Today's World News is a site for the people to know what is exactly going on in the news and the world today. Being there is so much hype and propaganda going on these days. This site will add several links so the viewer can research and see the actual news for themselves. Lord knows main stream won't do that for us. Check the links for yourselves. If you find more. By all means. Please share them so they can be added here.
Image by NASA Goddard Photo and Video via Flickrhttp://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-05-30/japan-risks-chernobyl-like-dead-zone-as-fukushima-soil-radiation-soars.html
Radioactive soil in pockets of areas near Japan’s crippled nuclear plant have reached the same level as Chernobyl, where a “dead zone” remains 25 years after the reactor in the former Soviet Union exploded.
Soil samples in areas outside the 20-kilometer (12 miles) exclusion zone around the Fukushima plant measured more than 1.48 million becquerels a square meter, the standard used for evacuating residents after the Chernobyl accident, Tomio Kawata, a fellow at the Nuclear Waste Management Organization of Japan, said in a research report published May 24 and given to the government.
Radiation from the plant has spread over 600 square kilometers (230 square miles), according to the report. The extent of contamination shows the government must move fast to avoid the same future for the area around Tokyo Electric Power Co.’s Fukushima Dai-Ichi plant as Chernobyl, scientists said. Technology has improved since the 1980s, meaning soil can be decontaminated with chemicals or by planting crops to absorb radioactive materials, allowing residents to return.
“We need to finish this treatment as quickly as possible, within three years at most,” Tetsuo Iguchi, a specialist in isotope analysis and radiation detection at Nagoya University in central Japan, said in a telephone interview. “If we take longer, people will give up on returning to their homes.”
Radiation levels similar to nuclear bomb test site
One soil sample taking 25 kilometers away from Fukushima showed Cesium-137 exceeding 5 million becquerels per square meter. This level, of course, makes it uninhabitable by humans, yet both the Japanese and U.S. governments continue to downplay the whole event, assuring their sheeple that there's nothing to worry about. By their logic, since all the people are sheeple anyway, as long as the area is safe enough for sheep, it's also safe enough for the human population.
Both Japan and the U.S. have made huge efforts to raise the limits of allowed radiation exposure in foods and beverages. This was, of course, a deceitful tactic to try to reclassify radiation contamination as somehow magically being "safe" by redefining it.
The outright lying and tactics of deception that have been used to try to downplay the severity of the radioactive fallout from Fukushima are nothing less than despicable. In a time when radiation threatens the safety and food supply of hundreds of millions of people, we are getting nothing but a Fukushima whitewash.
Fukushima is now far worse than Chernobyl ever was and yet we're all being told it's no problem and that the government has it all under control. I ask: How is 5 million becquerels per square meter not a problem? It's amazing that we even got this information, considering how frequently TEPCO claims its sensors and meters aren't working (basically any time they get a reading that's "too high").
Image via WikipediaNotice how it seems the News isn't talking much about Japans Radiations Levels anymore? Some of this may explain why. I will do my best to try to keep people updated here. But the video below here seems to be covering quite well. He also leaves several links for more on the subject as well. More to come soon,
Tokyo Electric Power sought the Japanese government’s help in compensating victims of radiation leaks at its damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant due to the large amounts of money involved.
Tokyo Electric President Masataka Shimizu asked on Tuesday for the national government’s assistance as it faces a bill of trillions of yens as payouts to residents and local governments affected by the nuclear crisis.
In addition to the compensation package, the embattled utility firm has to spend billions of yen to decommission the reactors at its damaged facility, while company revenue is down because of a lower volume of electricity generated by its plants.
Shimizu promised Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano and Minister of Economy, Trade and Industry Bann Kaieda to raise as much funds as it could to pay for the victims’ compensation, but asked assistance from the government to cover the total cost.
He did not say how much help the utility firm would seek from the national government. Analysts estimate the compensation claims may reach over $100 billion (JPY 8.1 trillion).
Aside from asking assistance from Tokyo, the power firm has started to sell assets. Company officials, including Shimizu and Chairman Tsunehisa Katsumata, have given up their salaries to raise funds for the compensation package. Tokyo Power also reduced board members’ compensation by 50 percent, managers’ pay by 25 percent and ordinary employees’ wages by 20 percent.
