Japan: Radioactive Straw Fed to Cattle was Produced 75 KMs from Fukushima Nuclear Plant, Well Outside of Exclusion Zone

“Revelations that radiation-contaminated rice straw used as feed for beef cattle was produced far away from the crippled Fukushima No. 1 Nuclear Power Plant have sent shockwaves through the livestock farming community in Fukushima Prefecture.

Consumers have also been filled with a sense of growing distrust in the government over delays in responding to the problem of radiation-tainted beef.

Forty-two beef cows that ate rice straw contaminated with radioactive cesium were found to have been shipped from a livestock farm in the Fukushima Prefecture town of Asakawa from April 8. The rice straw had been supplied by a farmer in Shirakawa, about 75 kilometers away from the tsunami-hit nuclear power station.

‘It’s unbelievable that this (contamination) occurred in an area so far away from the nuclear plant,’ said a 34-year-old man who has run a livestock farm in Minamisoma, Fukushima Prefecture, for nearly 10 years.

On July 8 the government asked livestock farmers in the city to refrain from shipping beef.

‘Fukushima-produced beef cows will no longer sell unless we switch to feed produced outside the prefecture and suspend shipments of beef cows until the safety of all feed produced in the prefecture is confirmed,’ the Minamisoma farmer said.

Officials with the local governments of areas to which the cows had been shipped were busy confirming meat distribution routes until late on July 14.” Read more.

A ‘Coronal Hole’ in the Sun is Spewing Solar Wind Toward Earth

“A dark gap in the sun’s atmosphere–a ‘coronal hole’–is spewing solar wind toward Earth. Estimated time of arrival: July 19th. This morning, UV-filtered telescopes onboard NASA’s Solar Dynamics Obervatory photographed the opening:

Coronal holes are places where the sun’s magnetic field opens up and allows hot gas to escape. A million mile-per-hour stream of solar wind flowing from this hole could spark polar geomagnetic storms when it arrives early next week. High-latitude sky watchers should be prepared for auroras.” Source.

Gaza and the West Bank: 31 Opportunities for Statehood Squandered in Favor of Genocide

By David Meir-Levi – “There is an eerie déjà vu about an unmistakable and oft-repeated process in the Arab–Israel conflict. The process started in 1937 and has repeated itself with minor variations many times over the subsequent 74 years. The process is as follows: Arabs go to war with Israel, promising Israel’s destruction and the annihilation of its Jews. Israel wins the war and offers peace. Arab leaders reject Israel’s peace offer, renew their promises of destruction and annihilation; and after a while they go to war again, and lose again, and Israel again offers peace. Repeat this process 31 times and you have the history of the Arab-Israel conflict in a nutshell.

Unfortunately, this process never seems to make it to our mainstream media’s radar screen, nor into many of the classrooms of professors of Near Eastern Studies.

We see it in its most recent iteration in an April 3rd article in The New York Times describing the Palestinian Authority’s much ballyhooed intention of demanding that the UN officially welcome into the family of nations and into UN membership the State of Palestine. Interestingly, the article was titled ‘In Israel, Time for Peace Offer May Run Out,’ as though Israel had not already made numerous peace offers to the Palestinian Authority, and ought to do so quickly. The text of the article did make reference to an offer that Netanyahu’s government was preparing, and to the preemptive rejection of this future offer by Palestinian Authority leaders, who had no hesitation pointing out that they feel they can do better at the UN. But nowhere in the article was there any clarification that Arab leaders have a history, more than seven decades in length, of rejecting Israel’s repeated peace offers and squandering a grand total of thirty-one opportunities for the peaceful creation of a state for the Arabs of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, alongside of Israel.” Read more.

Flashback: Hamas MP and Cleric: The Caliphate is Coming and in a Few Years a ‘Great Massacre of Jews’ – “The (Jews) are brought in droves to Palestine so that the Palestinians – and the Islamic nation behind them – will have the honor of annihilating the evil of this gang… All the predators, all the birds of prey, all the dangerous reptiles and insects, and all the lethal bacteria are far less dangerous than the Jews… In Just a few years, all the Zionists and the settlers will realize that their arrival in Palestine was for the purpose of the great massacre, by means of which Allah wants to relieve humanity of their evil.” Read more.

