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Archive for October, 2011

Tunisia’s Secular Women Fret Erosion of Freedoms with Rise of Islamism

10/27/2011 Leave a comment

“When hundreds of Tunisians drove through the capital sounding their horns and waving scarves this week to celebrate the election victory of an Islamist party, there was little jubilation in the Ennasr neighbosrhood.

With its chic boutiques and upmarket cafes, this suburb is a bastion of a segment of Tunisian society left feeling marginalized and even a little fearful by the election result.

Areas like Ennasr are home to middle-class, urban professional women who for decades have been living a lifestyle that in many ways has more in common with Europe than the Arab world. Now they worry that that is going to change.

In Sunday’s election, Tunisia, birthplace of the “Arab Spring” uprisings, handed the biggest share of the vote to Ennahda, a moderate Islamist party that was banned under decades of autocratic, secularist rule.

‘We’re afraid that they’ll limit our freedoms,’ said Rym, a 25-year-old medical intern sitting in ‘Gringo’s’, a fast-food outlet in Ennasr.

‘They say they won’t but after a while they could introduce changes step by step. Polygamy could come back … They say they want to be like Turkey but it could turn out like Iran. Don’t forget, that was a very open society too.'” Read more.

The Ennahda Islamist Party says that it wants to be like Turkey.  And how is that a good thing exactly? …

Flashback: Young Muslims in Turkey Murder Three Christians – “In a gruesome assault against Turkey’s tiny Christian community, five young Muslim Turks entered a Christian publishing office in the southeastern province of Malatya Wednesday and slit the throats of the three Protestant Christians present. Two of the victims, Necati Aydin, 36, and Ugur Yuksel, 32, were Turkish converts from Islam. The third man, Tilmann Geske, 46, was a German citizen.” Read more.

Flashback: Turkey’s Protestant Christians Face Wave of Attacks – “A Protestant pastor in the Turkish industrial city of Izmit woke up one morning last month to find a huge red swastika painted on his apartment door, with a handwritten hate letter shoved underneath… ‘Your efforts to wear us down—as the inheritors of a great race—and alienate us from our values will come to nothing,’ the writer declared… The Izmit Protestant Church was targeted in a violent attack the night after Christmas last year, when someone started a fire next to the outside wall of the building. ‘The aim was to burn the church down,’ Hade told Compass Direct… Simultaneously, the Turkish media has fanned intense criticism of Christian missionary activity. Even government ministers have spoken out, claiming that foreign missionaries had political motives aimed at ‘damaging the social peace and unity of Turkey.'” Read more.

Flashback: Turkey: One of the world’s earliest Christian cultures totters on the edge of extinction – “Syriac-speaking Christians in this area have persisted through more than a dozen centuries of Muslim, Ottoman, and now Turkish rule. They languish between the secularizing government of the Republic of Turkey and an Islamic culture that views them as heathen outsiders… In short, the government would be pleased to see the Christian communities quietly disappear altogether. Christians have been caught in the middle of a war between the government and the Kurds. Now it matters little to the government that the Hezbollah as well as the Kurds are harassing them. Christians abroad, meanwhile, know little of their life-and-death struggle.” Read more.

Categories: Radical Islam, Wars and Rumors of War Tags:

Jerusalem Post: Middle East Christians Are Being Killed by Radical Islamists Because of Their Faith, Threatening Their Very Existence

10/27/2011 Leave a comment

Matthew 24:22, “And except those days should be shortened, there should no flesh be saved: but for the elect’s sake those days shall be shortened.”

Colossians 3:12, “Therefore, as the elect of God, holy and beloved, put on tender mercies, kindness, humility, meekness, longsuffering …”

Acts 14:22b, “… we must through much tribulation enter into the kingdom of God.”

To all ‘pre-trib’ believers, it is time to think again …

By ELWOOD MCQUAID – “Christians are being killed by radical Islamists because of their beliefs. Why then, while the world celebrates revolution in the Arab world, are we standing silently while these atrocities are taking place in these democratically-liberated lands?

Israel has long been like the canary in the mineshaft. If the canary succumbs to the odorless, lethal gases of the depths below, the miners know it’s time to get out of the mine. Anti-Semitic militancy, like the canary in the mine, warns the rest of the world of what lies ahead. Now, however, there is strong evidence that there are two types of ‘canaries’ in the mine. Long-suffering Christians in the Middle East are being ravaged by merciless assaults that threaten their very existence.