BREAKING NEWS: BEIJING, May 1-The Tokyo Electric Power Company is to build a makeshift bulwark around the stricken Fukushima nuclear plant, in case bigger aftershocks might further harm the already damaged structures.
The whole construction is set to be completed by mid June.
Please share this information and the link to my channels, as I plan on seeing this through 'till it's finally entombed.
Officials now say it will probably take longer than 9 months but let's hope not...or we are really screwed and this disaster will turn out to be much worse than any other nuclear disasters before or all of them combined!
I hope I'm wrong, but my gut instinct tells me I'm right.
peace and prosperity
connectingdots
My 2nd channel is "connectindots2" http://www.youtube.com/user/connectingdots2
Below are links to clips or info presented in the above video...once again please the material with others. thanks
A Japanese man salvages materials in an area devastated by the earthquake and tsunami in the port town of Kesennuma, Iwate Prefecture, Japan. More photos »
TOKYO – A pair of thin robots on treads sent to explore buildings inside Japan's crippled nuclear reactor came back Monday with disheartening news: Radiation levels are far too high for repair crews to go inside.
Nevertheless, officials remained hopeful they can stick to their freshly minted "roadmap" for cleaning up the radiation leak and stabilizing the Fukushima Dai-ichi plant by year's end so they can begin returning tens of thousands of evacuees to their homes.
"Even I had expected high radioactivity in those areas. I'm sure (plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Co.) and other experts have factored in those figures when they compiled the roadmap," Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano said.
Officials said Monday that radiation had spiked in a water tank in Unit 2 and contaminated water was discovered in other areas of the plant. They also described in detail for the first time the damage to fuel in three troubled reactors, saying pellets had melted.
That damage — sometimes referred to as a partial meltdown — had already been widely assumed, but the confirmation, along with the continued release of radiation from other areas, serves to underscore how difficult and how long the cleanup process will be. In fact, government officials themselves have acknowledged that there are still many setbacks that could crop up to slow down their timeline.
Angry at the slow response to the nuclear crisis and to the catastrophic earthquake and tsunami that caused it, lawmakers tore into Prime Minister Naoto Kan.
"You should be bowing your head in apology. You clearly have no leadership at all," Masashi Waki, a lawmaker from the opposition Liberal Democratic Party, shouted at Kan.
"I am sincerely apologizing for what has happened," Kan said, stressing the government was doing all it could to handle the unprecedented disasters.
TEPCO's president, Masataka Shimizu, appeared ill at ease as lawmakers heckled and taunted him.
Workers have not been able to enter the reactor buildings at the stricken plant since the first days after the cooling systems were wrecked by the March 11 earthquake and tsunami that left more than 27,000 people dead or missing. Hydrogen explosions in both buildings in the first few days destroyed their roofs and scattered radioactive debris. Click image to see photos of quake, tsunami damage
Image via WikipediaI really do not want to post the images of what happened at Chernobyl, its enough to make you wanna cry. To think that the people of Japan will most likely go through the same at a much slower pace seems to be well on it's way. It's not contained in any way, shape or form and is constantly spewing out radiation day and night. The food and resources around the area are full of radiation and the people there really have no choice but to eat it. Let alone all the water.
If you wanna know more about what the consequences of radiation are. I will post just a couple of videos of what happened at Chernobyl at the bottom. Keep in mind it's very graphic, and you may not want to see it.
We need to pray for the People of Japan and even more so for people around the World. Even though they claim it is not at high risk levels elsewhere. It is not done and still spewing out radiation everyday unlike Chernobyl. At least back then they sealed it up. Japan they are just letting it continue. Only God knows what the long term effects this is going to bring.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/as_japan_earthquake
TOKYO – Japan ranked its nuclear crisis at the highest possible severity on an international scale — the same level as the 1986 Chernobyl disaster — even as it insisted Tuesday that radiation leaks are declining at its tsunami-crippled nuclear plant.
The higher rating is an open acknowledgement of what was widely understood already: The nuclear accident at the Fukushima Dai-ichi plant is the second-worst in history. It does not signal a worsening of the plant's status in recent days or any new health dangers.
