Japan Cities Face Growing Radioactive Ash, Troubles Ahead

10/17/2011 Leave a comment

By Kiyoshi Takenaka – (Reuters) – “In the Japanese city of Ohtawara, more than 100 km (62 miles) southwest of the crippled Fukushima nuclear plant, 400 tones of radioactive ash have piled up at a garbage incineration plant, which will run out of protected storage space in two weeks.

Further south, the city of Kashiwa has been forced to temporarily shut a high-tech incinerator because its advanced technology that minimizes the amount of ash produced has the side-effect of boosting the concentration of radiation.

Ohtawara and Kashiwa are just two of a growing number of municipalities across northern Japan that face similar problems after the Fukushima Daiichi atomic power plant, devastated by a huge March quake and tsunami, began spewing radiation into the atmosphere in the world’s worst nuclear accident in 25 years.

Although the government aims to bring the Fukushima crisis under control by December, researchers say that problems arising from the radiation, scattered over mountains, rivers and residential areas, are set to persist for years.” Read more.

Fukushima Government to Push Fukushima Rice in Restaurants and Schools – “Now that the rice from all districts and cities in Fukushima Prefecture are declared ‘safe’ (i.e. below the provisional safety limit of 500 becquerels/kg of radioactive cesium), the Fukushima prefectural government is gearing up for the PR campaign it plans to mount to promote Fukushima rice in restaurants and school lunches and to consumers in the Tokyo metropolitan area… The NHK article has an accompanying news clip, where you get to see how the ‘testing’ was done at the Fukushima prefectural government. A government worker is waving a scintillation meter over a plastic bag that contains a small amount of brown rice. He spends about 2 seconds at most for each bag. If you recall, waving a scintillation meter over the meat cow was how they were testing the meat for radiation at first. We know how that ended up.” Read more.

Radioactive roadside mud in Tokyo measured at 3.60 uSv/hr – “On 16 Oct., 2011, I measured radiation in MIZUMOTO PARK, in Katsushika ward, Tokyo, Japan. The monitoring place is only 15 km from the center of Tokyo, 220 km from Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear power plant. The monitor indicates 0.29 or 0.30 micro Sievert per hour in air at chest hight, 3.60 micro Sievert per hour at ground level, on roadside mud. Measuring instrument is made of Ukraine, ECOTEST MKS-05.” Source.

Categories: Man-Made Disasters

Ontario: Hundreds of Loons, Mallards, Grebes, Seagulls and Canada Geese Die in Georgian Bay, ‘Something is Occurring at the Bottom of the Lake’

10/17/2011 Leave a comment

By Kristen Smith – “COLLINGWOOD – The Ministry of Natural Resources is trying to figure out why fish and birds have been dying in south Georgian Bay.

The ministry started receive sporadic reports beginning in late August, but cases have increased in frequency and distribution in recent weeks.

The fish die-off includes channel fish, freshwater drum, carp, lake whitefish, and one largemouth drum. Wasaga Beach Provincial Park staff have disposed of about 120 dead sturgeon.

Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources spokesperson John Cooper says fresh samples have been sent to the University of Guelph to test for fish and bird diseases, including the Type E botulism toxin, which Cooper says is quite likely the cause.

‘It’s a naturally occurring event,’ said Cooper, adding little is known about the ecology of the bacteria which produces the botulism toxin.

‘Something is occurring at the bottom of the lake,’ said Cooper.

Georgian Triangle Anglers’ Association President Rick Baldry says its members have seen a number of fish, including sturgeon, floating on the water’s surface.

Baldry immediately suggested the cause could be Type E botulism, which is what the ministry says is typically the cause of these sort of die-offs.

He says even though there are plenty of fish and there is little concern it will affect anglers or the fishing industry, it matters: ‘Anything that upsets or disturbs the ecosystem matters.’

The bacterium naturally occurs as harmless spores in lake bottom sediment. Under certain conditions – rich nutrient source, lack of oxygen, and optimum temperature – the bacterium begins producing the toxin. It then enters the food chain, primarily affecting birds and fish.

More than 300 dead birds have also been reported to the ministry, including loons, mallards, grebes, gulls, and Canada geese.

Cooper says sturgeon, and other fish which swim and feed along the bottom, are most prone to contamination.

He also says dead sturgeon are most obvious because of their size and they float to the top when they are dead – other fish may be dying off unnoticed because some fish fall to the bottom.

Cooper says this many fish dying is not good, adding the numbers were much smaller last year.” Read more.

