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EBOLA ALMOST GONE FROM LIBERIA, YET FOX NEWS CALLS FOR EBOLA CAMPS IN USA
October 14, 2014
PROOF THAT AIRBORNE EBOLA IS A HYPED MEDIA LIE IS GIVEN BY WHO’S OWN LATEST EBOLA UPDATE FROM OCTOBER 8th, WHICH SHOWS EBOLA CASES DECLINING FOR THE FOURTH WEEK IN THE ROW AND ON THE VERGE OF BEING ERADICATED IN LIBERIA.
AND YET A FOX NEWS ANALYST IS NOW CALLING FOR EBOLA QUARANTINE CAMPS IN EVERY US CITY .
EBOLA IS A HYPED DISEASE BEING SPREAD WILFULLY IN THE USA BY BREACHES OF BIOSECURITY IN ORDER TO PUSH THE MARTIAL LAW AGENDA.
http://www.infowars.com/ebola-camps-fox-analyst-calls-for-quarantine-camps-in-every-city/
A WHO GRAPH SHOWS WERE ALMOST NO NEW CONFIRMED EBOLA CASES IN LIBERIA IN THE WEEK ENDING OCTOBER 5TH.
http://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/10665/136020/1/roadmapsitrep_8Oct2014_eng.pdf
PURPLE FLAGS MARK DECLINING CONFIRMED CASES OF EBOLA
RED FLAGS MARK DECLINING PROBABLE CASES OF EBOLA
RED ARROWS MARK SITUATION ACCORDING TO WHO AS OF OCTOBER 5TH, THE LATEST WHO UPDATE
WHO: New Ebola Cases Could Be up to 10,000 Per Week in 2 Months
GENEVA (AP) — The death rate in the Ebola outbreak has risen to 70 percent and there could be up to 10,000 new cases a week in two months, the World Health Organization warned Tuesday.
WHO assistant director-general Dr. Bruce Aylward gave the grim figures during a news conference in Geneva. Previously, WHO had estimated the death rate at around 50 percent.
Aylward said the 70 percent death rate was “a high mortality disease” in any circumstance and that the U.N. health agency was still focused on trying to get sick people isolated and provide treatment as early as possible.
He told reporters that if the world’s response to the Ebola crisis isn’t stepped up within 60 days, “a lot more people will die” and there will be a huge need to deal with the spiraling numbers of cases.
For the last four weeks, there’s been about 1,000 new cases per week — including suspected, confirmed and probable cases, he said, adding that the U.N. health agency is aiming to get 70 percent of cases isolated within two months to reverse the outbreak.
WHO increased its Ebola death toll tally to 4,447 people on Tuesday, nearly all of them in West Africa, from 8,914 cases.
Sierra Leone, Guinea and Liberia have been hardest hit nations in the current outbreak. Aylward said WHO was very concerned about the continued spread of Ebola in the three countries’ capital cities —Freetown, Conakry and Monrovia.
He said the agency was still focused on trying to treat Ebola patients, despite the huge demands on the broken health systems in West Africa.
“It would be horrifically unethical to say that we’re just going to isolate people,” he said, noting that new strategies like handing out protective equipment to families and setting up very basic clinics — without much treatment — was a priority.
In Berlin, a U.N. medical worker infected with Ebola in Liberia died despite “intensive medical procedures.” The St. Georg hospital in Leipzig said Tuesday that the 56-year-old man, whose name has not been released, died overnight of the infection.
The man tested positive for Ebola on Oct. 6, prompting Liberia’s U.N. peacekeeping mission to place 41 other staff members under “close medical observation.”
He arrived in Leipzig for treatment on Oct. 9. The hospital’s chief executive, Dr. Iris Minde, said at the time there was no risk of infection for other people, since he was kept in a secure isolation ward specially equipped with negative pressure rooms that are hermetically sealed.
He was the third Ebola patient to be flown to Germany for treatment. The first man recovered and returned home to Senegal. A Uganda aid worker is still being treated in Frankfurt.
Doctors Nationwide Slam the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) Handling of Ebola
Infectious Disease Experts, Safety Experts, Doctors and Nurses All Say the CDC Has Been Messing Up the Ebola Response
Healthcare experts throughout the U.S. are strongly criticizing the Centers for Disease Control for its handling of Ebola.
For example:
- Infectious disease experts say the CDC is blaming nurses for their exposure to Ebola when the CDC has given faulty instructions on how to handle Ebola patients
- Many doctors say the CDC has given false reassurances and underplayed the severity of the disease
- Public health experts also criticize the CDC’s statement that any hospital in the U.S. can handle Ebola patients
- Experts also criticize the CDC for failing to encourage the buddy system for healthcare workers treating Ebola patients, and for including other common-sense protocols for containing infection
- And nurses are calling the CDC hypocrites for saying that cloth masks and goggles are sufficient … while CDC personnel wear respirators and full hazardous materials suits when visiting hospitals with Ebola patients.
***
From West Africa to Texas: Ebola Outbreak Impacts the World
Workers in healthcare, service industries protest endangerment, negligence
With the death of Thomas Eric Duncan in the Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital on Oct. 8, the political dynamics of the Ebola Virus Disease (EVD) outbreak has taken on wider dimensions.
One nurse who was providing care for Duncan, Nina Pham, has tested positive for the virus and is being treated in Dallas. Hospital officials say that she was wearing protective gear while working with the deceased victim.
Relatives of Duncan say that he was not given proper attention at the hospital where he had been turned away on Sept. 25. Three days later he was admitted in a more serious condition which deteriorated to the point of being placed on breathing and dialysis machines.
The case of the Dallas nurse represented the first known transmission of EVD in the United States. In Spain, a nurse was reported to be in critical condition after contracting the infectious disease while treating a priest who was flown back to Madrid for hospitalization but later died.
Despite the defensive posture taken by the Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital in response to the criticisms leveled surrounding the care provided to Duncan, the facility was forced under public pressure to release the medical records of the deceased Liberian national. Based on information provided by the Associated Press, Duncan should have never been refused admission to the hospital on Sept. 25, particularly after informing personnel that he had recently travelled from Liberia, the center of the deadliest outbreak of Ebola since it was first acknowledged in 1976.
Societal Impact of the Spreading Outbreak
According to statistics provided by the World Health Organization (WHO), over 4,000 people have died from EVD since March. Most fatalities have occurred in three West African states: Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea-Conakry. WHO figures report that 8,400 have fallen ill with EVD over the last seven months. (http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs103/en/)
Data on other cases remain unsubstantiated but are based on projections from healthcare departments and hospitals in the West Africa region. Nonetheless, it is safe to say that tens of thousands of others in this region of West Africa could be infected if the outbreak is not halted and millions more have already been impacted socially and economically.
Reduced growth rates are anticipated in all three of the most impacted states. Mining firms, tourist and transportation industries are already stating that revenue losses will be substantive.
Workers Demonstrate, Strike Demanding Safety Measures and Protocols
Labor organizations representing healthcare workers and service employees have spoken out forcefully against what they perceive to be a lack of concern for the plight of those who are on the frontlines of the fight against EVD. From the earlier strikes by nurses in Liberia to the insistence of burial workers that they be given the necessary information as well as protective gear needed to safely dispose of deceased victims of the disease, workers are demanding action from their bosses in government and private industry.
On Oct. 13, Liberian nurses threatened to strike demanding more pay for working in hazardous conditions and to be supplied with the necessary protective gear. George Williams of the Health Workers Association representing 10,000 employees, with 1,000 providing services in the Ebola wards, accused the Liberian government of intimidating workers to return to their jobs. (Associated Press, Oct. 13)
Reports on participation in the strike varied with many news agencies saying the call for the work stoppage did not enjoy wide adherence while others indicated that in some areas attendance was lower than normal. The government in Monrovia said that a strike would further hamper the healthcare system’s capacity to provide treatment for patients.
Already many people have been turned away from hospitals and clinics due to lack of beds and trained personnel. Liberia has been the hardest hit in the EVD outbreak with more than 2,300 deaths reported.
Hundreds healthcare workers, including doctors and nurses, have become infected with EVD and some have died. Others have refused to come to work because of the perceived dangers associated with treating infected patients.
The impact of EVD has also been felt in the Armed Forces of Liberia (AFL). In an article published on Oct. 12 in the Observer, it states that nine soldiers have already died from the disease.
“Following the death of the soldiers, and for fear of the further spread of Ebola in the army, regular daily training, a core activity of the military, has been suspended indefinitely. ‘We no longer train, neither do we receive visitors, nor are we allowed visits outside of the barracks,’ a soldier lamented when the Daily Observer toured the Kesselly Barracks over the weekend.”
An Associated Press article reported that “In Guinea, a private clinic which served much of the city’s elite, including many expatriates, stopped accepting new patients this weekend after a woman there showed symptoms of Ebola. The woman never went past the lobby of the clinic, a statement from the medical center in the capital Conakry said Monday (Oct. 13), and the area she was in has been disinfected and sealed off.”
In regard to Sierra Leone, the British government’s resumption of commercial flights into the country was cancelled on Oct. 13. The decision not to fly into the former colony of London drew protests from the government in Freetown and humanitarian organizations such as Medecins sans Frontieres (Doctors Without Borders).
“It’s extremely difficult to get much-needed staff into the region and at a time that we need more people on the ground than ever, this is very unhelpful,” said a MSF spokeswoman. The freight transport company Redcoat said that its scheduled Oct. 17 flight was designed to carry four tons of humanitarian assistance including 1,000 protective gear suits that are essential for treating infected patients. (Guardian, Oct. 13)
Gambia Bird, a German-owned airline, was scheduled to also transport 60 passengers on Oct. 17 from England to Sierra Leone. The airline has appealed the decision of the British government.
A spokesman for McPhillips Travel, Ben Mortimer, which represents the interests of Gambia Bird in Britain, said the cancellation of the flight was “an overreaction. The situation was bad on 26 September. It is worse now, but not much.” (Guardian, Oct. 13)
Mortimer went on to say that “We already had protocols in place as part of the permit in which they had the names and addresses of all passengers in the event they needed to trace people. This is much better than trying to screen people who are coming into the country from Europe or Morocco on an indirect route.”
Meanwhile in the U.S., a demonstration by Delta Airlines cabin cleaners and LaGuardia airport in New York City on Oct. 9 and a press conference held by the National Nurses United (NNU) three days later, highlighted the failure of the travel and healthcare industries to provide basic safety information, training and protective gear. With specific reference to the plight of nurses, the Director of the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Dr. Thomas Frieden, suggested that the infection of the Dallas nurse was a result of not following medical protocols issued by the healthcare establishment.
In a press conference held by the NNU on Oct. 12, their leaders took exception to such an allegation. NNU officials said that no official medical protocols have been issued to the 185,000 healthcare workers they represent. (nationalnursesunited.org)
Frieden later retracted his statement on Oct. 13 but the damage had already been done. “I apologize if people thought I was criticizing the hospital,” the CDC director said at a press conference. “And I feel awful that a health care worker became infected while helping an Ebola patient.”
Place People Before Profits
However, decisions regarding healthcare treatment, workplace safety and insurance coverage in the U.S. are made largely by private firms that profit to the tune of billions of dollars every year. The lack adequate health insurance or no coverage at all, is a direct result of the character of the capitalist economic system.
In the West Africa region where EVD has been the most devastating, the underdevelopment of these states is a direct result of the legacies of slavery, colonialism and neo-colonialism. Imperialism has demanded that human needs related to employee safety, adequate healthcare personnel and facilities be subjected to what they perceive to be the larger priorities related to political domination and economic exploitation.
Until these priorities are re-oriented there will be ongoing periodic outbreaks of infectious diseases which will impact broad segments of societies throughout the world. In order to effectively halt the spread of such crises, the needs of people must be placed before those of the corporations and international financial institutions in Africa as well as other regions of the world.
PLEASE KEEP SPREADING THE INFORMATION ABOUT THE FEMA PANDEMIC EXERCISE IN NOVEMBER
October 14, 2014
PLEASE SEND THE INFORMATION ABOUT FEMA’S PANDEMIC EXERCISES IN LESS THAN A MONTH TO EVERYONE ON YOUR EMAIL LIST AND ASK THEM TO SEND IT ON TO THEIR LIST.
WE CAN HELP PREEMPT ANY FALSE FLAG EBOLA OUTBREAK LEADING TO MARTIAL LAW, FEMA CAMPS AND MASS FORCED VACCINATION, AND WHICH HAS BEEN TIMED TO COINCIDE WITH A FINANCIAL COLLAPSE AND POWER CUTS, IF WE REACH ENOUGH PEOPLE QUICKLY ENOUGH.
HELP KEEP YOURSELF, YOUR FAMILY AND YOUR COUNTRY SAFE.
MAKE THIS INFORMATION GO GLOBAL.
SPANISH UNION FILES CRIMINAL COMPLAINT OVER NURSE EXPOSED TO EBOLA
October 15, 2014
A union for nurses and health staff in Spain has filed a criminal complaint with the Madrid prosecutor investigating the infection of nurse Teresa Romero following the systematic failure by the ECDC, WHO and Spanish health authorities to apply mandatory biosecurity safeguards at Carlos III hospital.
As Ferguson Protests Spread, So Does Residents’ Backlash Around St. Louis
The “weekend of resistance” known as “Ferguson October” was in response to the death of unarmed black teenager Michael Brown, who was shot by Ferguson Police Officer Darren Wilson while walking down the middle of a street in the St. Louis suburb in August. Protesters, who are calling for Wilson’s arrest, spread out across the region, organizing protests in venues ranging from public buildings and a university to gas stations, casinos and even a political fundraiser.