The Palestinian Culture of Death – “A FUNDAMENTAL QUESTION in the Middle East conflict is whether the Palestinians can be saved, not from Israel, as many of them would have it, but from themselves. Consider that the Palestinians want their own state. But to achieve that end, which, depending on the Palestinian you talk to, may or may not entail the destruction of Israel, the Palestinians have relied on a grossly immoral means, the suicide bomb, used to kill not only Israeli soldiers but also civilians, including women and children. How can a people who sanction such an abomination achieve statehood?” Read more.

U.S. National Debt: Dancing on the Brink of a World Crisis

“Budget and debt problems are once again racking America. Barack Obama has failed to persuade the Republican majority in Congress to raise the national debt ceiling. That much is nothing new, and similar attempts will be unlikely to succeed in the future. Since July 10, the White House has been holding daily consultations on raising the ceiling. The current ceiling of $14.3 trillion must be raised by several hundred billion, or the Department of the Treasury will run out of money by August 2.

Looming crisis

The Americans raise their debt ceiling on a regular basis. Since 1993, they have come close to defaulting 16 times. In 1995, the government even shut down for a week. In the past, the world perceived these exercises as a matter of course, whereas now the unwritten rule of the U.S. budget is increasingly becoming a sore subject.

The times have changed, and the national debt and deficit have become too astronomical to be treated as an American eccentricity, especially considering the U.S.-bred financial crisis of 2008 and the backdrop of failing finances in Greece, Ireland, and Portugal (likely to be followed by Spain and Italy) and the patently pre-crisis condition of the Euro.

The U.S. Department of the Treasury has not yet announced who will be the hardest hit if worst comes to worst – the secretaries of departments, other officials, congressmen, senators, the Pentagon, intelligence, teachers, transportation workers, the IRS, NASA, museums, or janitors. That much, at least, is of little concern to Europe.

The problem is not salary cuts for specific agencies but U.S. solvency. Nobody is saying that the United States will immediately default on its entire sovereign debt – it remains the most reliable debtor in the world.

The trouble lies elsewhere:” Read more.

Bernanke: Debt ceiling breach ‘calamitous’ – “Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke was back on Capitol Hill Thursday, warning that failure by Congress to raise the debt ceiling would be ‘a calamitous outcome.’… And he said while the Fed would do what it could to respond to such a default, that the central bank would not be able offset the impact of the damage. His remarks echoed recent warnings from credit rating agencies that there could be a downgrade in the nation’s credit rating if the debt ceiling isn’t raised.” Read more.

Moody’s put U.S. credit rating under review for potential downgrade – “Moody’s Investors Service raised the pressure on U.S. lawmakers to increase the government’s $14.3 trillion debt limit by placing the nation’s credit rating under review for a downgrade… The rating may be reduced to the Aa range, and there is no assurance Moody’s would restore its top rating, even if a default is quickly ‘cured.'” Read more.

Indonesia: Thousands Flee Fierce Volcanic Eruption on Sulawesi

“Thousands of people on an Indonesian island have been forced to flee a fierce volcanic eruption.

Mount Lokon, on Sulawesi, started erupting at around 2230 local time (1530 GMT) on Thursday, according to reports.

There were no immediate reports of casualties.

The last month has seen a significant rise in volcanic activity in the area, and the alert status was raised to the highest level just days ago.

The eruption saw ash, sand and rocks thrown 1,500m (4,800ft) into the air, government volcanologist Kristianto was quoted as saying by the AFP news agency.

A 3.5-km (two mile) evacuation zone was established last weekend, within which around 28,000 people live, of whom 4,400 have been moved so far.” Read more.

California: State Hit By Earthquake Swarm, More Than 50 Earthquakes Shake State in 14 Hours

“More than fifty earthquakes have shaken the US State of California in the 14-hour period up to 2:00 p.m. GMT (6:00 a.m. PDT) Friday, according to the United States Geological Survey (USGS).

The quakes occurred throughout the Pacific coastal state, including the Greater Los Angeles area, San Diego and the San Francisco Bay area. The majority of the earthquakes ranged between 2-4 magnitude. Other areas to experience earth tremors include Holtville, Pinnacles, Johnville, Valle Vista, La Jolla, Anderson Springs, Hawthorns, Anza, The Geysers, San Carlos, Hemet and Keene.

Earthquake swarms are events where a local area experiences sequences of many earthquakes striking in a relatively short period of time. The length of time used to define the swarm itself varies, but the United States Geological Survey (USGS) points out that an event may be on the order of days, weeks, or months. They are differentiated from earthquakes succeeded by a series of aftershocks by the observation that no single earthquake in the sequence is obviously the main shock. Earthquake swarms also are one of the events typically preceding eruptions of volcanoes.” Read more.