Obama, Hague Threaten To Attack Syria

Desperate Obama criminals now plan to bomb evidence of CIA/FSA Syrian gas attack into oblivion in transparent cover-up; MI6 cross-dresser, Obama lapdog William Hague determined to drag UK into yet another illegal Middle East war:  Will be held responsible for war crimes committed, gassings

BBC
08/25/2013

The UK and the US have threatened a "serious response" if it emerges Syria used chemical weapons last week. 

Panic:  Obamoron gambling WWII to cover for CIA/FSA gassings

Prime Minister David Cameron and President Barack Obama spoke on the telephone for 40 minutes on Saturday.

Both were "gravely concerned" by the "increasing signs that this was a[n]... attack carried out by the Syrian regime", Mr Cameron's office said.

But intervention would have serious consequences and the US case was weak, the Syrian information minister warned.

In an interview with Lebanese TV, Omran Zoabi said: "If the US leads a military intervention, this will have dangerous consequences. It will bring chaos and the region will burn."

The Syrian government has denied any use of chemical weapons, blaming rebel fighters instead.

State television reported on Saturday that soldiers had found chemical agents in tunnels used by the rebels to the east of Damascus. 

Obama poodle Cameron won't escape war crimes trials like Blair

It broadcast images of gas masks and plastic containers, but nothing to support official statements that soldiers had "suffered from cases of suffocation" when rebels used poison gas "as a last resort" after government forces made "big gains" in the suburb of Jobar.

Opposition activists accuse forces supporting President Bashar al-Assad of killing between 500 and more than 1,000 civilians in several suburbs east and west of capital in the early hours of Wednesday morning.

They want the areas inspected by UN chemical weapons experts who are already in Damascus to investigate other suspected attacks.

The UN's disarmament chief, Angela Kane, arrived in Damascus on Saturday to press the authorities for access.

Iran's Irna state news agency reported that Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Muallem had told his Iranian counterpart that Damascus was "co-operating" with the UN experts and "preparing the opportunity for them to visit areas which have been attacked chemically by terrorist groups". 'Gathering facts and evidence'

"The UN Security Council has called for immediate access for UN investigators on the ground in Damascus," Downing Street said in a statement. 

Moral, physical coward Hague shills for master Obama, MI6

"The fact that President Assad has failed to co-operate with the UN suggests that the regime has something to hide."

It said Mr Cameron and Mr Obama had "reiterated that significant use of chemical weapons would merit a serious response from the international community and both have tasked officials to examine all the options".

The statement said the two men had agreed it was "vital that the world upholds the prohibition on the use of chemical weapons and deters further outrages".

They would keep in "close contact", it added.

The US president earlier convened his National Security Council to discuss options on Syria.

US Defence Secretary Chuck Hagel said the American military, which is repositioning naval forces in the Mediterranean, was ready to act. 

U.S./UK will be held responsible for THIS as the truth comes out

"President Obama has asked the defence department to prepare options for all contingencies. We have done that and we are prepared to exercise whatever option - if he decides to employ one of those options," he told reporters in Kuala Lumpur.

BBC political correspondent Iain Watson said he understood that the "serious response" mentioned in the UK statement would not include "boots on the ground".

But a range of other options was not ruled out, he said, potentially including air strikes.

On Sunday, Iran's deputy armed forces chief, Massoud Jazayeri, warned the US against crossing the "red line" on Syria, saying it would have "severe consequences", according to the Fars news agency. 'Neurotoxic symptoms'

The medical charity Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) has said three hospitals it supports in the Damascus area had treated about 3,600 patients with "neurotoxic symptoms" early on Wednesday morning, of whom 355 have died.

While MSF said it could not "scientifically confirm" the use of chemical weapons, staff at the hospitals described a large number of patients arriving in the space of less than three hours with symptoms including convulsions, pinpoint pupils and breathing problems.

MSF director of operations Bart Janssens said the symptoms - as well as the "massive influx of patients in a short period of time" - strongly suggested mass exposure to a neurotoxic agent.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a UK-based activist group, meanwhile said it had documented the deaths of 322 people, including 82 women and 54 children.