Categories: Mass Animal Deaths

New England: Whales, Tuna and Even ‘Massive Amount of Birds’ Are Being Found Dead Along Shoreline As Mystery Continues to Surround Numerous Seal Deaths

10/17/2011 Leave a comment

By Charles McMahon – “Why are harbor seals dying in droves along the New England shoreline?

A definitive answer is not yet known, but theories ranging from algae blooms to Armageddon have begun to surface since the young seals began washing ashore in early September.

Other theories floated from community members over the last few weeks include questions of whether toxins from jelly fish stings, radiation from an unreported release of cooling water from the Seabrook nuclear power plant, or last year’s oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico could be to blame.

So far investigators from the New England Aquarium and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association have ruled out only a handful of potential reasons for the spike in seal deaths.

The investigation, which began only weeks ago after numerous dead seals were found on various Seacoast beaches, has revealed approximately 94 seal carcasses have washed ashore since Sept. 1.

Mendy Garron, regional marine mammal stranding coordinator for NOAA, said the seals have been found on beaches from southern Maine to the North Shore of Massachusetts. Other animal species, such as whales and a bluefin tuna, have also washed ashore, said Garron, but not at the frequency of the young harbor seals.

Much like everyone else looking into the seal deaths, Garron said she’s not sure what the cause is just yet…

Inga Sidor, a senior veterinarian pathologist at the New Hampshire Veterinarian Diagnostic Lab and assistant clinical professor at UNH’s Department of Molecular, Cellular and Biomedical Sciences, said she has been following the event over the past few weeks. Sidor said the fact that not only seals, but whales, tuna and even birds, are being found dead along the shoreline is troublesome. ‘When you start to have more than one specific group that is affected, that is when the bell starts to go off,’ she said.

Sidor said she is primarily involved due to the massive amount of birds — namely seagulls — being found on beaches.

Having examined birds found this past week in Rye, Sidor said she is looking into the stomach contents of the dead birds and is conducting a toxin analysis similar to the tests being done on seals and whales. The birds examined had fish in their stomachs, which Sidor said means they were eating before they died.” Read more.

Categories: Mass Animal Deaths

Dead German Satellite Will Fall to Earth This Week

10/17/2011 Leave a comment

By Denise Chow – “A defunct German satellite is expected to plunge to Earth this week, but exactly when and where the satellite will fall remains a mystery.

The massive German Roentgen Satellite, or ROSAT, is expected to plummet to Earth on Saturday or Sunday (Oct. 22 or 23), though German space officials have also offered a wider re-entry window of between Oct. 21 and Oct. 25. This latest falling satellite comes about a month after a dead NASA climate satellite, called the Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite (UARS), plunged into the Pacific Ocean in late September.

The 2.4-ton X-ray space observatory is expected to break up as it travels through Earth’s atmosphere, but some large pieces will likely make it through the intense heat of re-entry. According to German aerospace officials, approximately 1.6 tons of satellite debris, consisting primarily of up to 30 large glass and ceramic fragments, could survive the journey through the atmosphere and reach the Earth’s surface.

‘We don’t expect big parts to re-enter, except the mirror and the glass and ceramic parts,’ Jan Woerner, head of the executive board of the Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt (DLR), Germany’s space agency, told SPACE.com. ‘Usually during re-entry, you have rather clear burning of all the elements, but glass and ceramics may survive and may come down in bigger pieces.’

There is a 1-in-2.000 chance a piece of ROSAT could strike someone on Earth, DLR officials have said. That’s a slightly higher risk than the 1-in-3,200 chance of a debris hit NASA gave for the UARS satellite fall.” Read more.

Categories: Anything Else, Cosmic Craziness

Cognitive Dissonance? Obama to Position Himself as Leader of ‘Occupy Wall Street’ Movement While Anti-Semitism and Communist Sympathies Taint Protests

10/17/2011 4 comments

By Yitzhak Benhorin – “Several anti-Semitic incidents have been reported during ‘Occupy Wall Street’ demonstrations in New York as Jews were blamed for the turmoil in America’s financial markets. In addition, anti-Israel signs were raised against ‘Israel’s occupation of Gaza’.

The ‘Emergency Committee for Israel’ has published a hard-to-watch clip in which Jews are attacked and blamed for the financial crisis and assistance to Israel. The committee is a neo-conservative body headed by William Kristol, the Jewish editor of the Weekly Standard, which aims to convince Jews to vote for a Republican presidential candidate.

It should be noted that the video is political in nature and seeks to tie President Obama and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi to the protesters, urging them to ‘stand up to the mob’.

The White House, on its part, is trying to take advantage of the demonstrations against Wall Street while the anti-Obama camp is attempting to tie the protesters to the far Left and Israel’s enemies.

