MidnightWatcher – Prophecy in Motion

“Architect of Fukushima Daiichi Reactor 3, Uehara Haruo, the former president of Saga University had an interview on 11/17/2011.

In this interview, he admitted Tepco’s explanation does not make sense, and that the China syndrome is inevitable.

He stated that considering 8 months have passed since 311 without any improvement, it is inevitable that melted fuel went out of the container vessel and sank underground, which is called China syndrome.

He added, if fuel has reaches a underground water vein, it will cause contamination of underground water, soil contamination and sea contamination. Moreover, if the underground water vein keeps being heated for long time, a massive hydrovolcanic explosion will be caused.

He also warned radioactive debris is spreading in Pacific Ocean. Tons of the debris has reached the Marshall Islands as of 11/15/2011.” Source – Fukushima Diary.

Fukushima could explode with hydrogen build-up – “TEPCO recently discovered hydrogen build-ups within the containment buildings in Fukushima Units 1, 2 and 3. Could there be another explosion, and if so how? Fairewinds conducts a laboratory experiment to show that if oxygen is present with hydrogen in a nuclear power containment, a deflagration explosion might occur.” Read full transcript here or watch video below:

By Joe Weisenthal – “If you like your Wall Street analysis with a heavy dollop of rapture and Armageddon, today was the day for you.

Blame the weighty issues of the day (Europe, mostly), and yesterday’s big selloff for the spasm of bearishness.

It started off with Nomura’s Bob Janjuah. He said that any talk of the ECB saving Europe was a mere pipedream, and that if the ECB did go whole-hog buying up peripheral debt to suppress yields, then that would prompt a German departure from the the Eurozone.

Germany appears to be adamant that full political and fiscal integration over the next decade (nothing substantive will happen over the short term, in my view) is the only option, and ECB monetisation is no longer possible. I really think it is that clear and simple. And if I am wrong, and the ECB does a U-turn and agrees to unlimited monetisation, I will simply wait for the inevitable knee-jerk rally to fade before reloading my short risk positions. Even if Germany and the ECB somehow agree to unlimited monetisation I believe it will do nothing to fix the insolvency and lack of growth in the eurozone. It will just result in a major destruction of the ECB‟s balance sheet which will force an ECB recap. At that point, I think Germany and its northern partners would walk away. Markets always want short, sharp, simple solutions.

Okay, but that’s Janjuah. He’s always bearish so maybe that’s not even news.

But then there was Deutsche Bank’s Jim Reid, who is always sober, but not usually wildly negative. He offered up one of the most bearish lines in history in regards to German opposition to ECB debt monetization:

If you don’t think Merkel’s tone will change then our investment advice is to dig a hole in the ground and hide.

Oy.

But it got even wilder with the latest from SocGen’s Dylan Grice. Again, he’s always pretty negative, but he cranked it up a notch, comparing Germany’s policy today against the policies that enabled the rise of Hitler.” Read more.

“Confrontation and violence marked street demonstrations against the economic crisis across the globe yesterday, as showdowns between police and protesters flared in Italy, Greece and the US, while London’s demonstrators prepared for battle in the courts.

Italian students armed themselves with firecrackers, rocks, eggs and smoke bombs as widespread disturbances broke out across the country. Police in Milan used pepper spray to counter protests against the ‘bankers’ government’ of the new Prime Minister Mario Monti, while anarchists clashed with officers in Turin, authorities charged students in Palermo, and Bari and Rome saw their own demonstrations.

Fire bombs and tear gas left clouds hanging above Athens last night, after between 20,000 and 50,000 protesters marched through the Greek capital only to come up against 7,000 police officers. In a country where street clashes sparked by rage at government austerity measures have become commonplace this year, yesterday’s march was even more angry than usual due to the anniversary of the Athens Polytechnic uprising, when Greece’s military junta sent in troops to put down a student demonstration in 1973.

There were 60 arrests, but no injuries were reported despite the police’s use of stun grenades.

In London, by contrast, the 6pm deadline for the demonstrators and their tents to leave the square outside St Paul’s passed relatively quietly. Leaders of the occupation said nobody had left, and two lawyers acting for the camp announced a case against the Corporation of London’s eviction notice would be heard by the High Court.

In New York , however, Occupy Wall Street protesters clashed with police after they tried but failed to take over the streets around the Stock Exchange in Manhattan. Disturbances on the two-month anniversary of the movement also broke out in other American cities.” Read more.

By Joe Weisenthal – “This is a fantastic interview with Citi’s Willem Buiter on Bloomberg TV.

You can hear the anger in his voice as he argues that Europe may have a matter of days before an unnecessary default and a financial catastrophe.