Plenty of residents in the St. Louis area didn’t want them there, and many weren’t afraid to make that known. One man, who claimed to be a St. Louis police officer, threatened to “fuck up” a woman outside the Rams football game on Monday night, according to MSNBC’s Trymaine Lee. (Schron Y. Jackson, a spokesman for the Metropolitan Police Department in St. Louis, said the man in the video “is not a St. Louis Police officer.”) A young boy, whom many on social media identified as his son, eventually pushed him away from the crowd as the man yelled “Saint Louis PD, baby!”
“It’s done, over with, shut the fuck up! Go the fuck home!” another woman yelled at protesters outside the game, according to video of the event. “You don’t know shit!” she yelled, before being moved back by officers on the scene.
Elon James White, a stand-up comedian and host of “#ABlackShow,” said he was hit in the face by a white protester outside the game.
Protesters also unraveled large signs inside the Edward Jones Dome, as the Rams took on the San Francisco 49ers.
“We went to repent of our own complicity in a racist system and to offer a chance for law enforcement to do the same,” says Elle Dowd, 26, a youth missionary who was arrested during the morning demonstration for disturbing the peace.
Dowd was proud of her actions. “The heroes and leaders of this movement are the young black leaders I’m proud to follow, who do this day in and day out, even when media isn’t here,” she said.
“When they murdered Mike Brown, to the system it was just another black youth dead,” Dix said. “The people of Ferguson stood up. They stayed in the streets for more than two months. Then they called to people across the country and put the police murder of black youth in front of everybody. Now what we need to do is build on that.”
Several protesters were arrested during a demonstration at a gas station on Saturday night.
On Sunday night, a large crowd gathered at Chaifetz Arena, where younger protesters interrupted an older NAACP leader and demanded to hear from younger people who had been on the ground in Ferguson.
“I’ve been really impressed specifically with the younger people who started organizing,” said Justin Miller, 34, who traveled from North Carolina for the weekend’s demonstrations. “For a long time I’ve been waiting for the next generation to step up on all areas on social justice. A lot of the older generation has been trying to hang on to their fight; it was amazing to watch the youth speak up.”
Students who left their dorm rooms to join protesters were celebrated with cheers and applause. Dennis Kress, 18, a SLU student who joined the marchers, ditched his midterm studying to absorb the atmosphere.
“This is history and I don’t plan on going to sleep tonight. Hopefully, my professors will understand,” Kress said.
On Monday afternoon, the “Occupy SLU” demonstrators remained, using a tent to shelter themselves from the rain. Next to the camp stood an upside-down American flag, which upset a student on his way to class.
He approached the flag, grabbed it and tried to flip it right-side-up, until an activist intervened and asked what he was doing.
“I’m sorry, I have to. My brother is a sergeant in the military,” the student said as he held the flagpole.
Nearby, the father of a student — who said he was on campus out of concern for his child’s safety while protesters were there — interjected. “What was wrong with what he was trying to do?” he asked.
“Mind your own business,” the activist responded. The father of the student declined an interview, but said he was uncomfortable with the presence of the protesters.
This article has been updated with a comment from St. Louis police, saying that the man who claimed to be a St. Louis officer isn’t.
Royal Society snubs important Arctic scientists and their research
by Dorsi Diaz
A few days ago an important Royal Society meeting took place that presented important research on the current state of the Arctic. Called ‘Arctic sea ice reduction: the evidence, models, and global impacts’, the event was held in London, England. It was advertised as a “Scientific discussion meeting organised by Dr Daniel Feltham, Dr Sheldon Bacon, Dr Mark Brandon and Professor (Emeritus) Julian Hunt FRS.”
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Powerful interests seem to be standing in the way of
important research on methane and a dwindling Arctic. Nick Breeze, Dorsi Diaz |
The presenters and attendees there included a list of over 200 important climate scientists from different parts of the world. One could assume from the list of workshops that this conference was being held to talk about and discuss the critical loss of ice we are seeing in the Arctic, and that the purpose of the meeting would be to include any and all data relevant to this never-before-seen-in-human-history event.
People following the rapid loss of Arctic ice and all that data could even be forgiven for feelings of excitement and hope that at least someone is ‘working on it’. We could have assumed that communication was one of the goals here, especially since the conference was tweeted widely, even from inside the conference. Following those tweets we could also have assumed that it was intended that people in the conference were to share information that was important not only about climate change but the loss of the Arctic sea ice.
Such a conference sounds like a great idea, doesn’t it? We could have a cause for hope and the organizers seemed transparent, even going so far as to tweet plans. But such assumptions and presumptions would have been misplaced. Instead, what happened has turned into what has been called a Royal Society snubbing of scientists: a brouhaha has developed both in scientific circles and the world wide web, and has now raised serious questions. The main issue was that cutting edge scientists Dr Shakhova and Dr Semiletov were not even invited to present or discuss their very recent findings on important Arctic sea ice and methane releases.
Who are they and what did they have to offer to this conference? Perhaps it was an ‘accident’ that they were not invited? Maybe they were just not on the guest list? Or, if they were deliberately not invited, what could be the reason?
As it turns out Dr Shakhova & Dr Semiletov had just returned from a crucial expedition to the Arctic. The Swerus C3 expedition was conveyed aboard the icebreaker Oden. The goal was to gather data about the Arctic, in particular concerning methane hydrates and systems interaction.
Arctic Expedition
Martin Jakobsson, Professor at Stockholm University and chief scientist on Leg 2, says: “SWERUS-C3 is a two-leg Swedish-Russian-US cooperation that will investigate the linkages between climate, the cryosphere, and carbon. Leg one of the expedition departed from Tromsø, Norway, on 5 July and travelled along the Russian Arctic coast to reach Barrow, Alaska, where a change-over of research staff and crew took place on 20 August. On 21 August SWERUS-C3 set off for its return journey back to Tromsø, this time over the Lomonosov Ridge, an underwater mountain range.”
Jakobsson continues: “During the expedition’s second leg we studied the warm Atlantic water that flows into the Arctic Ocean and pockmarks at 900-meter depths as well as the enormous tracks on the ocean floor left by previous ice sheets found in the central Arctic Ocean. The material will be able to provide new perspectives on Arctic sea ice development and history as well as stability of gas hydrates along the Arctic continental shelf.”
Findings in the Arctic have not been particularly reassuring; in fact they portend a dire scenario. A press release from University of Stockholm described that they discovered: “Vast methane plumes escaping from the seafloor of the Laptev continental slope. These early glimpses of what may be in store for a warming Arctic Ocean could help scientists project the future releases of the strong greenhouse gas methane from the Arctic Ocean.”
This could all be read as some mere diplomatic or career-based tussle among scientists, or some type of television drama happening at an obscure conference of less-than household names, so why would the average reader be interested in what this has to do with life on earth?
It does have everything to do with every being that inhabits this planet. To put it into context: Arctic events are turning into a planetary emergency and are developing as you read. Key is the full meltdown of Arctic sea ice, akin to our planetary air conditioner going kaput. Please see the startling Arctic Death Spiral photo here to check just how little Arctic ice is left: Arctic Death Spiral 1979-2013 ( Sea Ice Decline / Deglaciation)
Key words: Planetary emergency
A recent article in USA Today entitled Study: Earth in the midst of sixth mass extinction states: “The loss and decline of animals around the world — caused by habitat loss and global climate disruption — mean we’re in the midst of a ‘sixth mass extinction’ of life on Earth, according to several studies out Thursday in the journal Science. One study found that although the human population has doubled in the past 35 years, the number of invertebrate animals – such as beetles, butterflies, spiders and worms – has decreased by 45% during that same period.” Simple Google searches on this topic allow one to uncover a recent addition of many such articles on the same topic.
To be clear, I have the utmost respect for the scientific community and what they have contributed to the advancement of science. I have interviewed some, and helped give voice to the work of scientists, professors, teachers. and experts: I believe in open communication. I believe that when there is a huge problem as in this case of our planetary emergency or ‘6th mass extinction event’, we need all hands on deck, especially the ones out there on the front lines. Dr Shakhova & Dr Semiletov are two of these.
According to computer modelling, our ‘Arctic air conditioner’ was supposed to stay intact and run effectively for many years. Previously the year 2100 was said to have been the year we would really see all ‘he##’ break loose. Now we realize that those models were way off. In fact, our ‘air-conditioner’ is self-destructing more every minute, causing a meandering jet stream which is already reeking climate havoc around the world: typhoons, hurricanes, tornadoes, and other such catastrophic climate events are more commonplace. Indeed, climate change has already become downright nasty. What we were told would not happen until much later is actually taking place right now.
Scientists and governments realize we have a great big problem and have started doing lots and lots of research into our ‘Arctic air conditioner’. Experts were sent to view the problem, Dr Shakhova & Dr Semiletov on board, and told to report back their findings.
The Problem
The air conditioning experts that were sent to check on the problem were not invited to address the Royal Society event to report back, nor to even discuss the air conditioner break down. To be fair, some of them were called upon, including Professor Peter Wadhams (although other significant issues arose to do with Prof Wadhams too). However, the only reporting scientists who were called upon to report on the problem were those same who have been using those same types of conservative computer modeling methods that have traditionally proved to be seriously behind the time actual timeline followed by the Arctic ice.
Clearly it is has been safe to say for years now that those computer modeling methods are more conservative than accurate, and are now in fact far and away off the mark of accuracy. Even a non-scientist can clearly see there is a deeply serious divide between the predictions of conservative models and the dramatic melting events of current days.
The Royal Society plans a ‘communicative’ conference on Arctic sea-ice and leaves out experts recently returned from a life-threatening expedition specifically to review the problem. Meanwhile, others in comfortable office chairs merely crunch data for help guessing at possible problem scenarios. To whom would you listen? Would you trust just one expert or would you call on as many experts as possible to pool resources? Do you feel safe just listening to one side of the story without real-world observations, data, and discussion being included?
Imagine for a minute that you are Shakhova and her colleagues. You have been sent to view and report back on the broken air conditioner. You have observed rapid and almost unbelievable changes taking place on your expeditions. It is falling apart and leaking methane. You know that methane is many times more potent and powerful than carbon dioxide and can cause way more damage to the earth if lots of it are coming out. In fact, you have not seen such massive changes before on numerous previous expeditions. You are deeply concerned and really need to let others involved with the ‘Arctic air conditioner’ know what you have seen.
But, when a chance to talk about your data and observations comes up, you are not invited. The very important meeting goes on without you and nothing that you have seen, documented, and observed will become public knowledge. You are stunned by this snub. You want to be able to tell them and therefore the world what is going on. You want to get this information out so that they will let others know what is happening to our ‘Arctic air conditioner’ and the symptoms that its melt are causing.
I can only imagine how that must have felt, sitting on this newest and very important data and not being able to share. Politely though, Dr Shakhova writes a letter about her exclusion, and asks to be able to present her data and observations. She sends a letter to Sir Paul Nurse at the Royal Academy (via climate communication journalist Nick Breeze):
October 4th, 2014
By mail and emailDear Sir Paul Nurse,
We are pleased that the Royal Society recognizes the value of Arctic science and hosted an important scientific meeting last week, organised by Dr D. Feltham, Dr S. Bacon, Dr M. Brandon, and Professor Emeritus J. Hunt (https://royalsociety.org/events/2014/arctic-sea-ice/).
Our colleagues and we have been studying the East Siberian Arctic Shelf (ESAS) for more than 20 years and have detailed observational knowledge of changes occurring in this region, as documented by publications in leading journals such as Science, Nature, and Nature Geosciences. During these years, we performed more than 20 all-seasonal expeditions that allowed us to accumulate a large and comprehensive data set consisting of hydrological, biogeochemical, and geophysical data and providing a quality of coverage that is hard to achieve, even in more accessible areas of the World Ocean.
To date, we are the only scientists to have long-term observational data on methane in the ESAS. Despite peculiarities in regulation that limit access of foreign scientists to the Russian Exclusive Economic Zone, where the ESAS is located, over the years we have welcomed scientists from Sweden, the USA, The Netherlands, the UK, and other countries to work alongside us. A large international expedition performed in 2008 (ISSS-2008) was recognized as the best biogeochemical study of the IPY (2007-2008). The knowledge and experience we accumulated throughout these years of work laid the basis for an extensive Russian-Swedish expedition onboard I/B ODEN (SWERUS-3) that allowed more than 80 scientists from all over the world to collect more data from this unique area. The expedition was successfully concluded just a few days ago.
To our dismay, we were not invited to present our data at the Royal Society meeting. Furthermore, this week we discovered, via a twitter Storify summary (circulated by Dr. Brandon), that Dr. G. Schmidt was instead invited to discuss the methane issue and explicitly attacked our work using the model of another scholar, whose modelling effort is based on theoretical, untested assumptions having nothing to do with observations in the ESAS. While Dr. Schmidt has expertise in climate modelling, he is an expert neither on methane, nor on this region of the Arctic. Both scientists therefore have no observational knowledge on methane and associated processes in this area. Let us recall that your motto “Nullus in verba” was chosen by the founders of the Royal Society to express their resistance to the domination of authority; the principle so expressed requires all claims to be supported by facts that have been established by experiment. In our opinion, not only the words but also the actions of the organizers deliberately betrayed the principles of the Royal Society as expressed by the words “Nullus in verba.”