On Sunday morning, several suburbs of Damascus reportedly came under heavy shell and mortar fire, as government forces continued their offensive on rebel strongholds.

At least 114 people were killed across the country on Saturday, including 33 people in the capital, according to the Local Co-ordination Committees, an opposition activist network.

The UN says more than 100,000 people have been killed since the uprising against President Assad began more than two years ago.

 

Any opinions expressed here are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of The 5^th Estate.

This news site contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, etc.  We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.

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My Trip To The Fukushima Nuclear Disaster Zone (Part One)

Dr. Richard Wilcox and former Japan Times Editor Yoichi Shimatsu expose actual Fukushima radiation levels, document mutations

The 5th Estate
By Dr. Richard Wilcox
07/06/2013

On July 20, 2013 Yoichi Shimatsu and I departed from Ueno station in Tokyo to visit the Fukushima nuclear disaster region and see what we could see.

Interestingly, the train from Tokyo to Fukushima on this particular line is hard to find on the map, and the train line has apparently been removed! Could it be the powers-that-be do not want people exploring this area given it is now a forbidden zone of nuclearized zombies and headless taxi drivers?

Our two-day trip was filled with activity, waiting, rushing, observations and emotions. A trip to the Fukushima nuclear zone is like a combination of Rod Serling’s Twilight Zone meets a Stephen King horror story meets Kerouac’s On The Road.

I must thank Yoichi Shimatsu, who has done the tireless and thankless work of discovering the travel routes, places for overnight stay and the facts on the ground in Fukushima. No one knows more about the geographical reality of the Fukushima nuclear power plant no. 1 (FNPP#1) situation than Yoichi. More than his incredible kindness and knowledge is Yoichi’s biting sense of humor which keeps him moving against all odds.

The long train ride which would normally take just a couple of hours between Tokyo and Fukushima was interspersed with long layovers between stations, for no apparent reason. Undoubtedly Japan’s countryside regions have suffered from brain drain and thus the numbers of passengers do not justify the number of trains. After the Fukushima disaster many people moved out of the immediate area and this has reduced the need for trains.

Yoichi Shimatsu examines giant mutated plant life

Beyond that fact, Yoichi speculates that the Japanese government does not want people going up there to snoop around; Fukushima is now a DEAD ZONE and off limits. Indeed it is, even while they are urging some people to move back in. Families that moved out of the immediate area of the nuclear disaster may now live in safer zones to the south, but they are forced to train their kids back to their original schools during the daytime, if that is where their family property is registered.

When we arrived at Nakaso, a seaside town on the southern border of Fukushima prefecture, my dosimeter which is a “Terra-P” (made in the Ukraine), measured low to normal background radiation. However, after we had dropped off our bags at the seaside hotel and traveled farther north, radiation levels increased.

We stopped at one town along the train route, Hisanohama, which is about 11 km from the FNPP#1. On a spectacular summer’s day we had a chance to walk out to a fishing port. Background air readings averaged 0.25 microsieverts per hour (mcs pr hr), about double a tolerable background level for long-term habitation (although no background radiation level is known to be safe, some radiation is unavoidable). The highest reading we found at this location was an old fishing net piled up alongside the road: 0.52 mcs pr hr. We measured fresh seaweed that was dropped on the road that locals eat in their soup to be 0.28 mcs pr hr. It would not be recommended to eat such food on a daily basis given that cesium and other radionuclides accumulate in the body faster than they are naturally expelled.

Dr. Richard Wilcox assesses low level radioactive debris

At the port the fishing boats were no longer used for fishing but for other kinds of clean-up work subsidized by the government. There was some rebuilding work at the port, a perfectly good asphalt parking lot was being torn up by a bulldozer. Presumably the radiation could not be removed so the only other option is to get rid of the entire surface.

Along the ocean a huge swath of houses had been wiped out by the tsunami on 3/11, which must have housed several hundred or even thousands of people. All that was left were the housing foundations covered in sand and weeds.