The answer: the ECB must act fast, and ignore the Germans who don’t get it. While some people don’t think that the ECB can really monetize sovereign debt this way, Buiter believes there’s absolutely nothing preventing the ECB from doing whatever it wants on the secondary market…

Buiter on Europe’s crisis:

‘Time is running out fast. I think we have maybe a few months — it could be weeks, it could be days — before there is a material risk of a fundamentally unnecessary default by a country like Spain or Italy which would be a financial catastrophe dragging the European banking system and North America with it. So they have to act now.’

‘The only two guns in town, one is only theoretical, and that is increasing the size of the EFSF to 3 trillion. It should happen but it can’t for political reasons. The other one, the only remaining share is the ECB. They may have to hold their noses while they do it, and if they don’t do it, it’s the end of the euro zone.'” Read more.

Moody’s downgrades 10 German public banks – “Moody’s downgraded on Wednesday its ratings of 10 German public-sector banks including BayernLB and Deutsche Hypo saying they were now less likely to receive state support if needed. ‘The rating actions reflect Moody’s assumption that there is now a lower likelihood that these banks would receive external support, if required,’ it said. It noted that EU rules restricted support and that Germany had set up a bank resolution scheme.” Read more.

Ratings agency Fitch issues warning for U.S. banks – “Fitch Ratings warned that it may reduce its “stable” rating outlook for U.S. banks with large capital markets businesses because of contagion from problems in troubled European markets. ‘Unless the euro zone debt crisis is resolved in a timely and orderly manner, the broad outlook for U.S. banks will darken,’ Fitch said. ‘The risks of a negative shock are rising.’ The warning was aimed at the entire U.S. banking sector …” Read more.

“Farmland in parts of Japan is no longer safe because of high levels of radiation in the soil, scientists have warned, as the country struggles to recover from the Fukushima atomic disaster.

A team of international researchers said food production would likely be ‘severely impaired’ by the elevated levels of caesium found in soil samples across eastern Fukushima in the wake of meltdowns at the tsunami-hit plant.

The study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences journal, suggests farming in neighbouring areas may also suffer because of radiation, although levels discovered there were within legal limits.

‘Fukushima prefecture as a whole is highly contaminated,’ especially to the northwest of the nuclear power plant, the researchers said.

The study looked at caesium-137, which has a half life of 30 years and therefore affects the environment for decades.” Read more.

Study shows nuclear crisis may have polluted wider areas of Japan – “Radioactivity from a damaged nuclear plant may have contaminated wider areas of Japan than previously thought, a study by a team of researchers showed Tuesday. Radioisotopes of elements including caesium, tellurium and iodine were blown more than 500 kilometres from the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station, including to the northern island of Hokkaido and western parts of the country, the team said. The plant suffered meltdowns at three reactors after the March 11 earthquake and tsunami. A series of blasts and fires led to the release of large amounts of radioactive material into the environment.” Read more.

Flashback: 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.

By Eric Reguly – “The European debt crisis is rolling across the continent at alarming speed, proving that almost no country is immune to the contagion unleashed by Greece and Italy as confidence in the region’s ability to reduce its debt loads evaporates.

Yields on the 10-year bonds of France, Belgium, Spain and Austria all soared to record euro zone highs on Tuesday in spite of fresh data showing that the German economy is still expanding and despite the tentative launch of caretaker governments in Rome and Athens with mandates for economic reform.

The mass selloff drove up the debt yields of countries that had been considered havens, including Finland and the Netherlands. ‘Global financial markets are facing a key pivotal point,’ analysts at Barclays Capital said in a Tuesday research note. ‘A further escalation of the European debt crisis is putting at risk the nascent stabilization of global growth.’

Italy’s post-Silvio Berlusconi honeymoon proved exceedingly short-lived. Last week, yields on 10-year Italian bonds went to a record 7.48 per cent. They dipped after Mr. Berlusconi resigned as prime minister, then came roaring back, climbing back above 7 per cent on Tuesday, even as Mario Monti, his replacement, came close to forming a new, cross-party government. Mr. Monti is to unveil his cabinet on Wednesday in Rome.

The bond selloff hit France, whose triple-A credit rating is at risk.” Read more.

‘Alarm bells should be ringing for France’: Fears for Eurozone’s second-largest economy as borrowing costs soar – “Eurozone bond markets suffered from a mass sell-off yesterday – with previously healthy economies finding themselves sucked into the debt crisis. The yield on French government bonds climbed to 3.63 per cent. With the German equivalent at just 1.75 per cent, the difference between what it costs Paris and Berlin to borrow is at its highest level since the euro was established in 1999. And an influential report added to market nerves with a claim that the French economy is the 17-member eurozone’s second biggest but only the 13th healthiest. The Lisbon Council think tank and Germany’s Berenberg Bank rates France one rank above Italy, and one below Spain. ‘Alarm bells should be ringing for France,’ said Holger Schmieding, Berenberg’s chief economist. Those bells might also ring, however, for the triple-A rated countries Austria, Finland and the Netherlands, which also saw bond yields worryingly.” Read more.