Still, people living nearby who have endured a month of spewing radiation and frequent earthquakes said the change in status added to their unease despite government efforts to play down any notion that the crisis poses immediate health risks.
Miyuki Ichisawa closed her coffee shop this week when the government added her community, Iitate village, and four others to places people should leave to avoid long-term radiation exposure. The additions expanded the 12-mile (20-kilometer) zone where people had already been ordered to evacuate soon after the March 11 tsunami swamped the plant.
"And now the government is officially telling us this accident is at the same level of Chernobyl," Ichisawa said. "It's very shocking to me."
Japanese nuclear regulators said the severity rating was raised from 5 to 7 on an international scale overseen by the International Atomic Energy Agency due to new assessments of the overall radiation leaks from the Fukushima Dai-ichi plant.
http://apnews.myway.com/article/20110412/D9MI2HB00.html In 2005, the Chernobyl Forum - a group comprising the International Atomic Energy Agency and several other U.N. groups - said fewer than 50 deaths could be confirmed as being connected to Chernobyl. It also said the number of radiation-related deaths among the 600,000 people who helped deal with the aftermath of the accident would ultimately be around 4,000.
The U.N. health agency, however, has said about 9,300 people are likely to die of cancers caused by radiation. Some groups, including Greenpeace, have put the numbers 10 times higher.
The Fukushima plant was damaged in a massive tsunami that knocked out cooling systems and backup diesel generators, leading to explosions at three reactors and a fire at a fourth that was undergoing regular maintenance and was empty of fuel.
The magnitude-9.0 earthquake that caused the tsunami immediately stopped the three reactors, but overheated cores and a lack of cooling functions led to further damage.
Engineers have pumped water into the damaged reactors to cool them down, but leaks have resulted in the pooling of tons of contaminated, radioactive water that has prevented workers from conducting further repairs.
A month after the disaster, more than 145,000 people are still living in shelters. The quake and tsunami are believed to have killed more than 25,000 people, but many of those bodies were swept out to sea and more than half of those feared dead are still listed as missing.
ChernobylOn April 26, 1986, the Number Four RBMK reactor at the nuclear power plant at Chernobyl, Ukraine, went out of control during a test at low-power, leading to an explosion and fire that demolished the reactor building and released large amounts of radiation into the atmosphere. Safety measures were ignored, the uranium fuel in the reactor overheated and melted through the protective barriers. RBMK reactors do not have what is known as a containment structure, a concrete and steel dome over the reactor itself designed to keep radiation inside the plant in the event of such an accident. Consequently, radioactive elements including plutonium, iodine, strontium and caesium were scattered over a wide area. In addition, the graphite blocks used as a moderating material in the RBMK caught fire at high temperature as air entered the reactor core, which contributed to emission of radioactive materials into the environment.
2. How many people died as an immediate result of the accident?
The initial explosion resulted in the death of two workers. Twenty-eight of the firemen and emergency clean-up workers died in the first three months after the explosion from Acute Radiation Sickness and one of cardiac arrest.
3. How many people were evacuated?
EvacuationThe entire town of Pripyat (population 49,360), which lay only three kilometres from the plant was completely evacuated 36 hours after the accident. During the subsequent weeks and months an additional 67,000 people were evacuated from their homes in contaminated areas and relocated on government order. In total some 200,0000 people are believed to have been relocated as a result of the accident.
4. What are the major health effects for exposed populations?
Thyroid scan on childrenThere have been at least 1800 documented cases of thyroid cancer children who were between 0 and 14 years of age when the accident occurred., which is far higher than normal. The thyroid gland of young children is particularly susceptible to the uptake of radioactive iodine, which can trigger cancers, treatable both by surgery and medication. Health studies of the registered cleanup workers called in (so-called “liquidators”) have failed to show any direct correlation between their radiation exposure and an increase in other forms of cancer or disease. The psychological affects of Chernobyl were and remain widespread and profound, and have resulted for instance in suicides, drinking problems and apathy.