Liberal elitists in Western politics, academia, and the news media collectively swooned when the mobs in Cairo’s Tahrir Square swept Western ally, Hosni Mubarak, out of the Egyptian presidency and into a prison cell to await trial. In the minds of so-called progressives, the ‘Arab Spring’ was precisely the balm of freedom for which the downtrodden had long been yearning. Democratic reforms were supposedly around the corner, swinging everyone into an era of prosperous camaraderie. That’s how delusional Western leaders saw things…

In America, Muslims are protected, much more so than evangelical Christians. Protecting Muslim citizens is an honorable pursuit that raises America’s standards far above those in so many other parts of the world. Yet why are the same leaders who so passionately protect Muslim rights in America doing nothing for Christians who are dying in record numbers? Why do so many of our leaders hold their tongues as the world turns a blind eye?

And there is another question—one we must all ask ourselves: Why has the church been virtually silent about the suffering of our brethren? We will meet them one day. What will we answer when they ask us, ‘Why?'” Read more.

Christians Under Threat as Radical Islam Spreads in ‘New Middle East’ – “Attacked by mobs and terrorists, repressed by the growing popularity of fundamentalist Islamic law and cut off from crucial business ties, Christians are fleeing the Middle East in an unprecedented exodus. More than half of Iraqi Christians — an estimated 400,000 people — have left that country over the last decade as power has fallen in the hands of increasingly hostile Shi’a Islamic leaders. In Egypt, home to at least 8 million Copt Christians — a number that exceeds the populations of Israel, Lebanon, Jordan, and Tunisia — at least 95,000 Christians have emigrated since March 2011. The number could reach 250,000 by the end of this year, reports the Egyptian Federation of Human Rights.” Read more.

Categories: Radical Islam, Wars and Rumors of War Tags:

Mars: The ‘God of War’ Feels the Sun’s Wrath After Earth’s ‘Epic’ Geomagnetic Storm

10/27/2011 Leave a comment

By Ian O’Neill – “The sun battered the Earth’s magnetosphere with an ‘epic’ geomagnetic storm over the last couple of days, generating beautiful auroral displays at low latitudes. Now it’s Mars’ turn.

On Saturday (Oct. 22), a large bubble of solar plasma was blasted from the sun’s surface. Unlike the coronal mass ejection (CME) that struck us on Monday, Saturday’s CME was sent in a different direction — toward the Red Planet.

As per simulations carried out by NASA’s Goddard Space Weather Laboratory (shown below), the CME should have arrived in Mars orbit by now (Oct. 26). However, its impact on Mars will be very different than a CME’s impact on Earth.

For starters, Mars doesn’t have a protective global magnetic field — instead it has a ‘patchy’ magnetic field distributed all over the planet. One of the many problems future Mars explorers will face is the increased radiation environment on the Martian surface — the lack of a protective magnetic “shield” and a thin atmosphere means CME impacts and solar flare events are a health risk.” Read more.

Categories: Cosmic Craziness

NASA: Doomsday Has Arrived … for Comet Elenin

10/27/2011 Leave a comment

By Tariq Malik – “The wimpy comet Elenin, which vaulted into the public spotlight as a so-called harbinger of doom, has met its own demise, and its remains won’t be back for 12,000 years, NASA scientists say.

The comet made a swing through the inner solar system in recent months, coming closest to Earth on Oct. 16, but by that time all that was left were crumbs. The fate of comet Elenin, it seems, was sealed in September during its closest approach to the sun.

‘Elenin did as new comets passing close by the sun do about two percent of the time: It broke apart,’ said Don Yeomans of NASA’s Near-Earth Object Program Office at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., in a statement Monday (Oct. 25). ‘Elenin’s remnants will also act as other broken-up comets act. They will trail along in a debris cloud that will follow a well-understood path out of the inner solar system. After that, we won’t see the scraps of comet Elenin around these parts for almost 12 millennia.’

Yeomans called Elenin an ‘ex-comet,’ one that should soon be forgotten.” Read more.

Categories: Cosmic Craziness

Buying Time: Euro Zone Strikes Deal on Second Greek Package, Serious Questions Remain

10/27/2011 Leave a comment

“Euro zone leaders struck a last-minute deal on Thursday to contain the currency bloc’s two-year-old debt crisis but are now under pressure to finalise the details of their plan to slash Greece’s debt burden and strengthen their rescue fund.

After a summit in Brussels, governments announced an agreement under which private banks and insurers would accept 50 percent losses on their Greek debt holdings in the latest bid to cut Athens’ 360 billion euro (317 billion pound) debt load to sustainable levels.

