]

Fire at nuclear testing area 65 miles NW of Las Vegas — Feds checking for radiation

Wildfire at Ex-Nuclear Test Area in NV Continues, AP, July 11, 2011:

A wildfire at the government’s former nuclear testing area in southern Nevada poses no threat of kicking up radiation, federal officials said Saturday. [...]

National Nuclear Security Administration spokeswoman Kelly Snyder said the lightning-caused blaze was not burning near any site where 100 above-ground tests left radiation in the soil. [...]

But Snyder said ground and air crews were still trying to contain the blaze Saturday and there was no estimated containment time. [...]

“This is an active fire. We have a variety of aircraft dropping water on the fire,” she said.

Lightning sparked blazes at nuclear test areas, Las Vegas Review Journal, July 9, 2011:

[...] Lightning sparked two fires Tuesday within the Nevada National Security Site, the former nuclear test site 65 miles northwest of Las Vegas. [...]

One of the fires is “several miles” from the location of an above-ground test, a safe distance according to Dante Pistone, a spokesman at the test site’s operations center [...]

h/t Risabee via Global Security Newswire

Wildfire at ex-nuclear test area in Nevada continues

“Our underground range starts from 90 feet down and obviously fire won’t impact something that far below ground,” she said, adding officials were keeping an eye on radiation levels as a precaution.

Another blaze starts at nuclear test site near Las Vegas — Fire located at Area 19

La Madre fire now at 45 acres and still burning, Las Vegas Review Journal, July 12, 2011:

[... A]nother blaze began at the Nevada National Security Site, the former nuclear test site 65 miles northwest of Las Vegas. Last week, fires consumed more than 6,000 acres near the site. Officials at the test site monitored radiation levels [...] The fire was located at the north-central portion of the site, commonly known as Area 19. [...]

Report: Peaches in Los Angeles-area found with radiation at more than double site background levels

Radiation Station Stats, EnviroReporter, July 8, 2011:

10:05 pm 10-minute INTERIOR average: 39.9 CPM
9:50 pm 10-minute EXTERIOR average: 45.6 CPM NORMAL

4:00 pm INTERIOR spot reading in Santa Monica market with approximate background of 39 CPM – Two peaches sustained 81 CPM and above or over two times background (208% of site background).

3:40 pm 10-minute INTERIOR average: 39.6 CPM
3:25 pm 10-minute EXTERIOR average: 47.0 CPM
1:05 pm 10-minute INTERIOR average: 39.6 CPM
12:45 pm 10-minute EXTERIOR average: 45.8 CPM [...]

h/t ChasAha via Two Peaches in Greater Los Angeles found high in radiation

“This is our highest priority right now”: Los Alamos lab trying to stop nuclear contamination from spreading — 800 waste sites remain

Los Alamos lab prepares for flooding after fire, Associated Press, July 13, 2011:

Crews at Los Alamos National Laboratory installed barriers to divert water and removed sediment as they work to prevent any trace of nuclear and other contamination from being washed downstream by flooding triggered by a massive wildfire. …]

“This is our highest priority right now,” said Kevin Smith, manager of the National Nuclear Security Administration’s Los Alamos Site Office. “We had employees work through the weekend [...]

The lab has been investigating and cleaning up Cold War-era waste sites [...] about 800 remain. [...]

Illegal immigrant working inside largest US nuke facility arrested

Illegal immigrant working inside nuke plant arrested, KVOA, July 14, 2011:

Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s deputies arrested an illegal immigrant working inside the Palo Verde Nuclear Plant, the nation’s largest nuclear plant and one of the most closely monitored in the country. [...]

“To some extent,” Arpaio says, “security at this nuclear power plant worked. But still, an illegal immigrant was permitted to gain access to this facility. This raises the question: how safe is Palo Verde really if an illegal alien can gain access to this nation’s largest nuclear power facility? [...]

Two different people working in security at the power plant also told Sheriff’s officials that drivers of contractor’s vehicles can “vouch” for the passengers if no identification documents are on hand at the time of entry. [...]

“Emergency declared” at New Jersey nuke plant after reactor coolant leak — “Leakage outside containment”

Event Notification Report for July 15, 2011, NRC, July 15, 2011:

[Emphasis Added]

Event Number: 47052
Facility: SALEM
Region: 1 State: NJ
Event Date: 07/14/2011
Event Time: 20:53 [EDT]
Emergency Class: UNUSUAL EVENT
10 CFR Section: 50.72(a) (1) (i) – EMERGENCY DECLARED [...]