5. What radioactive elements were emitted into the environment?
There were over 100 radioactive elements released into the atmosphere when Chernobyl’s fourth reactor exploded. Most of these were short lived and decayed (reduced in radioactivity) very quickly. Iodine, strontium and caesium were the most dangerous of the elements released, and have half-lives of 8 days, 29 years, and 30 years respectively. The isotopes Strontium-90 and Caesium-137 are therefore still present in the area to this day. While iodine is linked to thyroid cancer, Strontium can lead to leukaemia. Caesium is the element that travelled the farthest and lasts the longest. This element affects the entire body and especially can harm the liver and spleen.
6. How large an area was affected by the radioactive fallout?
Some 150,000 square kilometres in Belarus, Russia and Ukraine are contaminated and stretch northward of the plant site as far as 500 kilometres. An area spanning 30 kilometres around the plant is considered the “exclusion zone” and is essentially uninhabited. Radioactive fallout scattered over much of the northern hemisphere via wind and storm patterns, but the amounts dispersed were in many instances insignificant.
Image via WikipediaTOKYO – Japan was rattled by a magnitude-7.4 aftershock Thursday night nearly a month after a devastating earthquake and tsunami flattened the northeastern coast.
The strongest aftershock since the day of the magnitude-9.0 megaquake was a fresh blow to victims of that March 11 quake and subsequent tsunami that killed some 25,000 people, tore apart hundreds of thousands of homes and has sparked an ongoing crisis at a nuclear power plant.
Damage and injuries from the aftershock were not immediately clear. The Japan meteorological agency briefly issued another tsunami warning Thursday night, but later canceled it.
Officials at the tsunami-ravaged Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant said there was no immediate sign of new problems caused by the aftershock. Japan's nuclear safety agency says workers there have retreated to a quake-resistant shelter in the complex. No one there was injured.
Officials say Thursday's aftershock hit 30 miles (50 kilometers) under the water and off the coast of Miyagi prefecture. The quake that preceded last month's tsunami was a 9.0-magnitude. The U.S. Geological Survey in Golden, Colo., later downgraded Thursday's quake to 7.1.
Japan Meteorological Agency said the quake was a magnitude 7.4. The U.S. Geological Survey said it was 7.1.
Workers evacuated the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant following the quake, the Tokyo Electric Power Company said. The company said it has communication with the plant and the power is still on there. There were no immediate reports of damage, it said.
The quake's epicenter was off the coast of Miyagi in northeastern Japan, the Japan Meteorological Agency said.
The U.S. Geological Survey said the quake was centered 41 miles (66 kilometers) from Sendai -- one of the areas worst hit by last month's 9.0-magnitude quake -- and 73 miles (118 kilometers) from Fukushima, where a crisis has been under way at the nuclear plant since last month's tsunami.
Public broadcaster NHK reported a tsunami warning for Miyagi prefecture, saying people in that area should evacuate away from the shore to a safe place.
NHK also reported tsunami advisories for the Pacific coast of Aomori Prefecture, and for the Iwate, Fukushima, and Ibaraki Prefectures.
With the recent catastrophe at Fukushima nuclear power plant Northeast of Tokyo, I felt it important to give advice and tips on surviving any "fallout" or radioactive particles that may reach your location.
Before I start this hub though, let me first say that my prayers and my heart is with you, the Japanese people. As a very young man, my family and I lived just outside Tokyo. The people of Japan have morals that many American people don't. Crime is very low in Japan. People trust other people. We need to help them as much as we possibly can. In the Japanese spirit, I wrote this Haiku: An Island of People A Land of Despair Love From Afar Will Win
First and foremost, realize that the Government and most media will downplay everything to do with this meltdown. The reason: mass chaos. It is protocol that no matter the severity, they will downplay it, but I won't.
It has been determined that radioactivity has shown up in the milk coming from cows in the State of Washington. If this is true, we have it floating above the whole United States.
It could be in our food supply, water supply and even on clothing and other items.
You will never be able to protect yourself completely, but the purpose of this hub is to at least give you the tips to make your odds much better of surviving.
Image by NASA Goddard Photo and Video via Flickrhttp://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-05-30/japan-risks-chernobyl-like-dead-zone-as-fukushima-soil-radiation-soars.html