In the clip, a young demonstrator is seen arguing with an older Jewish man wearing a yarmulke. At one point, the young man says, ‘I work, earn seven dollars an hour. You have the money. You don’t speak English? You are from Israel? Go back to Israel.'” Read more.

Obama plans to hijack Occupy Wall Street – “President Obama and his team have decided to turn public anger at Wall Street into a central tenet of their reelection strategy. The move comes as the Occupy Wall Street protests gain momentum across the country and as polls show deep public distrust of the nation’s major financial institutions. And it sets up what strategists see as a potent line of attack against Republican front-runner Mitt Romney, a former investment executive whom Obama aides plan to portray as a wealthy Wall Street sympathizer.” Read more.

Obama: Martin Luther King Jr. would have backed ‘Occupy’ protests – “Drawing parallels between civil rights legend Martin Luther King Jr. and his own leadership challenges, President Obama on Sunday dedicated a memorial to King on the Mall by saying King would have sympathized with activists demanding social justice from Wall Street. ‘At this moment, when our politics appear so sharply polarized and faith in our institutions so greatly diminished, we need more than ever to take heed of Dr. King’s teachings,’ said Mr. Obama, who praised King’s belief in the ‘creative tension of nonviolent protests.'” Read more.

Communist Party U.S.A. Spokesman Gets Overwhelming Applause from Occupy Chicago – “Last night during the tent city construction at Occupy Chicago on Michigan Ave, John Bachtell, a spokesperson from the national board of the Communist Party U.S.A., addressed the angry mob of nearly 3000. He claimed to ‘bring greetings and support’ from the party, to the occupy movement. Bachtell received a very warm welcome and overwhelming applause form the ‘occupiers.’ ‘We will be with this movement… til we make all the changes that we know we have to make… This movement is part and parcel in the great tradition in this country of people powered democracy… This is the next big step of the democratic revolution in our country.’ – Bachtell said.” Read more.


—

—

Categories: Anything Else

Australia: Mass Deaths of Racehorses Continue to Defy Scientific Explanation Despite Exhaustive Testing

10/16/2011 Leave a comment

By Frank Robson – “When a stranger rang Debbie Lee and her partner, Steve Hogno, to ask if they’d like to race their beloved quarter horses at a country club resort, the pair thought their dreams were finally coming true.

‘We said, ‘Oh boy, we sure would!” Lee recalls. ‘The guy who rang said he even knew of a property near the resort where we could keep our horses, and Steve and I couldn’t wait to check it out.’

The caller was Ian Howard, part of a consortium planning to restore the long-closed Kooralbyn Valley Resort near Beaudesert in south-east Queensland and set up regular quarter horse sprint races. Late last month, after meeting Howard and inspecting the proposed agistment block – “It seemed like the perfect spot” – Lee and Hogno moved 25 horses from land they rented in Toowoomba to the Kooralbyn Valley property.

But less than a fortnight after the healthy young horses were released to roam their picturesque new 81-hectare home – with three dams and a running stream – they began dying at an unprecedented rate. By Wednesday, six days after the first mysterious deaths on the unoccupied property were reported to the RSPCA by passers-by, all but four of the quarter horses, uninsured, were dead. And despite exhaustive testing by Biosecurity Queensland, the mass deaths continue to defy scientific explanation.

The most likely cause is thought to be paralysis ticks (up to 50 were found on each dead or stricken animal), especially rampant after last summer’s flooding, combined with the fact the prized horses came from a tick-free area and had no immunity to tick toxin.

‘No one told us about this danger,’ a devastated Lee said this week. ‘Steve and I loved these horses; we’d never have taken them there if we’d known about the killer ticks – it would have been like sticking a child who’d never been exposed to colds and flu in with a bunch of sick people.”

But horse trainer Hogno is far from convinced ticks are the real culprits. Employed as a mining supervisor in a remote part of Western Australia, Hogno flew back to Brisbane last week to inspect the dead and dying horses.

‘With tick poisoning, the paralysis always works forward from the hindquarters and tail,’ the veteran horseman said. ‘But in all of these cases the paralysis started from the head. Also, no one has ever heard of a case where so many animals have died so suddenly. Tick deaths occur over quite a prolonged period, yet many of these horses were dead within an hour or two of going down.'” Read more.