UNUSUAL EVENT DECLARED BASED ON REACTOR COOLANT LEAK GREATER THAN 10 GPM

“At 2053 on July 14, 2011 Salem unit 2 declared an Unusual Event due to reactor coolant system leakage greater than 10 gallons per minute. While performing a monthly Emergency Core Cooling System vent of the high head safety injection piping a motor operated valve was opened and a leak developed on the high head piping greater than 10 gallons per minute. The leak rate was approximately 11-15 gallon per minute. The leak was terminated when the motor operated valve was closed. The time of the leak was about 6 minutes.”

At this time the leak is believed to be from a crack on the Boron Injection Tank (BIT) relief valve line which is connected to the high head piping. A total of approximately 90 gallon of reactor coolant leaked into the BIT room. The licensee has declared the high head safety injection inoperable and is proceeding to shutdown under Tech Spec 3.0.3. [...]

* * * UPDATE FROM KARL HANPHO TO VINCE KLCO ON 7/15/11 AT 0025 EDT* * *

“Salem Unit 2 declared an Unusual Event due to Reactor Coolant System (RCS) leakage being greater than 10 gpm and pressurizer level decreasing. Leakage was estimated to be approximately 15 gpm. [...] Salem Unit 2 began the Technical Specification shutdown [...]

“In addition since the leakage from the weld on the high head charging/safety injection piping exceeded the analyzed limit for ESF leakage outside containment, this event is also being reported in accordance with 10CFR50.72(b)(3)(v) and RAL 11.2.2.b as a condition that prevents the ability to mitigate the consequences of an accident.

“Salem unit 2 is currently at 27% and reducing power.” [...]

* * * UPDATE FROM KARL HANPHO TO CHARLES TEAL ON 7/15/11 AT 0345 EDT* * *

Salem Unit 2 has exited the Unusual Event as of 0339 EDT. The criteria for exit was the leakage rate was below the 10 gpm rate. The plant is in Mode 3 and is preparing to cooldown.

From June 28: Cooling pump fails at New Jersey nuclear reactor, plant shut down

h/t Anonymous tip

Report: Monsoon rains threaten to flood Los Alamos area with plutonium, uranium — “Frantic” sandbagging effort under way in some communities (VIDEO)

Interview with Willem Malten of the Los Alamos Study Group, PressTV, July 14, 2011:

At :25 in

[...] Now monsoon rains threaten to flood whole communities with contaminants such as plutonium, uranium and mercury, he said in an interview with Press TV’s U.S. Desk on Wednesday.

He said “there is a frantic community effort under way with mainly Native Americans sandbagging their own homelands” [...]

Tennessee nuke plant: After tornadoes, water in reactor “boiled” low enough to trigger shutdown alarm — Public not told of problems

TVA defends Browns Ferry after reports of equipment, operator failure, Times Free Press, July 14th, 2011:

Browns Ferry Nuclear Plant had far more problems during recent tornadoes than TVA told the public after winds took down power lines and the plant went into automatic shutdown.

Exhibit A:

[D]ocuments the [Tennessee Valley Authority] is required to submit to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission show reactor operators became distracted while manually operating cooling water flow to the Unit 1 reactor and water began boiling off faster than it was being replaced. [...]

Browns Ferry ran on diesel generators’ power for five days after the shutdown. [...]

When one of the generators failed at Browns Ferry, there was a temporary loss of shutdown cooling for one reactor for about 47 minutes, but the water level in the reactor never got near the boiling point, officials said. [...]

The water in the reactor boiled low enough to trigger another shutdown alarm in the control room, but [TVA nuclear spokesman Ray Golden] said boiling water still covered the reactor fuel.

There were other problems after the tornadoes:

A valve failed, a diesel-driven fire pump failed, the diesel-driven generator for the security station failed, the warning sirens were lost, power to the chemical lab was lost, and an emergency diesel generator keeping cool water flowing to one of three reactors shut down because of voltage fluctuations caused by a fluid leak after a brass fitting broke.

Beware phrases like ‘the equipment worked as designed’ and ‘the plant was safely shut down and cooled down’. From TVA nuclear spokesman Ray Golden:

“I don’t think anywhere we use terms like ‘flawless’ or ‘perfect.’ We did use terms like ‘the equipment worked as designed’ and ‘the plant was safely shut down and cooled down.’”