All along the sea coast we saw cracked walkways and fractured seawalls. In Nakaso the tsunami had actually made some small coastal islands disappear and scattered the concrete barriers across the beach.

As we walked back to the station in Hisanohama, we walked past a house with a motorcycle dude with his two little kids and wife playing in the yard. With the background radiation noticeably higher than the recommended dose I wondered about the fate of the children.

An oddly colored daisy among normally colored flowers

We also spotted many suspicious looking flowers and other forms of vegetation. According to Yoichi, radiation has affected some flowers in the nuclear zone to go haywire and outgrow their natural size (a topic for future research). Yoichi noted that radiation affects different plants differently, some are hardy and not affected; others, especially flowers may receive small doses but have big results in terms of mutations.

We already know that the biologist and expert on mutagenetic affects, Tim Mosseau, has shown that in Fukushima prefecture a variety of insects and other species have been affected (1). 

“Tim Mousseau [has] offered irrefutable and conclusive data proving the effects of the radioactive linear low-dose on wildlife at Chernobyl. In other words, the greater the dose, the greater the evidence of harm. His team continues to investigate the effects in Fukushima on wildlife and have found disturbingly similar results including birth defects, genetic mutations and tumors. If it can happen to bugs and birds, it can happen to humans.” And to vegetation.

As we departed the station we were among a very few number of travelers. The last station on the line was Hirano. We took a taxi to “J-Village” which used to be the sports complex paid for by the power companies as a bribe to the local community to accept the nuclear power plants, Fukushima no. 1 and 2, which are in the nearby area.

Radioactive water release now completely out of control

The taxi driver was a very old fellow with a hoarse voice who after a few minutes of driving began to noticeably twitch his body from side to side, as if to nearly go into convulsions. Whether this man was affected by old age or radiation we did not know, but it was not a good sign. We wondered whether this was a scene from Men In Black and he would remove his head upon arrival and place it on the dashboard. “That will be 20 dollars please.”

Hirano town itself had been decontaminated pushing radiation levels back to “normal.” The small town offered beautiful countryside vistas of the “Abukuma” mountain range. However, as soon as we reached the outskirts of the town levels jumped to 0.52 micro sieverts per hour, about four or five times the level considered safe for long-term habitation.

Once we reached “J-Village” we got out and walked around part of the former sports complex, which had now defunct soccer fields acting as parking lots and a large building that served as the Tepco administration worker center. We walked past a few workers waiting for the bus, they did not seem friendly and everyone went about their business with a sense of urgency.

Now within a couple of miles of the actual FNPP#1 background radiation was 0.5 mcs pr hr.

It was now late in the day but the sun was still hot. Temperatures were slightly cooler than Tokyo which made it a pleasant temperature for walking.

As we headed toward the ocean in the direction of FNPP#1 we saw some huge thermal power generation plants. According to Yoichi, these power stations were knocked out by the 3/11 earthquake and tsunami and this contributed to the problems at FNPP#1. Without back-up generators or outside power from these generators, the nuke plants were doomed and therefore melted down during that fateful week in March of 2011.

We heard beautiful bird songs, but also noticed strangely shaped flowers by the roadside that seemed too tall and chaotic; one plant would have flower stems that varied wildly in length. Was this a sign of genetic mutations?

As we walked down the hill toward the ocean in the direction of Tomioka, the town closest to FNPP#1 which is the now abandoned, we suddenly smelled a distinctly metallic odor which Yoichi described as “radiation.” Considering that my dosimeter was going crazy with alarm bells ringing and an average 0.5 mcr sv pr hr reading. It may have been radiation blowing toward us from the north from FNPP#1. It may have been some other substance being emitted by the nearby thermal power plant. We would regularly spit instead of swallowing in order to make sure we did not ingest it. Whatever that alien substance entering our bodies, it was definitely not healthy to living organisms and had to be expelled as soon as possible. 

At the bottom of the hill which led to Tomioka town there was a magnificent vista of the ocean on the right side and a housing development on the left, with Tomioka in the distance surrounded by the undulating Abukuma mountains on the blue-gray horizon. An older woman was gardening in her dusty and grassless garden, pulling a few weeds. Yoichi and I had our masks on and were spitting furiously to rid the alien substance from our mouths. She was either ignorant or indifferent to the situation. 