Economists polled by Reuters on Thursday were split down the middle over whether the writedown was big enough, with 24 of 47 saying it wasn’t and the remainder saying it was.” Read more.

Germany: Collapse of euro could end half a century of peace in Europe – “Angela Merkel, the German Chancellor, has warned that failing to resolve the eurozone crisis could jeopardise the single currency and end ‘half a century’ of peace in Europe. As European leaders struggled to reach a deal over a bail-out package, Mrs Merkel said “the world is watching” and that “if the euro collapses, then Europe collapses”. Silvio Berlusconi, the Italian prime minister, was said to have offered to resign in January in exchange for the support of his coalition partners in raising the Italian retirement age. A subsequent debate over the issue in the Italian Parliament descended into a fist fight.” Read more.

Bank of England governor Mervyn King says euro fix is just buying time – “The Bank of England yesterday dismissed chaotic efforts to save the eurozone from financial meltdown as a temporary solution to the region’s woes. Governor Sir Mervyn King said long-term issues such as towering levels of debt and structurally weak economies still needed to be tackled. ‘The aim of the measures to be introduced over the next few days is to create a year or possibly two years’ breathing space,’ he said.” Read more.

Why you should be worried about Europe – “The European debt crisis is deeply concerning. If Europe were to be shaken by a series of nations defaulting on their government debt, I am convinced that the continent would plunge into a severe recession. Their recession would trigger a recession of our own, although a less severe one, through a number of links across the Atlantic.” Read more.

Categories: Anything Else, Man-Made Disasters, Wars and Rumors of War

Arizona: Formal Law-Enforcement Investigation Into Barack Obama’s Presidential Elegibility Expected To Be A ‘Shock’

10/27/2011 Leave a comment

By Jerome R. Corsi – “The results of a formal law-enforcement investigation into whether Barack Obama is eligible to be president of the United States could come as a “shock,” according to Maricopa County, Ariz., Sheriff Joe Arpaio.

Tuesday night, speaking to a tea-party group in Arizona, Arpaio said, ‘I can’t tell you everything, but there could be a shock there somewhere that my guys came up with. I can’t talk too much about it. It’s in the process.’

WND previously has reported that Arpaio has constituted a special five-member law enforcement posse to investigate allegations brought by members of the Surprise, Ariz., Tea Party that the birth certificate released to the public April 27 might be a forgery.

The posse, assembled under the authority of Arpaio’s office, consists of three former law enforcement officers and two retired attorneys with law enforcement experience. Members have been examining evidence since September concerning Obama’s eligibility to be president under Article 2, Section 1 of the Constitution, which requires a president to be a natural-born citizen.

He referenced disputes over the Social Security number attributed to the president and said, ‘There are a couple of things you and nobody else here knows anything about yet that could be a little bit exciting.’

‘The investigation into Obama’s eligibility to be president is proceeding as planned,’ Arpaio later told WND. ‘I expect to have the investigation completed early next year.'” Read more.

Adobe Book Editor Positive: Obama Certificate is Phony – “A nationally recognized computer expert who has served as contributing author and technical editor for more than 100 books on Adobe and Microsoft software says the Obama long-form birth-certificate image released by the White House is a fraudulent document created with Adobe software. ‘The PDF file released by the White House contains evidence of manipulation suggesting that one or more forgers utilized existing Hawaiian birth certificates to assemble fraudulently for Barack Obama a document the president presented to the world as authentic,’ Mara Zebest told WND.” Read more.

Related Articles:

Categories: Anything Else

Chile: In the Wake of a String of Eruptions Throughout the Country Evacuations Begin as Hudson Volcano Stirs

10/27/2011 Leave a comment

“Santiago – Chile said on Wednesday that it was evacuating residents from around a volcano in the country’s far south after it spewed a jet of steam a kilometre into the air and seismic activity triggered an avalanche.

However, the government said the Hudson volcano, which lies around 1 600km south of the Chilean capital Santiago, comes in the wake of a string of eruptions at other volcanoes in Chile.

The Hudson volcano last erupted in 1991, melting part of the glacier that sits on the crater and triggering mud flows.

‘We can’t rule out that this volcanic activity could increase in the coming hours and produce an eruption,’ said Interior Minister Rodrigo Hinzpeter.

He said state emergency office ONEMI was on red alert and the government was evacuating around 100 residents from the sparsely populated area as a precaution.