Categories: Mass Animal Deaths, Pestilence

Texas: ‘Red Tide’ Kills Thousands of Fish, Litters Shoreline ‘As Far as the Eye Can See’ from Port Aransas to Mansfield Channel

10/16/2011 Leave a comment

CORPUS CHRISTI (Kiii News) – “The red tide is growing stronger out on Padre Island and it’s wreaking havoc on wildlife. Thousands of dead fish, as far as the eye can see, now litter the waterline from Port Aransas to Mansfield Channel.

‘We’ve seen flounder, yellow tail, mullet, lady fish and a few sea robins,’ says fisherman Daniel McLain.

It’s a natural occurrence, typically happening each fall. This year, the problematic algae bloom is particularly strong and this weeks rain storms may have made the problem worse.

‘It’s kind of heartbreaking to see it like this, I guess it’s Mother Nature’s course,’ said McLain.

‘We are sampling for the algae itself, but also the dead fish to figure out how much amount of toxins it took to kill them,’ says Dr. Paul Zimba, the Director at the Center for Coastal Studies.

Researchers from Texas A&M Corpus Christi were out studying the natural phenomenon. They have a warning for people who like to walk their dogs on the beach, to not let them eat the dead fish. The toxic fish could actually end up killing your pet.” Source.

Red Tide at Mustang Island, TX

Categories: Mass Animal Deaths, Natural Disasters

Russia’s Mount Shiveluch Erupting, Smoke and Ash Reach 10,000 Meters (6+ Miles), No-Fly Warnings Issued for Surrounding Area

10/16/2011 Leave a comment

“Reports speak of a violent volcanic eruption of Mount Shiveluch on Russia’s Far Eastern Kamchatka Peninsula.

Smoke and ash from the volcano have climbed to 10 kilometres, sparking no-fly warnings for the surrounding area. Snow around the crater is rapidly melting, creating mudslides.

Shiveluch supports a caldera of 1.5 kilometres in diameter. Its current activity period started in 1980.” Source.

Activity is ongoing – “An explosive eruption is taking place at Russia’s Shiveluch volcano (sometimes called Sheveluch or Sopka Shiveluch), located in the far eastern Kamchatka Peninsula, prompting no fly zones to be imposed in the region. Ash plumes have risen to 34,500 ft (10.5 km) while seismic activity is ongoing. The official Itar-Tass news agency reported on Monday that the highest-level warning has been issued for aviation.” Read more.

Categories: Natural Disasters

Japan: High Concentrations of Radioactive Cesium in Plankton Near Fukushima Raising Fears of Food Chain Contamination

10/16/2011 Leave a comment

“High concentrations of radioactive cesium have been found in plankton from the sea near the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant.

Researchers from Tokyo University of Marine Science and Technology collected plankton in waters up to 60 kilometers from the coast of Iwaki City in July. They found 669 becquerels per kilogram of radioactive cesium in animal plankton from waters 3 kilometers offshore.

They say a wide range of fish feed on animal plankton and that the contamination could accumulate in the food chain and have a more serious impact when it gets into relatively large fish.

The research group’s leader, Professor Takashi Ishimaru, says the plankton were so heavily contaminated because sea currents continuously carried contaminated water southward from the nuclear plant. He says detailed studies are needed to determine how long the effect on fish will continue.” Source.

Citizens’ Testing Finds 20 Hot Spots Around Tokyo, Some Readings As High As Contaminated Areas Around Chernobyl – “TOKYO — Takeo Hayashida signed on with a citizens’ group to test for radiation near his son’s baseball field in Tokyo after government officials told him they had no plans to check for fallout from the devastated Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant. Like Japan’s central government, local officials said there was nothing to fear in the capital, 160 miles from the disaster zone. Then came the test result: the level of radioactive cesium in a patch of dirt just yards from where his 11-year-old son, Koshiro, played baseball was equal to those in some contaminated areas around Chernobyl.” Read more.

Radioactive Strontium Detected in Yokohama south of Tokyo – “Radioactive strontium exceeding normal quantities has been detected in sediment from atop an apartment building in Yokohama,  south of Tokyo, and radiation levels as high as 2.707 microsieverts per hour have been detected on a local sidewalk in Tokyo’s Setagaya Ward, Japanese media reported. The strontium 90 was detected in Yokohama, some 250 kilometers from the damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, by a private agency that conducted the test upon the request of a resident. This is the first time strontium at a concentration of over 100 becquerels per kilogram has been found beyond 100 km from the Fukushima plant.” Read more.

Categories: Man-Made Disasters

Pakistan: The Existence of Christians Threatened Now More Than Ever Before, Persecution the Worse It Has Ever Been

10/16/2011 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.”

“During a visit to Pakistan, the General Secretary of the World Council of Churches has urged for the protection of religious minorities and the need for the state to take necessary measures against religious intolerance.

