By Dana Beyerle Montgomery Bureau Chief | Tuesday, March 29, 2011 at 3:30 a.m.
MONTGOMERY | Trace amounts of radiation from the ongoing Japanese nuclear plant crisis have shown up in Alabama, the Environmental Protection Agency said Monday.
Radioactive isotopes from the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant, which was damaged during the March 11 earthquake and tsunami, have been detected in air filters at monitoring sites in Alabama and eight other states and Pacific islands.
“This is slightly above (normal) background … and far below health concerns,” EPA spokeswoman Davina Marraccini said in a telephone interview.
The EPA said that detailed filter analyses from 12 RadNet air monitor locations, including one in Montgomery, produced trace amounts of “radioactive isotopes consistent with the Japanese nuclear incident.”
The 12 monitoring sites are in Alabama, Alaska, Hawaii, Idaho, Nevada, Washington state, Guam, Saipan and the Northern Mariana Islands.
“Some of the filter results show levels slightly higher than those found by EPA monitors last week and a Department of Energy monitor the week before,” the EPA said.
A top ranking NATO Commander has admitted that intelligence has uncovered elements of “al qaeda” amongst Libyan rebel fighters currently receiving tactical military support from US and European led operations inside the country.
The admission serves as yet more confirmation that radical Islamic fundamentalists are part of the opposition groups attempting to oust the nationalist dictatorship of Muammar Gaddafi, with the help of the US and its NATO allies.
“We are examining very closely the content, composition, the personalities, who are the leaders of these opposition forces,” Admiral James Stavridis, NATO’s Supreme Allied Commander, Europe, and also the commander of U.S. European Command, said during testimony at the U.S. Senate.
“…we have seen flickers in the intelligence of potential al Qaeda, Hezbollah, we’ve seen different things.” Stavridis said, while adding that the rebels leadership appeared to be comprised also of “responsible men and women”.
Below the speaker it reads: “Al Qaeda in Libyan opposition”
Libya says that mainly civilians have been killed in the recent US-led airstrikes against the country and as the bombing continues, Western leaders struggle with the decision as to which country will lead the war effort.
Press TV interviewed political commentator, James Morris, regarding NATO and the United States’ involvement in Libya.
Press TV: We are hearing of disagreements between NATO members about who is taking over the command of military operations. It started with France getting involved and then the US and Britain. Turkey has been one of the main countries that have disagreed while Italy is saying that it wants NATO to take over. Tell us what you think are the sources of the disagreements. Why is there resistance for NATO to take over?
Morris: It was sold as a no-fly zone with no casualties, or very few casualties as if it would be a very quick in and out. What we are seeing now, which was actually pushed for by the French and the British. Surprisingly Obama bought it but he even had to be pressured. You had Hillary Clinton, Samantha Power and also Susan Rice push him to do it. I can understand why he wanted to do it because he was worried about Benghazi and the political ramifications of let’s say 100,000 people being slaughtered there by Gaddafi.
I’m no fan of Gaddafi and I think he should go too, but I don’t think America should get involved with an Arab tribal civil war as Congressman Ron Paul has said about the no-fly zone. I think the countries that are resisting are seeing the effects of what’s been happening for the past several days. People are being killed. A no-fly zone is an attack on Libya, which is an act of war, as Robert Gates said, the Secretary of Defense, and the neo-conservatives were going after him for that because they never see a war that they don’t like.
They want to set up intervention in Iran by having us not only have a no-fly zone over Libya but they are now calling for ground troops as well. I saw neo-con Kristol on Fox news, which is a neo-con propaganda channel in America that airs in England and around the world on satellite. He is actually calling for ground troops now. I think that is where we are leading. I heard something on the news earlier tonight (I think CNN) and they were saying outside Misratah you’ve got pro-Gaddafi regime tanks that are firing on the city and they are dug in.
Until the modern era, the idea of sending armed forces across oceans to kill and die for moral or humanitarian causes would have been seen as an insult to the Founding Fathers, an abandonment of a vital American tradition and ruinous to the national interest.
Why are we in Libya? Why are U.S. pilotsbombingand killing Libyan soldiers who have done nothing to us?
These soldiers are simply doing their sworn duty to protect their country from attack and defend the only government they have known from what they are told is an insurgency backed by al-Qaida and supported by Western powers after their country’s oil.
Why did Obama launch this unconstitutional war?
Moral, humanitarian and ideological reasons. ThoughRobert Gatesand the Pentagon had thrown ice water on the idea of intervening in a third war in the Islamic world – in asandboxon the northern coast of Africa – Obama somersaulted and ordered the attack, for three reasons (Read more)
The international coalition enforcing a no-fly zone in Libya is bombing both military and civilians targets to pave the rebels’ way to oil facilities, a military source told the Jana national news agency on Saturday.
The source said the coalition’s raids “have nothing to do with the protection of civilians.”
“The coalition forces are methodically paving the way to Al-Qaeda’s gangs so that they seize as many oil fields and facilities and territories as possible and then blackmail the authorities,” the source added.
The international coalition force is planning a ground operation in Libya that could start in late April, a high-ranking Russian intelligence service source said on Friday.
“Information coming via different channels shows that NATO countries, with the active participation of Britain and the United States, are developing a plan for a ground operation on Libyan territory,” he said.
“From all indications, a ground operation will be launched if the alliance fails to force the Gaddafi regime to capitulate with air strikes and missile attacks.”
If the events in Libya follow this scenario, the ground operation could start “in late April-early May,” he added.