In June, a volcano in the Puyehue-Cordon Caulle volcanic chain, about 920km south of Santiago, erupted. It had been dormant for decades.

It belched an ash cloud kilometres high that blew over the Andes, carpeted a popular ski resort in neighbouring Argentina and caused havoc for air traffic for months, hurting airline profits. The ash grounded planes as far away as Australia and New Zealand.

That eruption in turn came after Chile’s Chaiten volcano erupted spectacularly in 2008 for the first time in thousands of years, spewing molten rock and a vast cloud of ash that reached the stratosphere. The ash swelled a nearby river and ravaged a nearby town of the same name.” Read more.

Categories: Natural Disasters

Muslims Say Crosses at Catholic University Violates Their ‘Human Rights’

10/27/2011 Leave a comment

Here is what’s truly ‘inappropriate’ and a violation of ‘human rights’: It’s when Muslim students decide to attend a Catholic university and then impose Islamic ideals on others in an effort to deny the civil liberties and human rights of everyone else.  If you want to pray, find another location — or university — that doesn’t offend you.  There’s a few in Saudi Arabia and Pakistan that will suit you just fine …

“The Washington, D.C. Office of Human Rights confirmed that it is investigating allegations that Catholic University violated the human rights of Muslim students by not allowing them to form a Muslim student group and by not providing them rooms without Christian symbols for their daily prayers.

The investigation alleges that Muslim students ‘must perform their prayers surrounded by symbols of Catholicism – e.g., a wooden crucifix, paintings of Jesus, pictures of priests and theologians which many Muslim students find inappropriate.’

A spokesperson for the Office of Human Rights told Fox News they had received a 60-page complaint against the private university. The investigation, they said, could take as long a six months.

The complaint was filed by John Banzhaf, an attorney and professor at George Washington University Law School. Banzhaf has been involved in previous litigation against the school involving the same-sex residence halls. He also alleged in his complaint involving Muslim students that women at the university were being discriminated against. You can read more on those allegations by clicking here.

Banzhaf said some Muslim students were particularly offended because they had to meditate in the school’s chapels ‘and at the cathedral that looms over the entire campus – the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception.’

‘It shouldn’t be too difficult somewhere on the campus for the university to set aside a small room where Muslims can pray without having to stare up and be looked down upon by a cross of Jesus,’ he told Fox News.

A spokesman for Catholic University said they have not been served a copy of the complaint and would withhold comment until they had received and reviewed the documents.

In a 2010 interview with National Public Radio, university president John Garvey acknowledged that they don’t set aside prayer rooms for Muslim students.” Read more.

Ohio: Muslim students invent an excuse to push for ritual footbaths on campus: to ‘respect’ non-Muslims – “When Omar Subei would perform wudu, the Islamic cleansing ritual before praying, he often felt uncomfortable when other people would walk into a public bathroom on and see him putting his foot over the sink. ‘You have to raise your foot and put it on the sink and as you’re taking your foot off the sink, your leg is dripping water,’ Subei said, a senior majoring in biochemistry. Wudu involves an individual washing their hands, feet and face before engaging in prayer. They must perform the ritual one of the five times they pray during the day.” Read more.

Flashback: Muslims Demand Sharia Student Loans Because Paying Interest Goes Against Islamic Law – “Muslim groups are calling for a separate student loan system because the interest due to be charged will conflict with rules of Sharia law. The changes to tuition fees, which come into force next year, will see students charged higher rates of interest on the loans they take out to pay for university. Until now they have paid the market rate of inflation but the reforms mean students who go on to earn more than £21,000 will have to pay interest of up to 3 per cent. But in some interpretations of Sharia law, which is Islam’s legal system and governs every aspect of Muslim life, loans are forbidden.” Read more.

Categories: Anything Else, Radical Islam Tags: ,

Connecticut: Chemicals and Pesticides Draining Off Into Coastal Waters Are Killing Lobsters, ‘It’s a Complete Disaster’

10/27/2011 Leave a comment

By Douglas Kennedy – “‘Look at that,’ said Mike Kalaman as he held up a juvenile lobster that appeared limp in his fingers. ‘That is not normal.’

Kalaman was on his lobster boat, ‘Dark Horse,’ on Tuesday, hauling traps and setting bait in the middle of Long Island Sound. It’s something he’s been doing for more than 30 years.

But lately, the Connecticut lobsterman says his pots have been empty, or filled with sick lobsters like the juvenile he tossed back.