In addition, we would like to highlight the Anglo-American bias in the speaker list. It is worrisome that Russian scientific knowledge was missing, and therefore marginalized, despite a long history of outstanding Russian contributions to Arctic science. Being Russian scientists, we believe that prejudice against Russian science is currently growing due to political disagreements with the actions of the Russian government. This restricts our access to international scientific journals, which have become exceptionally demanding when it comes to publication of our work compared to the work of others on similar topics. We realize that the results of our work may interfere with the crucial interests of some powerful agencies and institutions; however, we believe that it was not the intent of the Royal Society to allow political considerations to override scientific integrity.
We understand that there can be scientific debate on this crucial topic as it relates to climate. However, it is biased to present only one side of the debate, the side based on theoretical assumptions and modelling. In our opinion, it was unfair to prevent us from presenting our more-than-decadal data, given that more than 200 scientists were invited to participate in debates. Furthermore, we are concerned that the Royal Society proceedings from this scientific meeting will be unbalanced to an unacceptable degree (which is what has happened on social media).
Consequently, we formally request the equal opportunity to present our data before you and other participants of this Royal Society meeting on the Arctic and that you as organizers refrain from producing any official proceedings before we are allowed to speak.
Sincerely,
On behalf of more than 30 scientists,
Natalia Shakhova and Igor Semiletov
Voicing concerns
Among concerned people following this closely is part-time Professor Paul Beckwith, PhD student of abrupt climate change. Beckwith offers his concerns on this latest turn of events at the Royal Society in his newest video: A little chat on methane
Beckwith’s latest statement about his overall assessment of the Arctic situation and where we stand is not particularly comforting either: “Our climate system is presently undergoing preliminary stages of abrupt climate change. If allowed to continue, the planetary climate system is quite capable of undergoing an average global temperature increase of 5°C to 6°C over a decade or two. Precedence for changes at such a large rate can be found at numerous times in the paleo-records. From my chair, I conclude that it is vital that we slash greenhouse gas emissions and undergo a crash program of climate engineering to cool the Arctic region and keep the methane in place in the permafrost and ocean sediments.”
Beckwith points at research in the U.S., such as a study published in 2012 by Lawrence Livermore Laboratory researchers who sum up the situation as follows: “The question is not whether but how much and how quickly methane will be released due to warming, and whether it will be enough to trigger a runaway feedback loop.” The study, earlier discussed at the Arctic-news blog, concludes: “In our review of Arctic methane sources, we found that significant gaps in understanding remain of the mechanisms, magnitude, and likelihood of Arctic methane release. No authors stated that catastrophic release of methane—e.g., hundreds of Gt over years to decades—is the expected near-term outcome. But until the mechanisms are better-understood, such a catastrophe cannot be ruled out. The evidence is strong that methane had a role in past warming events, but the particular source and release mechanisms of methane in past warming is not settled. Whereas most authors indicated that a catastrophic release is unlikely, a chronic, climatically significant release of Arctic methane appears plausible. Such a release could undermine or overwhelm gradual emissions reductions made elsewhere, and thus warrants technological intervention.”
Beckwith further points at paper by 21 Russian scientists, including Shakhova and Semiletov, who sum up the situation as follows: “The emission of methane in several areas of the ESS (East Siberian Shelf) is massive to the extent that growth in the methane concentrations in the atmosphere to values capable of causing a considerable and even catastrophic warning on the Earth is possible.”
In the meantime, we wait with anticipation to see what the U.K. Royal Society’s response will be, and if we will be able to hear of Shakhova and Semiletov’s latest data and observations on the state of the Arctic. I, for one, would like to know everything about how the ‘Arctic air conditioner’ is really doing; wouldn’t you?
Planetary Emergency Update
As I write the text above, a new article is released: “It’s Worse Than We Thought” — New Study Finds That Earth is Warming Far Faster Than Expected. A small excerpt: “Earlier this week, a new study emerged showing that the world was indeed warming far faster than expected. The study, which aimed sensors at the top 2,000 feet of the World Ocean, found that waters had warmed to a far greater extent than our limited models, satellites, and sensors had captured. In particular, the Southern Ocean showed much greater warming than was previously anticipated.”
Many thanks to Julian Warmington, Associate Professor at BUFS, Busan University of Foreign Studies, for editing this news report.
Related
Climate Change: Paul Beckwith discusses the threat of methane
Dr. Malcolm Light interview on climate change: ‘Extreme national emergency’
Special presentations on climate change and its effects by Dr. Guy McPherson
HAARP Eco-Terrorist Attack on Southern California Continues
Posted by Rusty Chemtrail Evidence, Featured, HAARP Tuesday, October 7th, 2014
Published on Oct 6, 2014
This shows proof of an eco-terrorist attack on southern California. Tropical Storm Simon would have brought rain to southern California, but it was broken apart, and steered east by the Baja Haarp transmitter. The tropical storm was over warm water, so it should have remained a strong low pressure, and moved into southern California, bringing rain. Instead, the Haarp operators put a dry air downburst, just south of the storm, causing it to turn east. They were successful in keeping the high winds off the Haarp facility, and in keeping every drop of rain out of California. The descending air was also confirmed by the vertical velocity map. There was a column of falling air, from 30,000 feet, all the way down to 5,000 feet. This is a man made high pressure, and is very easy for the Haarp transmitter to produce.
DEFINITION: The Haarp “downburst” is created by heating a spot in the ionosphere, many miles up. This spot is about 12 miles long, and is heated from freezing, to thousands of degrees, in a few seconds. This is like a huge balloon popping, and presses air down, onto the top of the jetstream. This produces a column of descending air, underneath, which is a man made high pressure.
IT IS VERY IMPORTANT that people begin to study the Chicago Mercantile Exchange “weather derivatives”. These are futures options, and contracts, that pay out, if a certain weather event happens, or doesn’t happen. For Instance, they trade futures contracts, for EVERY MAJOR CITY IN THE USA, based on monthly rain amount, snow amount, heating days, and cooling days. This is the EASIEST way for the Haarp operators to make money while keeping California completely dry. They buy a CME option for Los Angeles, or Sacramento, to have zero rain for September, 2014. And if there is no rain, they get a payoff, EACH month!!! If it rains, their option expires worthless. This is a simple way to make millions of dollars, by continuing the eco-terrorist drought attacks.
The CFTC must begin investigations, to find who is buying large numbers of Drought, and Heat, contracts, for California cities, and then pocketing large gains. This will lead to a list of names, who may be tied to this illegal, insider trading, and ecological terrorism.
Similarly, the Haarp operators can buy options on too much rain, then steer a Hurricane remnant over a city, or agricultural area. This may have been done in September, when the cotton growing areas of Texas were flooded, with nine to fifteen inches of rain, after a horrific 3 1/2 year drought. After four years of crop failure due to drought, the 2014 crop was destroyed by too much rain in the fall.
Federal law enforcement must look into this, to see if there is any linkage between the Haarp operators, and the CME weather derivatives. Insider trading is a damaging white collar crime, but it is nothing compared to the devastating drought, and heat that has gripped the west coast. This is a matter for law enforcement to handle, and the people of the USA request, that state and federal law enforcement agencies investigate the use of weather derivatives in the drought, and flood, afflicted states.
IT IS ESPECIALLY IMPORTANT for the buyers of cold weather options, in the eastern US cities, be examined for collusion with the Haarp creation of the “polar vortex”, which has been put in place on October 1st. This is identical to the winter of 2013/2014, so we can expect to see similar cold in the eastern half of the USA.
Errata: I mistakenly said “mexico”, when I should have said “arizona”, sorry for any confusion.
What in the World are They Doing to Us: Vitamin D Deception – Deficiency
Chemtrail weapon now discovered–the light frequency needed for Vitamin D production blocked by aluminum. The source of many disease is this intentional or not sickening of world population by deflection of essential energy waves. The controllers are killing their own. Accident or fate. You decide
http://radar.weather.gov/Conus/full_loop.php
http://www.vitamindwiki.com/Quick,+free,+self+test+of+vitamin+D+deficiency
http://www.doctoroz.com/videos/4-easy-self-tests-vitamin-deficiencies
“Pardon Us For Our Country’s Existence in the Middle of Your Military Bases” – Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov’s Speech at the UN
In a courageous and brilliant speech to the United Nations General Assembly on September 27, 2014, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov pierced the veil of obfuscation that characterizes too many speeches at the United Nations, and delivered a scathing denunciation of Western imperialism, imperialism that can only be accurately described as global theft. Lavrov, on behalf of the Russian Federation implicitly warned that US/NATO is risking global war in embarking on its campaign to seize and dominate huge territories, while inexorably and ruthlessly determined to conquer and subjugate Russia, having learned nothing from the historic reality that Napolean’s effort to dominate Russia led to the collapse of Napoleonic France, and Hitler’s attempt to subjugate Russia led to the obliteration of his Third Reich. Perhaps this third attempt to conquer and subjugate Russia may lead not only to war encompassing huge territories of the globe, but, dialectically, may be the catalyst leading to the ultimate decline of capitalism, an economic system which thrives almost entirely on imperialism, and is undergoing a possibly terminal crisis, as described by the French economist, Thomas Piketty in his best-selling work “Capital in the 21 Century.” In desperation, dysfunctional Western capitalism is lashing out recklessly and irrationally, unwilling and unable to preclude the disastrous consequences of its myopic policies. And one possible consequence of current US/NATO policies is thermonuclear war.
Lavrov stated: “The U.S.-led Western alliance that portrays itself as a champion of democracy, rule of law and human rights within individual countries, acts from directly opposite positions in the international arena, rejecting the democratic principle of sovereign equality of states enshrined in the UN Charter and trying to decide for everyone what is good or evil.”
“Washington has openly declared its right to unilateral use of force anywhere to uphold its own interests. Military interference has become a norm – even despite the dismal outcome of all power operations that the U.S. has carried out over the recent years.”
“The sustainability of the international system has been severely shaken by NATO bombardment of Yugoslavia, intervention in Iraq, attack against Libya and the failure of operation in Afghanistan. Only due to intensive diplomatic efforts the aggression against Syria was prevented in 2013. There is an involuntary impression that the goal of various ‘color revolutions’ and other projects to change unsuitable regimes is to provoke chaos and instability.”
“Today Ukraine has fallen victim to such an arrogant policy. The situation there has revealed the remaining deep-rooted systemic flaws of the existing architecture in the Euro-Atlantic area. The West has embarked upon the course towards ‘vertical structuring of humanity’ tailored to its own hardly inoffensive standards. After they declared victory in the Cold War and the ‘end of history,’ the U.S. and EU have opted for expanding the geopolitical area under their control without taking into account the balance of legitimate interests of all peoples of Europe […] NATO enlargement to the East continued in spite of the promises to the contrary given earlier. The instant switch of NATO to hostile rhetoric and to the drawdown of its cooperation with Russia even to the detriment of the West’s own interests, and additional build up of military infrastructure at the Russian borders – made obvious the inability of the alliance to change the genetic code it embedded during the Cold War era.”
“The U.S. and EU supported the coup d’etat in Ukraine and reverted to outright justification of any acts by the self-proclaimed Kiev authorities that opted for suppression by force of the part of the Ukranian people that had rejected the attempts to impose the anti-constitutional way of life to the entire country and wanted to defend its rights to the native language, culture and history. It is precisely the aggressive assault on these rights that compelled the population of Crimea to take the destiny in its own hands and make a choice in favor of self-determination. This was an absolutely free choice no matter what was invented by those who are responsible in the first place for the internal conflict in Ukraine.”
“The attempts to distort the truth and to hide the facts behind blanket accusations have been undertaken at all stages of the Ukranian crisis. Nothing has been done to track down and prosecute those responsible for February bloody events at Maidan and massive loss of human lives in Odessa, Mariupol and other regions of Ukraine. The scale of appalling humanitarian disaster provoked by the acts of the Ukrainian army in the South-Eastern Ukraine has been deliberately understated. Recently, new horrible facts have been brought to light when mass graves were discovered in the suburbs of Donetsk. Despite UNSG Resolution 2166 a thorough and independent investigation of the circumstances of the loss of Malaysian airliner over the territory of Ukraine has been protracted. The culprits of all these crimes must be identified and brought to justice. Otherwise the national reconciliation in Ukraine can hardly be expected.”
In total contempt for truth and international law, Kiev’s escalation of the Ukranian crisis is being relentlessly prepared, in an ultimate act of deceit, as Ukranian President Poroshenko assumes military regalia, threatening Russia’s survival, and, indeed the survival of his own bankrupt country, and is now speaking of all-out war with Russia.
Last month Washington pledged and delivered 53 million dollars of US taxpayer’s money to provide military aid to the Kiev regime, which is using the ceasefire arranged by Russian President Putin and the OSCE as an opportunity to acquire more sophisticated and deadly weapons and prepare for another barbarous onslaught against civilians in east and southeastern Ukraine, where the massacre of almost 4,000 citizens of East Ukraine and the desperate plight of more than one million refugees followed the “secret” visit to Kiev, (under a false name) of CIA Director John Brennan last April.