Any economy that constantly consumes far more wealth than it produces is eventually going to be in for a very hard fall. Many point to relatively stable GDP numbers as evidence that the U.S. economy is doing okay, but the truth is that we have had to borrow increasingly massive amounts of money to keep GDP numbers up at that level. The U.S. government is going to run an all-time record deficit of about 1.65 trillion dollars this year and average household debt in the United States has now reached a level of 136% of average household income. But borrowing endless amounts of money and consuming massive amounts of wealth with that borrowed money is a road that leads to economic oblivion. The only way to have a healthy economy in the long run is to create wealth. But how can America create wealth if our industrial base is being absolutely destroyed? According to Forbes, the United States has lost an average of 50,000 manufacturing jobsper month since China joined the World Trade Organization in 2001. Hundreds of formerly thriving industries in the United States are being totally wiped out. China uses every trick in the book to win trade battles. They deeply subsidize their domestic industries, they openly steal technology, they blatantly manipulate currency rates and they allow their citizens to be paid slave labor wages. So yes, the products coming from China are cheaper, but in the process tens of thousands of factories in the U.S. are shutting down, millions of jobs are being lost and the ability of America to create wealth is being compromised.
Members of the US congress are looking into the possibility of pulling the US out of Libya by preventing US President Barack Obama from spending any money on the operation.
The lawmakers behind the bill argue Obama failed to receive congressional authorization and is essentially waging an unconstitutional war.
Leading the call to defund the mission is Republican Congressman Tim Johnson, who opposes intervening in Libya – even with congressional approval.
“I think this, combined with our presence in Afghanistan and Iraq … just elevates hatred toward America and western democracies, throughout the Middle East. This is just one more nail in the coffin, so to speak,” Johnson told The Huffington Post.
He argued there is no threat from Libya to the national security of the US and called Obama a “war-mongering president who’s belied everything he stands for and everything we thought we stood for.”
Moscow harshly condemns an international military operation against forces loyal to Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, while Washington downplays its role in the hostilities.
It has taken US President Barack Obama just over one year – and less than that if we consider that he earlier agreed to keep open the Guantanamo Bay detention facility – to damage his Nobel Peace Prize, awarded in Oslo, Norway in October 2009.
On Saturday, US warships unleashed a massive sea-based missile salvo against targets inside of Libya, where Col. Muammar Gaddafi has been engaged in a desperate showdown against anti-government forces. The battle is largely centered on the city of Benghazi, where oppositional forces have announced an “interim Libyan government.”
US warships and submarines fired more than 110 Tomahawk cruise missiles into Libyan territory to disable air-defense systems, allowing French and British fighter jets to more easily enforce a no-fly zone. The attack on Libya marks the third Muslim country that the United States is now engaged in military operations with.
Six Libyan villagers are recovering in hospital after being shot by American soldiers coming in to rescue the U.S. pilots whose plane crash-landed in a field.
The helicopter strafed the ground as it landed in a field outside Benghazi beside the downed U.S. Air Force F-15E Eagle which ran into trouble during bombing raid last night.
And a handful of locals who had come to greet the pilots were hit – among them a young boy who may have to have a leg amputated because of injuries caused by a bullet wound.
The first confirmed casualties of the allied operation, the Channel Four’s International Editor Lindsey Hilsum confirmed the civilian casualties.
The crew of the fighter plane had enjoyed a miraculous escape after suffering suspected mechanical failure during the third night of air strikes on Colonel Gaddafi’s military positions.
As one crew member was surrounded by locals, he held his arms out, calling ‘okay, okay’, according to the Evening Standard – but the grateful Libyans queued to thank him and give him juice.
Contradicting Barack Obama’s assertion last week that radiation from Japan’s stricken Fukushima nuclear plant would not even reach Hawaii, the mainland United States has been blanketed with radioactive Xenon 133 particles, while spent nuclear fuel pools at Fukushima have now reached boiling point and threaten to spew out more radioactive smoke.
Although health authorities insist that levels of the radionuclide Xenon 133 that have been measured are harmless, claims that such radiation would dissolve over the Pacific have been proven completely inaccurate. Indeed, the latest charts show that fallout from Fukushima will not just smother the United States, but most of the globe.
The chart below from the Central Institute for Meteorology and Geodynamics (ZAMG) shows the spread of Xenon 133 emitted from the Fukushima plant
Arab support for the US-led war in Libya showed signs of fraying today in reaction to the sheer destructive power of the initial attack, claims of civilian deaths and a warning by Muammar Gaddafi to prepare for “a long war”.
The secretary-general of the Arab League, Amr Moussa, appeared to wobble just over a week after his organisation, which represents 23 Arab states, voted in favour of a no-fly zone. Pictures of charred bodies led to not only the Arab League but also Russia and China expressing regret over the violence. Moscow claimed the US-led coalition was going beyond its UN mandate to protect civilians and called for an end to the “indiscriminate use of force”
The first detection of radiation from Japan has been recorded along the West Coast of the United States, but the UN insists the levels of radiation are far below dangerous levels.
The UN’s Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty Organization initially issued a statement alleging a radioactive plume could hit California by March 18 – they were right.
American health and nuclear officials, and US President Barack Obama himself have repeatedly said there is no real threat of radiation from Japan and any detected radiation would be in the safe zone.
However, many are still worried.
US suppliers of Geiger counters, gas masks, anti-radiation tablets and pet shelters are selling out of their supplies, many having to place back orders.
Obama has called for calm across the nation, asking the American people to trust the government. His words have had little impact as the people openly knock the information coming from the US and Japanese governments, and even the UN.
Helen Caldicott, the author of “Nuclear Power is not the Answer” explained disasters like this could cause nuclear catastrophe and are exactly why nuclear power is not a viable option for solving the planet’s energy woes.
She explained accidents are too risky and the IAEA and the World Health Organization are covering up just how devastating it could be.
“The UN has been lying,” she claimed. “There is an unholy alliance and agreement between the International Atomic Energy Agency and the World Health Organization going back decades.
The Economic Collapse
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