‘The Pakistani government should not turn a blind eye to the culture of violence perpetrated through the use and abuse of the blasphemy law, which intensify communal hatred, intolerance and persecution that can hit anybody in the country, and particularly the religious minorities,’ said the Rev Dr Olav Fykse Tveit, speaking at a press conference in Lahore, at the end of his three day visit.

Christians are among country’s religious minorities, alongside Hindus, Ahmadis, Parsees, Sikh and Baha’is, who are affected severely by the discriminatory laws – including the ambiguous blasphemy law 295 C, which has caused many lives, including of the minister for minorities Shahbaz Bhatti, a Christian, this year.

During his stay in Pakistan, Dr Tveit met with church and ecumenical leaders and representatives of civil society organisations.

The church leaders shared with him how religious minorities especially Christians, ‘live in an atmosphere of insecurity. The existences of Christians have never been threatened as it is today, and the situation has gone worse in the past years,’ the WCC chief was told.” Read more.

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

Egypt: If Islamists Continue Persecuting Christians We May Soon Witness One of History’s Greatest Forced Emigrations

10/16/2011 Leave a comment

By LAWRENCE SOLOMON – “Egypt’s Arab Spring is leading to a mass exodus of its Coptic Christian community, with Canada a preferred destination – we’ve received about a sixth of the 100,000 who have fled Egypt in the past six months amid persecution by Islamic fundamentalists.

If history repeats itself, those numbers could become much larger – Egypt has 10 million to 18 million Copts and other Christians, the largest remaining Christian population in the Middle East by far. Should their persecution continue, the great majority could well flee in what would amount to one of history’s greatest forced emigrations.

Egypt’s Arab Spring is unfolding exactly as Copts feared. Hosni Mubarak, though seen as an unvarnished dictator in the West, was a protector to the Copts. He not only allowed them previously denied religious freedoms – everything from the right to repair their churches to live broadcasts of Easter services – but he also punished Islamists who persecuted them.

In the wave of unrest unleashed by the Arab Spring, that protection is now gone. Flagrant Copt-killing began with a church bombing during a New Year’s Eve mass that left more than 20 dead and dozens wounded, followed by another deadly attack during the Coptic Christmas on Jan. 7. But the exodus didn’t begin in earnest until March; that’s when a national referendum passed constitutional amendments that effectively stripped Christians of political rights while strengthening sharia laws involving amputations, stonings and crucifixions.

Since then, Islamists have been ratcheting up their incitement against Copts, calling them infidels and accusing them of being Western spies and traitors who are stockpiling arms in plots to secede from the country. This week, more than 20 Copts were killed in clashes with the army during a demonstration over an attack on a church.

As a result of their growing vulnerability, Christians are sorrowfully abandoning their homeland of almost 2,000 years. (Before the Arab invasion of the 7th century, Egypt was majority Christian.) ‘Copts are not emigrating abroad voluntarily, they are coerced into that by threats and intimidation,’ said Naguib Gabriel, director of the Cairo-based Egyptian Union of Human Rights Organizations.” Read more.

Egypt: Islamists Boast, ‘We Won’t Leave Any Christians in This Country’ – “A group of Muslims burnt down part of a church Friday – the Islamic Sabbath – in the village of Marinab, according to a report published in the daily Al Masry Al Youm. The village, situated close to the town of Edfu in the Aswan Governorate, is located some 800 kilometers south of Cairo. Security sources said Muslims rampaged through the village in what appeared to be a pogrom, clashing with the Christian residents and destroying their shops.” Read more.

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

India: Tea Vendor Who Was to Convert to Islam to Save Business May Not Have Converted Soon Enough

10/16/2011 Leave a comment

Revelation 13:17, “… no one may buy or sell except one who has the mark or the name of the beast, or the number of his name.”

“This Friday he was to officially convert to Islam. But Sunil Bhalegare, who wore skull cap to make a point on the alleged bias shown by the BJP-ruled Vadodara Municipal Corporation in removing encroachments, has gone missing.

A roadside tea vendor outside the General post office in Raopura area of the city, Bhalegare was under the impression that VMC’s anti-encroachment squad was targetting only vendors of a particular community.

So he wore a skull cap to protect his business and has now gone missing since Thursday.

He had claimed that Muslim vendors were spared by the encroachment removal squads.

When The Sunday Express team visited the spot where he was doing business till October 13, the place was deserted while other nearby vendors were doing business as usual.

His family says they will register a formal complaint with police if he did not return home by Sunday. They said they were not aware of his whereabouts.” Read more.

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