But perhaps the most brazen announcement of US/NATO intent to inflict further carnage upon the citizens of East Ukraine , whose rejection of the Nazi infested and Western controlled regime in Kiev has resulted in Kiev’s campaign of extermination of its dissident Ukrainian citizens, is the return to Kiev this month of the US Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian affairs, Victoria Nuland. Ms. Nuland was made world famous (or world infamous) by her February declaration “Fuck the EU” while, on behalf of her neocon sponsors in Washington, she engineered the destabilization and overthrow of Ukraine’s democratically elected President Viktor Yanukovich, plunging Ukraine into the civil war that holds the potential of engulfing the world in a conflagration which will be known as World War III.
In her October 7, 2014 speech to the Taras Shevchenko National University of Kiev, Ms. Nuland boasted: “Ukraine this year has received $290 million in U.S. financial support plus a billion dollar loan guarantee. And now you have what so many of you stood on the Maidan for, you have an association agreement with Europe and a Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Agreement.” That “Association Agreement” holds Ukraine virtual hostage to NATO and the IMF, whose imposition of “austerity measures” will further degrade the living standards of the already impoverished Ukranians. Ms. Nuland brings a Trojan Horse into Ukraine, unctuously flattering gullible Ukranian students, who will ultimately provide cannon fodder for the war which US/NATO is inciting.
Further on in his September 27 address to the UN General Assembly, Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov states:
“Let me recall a history of not so far ago. As a condition for establishing diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union in 1933 the U.S. government demanded of Moscow the guarantees of non-interference into domestic affairs of the U.S. and obligations not to take any actions with a view to changing political or social order in America. At that time Washington feared a revolutionary virus and the above guarantees were put on record on the basis of reciprocity. Perhaps, it makes sense to return to this topic and reproduce that demand of the U.S. government on a universal scale. Shouldn’t the General Assembly adopt a declaration on the inadmissibility of interference into domestic affairs of sovereign states and non-recognition of coup d’etat as a method of the change of power? The time has come to totally exclude from the international interaction the attempts of illegitimate pressure of some states on others. The meaningless and counterproductive nature of unilateral sanctions is obvious if we took an example of the U.S. blockade of Cuba.”
“The policy of ultimatums and philosophy of supremacy and domination do not meet the requirements of the 21 century and run counter to the objective process of development of a polycentric and democratic world order.”
The United Nations has become an Instrument of NATO
What happens in the international community is not by chance, and what happened In Libya is not by chance, what is happening in Syria and Iran is not by chance. And what is happening in Syria and Iran?
Who is behind the acts of terrorism? What is behind the assassinations and murder of intellectuals and high-ranking officials in both countries? We are building up to what, exactly? And where is the truth in the international press?
As usual, the obedient press, along with the U.N. Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay has managed to come up with the same goods time and time again and so long as a gullible public, obediently swayed to where it is supposed to be by swallowing the tidy controlled media package daily, it is going to work: public opinion will acquiesce to the schemes of the arms and energy and banking lobbies which control Washington, and by proxy, NATO and the USA’s allies.
What you also do not know is that the squeaky-clean media package placed before you daily in your nice crisp newspaper or your TV News is the result of a process of sinister manipulation — brainwashing. How many people were informed of Colonel Gaddafi’s positive humanitarian record – for which he was to receive an award from the UN in March 2011?
Interview with Ramsey Clark
How many people knew he was spending his time trying to reduce casualties among the terrorists attacking his country to the minimum, negotiating with them before an attack took place? Who informed the readers that NATO broke the rules, broke international law, supported terrorists on their own proscribed lists and committed acts of murder and war crimes? Now let us move on to Syria and Iran.
Where are the stories about the mass acts of murder inside both countries, taking out Generals, strategists and high-ranking politicians and scientists? Who is perpetrating these evil deeds, who are these terrorists? Why are these acts being committed? The answer is perfectly simple. Syria is the last frontier between sanity and a balanced international community, a world ruled by the forces of right and reason and good, and the Satanic desires of the evil and invisible lobbies which are currently in power in Washington, and which in turn control the foreign policy of its allies.
We are speaking here of those responsible for torture, for maintaining concentration camps such as Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay, those who urinate on dead, commit acts of sodomy on prisoners, those responsible for torture, for maintaining concentration camps such as Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay, who detain persons without due process, without the right to a lawyer, to an accusation or a trial, who commit rape and murder, who break international law, who breach the UN Charter and Geneva Conventions and commit war crimes. And this same evil clique is now swinging into action in the Middle East.
First objective: Lebanon and Syria; second objective: The Islamic republic of Iran; third objective: the resources of Central Asia, leading to direct confrontation with Russia and the People’s Republic of China, which passes by installing Washington-friendly regimes in all these countries so that guess who can siphon off the resources? This is why Syria is the final frontier, this is why Syria must resist the intrusion of enslaved by NATO Arab League and this is why Syria must destroy the demonic elements running amok inside the country committing acts of arson, butchery, terrorism, vandalism, murder and torture.
It is not difficult to stir up trouble, take advantage of internal divisions, divide and rule and reap the consequences from the chaos that is sown. That is exactly what the West has been doing for hundreds of years and continues to do today. It has to do not with freedom and democracy – why did NATO not allow the Libyan Jamahiriya government to hold an election? It has to do with control of resources and guaranteeing that the US dollar is used as the international currency in major deals, and that includes oil. Why is it that when a country threatens to swap the USD for another currency in its dealings, it is invaded?
As for what we can do, the bottom line is keep informed and hold the politicians responsible for their actions. Democracy does have a fatal fault for those who try to manipulate it, and that is the fact that the power lies ultimately in the hands of the people. Bring international policy onto the political agenda and don’t let them lie to you and fool you about what is really going on. If you really feel your vote makes a difference, then create the conditions for this to be the case. Let us use citizen power to avoid World War Three. After all those who push for it, will their sons be on the front line? Would anyone survive?
Comments by Stop NATO Crimes
Tokyo Contaminated & Not Fit for Habitation, Doctor Says
Posted September 25, 2014 by I-SIS & filed under Health & Disease, Nuclear.
All 23 districts of Tokyo contaminated with radiation, worse than at Chernobyl after the accident, and blood cells of children under ten are showing worrying changes; the WHO, the IAEA & the Japanese government cannot be trusted.
by Susie Greaves
In July 2014 Dr Shigeru Mita wrote a letter to his fellow doctors to explain his decision to move his practice from Tokyo to Okayama city in the West of Japan [1]. In it, he appeals to their sense of duty to answer the anxieties of parents in Japan who do not believe the information coming from the authorities. He says “I must state that the policies of the WHO, the IAEA or the Japanese government cannot be trusted.” and “if the power to save our citizens and future generations exists somewhere, it does not lie within the government or any academic association, but in the hands of individual clinical doctors ourselves.”
Mita claims that all 23 districts of Tokyo are contaminated, with the eastern area worst affected — up to 4 000 Bq/kg. (The becquerel is a unit of radioactivity. One Bq is the activity of a quantity of radioactive material in which one nucleus decays per second.) These findings confirm what the nuclear physicist Arnie Gundersen of Fairewinds Nuclear Education found in 2012, when he picked up five random soil samples in Tokyo from between paving stones, in parks and playgrounds. The levels of contamination were up to 7 000 Bq/kg; in the US, anything registering these levels would be considered nuclear waste [2].
While practising in Tokyo, Mita also discovered changes in the white blood cells of children under 10.
Independent science & independent reporting in Japan outlawed
In December 2013, the Japanese parliament passed a bill whereby public officials and private citizens could face ten years in prison for divulging “special state secrets”, and journalists, five years, for seeking to obtain classified information. The bill is widely interpreted as a way of preventing sensitive information about Fukushima (among other topics) reaching the Japanese public and by extension the rest of the world [3].
The independent organisation Reporters without Borders has downgraded Japan in its world press freedom index from 22nd place in 2012, to 53rd in 2013 and to 59th in 2014, following the passing of the state secrets bill. Reporters without Borders say that Japan“has been affected by a lack of transparency and almost zero respect for access to information on subjects directly or indirectly related to Fukushima” [4].
Nuclear lobby put in charge
Back in December 2012, the IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) whose mission is to promote the peaceful uses of the atom, signed agreements with Fukushima Prefecture, Fukushima Medical University and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan. These “Practical Arrangements” have in effect, handed over the management of the post-accident situation at Fukushima and its health consequences to the nuclear lobby. Among other clauses regarding cooperation and funding, we read that “The Parties will ensure the confidentiality of information classified by the other Party as restricted or confidential” [5].
But this should come as no surprise. Anyone who doubts the heavy hand of the nuclear lobby in the “management” (i.e. minimisation) of nuclear accidents should read the account by the physicist Bella Belbéoch entitled “Western responsibility regarding the health consequences of the Chernobyl catastrophe in Belarus, the Ukraine and Russia” [6]. The initial Soviet cover up of the accident is well known. Less well known are the “stages of submission” in which the IAEA forced the Soviets to accede to their demands to minimise estimates of the health effects of the accident. In a series of manipulations and bullying tactics, they forced the Soviet officials to divide their estimates of the health effects by a factor of 10. One Soviet delegate, Legassov, committed suicide, a few days after he capitulated to the IAEA demands, on the 26th April 1988, the second anniversary of the Chernobyl accident.
A travesty of reporting on risks and cancers
How has the nuclear lobby reacted to Fukushima? A preliminary assessment published in 2012 by the World Health Organisation (but actually emanating from the IAEA) managed to draw optimistic conclusions, while ignoring two critical groups, the workers at the TEPCO plant, and the people who were evacuated from the immediate area (See [7] WHO Report on Fukushima a Travesty SiS 55). Then in 2013, the UNSCEAR report [8] described the risks of people developing thyroid cancer, leukaemia and breast cancer as barely discernible, even though the rates of childhood thyroid cancer in Fukushima prefecture are already 40 times what would be expected [9]. The UNSCEAR report has been criticised by the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War because it consistently underestimates the radiation dose received, underestimates internal radiation, ignores the vulnerability of the human embryo to radiation, ignores hereditary effects, ignores the unreliability of the dose received by workers at the stricken plant, and only considers some cancers as potential health effects, whereas the experience of Chernobyl shows that every vital organ and system of the body is affected [10].
Raising the ‘safe’ limit of radiation
The Japanese people are faced with a government whose response to the dangers of the radiation was to increase the acceptable limit from 1 mSv/year to 20 mSv/year and who are now encouraging people to move back into areas that had previously been evacuated. (The millisievert is a unit of radiation dose. Before the Fukushima accident, Japan, like the rest of the world, respected the limit of 1 mSv/year recommended by the International Commission on Radiological Protection (ICRP).) Meanwhile, the nuclear lobby wants to see the resumption of nuclear power in Japan as quickly as possible. This is not an atmosphere in which doctors are encouraged to report health effects that could be the result of radiation, and certainly not in Tokyo, whose residents have been led to believe that they have nothing to fear.
Changes in white blood cells in children
Mita began work as a general practitioner in Tokyo in the 1990s. In the letter to his colleagues explaining his decision to move his practice from Tokyo to Okayama City, he claims that contamination in the eastern part of Tokyo is 1000-4000 Bq/kg and in the western part, 300-1000Bq/kg. He compares these levels with Kiev, in Ukraine, after the accident at Chernobyl, of 500 Bq/kg, and with measurements taken before the 2011 Fukushima accident at Shinjuku, the site of the Tokyo municipal government of 0.5 – 1.5 Bq/kg. He says that
Tokyo should no longer be inhabited, and that those who insist on living in Tokyo must take regular breaks in safer areas.
Mita conducts thyroid ultrasound tests for parents who are concerned about the health of their children but he is now concerned about the results of another test on children under 10, the differential white blood cell count. This test is undergone routinely by workers in the nuclear industry who are exposed to radiation. Blood is produced in bone marrow, which is one of the organs most vulnerable to radiation. The white blood cells consist of five different kinds of cells, neutrophils, lymphocytes, eosinocytes, basophils and monocytes, and it is the relative numbers of these five cell types that is examined. Mita has found a decline in neutrophils in children under 10, in areas that are not considered to be highly contaminated or even contaminated at all. His patients come from Northern Kanto, the area around Tokyo and including Tokyo itself [11].
“The pediatricians’ general textbook says that the reference value of neutrophils for healthy children (6-12 years old) is between 3000 and 5000. 3000 is considered as the threshold value.” Mita says. “But the mean value of neutrophils of the children who have visited our clinics since the accident has decreased to 2500. … It is lower than the threshold value of 3000. I think this points at a serious problem.”
Mita explains that although the decrease in neutrophil does not directly cause lowered immunity, it is “the last bastion of the immunity system” and could play a role in fatal illnesses such as septicaemia in the case of aggressive colds. “In the summer of 2011, there were many children with bloodshot eyes; and what we saw most were children with dark circles under the eyes. We also had increased occurrence of sinusitis. Previously, these patients got better soon after they were given proper treatment; however, we are seeing more cases of sinusitis accompanied with mild case of asthma continuing for longer periods. And when these children spend some time in the West, they get better. If at all possible, I would like them to move away from East Japan.”
In adults, he has found increased nosebleeds, hair loss, lack of energy, subcutaneous bleeding, visible urinary haemorrhage, skin inflammation, and coughs. He has found an increase in infectious diseases such as influenza, hand, foot and mouth diseases and shingles. “We also see more patients with diseases that had been rare before; for example, polymyalgia rheumatica is a disease common among those above age 50 and contracted by 1.7 people out of every 100,000. Before 3.11, [the date of the accident at Fukushima] we had one or less patient per year. Now, we treat more than 10 patients at the same time.” Dr Mita wonders “Could these be the same symptoms of muscle rheumatism that were recorded in Chernobyl?”