Abornmal Spikes Reported In Southern California Radiation, Radioactivity In Los Angeles Peaches Jump 208% Above Normal

Abnormal spikes in Radiation have been detected in Southern California over the last several days, including radiation spikes in peaches from a local market jumping to levels 208% higher than normal background levels.

Test results show Plutonium-239, Americium-241 and Cesium-137 levels in air around Los Alamos (CHART)

New Las Conchas Fire Air Sample Monitoring Information, New Mexico Radiation Control Bureau, July 11, 2011:

The air sample monitoring units were set in various locations and managed by the DOE Radiological Assistance Program as requested by the New Mexico Environment Department. The air sample monitoring and locations were validated for accuracy by the New Mexico Environment Department, Radiation Control Bureau.

The air monitoring results for 137-Cesium, 239-Plutonium, and 241-Americium are below air effluent Concentrations as specified in Table II of 20.3.4.461 NMAC, and are in compliance with “Dose Limits for Individual Members of the Public” 20.3.4.413 and “Compliance with Dose Limits for Individual Members of the Public” as specified under 20.3.4.414 NMAC.

1-MDA, Minimum Detectable Activity, is based on natural background, the time period of the measurement and the volume and was provided by DOE Radiological Assistance Program.

2-NDA (No Detectable Activity), means there is no measurable activity above the MDA.

NRC issues alert over chemical leak at Chicago-area nuke plant — Workers taken away for treatment

NRC: Exelon Cleaning Up Chemical Leak At Illinois Nuclear Plant, Wall Street Journal, July 15, 2011:

A chemical leak at an Illinois nuclear power plant [60 miles southwest of Chicago] run by Exelon Corp. (EXC) has temporarily restricted access to a vital cooling area of the facility [...]

The NRC issued an alert and said it is monitoring the situation [...]

The utility company reported about 330 gallons of the chemical leaked out before being contained. Two plant workers in the area were taken offsite to treat chemical fumes [...]

“Emergency declared” at New Jersey nuke plant after reactor coolant leak — “Leakage outside containment”

Event Notification Report for July 15, 2011, NRC, July 15, 2011:

[Emphasis Added]

Event Number: 47052
Facility: SALEM
Region: 1 State: NJ
Event Date: 07/14/2011
Event Time: 20:53 [EDT]
Emergency Class: UNUSUAL EVENT
10 CFR Section: 50.72(a) (1) (i) – EMERGENCY DECLARED [...]

UNUSUAL EVENT DECLARED BASED ON REACTOR COOLANT LEAK GREATER THAN 10 GPM

“At 2053 on July 14, 2011 Salem unit 2 declared an Unusual Event due to reactor coolant system leakage greater than 10 gallons per minute. While performing a monthly Emergency Core Cooling System vent of the high head safety injection piping a motor operated valve was opened and a leak developed on the high head piping greater than 10 gallons per minute. The leak rate was approximately 11-15 gallon per minute. The leak was terminated when the motor operated valve was closed. The time of the leak was about 6 minutes.”

At this time the leak is believed to be from a crack on the Boron Injection Tank (BIT) relief valve line which is connected to the high head piping. A total of approximately 90 gallon of reactor coolant leaked into the BIT room. The licensee has declared the high head safety injection inoperable and is proceeding to shutdown under Tech Spec 3.0.3. [...]

* * * UPDATE FROM KARL HANPHO TO VINCE KLCO ON 7/15/11 AT 0025 EDT* * *

“Salem Unit 2 declared an Unusual Event due to Reactor Coolant System (RCS) leakage being greater than 10 gpm and pressurizer level decreasing. Leakage was estimated to be approximately 15 gpm. [...] Salem Unit 2 began the Technical Specification shutdown [...]

“In addition since the leakage from the weld on the high head charging/safety injection piping exceeded the analyzed limit for ESF leakage outside containment, this event is also being reported in accordance with 10CFR50.72(b)(3)(v) and RAL 11.2.2.b as a condition that prevents the ability to mitigate the consequences of an accident.

“Salem unit 2 is currently at 27% and reducing power.” [...]

* * * UPDATE FROM KARL HANPHO TO CHARLES TEAL ON 7/15/11 AT 0345 EDT* * *

Salem Unit 2 has exited the Unusual Event as of 0339 EDT. The criteria for exit was the leakage rate was below the 10 gpm rate. The plant is in Mode 3 and is preparing to cooldown.

From June 28: Cooling pump fails at New Jersey nuclear reactor, plant shut down