Another troubling sight, chemtrails were scattered throughout the otherwise blue sky. Geoengineering programs are definitely being carried out in Japan where aerosol spraying residuals are witnessed daily.

We climbed a bluff overlooking the ocean and saw what was most likely one of the smokestacks of FNPP#1. I cannot say for sure that it was the diabolical place of pure evil, that for the next million years will spew its poisons into the life belt of the planet’s habitations, but it was most likely the place, given the thermal power plants were closely located to our right side, and FNPP#2 must have been a few kilometers to the south of us down the coast, out of our view.

There were no Devil’s Horns sprouting from the distant image of the smokestack, but there were plenty of dead pine trees around us and an eerie, lonely feeling given that people normally inhabited these parts but now the roads and houses were all nearly empty.

On the long hike back, our feet and calves aching, Yoichi and I talked to a few Tepco employees who were walking on the street but they looked very serious, a tad frightened and entirely surprised to see us. We were friendly to people but most of whom that we encountered were not friendly and tried to ignore us. This was gloomy Japanese village.

As we crossed a large bridge we spied massive numbers of white canvass wrapped bags of debris, piled three on top of each other under the bridge (out of sight out of mind!). There must have been thousands of them, each must have weighed tons if containing much soil. They looked weighty and solid.

Around J-Village and in Hirano town we saw a number of Japanese men who looked like, and most likely were, Japanese military or police. They were young and fit and jogging in the early evening (breathing in high background radiation) and on the lookout for anything unusual. They saw us but never acknowledged us and no one ever questioned or harassed us. Many months earlier in a location that we passed, near a Buddhist statue, a secret policeman grilled Yoichi for 20 minutes asking him what the hell he was doing there. He explained that he was photographing the statue! Always have a cover story.

As we approached Hirano town the radiation level suddenly lowered, this was due to the intensive decontamination that must have taken place. >From 0.5 mcr sv pr hr to 0.15 in such a short distance was a drastic change for the better and we could breathe easier. I would assume that decontamination would have to be carried out fairly often to keep the levels down. Even though 80 percent of the radiation that was emitted from the original nuclear meltdowns has now washed away from the land, the remaining 20 percent is molecularly bound to the substances it is attached to.

Of course, the nuclear reactors continue to leak significant amounts of radiation into the air and water; although the rate is much less than the original blasts, it is still an ongoing source of significant contamination.

We finally reached the station, but the last train from Hell would not leave for awhile. In the otherwise spooky and nearly abandoned town, we found a small restaurant that served Japanese rice wine and fish that was catering to local nuclear clean-up engineers.

I sucked on a lemon quarter to help remove radiation (during the next week I would consume turmeric to detox my body). With some trepidation, exhausted and famished we devoured the very salty and tasty “Suzuki” fish. Fukushima prefecture inspects all food products for radiation (with 100 bq. per kg. permissible level) whereas surrounding prefectures no longer do.

Somewhat inebriated we stumbled onto the train to the next destination where we had another meal of noodles. Now, well outside the radiation zone, we talked to friendly local people about our trip. We drank more rice wine and listened to the stories of the boisterous locals, who speak more loudly and plainly than city folk. There was a skinny and unattractive barmaid with buck teeth who poured our drinks and a hotelier who guzzled beer, listened to the Beatles, and told us at a volume 3 times louder than required how he plays the shamisen, a Japanese stringed musical instrument. In times past he had been a sushi chef but now serves less fish on his menu.

One young teacher who was staying in the hotel with his family told me -- after I pointedly asked him -- that people in the northeastern region were still very worried about the nuclear situation. “Very worried.”

The long day ended after walking many miles and drinking gallons of sake, and ten thousand jokes between me and Yoichi about the hopeless state of Japan with its nuclear nightmare and lack of public motivation to solve the problem. That night I slept peacefully in a radiation-free zone with the beautiful sounds of the ocean roaring just outside my window, the waves washing my troubles away.