‘Yeah, I know what the problem is,’ he said. ‘To me there’s no doubt.’

Kalaman points his finger south toward New York State.

‘It’s methoprene,’ he said. ‘Everyone who works in this industry knows it’s methoprene.’

Methoprene is the pesticide of choice for New York counties that border Long Island Sound, including Suffolk, Nassau and Westchester. All three counties have been adding it to storm drains since 1999 with the blessing of New York State, to kill mosquitoes that may carry the West Nile Virus.

Kalaman says it’s no coincidence that 1999 is the year lobsters started disappearing in the Sound.

‘Every summer,’ he explained, ‘when we have our first heavy rainfall of the year, these chemicals leach into the Sound, and the lobsters get sick.’

He said storm runoff brings the pesticide from the drains directly to where the lobsters mate.

‘It sinks to the bottom of the sound and travels like a fog bank, killing all the lobsters.’

Twelve years ago, there were more than a thousand people working in the Connecticut lobster industry. Today there are less than 80.” Read more.

Categories: Man-Made Disasters, Mass Animal Deaths

Hezbollah Leader Reiterates Support For Assad as Tension Mounts at Lebanon-Syria Border

10/26/2011 Leave a comment

“‘The people of Qaa sleep in fear now,’ said Mansur Saad, mayor of the village which straddles the border with Syria.

‘They live with the constant worry that violence will erupt at any moment, especially if gunmen from across the border escape into Lebanon.’

The sleepy village, located in a pastoral region where fruit and vegetable fields are dotted with Bedouin tents, on October 18 was the scene of a military incursion which left two local residents — both Syrians — dead and sparked panic.

A third Syrian was killed in a raid on Aarsal, a village 10 kilometres (six miles) south of Qaa.

Residents of Qaa, who for decades have maintained warm ties with their Syrian neighbours, say the once-friendly border soldiers who cross over daily for morning coffee are increasingly on edge as the seven-months revolt against Bashar al-Assad’s regime continues.

The usually bustling official crossing of Joussiyeh, in Qaa, meanwhile has been shut down and an eerie silence has settled over the area where the Lebanese army or security forces are nowhere to be seen.

‘We have asked the Lebanese army to strengthen its presence in the area and set up posts at the border in order to prevent infiltration and make sure such incidents do not re-occur,’ Saad told AFP.

But the Lebanese government, largely dominated by the powerful militant group Hezbollah, a strong ally of the Syrian regime, has for the most part stayed mum on the issue.” Read more.

Hezbollah leader reiterates support of Syria’s repression – “The leader of Lebanese pro-Iranian Shiite movement Hezbollah reiterated the group’s support for the repression conducted by the Syrian regime against anti-government protests, stating that they are not spontaneous movements like the uprisings in Tunisia, Egypt, Bahrain, Libya and Yemen. ‘Those regimes were obedient to the Americans, unlike the Syrian regime,’ said Sayyid Hassan Nasrallah in an interview with the Shiite movement’s Al Manar TV network. ‘The foundation of the Syrian regime is the fight against Israel,’ said Nasrallah…” Read more.

If Syria falls, country could be taken over by the growing Islamist influence – “There is homegrown opposition, and opposition living in exile. Both can be Islamists, or secularists. Some are socialists, even communists, though insiders say the latter are irrelevant. When I lived in Syria as a journalist, I met a few of each. The Islamists were the most active, most visible, and acted with the greatest moral gravitas. They converted many private schools into conservative Islamic learning centers. They prevailed upon restaurants in their neighborhoods to stop serving alcohol, and shamed coffee shops into closing during Ramadan… They are the ‘poison pill,’ one analyst told me. Just like a corporation might take on undesirable debt to make itself a less attractive target for a hostile takeover, so Assad turned a blind eye to growing Islamist influence among his people to make himself look like the best option for Syria. During his ten-year term, he has endeared himself to secularists by claiming to support the separation of church and state. Yet he never bothered to clarify to his own people what that meant. Ask the average Syrian what ‘secular’ means, and they will say it is ‘atheism,’ or an infidel state hostile to the freedom to practice religion. This strategy of ambiguity worked for a long time. To this day, Assad’s diehard supporters keep saying ‘at least he is secular,’ and point to the growing Islamist influence in Syria as an example for a bleak future without him.” Read more.