Finally, Mita says that the radioactive contamination of Tokyo is increasing because of the Japanese government’s policy of transporting radioactive waste from the Fukushima zone all over Japan for incineration or burial. The Japanese government and the nuclear authorities claimed that filters on the stacks of the incineration plants would remove most of the radioactivity, but this is not the case, and in the opinion of many, it is adding to the contamination. Arnie Gundersen, for instance says, “They are creating 100 to 1000 times more radioactive material by burning debris than keeping it in concentrated form” [12].
To conclude
Mita is talking about his perceptions of the changes in health of a population living in an area that is not considered contaminated. It will be all too easy to dismiss his findings. He himself is not optimistic. He acknowledges that to prove any of his suspicions would require teams of doctors, and expensive research projects to compare groups of people, their radioactive contamination and the illnesses from which they suffer. That’s something simply beyond the reach of any single physician. In other words, “it’s impossible under the present state to collect the kind of data that would be printed in a prestigious science magazine. Still, as long as I know that something strange is clearly happening, I can’t just sit here doing nothing.”
And here is Professor Yablokov talking about the difficulties that doctors and scientists experienced in the Chernobyl territories, to prove a correlation between radiation and illness [13]: “The demand by IAEA and WHO experts to require “significant correlation” between the imprecisely calculated levels of individual radiation […] and precisely diagnosed illnesses […] is not, in our view, scientifically valid. […] We believe it is scientifically incorrect to reject data generated by many thousands of scientists, doctors and other experts who directly observed the suffering of millions affected by radioactive fallout in Belarus, Ukraine and Russia, as “mismatching scientific protocols.” It is scientifically valid to find ways to abstract the valuable information from these data.” Yablokov goes on to list the ways in which this could be done.
But it was not done in Belarus, Ukraine and Russia, and, in this way, the true health consequences of the Chernobyl accident remain hidden. The 2 million people, including 500,000 children still living in the worst contaminated areas around Chernobyl suffer a myriad of illnesses. (According to the Ministry of Health and Sciences in Belarus in 2000, 85% of the children in the contaminated areas were ill, whereas that figure was 15% before the accident in 1986 [14].)
Mita has made a brave decision. The pressure on health professionals and other citizens in Japan to remain silent about the health consequences of Fukushima, will lead to a health catastrophe there — not now, but in the decades to come.
For more on Fukushima and Chernobyl see [15] Truth about Fukushima and other articles in the series (SiS 55) and [16] Fukushima Crisis Goes Global (SiS 61).
References:
- World Network for Saving Children from Radiation (2014). A Tokyo doctor who has moved to western Japan urges fellow doctors to promote radiation protection: A message from Dr Mita to his colleagues in Kodaira, Tokyo. Accessed 25 August 2014, http://www.save-children-from-radiation.org/2014/07/16/a-tokyo-doctor-who-has-moved-to-western-japan-urges-fellow-doctors-to-promote-radiation-protection-a-message-from-dr-mita-to-his-colleagues-in-kodaira-city-t/
- ENENews (2012). Gunderson: Tokyo soil so hot it should be sent to nuclear waste dump – Really severe releases hit city. Accessed 25 August 2014, http://enenews.com/gundersen-tokyo-soil-hot-be-shipped-radioactive-dump).
- “Japan whistleblowers face crackdown under proposed state secrets law.” Justin McMurray, Guardian, 5 December 2013. Accessed 25 August 2014, http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/dec/05/whistleblowers-japan-crackdown-state-secrets
- Reporters without Borders (2013). Press freedom index 2013: Dashed hopes after spring. Accessed 25 August 2014, http://en.rsf.org/press-freedom-index-2013,1054.html
- Practical Arrangements between Fukushima Medical University and the International Atomic Energy Agency on Cooperation in the Area of Human Health. Accessed 25 August 2014, http://www.mofa.go.jp/policy/energy/fukushima_2012/pdfs/fukushima_iaea_en_06.pdf
- Belbéoch B. Responsabilités occidentales dans les conséquences sanitaires de la catastrophe de Tchernobyl, en Bélorussie, Ukraine et Russie. In Radioprotection et Droit nucléaire (eds. I Rens, J Jakubec, E George). Collection SEBES, 1998. English translation: Western responsibility regarding the health consequences of the Chernobyl catastrophe in Belarus, the Ukraine and Russia. http://www.dissident-media.org/infonucleaire/western_responsability.html 25/8/14
- Greaves S. WHO report on Fukushima a travesty. Science in Society 55 2012, 38-39.
- United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation. Sources, Effects and Risks of Ionizing Radiation. United Nations, New York, 2014. Accessed 25 August 2014, http://www.unscear.org/docs/reports/2013/13-85418_Report_2013_Annex_A.pdf
- Wasserman H. Fukushima, the continuing catastrophe. The Ecologist, June 2014.http://www.theecologist.org/News/news_analysis/2433355/fukushima_the_continuing_catastrophe.html
- Physicians for Social Responsibility USA et al. Critical Analysis of the UNSCEAR Report “Levels and effects of radiation exposure due to the nuclear accident after the 2011 Great East-Japan Earthquake and tsunami.” International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War (IPPNW). Berlin, 2014. Accessed 25 August 2014, http://ippnw-students.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/UNSCEAR-Critique.pdf
- World Network for Saving Children from Radiation. Dr Shigeru Mita addresses the need of blood examination among children in the Kanto area. 2013. Accessed 25 August 2014, http://www.save-children-from-radiation.org/2013/11/11/title-dr-shigeru-mita-addresses-the-need-of-blood-examination-among-children-in-the-kanto-area/
- “Radioactive rubble reaction to haven in Japan.” Arnie Gundersen, Youtube. Accessed 25 August 2014, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dIr-QcsjKxE)
- Yablokov AV, Nesterenko VB and Nesterenko AV. Consequences of the Chernobyl catastrophe for public health and the environment 23 years later. Proceedings of the New York Academy of Sciences 1181, 2009, 318-326.
- UN Human Rights Council. Seventh session. Point 3. A/HRC/7/NGO/33 22 February 2008.
- Ho MW. Truth about Fukushima. Science in Society 55 2012,18-23.
- Ho MW. Fukushima crisis goes global. Science in Society 61 2014, 4-9.
Hundreds Protest NATO Bombing that Allegedly Killed Afghan Civilians
Hundreds of villagers in the Afghan province of Paktia staged protests on Monday following a NATO bombing on Sunday, which witnesses say struck civilians—killing seven of them, including a child, and wounding one.
The protesters brought seven dead bodies from the Udkey area of Gardez city to the capital of the province, according to Abdul Wali Sahi, deputy governor of the province.
“The local villagers claim that they were collecting firewood on a mountainside when they were hit by the airstrike. As you can see, there are children among the dead bodies,” Sahitold media outlets. “The Afghan nation is tired of such killings. We are going to seriously investigate this incident, and we strongly condemn such a killing, and whoever committed this crime must be held accountable for their action.”
Lt. Col. David Olson, a spokesperson for NATO, promptly confirmed a “precision strike” but claimed that only “enemy” combatants were killed. Officials presented no evidence to back this claim.
A report published in July by the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan found that civilian deaths and injuries as a result of fighting have steadily increased since 2012. Between January 1 to June 30, 2014, approximately 4,853 civilians were killed, marking a 24 percent increase over the same months in 2013.
NATO’s bombings on Sunday followed a Saturday march in Kabul protesting the U.S.-led occupation of Afghanistan, which was locked in for another decade by the recent signing of the bilateral security agreement. The protesters also expressed support for the people of Kobane resisting siege by the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS).
Bill Gates Faces Trial in India for Illegally Testing Tribal Children with Vaccines
A recent report published by Health Impact News shows that a vaccine empire built on lies can only go on for so long. The reports states:
“While fraud and corruption are revealed on almost a daily basis now in the vaccine industry, the U.S. mainstream media continues to largely ignore such stories. Outside the U.S., however, the vaccine empires are beginning to crumble, and English versions of the news in mainstream media outlets are available via the Internet.
One such country is India, where the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and their vaccine empire are under fire, including a pending lawsuit currently being investigated by the India Supreme Court.”
If you aren’t aware of the key players in the vaccine mayhem being driven into African countries, they are:
- The World Health Organization
- The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
- PATH (Program for Appropriate Technology in Health, funded by the Gates’ foundation), and
- GAVI (Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization, also funded by the Gates’ foundation)
All four of these organizations will now be expected to explain themselves due to a writ of petition originally submitted to the Supreme Court of India in 2012, by Kalpana Mehta, Nalini Bhanot, and Dr. Rukmini Rao, which has finally been heard by the courts.
The petitioners stated:
“BMGF, PATH and WHO were criminally negligent trialling the vaccines on a vulnerable, uneducated and under-informed population school administrators, students and their parents who were not provided informed consent or advised of potential adverse effects or required to be monitored post-vaccination.”
Furthermore, though absent from most mainstream U.S. media outlets, the Economic Times of India published their report in August 2014, stating that young tribal girls were tested with HPV vaccines. This involved not a handful of children, but 16,000 individuals in Andhra Pradesh, India, where they were given the Gardasil vaccine.
KP Narayana Kumar reported that within a month of receiving the vaccine, many of the children fell ill, and by 2010, five of them had died. Another two children were reported to have died in Vadodara, Gujarat, where another 14,000 tribal children were vaccinated with another brand of the HPV vaccine, Cervarix, manufactured by GlaxoSmitheKline (GSK), who incidentally, has been accused of dumping polio virus into a Belgium river.
Consent forms to administer the HPV vaccine were ‘illegally’ signed by wardens form youth hostels, showing that the Gates’ prey on the indigent without parents. For those who had parents, most were illiterate, and the true potential dangers of the vaccines were not explained to them.
SAMA, an organization in India which promotes women’s health discovered this insidiousness, and reported it, but only now will Gates and his cronies have to answer for their misdeeds. Approximately 120 girls reported epileptic seizures, severe stomach cramps, headaches, and mood swings, of those who did not die. Other girls receiving the Gardasil vaccine have experienced infertility.
The Economic Times further reported:
“The SAMA report also said there had been cases of early onset of menstruation following the vaccination, heavy bleeding and severe menstrual cramps among many students. The standing committee pulled up the relevant state governments for the shoddy investigation into these deaths.
It said it was disturbed to find that ‘all the seven deaths were summarily dismissed as unrelated to vaccinations without in-depth investigations …’ the speculative causes were suicides, accidental drowning in well (why not suicide?), malaria, viral infections, subarachnoid hemorrhage (without autopsy) etc.”
The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation declared their little vaccine project a total success. I guess the Supreme Court of India will decide that now.
Mass Media Blacks out Reports Of Israeli Crimes; the ICC Charges Kenyatta Instead of Netanyahu; and Operation Protective Edge Is Forgotten
As a consequence of the corporate mass media’s blackout of the news about Israeli crimes against humanity; as a consequence of the International Criminal Court’s cowardly disregard of crimes committed by Israeli leaders while instead charging Kenya’s President Uhuru Kenyatta with crimes against humanity; and as a consequence of the West’s Israeli orchestrated preoccupation with the necessity to wage war against ISIS (Islamic State of Iraq and Syria) — which came into being with covert encouragement and assistance from the real axis of evil of the U.S., Israel, and Saudi Arabia — Israel’s latest barbaric assault euphemistically codenamed Operation Protective Edge but in reality intended to ethnically cleanse the Palestinian people, has been quietly and quickly forgotten.
Collective corporate mass media amnesia comes as no surprise considering that in the U.S. alone 90% of what Americans read, watch and listen to is controlled by just six corporations whose combined revenue in 2010 was $275.9 billion. Furthermore, all six of those corporations like for example Rupert Murdoch’s [not the actual] News Corp (Fox News, Wall Street Journal, and New York Post) have Israeli aligned global news tentacles that distort, mislead, and even suppress the true facts. Mass media bias towards Israel is even prevalent at the supposedly dispassionate and honest taxpayer funded BBC where coverage of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict requires finding “a balance” that is in actual fact strongly tilted towards Israel.
As part of its “balance” the BBC’s director of television, Danny Cohen (surprise, surprise), has announced plans to air a series of special programs next year that will commemorate the 70th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz. The programs are to be broadcast around Holocaust industry Memorial Day on January 27, 2015 and will range from interviews with survivors of the infamous Auschwitz-Birkenau camp to a new drama about the 1961 trial in Israel of Holocaust mastermind Adolf Eichmann who was seized in Argentina by Israeli agents and smuggled back to Israel on an El Al airliner. Cohen’s announcement was welcomed with “We are delighted that the BBC will be ensuring that Holocaust Memorial Day is marked by the widest possible audience,” declared Olivia Marks-Woldman, chief executive of the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust. The question is have fine Jewish people of status like Olivia felt the slightest twinge of conscience over the recent horrific images coming from the Gaza Strip as a result Israel’s Operation Protective Edge: an operation that had Israeli Jews chanting “tomorrow there’s no school in Gaza, they don’t have any children left.”?
Such passionate racist hate can only beget hate from the victims and global condemnation form compassionate people. But are such reactions anti-Semitic or simply the consequence of Apartheid Israel’s incitement to genocide of the Palestinian people who — contrary to what Israeli Jews keep telling us — are human beings and not beasts; are a people in their own right; and do exist on their own land with an inalienable entitlement as follows:
Everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration, without distinction of any kind, such as race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status. Furthermore, no distinction shall be made on the basis of the political, jurisdictional or international status of the country or territory to which a person belongs, whether it be independent, trust, non-self-governing or under any other limitation of sovereignty.