* Part two of this article will be a photo-essay of the trip to Fukushima. I will offer more technical analysis of the affect on plants from radiation.

Richard Wilcox holds a Ph.D. in Environmental Studies from a social science, holistic perspective. He teaches at a number of universities in the Tokyo, Japan area. His articles on environmental topics including the Fukushima nuclear disaster are archived at http://wilcoxrb99.wordpress.com/ and are regularly published at Activist Post and Rense.com. His interviews with Jeff Rense are available at the website http://www.rense.com. Wilcox can be contacted at wilcoxrb99@mail.com

Reference:

1. Conference Highlights Fukushima Consequences
http://rense.com/general95/confhigh.html

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Syria : NATO Ammunition was Used to Attack Turkish Border Town - FSA Responsible

There are two sides to every story; here is the Syrian side; Assad needs to go, but not at the hands of U.S. CIA mercs, NATO who are as bad or worse

Syria News
By Jerry Dandridge
10/06/2012

This is a translation of the recent blog post by the German Blog “Alles Schall und Rauch” about the allegedly attack of a Turkish border town by the Syrian Arab Army. It seems that NATO ammunition was used in this attack.

NATO 120mm mortar round

This implies, that the Syrian Arab Army (the Syrian government) cannot be responsible for this attack because the Syrian Arab Army does not own these NATO ammunition. In addition, as several reports in recent months have already confirmed, the Western-backed radicals, terrorists and religious fanatics are supplied by several powers with weapons, money, and ammunition.

NATO ammunition is partly included in this supply for these fighters. This was already confirmed by recent pictures of seized weapon depots in Syria, but also by some Turkish reports. The translation of this article is below.

Syria: The Grenades on Turkey are NATO Ammunition

It’s just like it is so often reported to me, the NATO countries provide the terrorists of Al-CIAda (Al Qaeda) either directly or indirectly via the friendly Gulf States with weapons and ammunition that will be used against themselves later. This is what happened during the attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi and now at the bombardment of the Turkish border town from Syria.

How did these glorified "FSA" goat-herders get their hands on this kind of equipment, and who trained them in it's use

Terrorists in Syria are Firing 120mm mortar Shells

The Turkish daily “Yurt” writes in its latest issue, which the grenades, which were fired at the Turkish border village Akçakale, come from the NATO stocks.

Thus, it is clear, not the Syrian military has fired them, because it has not such ammunition, but the terrorists themselves did, that were hired by NATO. Again, a staged provocation, in order to have a reason (pretext) for going to war against Syria.

According to the chief editor of the Turkish daily “Yurt”, Mr. Merdan Yanardag, the newspaper has received reliable information that Turkey has supplied the grenades to the so-called “Free Syrian Army” (FSA), which later killed five civilians in the Turkish border town of Akçakale and numerous people were injured.

“This information confirms, that the wrong policies of the Erdogan government are behind the bombardment of the city with mortar shells, which has cost the lives of five Turks,” wrote Yanardag.

Obama, NATO poodle Erdogan will guarantee the destruction of Turkey with an attack on Syria, spark WWIII

That means in plain text, that Erdogan is a traitor and a murderer of his own people. He is a puppet of the U.S. and conducts its criminal policy of a “regime change” in Syria.

I have investigated the matter and I have researched by the inscription of the mortars, 120 AE HE-TNT, of who produces them. In fact, it is NATO ammunition.

Erdogan will find out soon enough what it means to be "friends" with Obama

According to Jane’s Defence Weekly, this ammunition is produced by various defense firms in Europe, such as the Spanish Explosivos Alaveses SA (EXPAL), which is part of the Maxam Defence Group.

The Turkish daily “Yurt” has already confirmed by documents and videos in July, how the Turkish Intelligence is involved in terror attacks in Syria, but also confirmed, how training camps (for the terrorists) are established by the Turkish government near the city of Yayladağı, near the Syrian border, in order to smuggle the terrorists from there into Syria.

In one of these videos, the Turkish daily showed how a lot of Turkish terrorists, who spoke Turkish, have attacked a police station in the Syrian village of al-Sha’abaniya.