Categories: Radical Islam, Wars and Rumors of War

Jerusalem Sends Earthquake Relief as Turkey Keeps Up Tough Rhetoric Against Israel

10/26/2011 Leave a comment

I’m not the least bit surprised.  Israel is indeed a beacon of light surrounded by a sea of darkness.  If Islamic nations mirrored Israel’s example, there could be peace in the Middle East the very next day …

Matthew 5:44a, “‘But I say to you, love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you …'”

By HERB KEINON – “The first of what is expected to be several civilian planes full of Israeli earthquake relief aid set off for Turkey on Wednesday, even as Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu kept up his tough rhetoric against Israel.

The 747 plane chartered by the Defense Ministry carried seven prefabricated homes that have all the necessary electric wiring and can be lived in immediately by people who lost their homes in Sunday’s earthquake that devastated the eastern province of Van and killed more than 460 people. The plane, which will land in Ankara, is also carrying warm clothes, blankets and mattresses.

A Defense Ministry official said that one, and possibly two more planes will be sent on Thursday. The official said the ministry chartered a civilian plane not because of a Turkish ban on IDF planes flying over Turkey, but rather because the 747 could carry more than an IDF transport plane.

But even as the plane was being loaded, Davutoglu – on a visit to Jordan –called for forceful pressure on Israel, saying that only such pressure would force Jerusalem into giving up on a number of principles and making it easier to establish a Palestinian state.

‘We believe that if we will press hard enough on Israel, we will bring it to a situation where it will be convinced that it needs to carry out its part of moving the diplomatic process forward and establishing a Palestinian state,’ Israel Radio quoted Davutoglu as saying.

His words, meanwhile, did not surprise officials in Jerusalem who had low expectations that the humanitarian aid would significantly improve the badly strained relationship with Ankara.” Read more.

Categories: Anything Else, Radical Islam

Radioactive Cars, Concrete and Consumables Being Sold in Japan

10/26/2011 Leave a comment

Unfortunately, the cars still require gas …

By Greg Wilson – “Cars that were contaminated by radiation during the March nuclear meltdown in Japan are finding their way into the reeling nation’s used car market.

Vehicles from the area around the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, which suffered a series of meltdowns after the earthquake and tsunami of March 11, were supposed to be destroyed. But unscrupulous dealers have registered them under new license plates and sold them, The Asahi Shimbun newspaper reported. Unable to export the cars, they’re selling them in Japan.

Dealers have traditionally bought used vehicles in Japan and exported them to Russia and Southeast Asia, according to the Telegraph. In June, Russian police turned back a half-dozen used cars from Japan after finding they were contaminated with radioactove isotopes, according to the Interfax news agency. Authorities in South America, Australia and the U.S. have also stepped up inspection of new and used cars coming in from Japan.

Now, with testing also being conducted at Japanese loading docks, dealers are selling the potentially lethal cars on the domestic market.” Read more.

Radioactive concrete being sold in Japan – “A piece of concrete panel was 2.5 micro Sv/h. It was found at a home center in North Tochigi. In Japan, radioactive sewage sludge or disposal waste ash are treated as normal garbage when it’s under 8,000 Bq/Kg. They are re-used to concrete material. This kind of material is highly likely to have been distributed to all around in Japan. Our houses will be radioactive, sooner than we have ever thought.” Source.

Japan: Northwest Tip of Tokyo Tainted By Unusually High Amount of Fallout, Plant Mutations Continue To Be ‘Observed Everywhere’ – “An aerial radiation survey of the capital and Kanagawa Prefecture has revealed the northwest tip of Tokyo was tainted by an unusually high amount of fallout, while most other areas showed normal levels, a science ministry official said Friday. The results, released late Thursday, show that fallout from the Fukushima No. 1 power plant contaminated part of the mountainous Okutama region on Tokyo’s western fringe. Radiation readings in the area were the highest of the two prefectures at 100,000 to 300,000 becquerels of radioactive cesium per square meter.” Read more.

‘Dilute and Sell’ – Radioactive Tea Blended with Non-Radioactive Tea – “A tea producer blended the tea with radioactive cesium with the tea without radioactive cesium so that he could sell off his radioactive tea. An operator of a sewer sludge plant knowingly sold radioactive sludge to a manufacturer of garden soil because there was no national government standard when he sold it. Their reason: ‘It’s safer that way, as radioactive cesium will be diluted’. Many Japanese consumers seem dismayed to find out that there are people among them who would do such a thing, but there are people like that, unfortunately. And as the article cites one government agency, it is clearly none of the government’s business to do anything about it anytime soon.” Read more.

Radioactive food raising concerns in Japan:

Categories: Man-Made Disasters