Article 2, Universal Declaration of Human Rights to which Israel is a signatory but from which it is apparently exempt from respecting because of the Holocaust.
Will BBC viewers be watching programs at any time in the near future that document the atrocities perpetrated against the Palestinians by an Apartheid Israeli war criminal state that fine people like Olivia Marks-Woldman unconditionally support? No doubt force-feeding “the widest possible audience” of gullible gentiles with memories of the genocide of Jews by the Nazis helps to offset current condemnation of the equally abhorrent genocide of Palestinians by Jews.
“Israelis and American Jews fully agree that the memory of the Holocaust is an indispensable weapon — one that must be used relentlessly against their common enemy … Jewish organisations and individuals thus labor continuously to remind the world of it. In America, the perpetuation of the Holocaust memory is now a $100-million-a-year enterprise, part of which is government funded.”
According to Israeli author Moshe Leshem, the expansion of Israeli power is commensurate with the expansion of the “Holocaust” propaganda.1
Last month the Russell Tribunal (comprised of international law experts) announced that Israel was guilty of “incitement to genocide,” and that Israel’s long-term collective punishment of Palestinians seemed to be designed to “inflict conditions of life calculated to bring about the incremental destruction of the Palestinians as a group.” Despite that announcement of what has been obvious for decades (not short-term occupation, but long-term extermination), the International Criminal Court has maintained its usual avoidance of pursuing the big fish — like Henry Kissinger, George Bush, Dick Cheney, Tony Blair, Barack Obama, and many others including equally indictable Israeli leaders such as Benjamin Netanyahu — while concentrating on minnows like Kenya’s President Uhuru Kenyatta who became the first sitting head of state to appear before the ICC on charges of crimes against humanity for his alleged role in unleashing a wave of post-election violence during 2007-08.
Uhuru (Swahili for “freedom”) whose alleged guilt is far from being as obvious as that of Israeli leaders, is the son of Jomo Kenyatta “the founding father” who led Kenya from its independence in 1963 until his death in 1978. Independent Kenya, like most post-colonial nations, was also the beneficiary of colonialism’s main legacy of injustice and corruption of which Jomo had personal experience at his trial along five others accused of managing the Mau Mau. The accused appeared before Mr. Justice Thacker, a man who practiced his profession in the same self-serving mould as that of Tony Blair, the war criminal “Middle East Peace Envoy.” Thacker accepted a bribe of £20,000 (a small fortune in those days) from the Governor of Kenya, Evelyn Baring, 1st Baron Howick of Glendale, who wanted to ensure that Thacker would find the accused guilty. Also according to Baring, “Every possible effort has been made to offer them [the witnesses] rewards and to protect them but no one can tell what will really happen when they are confronted in court by Kenyatta’s formidable personality …” One witness did in fact subsequently recant, admit he had been bribed, and was convicted of perjury.
After finding the accused guilty at the end of the trial, “Justice” Thacker — who had also unashamedly asked for an honour from the Queen but was refused — then fled the country on the first available flight. As an aside to this tale of unbridled corruption of justice, Ngina Kenyatta — widow of Jomo and mother of Uhuru — is the fourth richest woman in Africa with a net worth of $500 million while the majority of Kenyans exist in abject poverty. For most African people the only notable difference between colonial and post-colonial rule has been the colour change of their corrupt political exploiters from white to black.
The West’s current Israeli-inspired and U.S.-led fabricated necessity for waging war against ISIS is not a recent development but part of a long-established strategy promoted by Israeli sponsored U.S. neoconservatives who ensure the constant existence of Islamic enemies so as to justify costly and never ending wars that ultimately benefit Israel through the destruction of surrounding Arab neighbour infrastructures. The creation of ISIS arose from the necessity to replace the old Islamic ogre of Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda with a new one.
In March 2007, General Wesley Clark, a retired 4-star U.S. Army general and Supreme Allied Commander of NATO during the 1999 War on Yugoslavia, had the following to say in an interview with Amy Goodman of Democracy Now:
So I came back to see him a few weeks later, and by that time we were bombing in Afghanistan. I said, ‘Are we still going to war with Iraq?’ And he said, ‘Oh, it’s worse than that.’ He reached over on his desk. He picked up a piece of paper. And he said, ‘I just got this down from upstairs’ — meaning the Secretary of Defence’s office — ‘today.’ And he said, ‘This is a memo that describes how we’re going to take out seven countries in five years, starting with Iraq, and then Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and, finishing off, Iran.’ I said, ‘Is it classified?’ He said, ‘Yes, sir.’ I said, ‘Well, don’t show it to me.’ And I saw him a year or so ago, and I said, ‘You remember that?’ He said, ‘Sir, I didn’t show you that memo! I didn’t show it to you.’
General Clark’s allegation is amply substantiated by recent Israeli-inspired and U.S.-led conflicts in the Middle East and provides proof that plans for such conflicts were already in place long before the justification for them had even been fabricated. Such Middle East conflicts serve to benefit Israel in three ways: the first is to destabilise and fragment but preferably destroy surrounding Arab states; the second is to achieve the first by getting Western nations at their taxpayers expense to bear all the cost and do the fighting; and the third is to have such conflicts serve as a distraction from Zionist Apartheid Israel’s lying, cheating, stealing, double-crossing, and killing along with all its other barbaric violations of international law including human rights.
Concerned, decent, and responsible people everywhere must relentlessly demand honest and impartial media coverage of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict which must not be overlooked or forgotten until Palestinians receive justice and reparations for the decades of heinous crimes perpetrated against them by Israeli Jews; they must resolutely resist the Anglo-Zionist Political Corporate Military Industrial Empire’s voracious dependency on continual military conflict that maintains the status quo of almost half the world’s wealth belonging to just one percent of the population; and they must unconditionally insist that the ICC fully fulfils its charter as described in the Rome Statute’s Preamble by charging Israeli leaders with the crimes that everybody knows they have been guilty of committing.
Israeli Jews have every right to have a “world of their own” if they want, but not on ethnically cleansed Palestinian land and at the expense of goyim taxpayers.
Drumbeat Grows for US Troops in Middle East War
By Peter Symonds
While the US is determined to prop up the Iraqi puppet regime in Baghdad, Washington’s main objective is over the border in Syria. Continue
Propaganda War of Islamic Extremists
By Robert Fisk
Isis has turned the internet into the most effective propaganda tool ever. Continue
Noam Chomsky: The Origins Of ISIS
Video
Professor Chomsky gives us a glimpse of the complex politics of the Middle East and his opinion on the future. Continue
Saudis Dump Oil To Increase Leverage Over U.S. Middle East Policies
By Moon Of Alabama
This strategy will not only allow the Gulf dictators to retain their market share but the Saudis and others will use this strategy to slow down, if not stop, U.S. overtures to Iran. Continue
Now Playing: The Great Father Personality Cult
By Jack Perry
The Great Father needs less power, not more. The keys to the aircraft carrier need to be taken away from him, because he is too drunk (with power) to drive. Continue
The U.S. Soldier Who Killed Herself After Refusing to Take Part in Torture
By Greg Mitchell
“She said that she did not know how to be two people; she… could not be one person in the cage and another outside the wire.” Continue
The United States is No. 1 – But in What?
By Lawrence Wittner
United States emerges No. 1 among nations in its capacity for violence and falls far behind other nations in providing for the well-being of its people. Continue
Twenty Fourteen
Oceana in Nineteen Eighty Four?
By Paul Street
Take a look at the U.S. in Twenty Fourteen. Behold a vast and powerful nation –the world’ sole Superpower – where absurdity reigns. Continue
Columbus Day
The Myth of “America”
By Dahr Jamail and Jason Coppola
What a disgrace to our country’s honor that year after year the sanitized memory of this greed-obsessed, homicidal psychopath is honored. Continue
Building an Ark: How to Protect Public Revenues from the Next Meltdown
By Ellen Brown
As we peer into the jaws of another economic meltdown, moving our public funds into our own banks is an investment we can hardly afford not to make. Continue
US Army Drafts Blueprint for World War III
By Bill Van Auken and David North
The implementation of this doctrine of total war is wholly incompatible with democratic rights and constitutional government within the US. Continue
An Interview with “The Saker”
The Ukraine, As We Know It, Is Gone Forever
By Mike Whitney
The Ukraine is basically dead, it’s been reduced to rubble. It will take years to rebuild, and immense sums of money. Continue
United Nations Turning Into NATO Tool Of Aggressions
By Ramsey Clark
What happens in the international community is not by chance, and what happened In Libya is not by chance, what is happening in Syria and Iran is not by chance. And what is happening in Syria and Iran? Continue
The Disturbing Expansion of the Military-Industrial Complex
By Mairead Maguire
I believe NATO should be abolished and that steps be taken towards disarmament through non-violent action and civil resistance. Continue
Why I Cannot Support This Motion on Palestine
By George Galloway
“that this House believes that the Government should recognise the state of Palestine alongside the state of Israel”. Continue
Who Benefits from Billions Pledged for Gaza Reconstruction?
By Maureen Clare Murphy
Israel is the true beneficiary of this aid money. Continue
Glenn Greenwald: Why Privacy Matters
Video
“A society in which people can be monitored at all times is a society that breeds conformity, obedience and submission.” Continue
Why We Should be Seething with Anger Over Inequality
By Paul Buchheit
If we were given proper media coverage of the endless takeaway of our country’s wealth by the super-rich, we would be infuriated. And we would be taking it personally.
How Did Harry Reid Get So Rich On A Government Salary?
2 Minute Video
“How does someone on a government salary most of their career accumulate your type of wealth?”Continue
By Bill Quigley
One quarter of homeless people are children. Continue
One-Third of the World’s Women in Prison Are Locked Up In The USA. All 201,200 Of Them.
By Zak Cheney-Rice
It’s a huge problem the American public has only begun to recognize. Continue
October 15, 2014
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The Ukraine, as we Know it, is Gone Forever
An Interview with “The Saker”
The Saker is an ex-military analyst who was born in Europe to a family of Russian refugees. He now lives in Florida where he writes theVineyard of the Saker blog and is a regular contributor to Russia Insider. The international community of Saker Blogs includes, besides the original Saker blog, French, German, Russian, Oceania and Serbian members and will soon include a Latin American member. – Mike Whitney
Mike Whitney: Is the United States responsible for the troubles in Ukraine?
The SAKER: Yes, absolutely, there’s no doubt about it. While it’s true that the Ukrainian people were unhappy with the corrupt Yanukovich regime, the coup itself was definitely CIA orchestrated. The EU was also involved, especially Germany, but they didn’t play nearly as big a role as the U.S. The taped phone messages of (US Undersecretary of State) Victoria Nuland show who was really calling the shots behind the scenes.
Mike Whitney: What role did the Obama administration play in Kiev’s decision to launch a war on its own people in the east of Ukraine?
The Saker: A central role. You have to understand that there is no “Ukrainian” power in Kiev. Poroshenko is 100% US-run as are the people around him. The head of the notorious Ukrainian secret police (the SBU), Valentin Nalivaichenko, is a known CIA agent. It’s also true that the US refers to Poroshenko “our Ukraine insider”. All of his so called “decisions” are actually made by U.S. officials in Kiev. As for Poroshenko’s speech to Congress a few weeks ago, that was obviously written by an American.
Mike Whitney: The separatists in the East have been very successful in repelling the Ukrainian army and their Neo Nazi counterparts in the security services. What role has Russia played in assisting the Novorussia militias?
The Saker: Russia’s role was critical. While Russian troops were not deployed across the border, Moscow did allow volunteers and weapons to flow in. And while the assistance was not provided directly by the FSB (Russia’s Federal Security Service) or the military, it was provided by various private groups. Clearly, the Kremlin has the power to help-out when it choses to do so. In one instance, there appears to have been direct artillery support from across the Russian border (in the so-called “southern cauldron”), but most of the aid has been covert. Besides the covert assistance, Russia has also provided intelligence, logistical and political support for the Novorussians. Without Russia’s support, the Novorussians never would have been able to turn the tide in the war.
Mike Whitney: Did Putin send Russian troops to Crimea and illegally seize the area or is that a fiction that’s been propagated in the western media?
The Saker: It’s actually a technicality. Yes, Putin did send Russian troops to Crimea, but no, they never exceeded the limits allowed under current agreements between Russia and the Ukraine. Remember that the Black Sea Fleet was already headquartered in Sevastopol, so there were plenty of troops available locally. Also, there was a large group of local volunteers who perform essential operations. Some of these volunteers were so convincing that they were mistaken for Russian Special Forces. But, yes, at the critical moment, Putin did send additional special forces to Crimea.
Was the operation legal? Well, technically it didn’t violate treaty agreements in terms of numbers, but did it violate Ukraine’s sovereignty. The reason Moscow did this was because there was solid evidence that Kiev was planning to move against Crimea. (possibly involving Turkey and Crimean Tatars) If Putin had not taken the initiative, the bloodbath in Crimea could have been worse than it’s been in Novorussia. Also, by the time Putin made the decision to protect Crimea, the democratically-elected President (Yanukovich) had already been removed from office, which created a legal vacuum in Kiev. So the question is: Should Putin have abided by the laws of a country that had been taken over by a gang of armed thugs or should he have tried to keep the peace by doing what he did?