By NEIL REYNOLDS – “What should U.S. Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke do next? London-based economist Detlev Schlichter says, succinctly: ‘Abdicate.’ What should U.S. President Barack Obama do next? Mr. Schlichter says, succinctly: ‘Abdicate.’ With Mr. Schlichter, you aren’t left with much doubt about his position. He says the world’s major currencies are destined to crash. ‘The dollar, the euro and the yen are locked in a race to the bottom,’ he writes on his website, papermoneycollapse.com. The only question is which one crashes first.

Mr. Schlichter argues that we are only part of the way through the market meltdown – and that the worst is still to come. How much worse? Considerably worse, he says, than the Great Depression.

U.S. industrial production is 12 times higher now than it was in 1929, he says; but the amount of U.S. dollars in circulation is 200 times higher.

The U.S. net debt was 150 per cent of GDP in 1973, when then-president Richard Nixon took the country off the gold standard; yet its net debt reached a record high in 2010: 370 per cent. The United States will fall further, Mr. Schlichter insists, because it has further to fall.

Mr. Schlichter is the German-born, British-based author of a provocative and disturbing new book, Paper Money Collapse: The Folly of Elastic Money and the Coming Monetary Breakdown. An investment manager with JPMorgan, Merrill Lynch and Western Asset Management for 20 years, he quit to write his stern warning of an impending dollar doom.” Read more.

“VIENNA (AP) — Very low levels of radiation, which are higher than normal but don’t seem to pose a health hazard, are being registered in the Czech Republic and elsewhere in Europe, the International Atomic Energy Agency said Friday.

The agency said the cause was not known but was not the result of Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster, which spread radiation across the globe in March.

The “very low levels of iodine-131 have been measured in the atmosphere,” the agency said in a statement. It said such radioisotope will lose much of its radiation in about eight days.

However, an official familiar with the matter, who asked for anonymity because he was not authorized to comment, said the release appeared to be continuing.

The agency said that it was investigating.

In Prague, an official at the Czech State Office for Nuclear Safety said he was ‘100 percent sure’ that the radiation had not come from any Czech nuclear power plant — or from any other source on Czech territory.

Speaking on condition of anonymity because he wasn’t authorized to talk to the media, the official said tests are under way around the country to try and identify the source.” Read more.

I’d really be interested to see how those who still support the ‘Revived Roman Empire’ paradigm can explain or define a ‘Revived Roman Empire’ without Rome.  The ‘Western paradigm’ seems to be falling apart, while the ‘Eastern paradigm’ seems to be coming together …

By Macer Hall – “PREPARATIONS were under way last night for the break-up of the euro as Europe’s debt crisis spiralled out of control.

As Treasury officials worked through the night to soften the impact on Britain, David Cameron warned that the single European currency was facing its ‘moment of truth’.

Business Secretary Vince Cable went further and spoke about ‘Armageddon’ while Brussels officials warned that the chaos threatened to plunge us all into a new recession.

Ministers are understood to be deeply concerned that French President Nicolas Sarkozy and Germany’s Chancellor Angela Merkel are secretly plotting to build a new, slimmed down eurozone without Greece, Italy and other debt-ridden southern Euro- pean nations.” Read more.

France plots eurozone ‘breakaway group’ – “The proposal would see a formal ‘union within a union’ created, but would lead to a significant deterioration in Britain’s influence in Europe. David Cameron is drawing up urgent plans to stop Britain being ‘railroaded’ into agreeing to decisions taken by the new eurozone bloc. France and Germany are understood to want to strengthen the union between eurozone countries with new taxes and legal measures to stop nations borrowing and spending too much in future. Weaker countries such as Greece could even be barred from the new eurozone, under radical suggestions from some of those involved in discussions over the plan.” Read more.

“The scale of the economic challenge facing the eurozone was underlined on Thursday by a new report predicting slower growth and higher levels of debt in the 17-country trading area.

As the political elites in Greece and Italy struggled to agree new governments under intense pressure from capital markets, the Brussels-based European Commission lowered its forecasts for next year’s economic growth in the single currency bloc to 0.5 per cent from the 1.8 per cent it foresaw in the spring.

The European Union’s executive body said sovereign debt levels in the eurozone would increase next year by more than previously thought, reaching 90.4 per cent of overall gross domestic product, up 88 per cent this year.

A separate monthly bulletin from the European Central Bank of professional forecasters compounded the warning. It showed predictions for eurozone growth next year had halved to 0.8 per cent.

‘Growth has stalled in Europe and there is a risk of a new recession,’ said Olli Rehn, the commission’s economic chief.

