MidnightWatcher – Prophecy in Motion

By Harry Wilson and Philip Aldrick – “Insurance on the debt of several major European banks has now hit historic levels, higher even than those recorded during financial crisis caused by the US financial group’s implosion nearly three years ago.

Credit default swaps on the bonds of Royal Bank of Scotland, BNP Paribas, Deutsche Bank and Intesa Sanpaolo, among others, flashed warning signals on Wednesday. Credit default swaps (CDS) on RBS were trading at 343.54 basis points, meaning the annual cost to insure £10m of the state-backed lender’s bonds against default is now £343,540.

The cost of insuring RBS bonds is now higher than before the taxpayer was forced to step in and rescue the bank in October 2008, and shows the recent dramatic downturn in sentiment among credit investors towards banks.

‘The problem is a shortage of liquidity – that is what is causing the problems with the banks. It feels exactly as it felt in 2008,’ said one senior London-based bank executive.

‘I think we are heading for a market shock in September or October that will match anything we have ever seen before,’ said a senior credit banker at a major European bank.” Read more.

By Keith Johnson – “For several months, there has been a news blackout in the United States concerning the devastation and human suffering caused by a 9.0 earthquake that rocked the east coast of Japan on March 11. The resulting tsunami claimed nearly 16,000 lives and made hundreds of thousands homeless.

On the island of Honshu, three reactors at the Daiichi nuclear power facility in Fukushima went into full meltdown. Explosions and fires caused additional damage to other reactors and released vast quantities of poisonous radioactive materials into the environment. Livestock, crops and drinking water within a 75-mile radius of the accident were immediately contaminated. Now, reports of lethal doses of radiation as far as 200 miles away are starting to become more commonplace.

In the United States, a recent report by Janette Sherman, M.D. and epidemiologist Joseph Mangano indicate a 35-percent spike in infant mortality throughout the Pacific Northwest.

Meanwhile, the true extent of the damage and radioactive contamination caused by the Fukushima disaster continues to be downplayed or ignored entirely by the mainstream media. Getting to the truth has been difficult.

‘Fukushima is the biggest industrial catastrophe in the history of mankind,’ says Arnold Gunderson, a nuclear power expert who served as an expert witness in the investigation of the Three Mile Island accident. In an exclusive interview with AFP, Gunderson gives a timely assessment of the ongoing crisis in Japan and aprises us of what he expects to unfold in the future.” Read more.

Fukushima disaster: residents may never return to radiation-hit homes – “Residents who lived close to the damaged Fukushima nuclear plant are to be told their homes may be uninhabitable for decades, according to Japanese media reports… [Japanese Prime Minister] Kan’s announcement will be the first time officials have publicly recognised that radiation damage to areas near the plant could make them too dangerous to live in for at least a generation, effectively meaning that some residents will never return to them.” Read more.

‘Fukushima’ on the Mississippi?  It could happen – “In May, the federal government simulated an earthquake so massive, it killed 100,000 Midwesterners instantly, and forced more than 7 million people out of their homes. At the time, National Level Exercise 11 went largely unnoticed; the scenario seemed too far-fetched — states like Illinois and Missouri are in the middle of a tectonic plate, not at the edge of one. A major quake happens there once every several generations. But Tuesday’s earthquake along the East Coast is a reminder that disasters can hit where they’re least expected. And if the nightmare scenario comes, government officials worry that state and federal authorities won’t be able to handle the ‘cascading failures’ that follow.” Read more.