What Putin chose to do was allow the people of Crimea to decide their own future by voting freely in a referendum. Yes, the AngloZionist propaganda says that they were forced to “vote at the barrel of a gun”, but that’s nonsense. Nobody disputes the fact that an overwhelming majority of Crimeans (95%) wanted to leave Ukraine and join Russia. All the “polite armed men in green” did was make it possible for the people to exercise their right of self-determination, something that the junta in Kiev never would have permitted.
Mike Whitney: What influence does Obama have on Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko’s decision-making? Is Washington actually running the show?
The Saker: Yes, totally. Obama gives the orders and Poroshenko obeys.
Just as they do everywhere, the US uses local oligarchs to colonize a country. Take for example Russia between 1991 and 1999. It was run by oligarchs behind a drunken figurehead. (Boris Yeltsin) Everyone knew that Russia had become a American colony and that the US could do whatever it wanted. It’s the same today.
Yanukovich was no more pro-Russian than any other Ukrainian President. He’s just an oligarch who’s been replaced by another oligarch, Poroshenko. The latter is a very intelligent man who knows that his survival depends on his complete obedience to Uncle Sam.
I wouldn’t put it past the US to dump Poroshenko and install someone else if it suits their purposes. (Especially if the Right Sector takes power in Kiev.) For now, Poroshenko is Washington’s man, but that could change in the blink of an eye.
Mike Whitney: How close is the Obama administration to achieving its goal of establishing NATO bases (and, perhaps, missile sites) in Ukraine? What danger does this pose for Moscow?
The Saker: The only place where NATO bases really make sense is in Crimea, and that option is no longer available. But there’s more to this issue than meets the eye, that is, if the US continues to pursue this provocative policy of establishing NATO bases on the Russian border, then Russia will withdraw from the INF Treaty (Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty) and deploy advanced versions of the SS-20 (Soviet Nuclear Ballistic Missile) closer to Europe. The point is, US meddling could lead to a confrontation between nuclear-armed adversaries.
Mike Whitney: The European Commission has created a number of obstacles to prevent Russia from building the Southstream pipeline which will diversify export routes for natural gas from Russia to central and southern Europe. Critics have said that the Obama administration is behind the move, and that powerful US energy giants want to either block or control the flow of energy from Russia to Europe. Is this the broader context of the troubles in Ukraine, that is, are we really seeing an energy war unfold in real time?
The Saker: This is an important part of the equation, but not the central one. The central one is the mistaken belief (put forward by Zbigniew Brzezinski) that without the Ukraine Russia cannot be a superpower, and the equally mistaken belief (put forward by Hillary Clinton) that Putin wants to re-create the Soviet Union. For the AngloZionists, the Ukraine is a zero-sum game in which the US must either control the Ukraine or destroy it, but not allow Russia to have it. The problem with this theory is that Russia doesn’t really want or need the Ukraine. What Russia wants is a stable, dependable and neutral partner with which it can do business. Even now, while the Novorussians are demanding full independence, Russia has been pushing a different plan altogether. Moscow wants a unitary Ukraine in which each region would have de-facto autonomy but still be part of the same state.
Powerbrokers in the West are so maniacally obsessed with controlling the Ukraine, they can’t imagine that Russia doesn’t want the same thing. But Russia doesn’t want the Ukraine. It has no need for a broken, dysfunctional, failed state with massive social problems, that will require billions upon billions of dollars to rebuild.
Sure, there are cultural, historical, religious and even family ties between Russia and the Ukraine, but that does not mean they want to run the place. Russia already got what it wanted, Crimea. As for the rest, Moscow’s attitude is, “You broke it, you own it.”
Mike Whitney: What’s the endgame here? Will Poroshnko succeed in keeping Ukraine together and further isolate Russia from Europe or will Ukraine splinter along political lines? Or is there another scenario that you see as more likely?
The Saker: Crimea is gone forever. So is Novorussia. But in the case of the latter, there might be a transitional phase in which Kiev retains some degree of sovereignty over areas in the east.
In the near term, there could be more fighting, but eventually there will be a deal in which Novorussia will be given something close to independence. One thing is certain, that before reaching an agreement on final status, two issues will have to be settled:
1– There must be regime change in Kiev followed by de-Nazification.
Neither Russia nor Novorussia will ever be safe as long as the Nazis are in power in Kiev. That means that these russophobic, nationalist freaks will have to be removed before final status issues can be resolved. The Russians and the Novorussians are somewhat divided on this issue. While the Novorussians want their independence and say “To hell with the Nazis in Kiev”, the Kremlin wants regime change and sees it crucial for their national security. We’ll have to wait and see how this plays out in the future.
2– There will have to be a conference of donors.
The Ukraine is basically dead, it’s been reduced to rubble. It will take years to rebuild, and immense sums of money. The US, EU and Russia will all have to contribute. If the AngloZionists persist in their maximalist position and continue to support the Nazi junta in Kiev, the Russians will not pay a single kopeck. Russian aid will go exclusively to Novorussia.
Sooner or later the US and EU will realize that they need Russia’s help. And when they finally figure that out, they’ll work together to reach a comprehensive political agreement. Right now, they’re more preoccupied with punishing Putin (through economic sanctions and political isolation) to prove that no one can defy the Empire. But that kind of bullying behavior won’t change the reality on the ground. The West needs Russia’s cooperation, but Russia isn’t going to cooperate without strings attached. The US will have to meet certain conditions before Moscow agrees to a deal.
UKRAINE: “Gone forever”
Though it’s too early to tell, I think the Ukraine as we know it, is gone forever. Crimea will remain part of Russia, while Novorussia will become independent and probably end up in some kind of association status with Russia. As for the rest of the Ukraine, there’s bound to be a confrontation between the various oligarchs and Nazis, after which the pragmatists will appear and lead the way to a settlement. Eventually, there will be some kind of accommodation and a new state will emerge, but I can’t imagine how long it will take for that to happen.
If you want a more systematic analysis of the points above, please see my analysis (here: http://vineyardsaker.blogspot.com/2014/09/the-russian-response-to-double.html)
Censorship Alert: the Alternative Media Harassed by the NSA
Google’s Safe Browsing List, which blocks websites and flags them as containing malware, is increasingly used as a mechanism for the censoring of independent media and the falsification of history. It is an alarming development that, left unchallenged, puts the survival of any independent newspaper, blog, TV or radio station at risk. Over the past months the list has apparently been used to target websites critical of U.S.’ involvement in the wars in the Middle East, U.S.’ involvement in Ukraine and independent media who are publishing material that is critical of Zionism.
Google’s Safe Browsing List translates into the blocking of websites which allegedly contain malware. Instead of showing the website one is presented with a red-colored Google page that warns that the URL in question has been blocked because it contains malware. Ultimately, being flagged on the list can also result in the removal of the flagged websites from Google’s search engine. Being flagged, blocked or removed from search engines can have devastating results for independent journalists and media who are struggling to finance investigative journalism, rather than regurgitating alternative versions of Reuters and other major news agencies. The targeting of independent media and journalists is especially noteworthy when one considers Google’s close cooperation with the United States’ National Security Agency (NSA).
Incestuous Relationships between Google, Apple, Microsoft, their Subsidiaries, and the NSA.
Google’s close cooperation with the NSA is a well-documented fact. An article from May 7, entitled”Is Google in cahoots with the NSA? Email leak reveals close relationship”, published in Tech Times, reveals that the close cooperation between Google and the NSA was documented long before NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden told the world what most who cared to investigate already knew. The article quotes emails between NSA Director Gen. Keith Alexander and Google executives Sergey Brin and Eric Schmidt from 2011 and 2012. Tech Times states:
”In the mails, the Google executives sound friendly and cooperative. Alexander’s emails hint at the importance of ´Google’s participation in refinement, engineering and deployment of solutions`to cyber threats”.
The article also details the fact that the NSA chief had invited CEOs of key companies including Google, Apple, and Microsoft to classified briefings. What is important about these three key corporations cooperation with the NSA is that they are economically interrelated with most other, commercial Internet providers, including web-hosting companies, firms which provide Internet security products, as well as advertising companies who sell advertising on everything from blogs over smaller independent media to major corporate newspapers. The following are recent examples, which demonstrate how this incestuous relationship translates into the targeting of independent media, censorship and the falsification of history.
October 6, nsnbc received an e-mail from the Internet security provider SiteLock, warning that there was a serious malware issue pertaining to some articles published on nsnbc. SiteLock stressed that the issue had to be resolved within 72 hours if nsnbc international wanted to avoid being added to Google’s Safe Browsing List and have the site withdrawn from nsnbc’s web-host, which among many other web hosts is a business partner of Site Lock.
So what was the alleged threat – and what is the real threat – to the USA?
A full security scan conducted by nsnbc with the newspaper’s own security software revealed that several articles had been flagged as containing malware. Among them were six articles which had been published on the renown independent on-line newspaper Voltairenet. All of the articles which had been flagged as containing malware dealt with illegal U.S. Involvement in the Syria war and illegal U.S. Involvement in Ukraine.
Another article that was flagged as containing malware was the article ”Palestine Israel History and Theirstory”. The article was originally published in nsnbc and it has been republished in numerous other independent media, including the International Middle East Media Center (IMEMC), Sabbah Report, and about 100 independent blogs. The reason why this particular article was flagged as containing malware was that it contained a link to the publication ”Der Ewige Jude”, a racist, supremacist propaganda book published by the German Nazi Party during WWII.. The article documents the systematic dehumanization of Arabs by Zionists and Hollywood, and compares the dehumanization with that which the Nazis practiced against Jews and Slavic people.
Our scan further revealed that an article by the Bangkok based, independent analyst, editor of Land Destroyer Report, and contributor to New Eastern Outlook, nsnbc and others, Tony Cartalucci, also was on the list of flagged articles. The article is entitled ”America’s Nazis in Kiev: ”Russians are Subhuman”. The article was published in New Eastern Outlook, and was republished inLandDestroyer and nsnbc international. Tony Cartalucci demonstrates the Nazi ideology of post-coup Ukrainian PM Arseny Yatzenyuk by quoting Yatzenyuk, and referring to the Nazi pamphlet ”Der Untermensch”, so one could understand that Yatzenyuk’s quote directly reflects the racist and supremacist ideology that was spread in ”Der Untermensch”, which translates into ”The Subhuman”. Also here, nsnbc had to remove the URL to the pamphlet and any media that continues carrying the URL risks, knowingly or not, to be added to Google’s ”Safe Browsing List” to have the newspaper’s, journal’s or blogs website flagged as containing malware, and to be removed or at the very least significantly down-graded in Google’s search engine.
The real threat is, in other words, the threat that direct U.S. Collaboration with terrorists in Syria and Nazis in Ukraine is disclosed to a growing number of readers who have become suspicious about the accuracy of mainstream, corporate, state and foundation funded media. nsnbc did not respond to the initial SiteLock email but received a second email from SiteLock, late at night on October 8. In the mail SiteLock’s Website Security Consultant Hubert Robinson wrote:
”My name is Hugh with SiteLock I recently left you a message regarding the status of your web domain, nsnbc.me During a recent SiteLock security scan of your website, malware was detected that could jeopardize the safety of your website and your data. I wanted to reach out before Google blacklist the site or before your Hosting provider pulls the site down for being infected. …. Please contact me immediately at 602-753-3929, so that I can help you secure your website as soon as possible”.
We conducted an additional security scan with nsnbc’s own software and didn’t identify additional ”threats”, other than those articles by Voltairenet, nsnbc, Land Destroyer Report and New Eastern Outlook which documented U.S.’ collaboration with wanted Al-Qaeda terrorists in Syria and Iraq, the article that documented that Zionist and Nazi ideology in large parts are identical, and the article which disclosed the Nazi ideology of Ukrainian PM Arseny Yatzenyuk whom the U.S.’ administration attempts to pass off as ”house trained”.
After nsnbc had de-activated the links to the URLs which allegedly contain malware, nsnbc wrote three mails to SiteLock’s Website Security Consultant Huge Grant, asking, among others, whether they could be more specific about which malware the flagged sites allegedly contained. We also asked whether SiteLock has a direct or indirect corporate partnership with Google, and for the name and contact details of SiteLock’s CEO. SiteLock failed to respond. SiteLock also failed to inform nsnbc whether the deactivation of the flagged URL’s was ”sufficient” or whether they perceived other ”threats” to our ”security”.
Infecting Independent Media with Malware via Add Companies.
In February 2014, nsnbc was suddenly taken off-line and flagged as containing malware by Google’s Safe Browsing List. The incident occurred about 20 minutes after nsnbc published an article entitled ”US’ Victoria Nuland about Ukraine ´Fuck the EU`. The article contained a covertly recorded and leaked phone conversation between the U.S. State Department’s Victoria Nuland and U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Geoffrey Pyatt. The conversation revealed that the U.S.’ was directly involved in the micro-management of the coup d’état in Ukraine.
nsnbc immediately investigated the reason for the closure of the newspaper’s website. The result of the investigation was that nsnbc’s at that time advertising partner, MadAdsMedia, which is heavily economically dependent on cooperation with Google and Google’s AdSense, had inserted an add that contained a Java Script with malware”. Contacting MadAdsMedia resulted in their consultant explaining that they were ”terribly sorry for the incident and any inconvenience it had caused us, assured that they were removing the add that contained malware and advised us how to contact Google to have the newspaper removed from Google’s Safe Browsing List”.
nsnbc contacted MadAdsMedia and politely asked whether they would be so kind to send us detailed information about which add it was that had contained the malware, and documentation for who it was that had placed the malware, and on which websites. MadAdsMedia failed to respond to at least three polite reminders by email and several phone calls. What MadAdsMedia did, however, was to inform nsnbc that it had decided not to serve any adds to nsnbc any longer and that they had moved us to another company whom we could contact if we wanted. In practical terms, the incident translates into this:
A minor advertising company that is heavily dependent on serving adds via a partnership with Google denies to answer justified questions and responds to the audacity to continue asking them by withdrawing an independent newspaper’s only source of income, from one day to the other, without prior notice.