The gloomy predictions came amid growing evidence that the eurozone’s economic troubles were damaging the prospects of the global economy.” Read more.

France and Spain could be next to suffer Euro crisis – “Fears about the costs of a euro break-up or a massive bail-out for Rome pushed up the borrowing costs of governments across Europe. Most significantly, there was a sharp rise in the gap between the borrowing cost for Germany – the euro’s strongest member – and other countries. The gap or “spread” between French and German bonds yesterday hit 1.46 percentage points — the highest level for almost 20 years and three times the gap recorded a year ago — as the borrowing cost for France reached 3.179pc. The close relationship between France and Germany is regarded as the bedrock of the EU’s political and economic co-ordination. A widening gap would heighten fears for the entire European project.” Read more.

European debt crisis spiralling out of control – “Fears that Europe’s sovereign debt crisis was spiralling out of control have intensified as political chaos in Athens and Rome, and looming recession, created panic on world markets. Reports emerging from Brussels said that Germany and France had begun preliminary talks on a break-up of the eurozone, amid fears that Italy would be too big to rescue. Despite Silvio Berlusconi’s announcement that he would step down as prime minister once austerity measures were pushed through parliament, a collapse of investor confidence in the eurozone’s third-biggest economy sent interest rates in Italy to the levels that triggered bailouts in Portugal, Greece and Ireland.” Read more.

“London (CNN) – Italy’s bond yields passed 7% Wednesday morning, breaching a psychological point at which markets consider countries at risk of being unable to fund themselves.

The dramatic rise in 10-year bond yields comes the day after Italy’s flamboyant Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi said he would resign after the country’s budget is passed. The 75-year old Berlusconi has been a dominant force since forming the Forza Italia party in 1994, and his pending departure marks the end of an era for Italian politics.

But while the political spectacle that came with Berlusconi could now fade, the financial show might be just beginning. The pricing – set by traders who are selling Italy’s bonds – hit 7.3% by mid morning after breaking through 7% a short while earlier. “It’s like tectonic plates,” a desk analyst told CNN. “You have this pressure and then it breaks.”

To put Italy’s bond yields in context: Ireland bond yields were just over 8% before the country was bailed, Greek yields touched 10% and Portugal’s hit 9%.

Italy and Spain – the eurozone’s third and fourth largest economies – are those often referred to as too big to fail. So far, the eurozone countries and the European Central Bank have actively kept the bloc’s struggling economies afloat.

But their powers may be limited when it comes to Italy. The numbers are huge, and the political – and financial – capacity to continue supporting the bloc’s weak will face a mighty test should Italy stumble.” Read more.

Has Italy past the point of no return? – “The scandal-plagued prime minister will follow his Greek counterpart George Papandreou into early retirement as fears grow that Italy, the eurozone’s third largest economy, may default on its debt. Italy has failed to implement austerity measures designed to reduce its mammoth €1.9 trillion debt load — nearly six times that of Greece — and the cost to the country of borrowing more money to pay off that debt is spiraling out of control. While no one knows yet whether Italy will default, analysts say that the country is vastly too big to bail out — and that the consequences for the world economy of a default would be a disaster.” Read more.

“A survey shows that some children in Fukushima Prefecture have smaller average weight gains this year compared to the year before. A pediatrician says the results indicate the negative effects of the nuclear plant accident in March.

Doctor Shintaro Kikuchi tracked the weights of 245 children aged from 4 to 6 in 2 kindergartens in Koriyama City, Fukushima Prefecture. The results show an average weight increase of 0.81 kilograms over the past year through June. The increase for children in the same age group the previous year was 3.1 kilograms.

The average increase for children aged 5 to 6 in the survey was 0.84 kilograms. But a nationwide health ministry survey conducted last year for children of the same age group showed an average gain of 1.8 kilograms.

The Fukushima Daiichi nuclear accident has caused high levels of radioactivity in areas around the plant. Koriyama is located about 60 kilometers from the facility and many children in the city have been forced to play indoors to avoid contamination.

Kikuchi noted that the smaller weight increases could be related to reduced appetite resulting from less exercise as well as changes in the secretion of growth hormones due to stress. He said measures should be taken to restore normal hormone levels in the children.” Source – NHK.

Japan: 63 Year-Old newscaster promoting and eating Fukushima produce now diagnosed with leukemia – “A 63-year-old TV newscaster has been diagnosed with acute lymphocytic leukemia and is now hospitalized, getting ready for chemo. He felt a strange lump in his neck on October 28, he says. (Various news sources including: Zakzak 11/7/2011, Yomiuri Shinbun 11/6/2011). In his morning program on Fuji TV he’s been promoting Fukushima produce by eating them in the show. He also happened to be in Fukushima in March 15. Just a coincidence. Never mind that ALL is predominant in small children, and an adult case is one in 100,000 annually in Japan.” Read more.