Facebook’s ”soft” censorship?
On September 5, New Eastern Outlook contributor and editor of Land Destroyer, Tony Cartalucci, published an article entitled ”Beware: Facebook’s ´Soft Censorship`”. Cartalucci stressed that Land Destroyer Report had maintained a Facebook page under the name Anthony Cartalucci since 2009. Many of the readers of Land Destroyer Report used Facebook as a means of accessing the LD Report’s articles. Tony Cartalucci wrote:
”Today, Facebook, without prior warning or opportunity to appeal, decided that the Facebook account must be changed over to a page. By doing so, all those following my account no longer would receive updates, because of Facebook’s ´news feeds`filter”.
Note that one of Tony Cartalucci’s articles also was among those flagged by SiteLock as containing malware. Moreover, Tony Cartalucci’s experience with Facebook’s ”soft censorship” as he described it, is not unprecedented. Two of nsnbc editor Christof Lehmann’s Facebook accounts were closed or blocked by Facebook within a period of less than twelve months. The accounts were not only used personally, but as a basis for a nsnbc Facebook page – one of that type Facebook demanded that Tony Cartalucci should open.
Facebook’s way of blocking these two accounts were simple. Facebook demanded that a large number of ”friend’s” profile photos were matched with the correct names of these ”friends”. Now, consider 1,000 ”friends or followers”, and many of them using anything but their own portrait as profile photo. It is needless to say that solving that ”quiz” is impossible.
A concerted U.S.’ effort to censor, target independent media economically, withdraw their reader base, and falsify history.
Let us sum up some of the main issues. The incestuous relationship between the NSA and major corporations like Google, Apple, Facebook and Microsoft is a well-documented fact. Many of the smaller companies, including web-hosting companies, Internet security providers, and advertising companies are either in part owned by one of these major corporations ore they are heavily dependent on cooperation and partnerships with them for their economic survival. nsnbc has already experienced being closed down and have its only source of income withdrawn from one day to the other. Others, including Voltairenet have regularly been flagged as containing malware. Media like New Eastern Outlook, IMEMC, and others risk being targeted in similar manner. Others whom Google and a U.S. Senate Hearing falsely accused of containing malware are The Drudge Report and Infowars. One can only guess how many of the smaller blogs, who are too small to raise alarm bells have been targeted. The conclusion is that the United States is engaged in an aggressive campaign that targets independent media and falsifies history. The question is, whether independent media have the political will to stand united in addressing the problem and in using the fact that they serve a growing part of , for example, the advertising market as leverage.
Russia develops hybrid fusion-fission reactor, offers China role
Russia is developing a hybrid nuclear reactor that uses both nuclear fusion and fission, said head of leading nuclear research facility. The project is open for international collaboration, particularly from Chinese scientists.
A hybrid nuclear reactor is a sort of stepping stone to building a true nuclear fusion reactor. It uses a fusion reaction as a source of neutrons to initiate a fission reaction in a ‘blanket’ of traditional nuclear fuel.
The approach has a number of potential benefits in terms of safety, non-proliferation and cost of generated energy, and Russia is developing such a hybrid reactor, according to Mikhail Kovalchuk, director of the Kurchatov Research Center.
“Today we have started the realization of a distinctively new project. We are trying to combine a schematically operational nuclear plant reactor with a ‘tokamak’ to create a hybrid reactor,” he told RIA Novosti, referring to a type of fusion reactor design.
“This project is open for our colleagues, the Chinese in the first place. It’s being discussed,” he added.
Being a leading producer in civilian nuclear energy industry, Russia would benefit from improving its plant designs. A hybrid fusion-fission reactor may be several times more efficient than a traditional fission reactor. And building one is “a goal for tomorrow” rather than the distant future, as is the case for a fusion reactor like the famous France-based International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) that Russia collaborates on, Kovalchuk said.
READ: Nuclear fusion breakthrough: US scientists make crucial step to limitless power
But nuclear fusion produces neutrons, and those can initiate fission in traditional nuclear fuel like uranium or plutonium. In a hybrid reactor the core fusion zone consumes energy to heat up outer fissile blanket, which on its part generates energy.
A hybrid reactor plant would likely be even more costly that regular nuclear power plants are, considering the complexities of the design. But it is inherently safer, since the reaction in the fissile blanket would be sub-critical, that is, it won’t sustain itself. In an emergency it could be simply stopped in a matter of seconds by turning off the fusion core, as opposed to using dampening rods in a traditional reactor.
Another benefit of a hybrid design is that it ‘burns down’ fissile materials leaving little by-products. So it won’t produce radioactive waste and can even treat spent nuclear fuel from regular reactors.
Rather than taking NIF’s pellet-and-lasers design for the fusion reactor, Russia wants to use a tokamak, a reactor that suspends superheated plasma with powerful magnetic fields, as the core of a hybrid reactor. ITER uses the design too.
A similar tokamak-based project of a hybrid fusion-fission nuclear reactor is being developed at the University of Texas at Austin, although researchers there eye nuclear waste disposal rather than electricity generation as the goal.
Hi-tech overload: First case of Google Glass addiction treated
Doctors have treated the first case of Google Glass addiction, after a US Navy serviceman used the device for up to 18 hours a day and grew irritable when he wasn’t wearing it. He also developed an involuntary movement of his hand to the temple.
The San Diego physicians discovered the first instance of “internet addiction disorder.” The case involved “the problematic use of Google Glass,” according to a new study published in Addictive Behaviors journal.
The 31-year-old US Navy serviceman’s addiction was discovered when he checked into the Navy’s Substance Abuse and Recovery Program (SARP) for alcoholism treatment, the paper said.
During his treatment, the man was diagnosed with the excessive use of Google Glass after exhibiting “a notable, nearly involuntary movement of the right hand up to his temple area and tapping it with his forefinger,” which is the motion used to turn on the device.
The patient also reported having dreams where he viewed his life through the device’s small lens.
A Google search page is seen through a magnifying glass (Reuters / Francois Lenoir)
When the patient went through a withdrawal period, he experienced “frustration and irritability.”
The man developed the symptoms after wearing Google Glass for up to 18 hours a day. He used the device in order to have an increased productivity level at work while listing inventories of convoy vehicles for the Navy.
After a 35-day residential treatment, the patient reported “a reduction in irritability, reduction in motor movements to his temple to turn on the device, and improvements in his short-term memory and clarity of thought processes,” according to the study.
However, the patient still continued to have dreams as if viewing his life through the device.
Internet addiction is not considered a psychiatric disorder by the American Psychiatric Association, but there is a debate around the issue, with many psychologists believing that the addiction requires treatment.
Co-author of the study Andrew Doan told the Guardian that the suffering people experience through internet addiction is real. He added that the problem will be taken more seriously over time.
“People used to believe alcoholism wasn’t a problem – they blamed the person or the people around them,” Doan said. “It’s just going to take a while for us to realize that this is real.”
The risk is greater with wearable technology, as the neurological reward associated with addiction is always there. “There’s nothing inherently bad about Google Glass…it’s just that there is very little time between these rushes. So for an individual who’s looking to escape, for an individual who has underlying mental dysregulation, for people with a predisposition for addiction, technology provides a very convenient way to access these rushes,” Doan added.
Serbia and Albania game abandoned after drone invasion sparks brawl
CNN) — Ethnic tensions in the Balkans and an incident involving a drone led to the abandonment of a major European international football game Tuesday.
Serbia’s European Championship qualifying match with Albania was abandoned after 41 minutes following ugly clashes between both sets of players.
The brawl followed the arrival of a mini-drone, which flew over the stadium while carrying a flag with Albanian symbols.
When Stefan Mitrovic, the Serbian player, ripped the flag down, it provided the catalyst for an already combustible tie to fully ignite.
Martin Atkinson, the English referee, took the players off the field with the game goalless following clashes between rival players.
Hi, Pondo,Well, isn`t this interesting (from your earlier post). They have an EXACT date when they think (according to flight data and other bullshit…) that:If Ebola continues to spread at an exponential rate, it is inevitable that more people will leave West Africa with the virus and take it to other parts of the globe.In fact, it was being reported on Monday that researchers have concluded that there is “a 50 percent chance” that Ebola could reach the UK by October 24th…Experts have analysed the pattern of the spread of the disease, along with airline traffic data, to make the startling prediction Ebola could reach Britain by October 24.If is is reported that Ebola arrives in the U.K. on exactly that date, or thereabouts, we know that is has been intentionally introduced. The random nature of reality would not otherwise produce such a fixed date of transfer, in my opinion.By the way, I was a Peace Corps volunteer in Gabon when the ¨AIDS¨ virus showed up, around 1982-83. It presumably originated in a green monkey in that country and carried by a French steward, or some such bull crap. Anyway, since it was difficult to know at the time cause of death of people living in remote villages, since there were so many different parasites, poisonous snakes, etc. I didn`t really question this origin. Although now I realize that there was no ¨pandemic¨, or the numbers of people with AIDS in Gabon would have skyrocketed, and been higher than elsewhere. The men tend to get around and may have many partners, besides their up to 8 wives… Now I know that it was an engineered virus and may have been introduced into polio vaccines in Africa, on purpose.
-Penelope
News Links, October 14-15, 2014
Euro Zone Seeks To Soften German Opposition To Stimulus Spending
Merkel Vows Austerity Even as Growth Projection Cut
The next financial crisis – not if but when
Stock Buybacks Peaked With Stock Market in 2007: History About to Repeat?
Ebola deflating hopes for 3 poor African economies
Puerto Rico Sells $900 Million of Short-Term Notes at 7.75%
On 19th May 2014, the European Central Bank and 20 other European central banks announced the signing of the fourth Central Bank Gold Agreement. This agreement, which applies as of 27 September 2014, will last for five years and the signatories have stated that they currently do not have any plans to sell significant amounts of gold.
The great Lira revolt has begun in Italy
China steel now as cheap as cabbage, weighing on global price
Ebola crisis: ‘huge disruption’ expected at Heathrow as screening begins
Experts have warned that enhanced screening is unlikely to stop Ebola arriving in Britain and will bring ‘huge disruption’ to travellers
That Was Quick! Washington’s Syria/Iraq War Strategy Already In Tatters
America’s plans to fight Islamic State are in ruins as the militant group’s fighters come close to capturing Kobani and have inflicted a heavy defeat on the Iraqi army west of Baghdad.
NATO allies Turkey and the United States differed Monday on where they stand on the use of a key air base, with Turkish officials denying reports from the United States that there was a new agreement on its use for operations against Islamic State militants.
Stuart Bowen, who investigated corruption in Iraq, says US and Iraqi governments ignored appeals to recover money
St. Louis area police arrest at least 17 during weekend of protests
Quarter of new Canadian oil projects vulnerable if oil falls below US$80: IEA
Is Fusion Power Closer Than We Thought?
Copper thieves targeted communication towers in 14 Texas counties## Got food? ##
How, when and where to grow superfoods in your garden
Report: 2 billion worldwide suffer from ‘hidden’ hunger
## Environment/health ##
A state judge signed an order Monday temporarily blocking ash from the incineration of a Texas Ebola victim’s belongings to be disposed of at a southwest Louisiana site.
To grow cheap marijuana, Italy calls in the army
After an avalanche of data breaches, South Korea’s national identity card system has been raided so thoroughly by thieves that the government says it might have to issue new ID numbers to every citizen over 17 at a possible cost of billions of dollars.
Voiceprints being harvested by the millions
The National Science Foundation earlier this month awarded a $4.8 million grant to a coalition of prominent research universities aiming to build a massive repository for storing, sharing, and analyzing the information students generate when using digital learning tools.
Edward Snowden’s Girlfriend, Lindsay Mills, Moved to Moscow to Live with Him
Why is this important? Read Glenn Greenwald’s commentary to find out. — RF
## Systemic breakdown/collapse/unsustainability ##
New Report – The United States’ Sharp Drop in Economic Freedom Since 2000 Driven by “Decline in Rule of Law”
Twin Peaks: Stock-Market Fear, Oil Panic
Unidentified, Masked People Storm Hong Kong Protest Barriers
Faltering economy hits China’s coal sector
UK retail sales plummet to financial crisis lows
## US ##
Debris from Subprime Auto Loans to Ricochet across Main Street
U.S. Army says it faces huge equipment, training risks with budget cuts
Many thousands of Americans who lost their homes in the housing bust, but have since begun to rebuild their finances, are suddenly facing a new foreclosure nightmare: debt collectors are chasing them down for the money they still owe by freezing their bank accounts, garnishing their wages and seizing their assets.
One Response
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Burr Ridge, IL no longer has normal clouds or skies. I am 5 miles from Midway Airport and it is Chem trail hell here. I have photos that would blow you away. I would love to share. Let me know. Thank you TAS