The Turkish newspaper also has quoted some of inhabitants of this region, these inhabitants said that the armed terrorists, who are hosted in these camps, have crossed the border (to Syria) in order to carry out terror attacks and massacre at the Syrian civilian population; they were not stopped by the Turkish border guards.

Locals have stressed, that the district of Yayladağı is a refuge area for thousands of terrorists, while the Turkish (Erdogan) government is doing nothing to protect the Turkish citizens from these people. The region forms the southern part of Turkey, bordering to Syria.

This means, that the Erdogan government is operating state terrorism against its neighbor Syria, but also against their own citizens.

Source: Die Granaten auf die Türkei sind NATO-Munition

Any opinions expressed here are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of The 5^th Estate.

This news site contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, etc.  We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.

 
 
 

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Syria Lets U.N. Inspect Gas Attack Site; Washington Says Too Late

This after the Obama criminals sends in the once "irrelevant" UN yes-men to "investigate" MONTHS OLD gas attacks:  Fearing exposure, CIA/White House murderers now claim it is too late to collect "credible evidence"

REUTERS
By Oliver Holmes
08/25/2013

Syria agreed on Sunday to let the United Nations inspect the site of a suspected chemical weapons attack, but a U.S. official said such an offer was "too late to be credible" and Washington was all but certain the government had gassed its own people.

Obama, CIA criminals now say "too late to collect evidence"

The U.S. remarks appeared to signal that a military response was more likely. A senior senator said he believed President Barack Obama would ask for authorization to use force when Congress returns from recess next month.

The comments follow forceful remarks from other Western powers, including Britain and France, which also believe President Bashar al-Assad's government was behind a massive poison gas attack that killed many hundreds of people last week.

Foreign powers have been searching for a response since the killings in a Damascus suburb, which if confirmed would be the world's worst chemical weapons attack in 25 years.

The United Nations said Damascus had agreed to a ceasefire while a U.N. team of experts inspect the site from Monday. Syria confirmed it had agreed to allow the inspections.

The scale of Wednesday's attack has led to calls for a strong response from the United States, a year after President Barack Obama declared the use of chemical weapons to be a "red line" that would draw serious consequences.

Syrian children slaughtered by Obama's CIA/FSA murderers

A senior U.S. official said Washington was still weighing how to respond but there was very little doubt that the Syrian government had used a chemical weapon against civilians.

"Based on the reported number of victims, reported symptoms of those who were killed or injured, witness accounts and other facts gathered by open sources, the U.S. intelligence community, and international partners, there is very little doubt at this point that a chemical weapon was used by the Syrian regime against civilians in this incident," the U.S. official said.

"At this juncture, any belated decision by the regime to grant access to the U.N. team would be considered too late to be credible, including because the evidence available has been significantly corrupted as a result of the regime's persistent shelling and other intentional actions over the last five days."

Syria's information minister said any U.S. military action would "create a ball of fire that will inflame the Middle East."

 He said Damascus had evidence chemical weapons were used by rebels fighting to topple Assad, not by his government. That argument is given credence by Assad's ally Moscow, but dismissed by Western countries which say they believe the rebels have no access to poison gas or the big weapons needed to deliver it.

Western leaders have been phoning each other in recent days and issuing declarations promising some kind of response.

"We cannot in the 21st century allow the idea that chemical weapons can be used with impunity," British Foreign Secretary William Hague said. "We believe it's very important that there is a strong response and that dictators ... know that the use of chemical weapons is to cross a line and that the world will respond when that line is crossed."

French President Francois Hollande's office said: "France is determined that this act does not go unpunished."

Senator Bob Corker, the ranking Republican on the Foreign Affairs Committee, said he had spoken to the Obama administration about its plans and believed the president would seek authorization for intervention after Congress convenes on September 9.

"I think we will respond in a surgical way and I hope the president as soon as we get back to Washington will ask for authorization from Congress to do something in a very surgical and proportional way," he told Fox News Sunday.

TANKS ADVANCE ON SITE

The team of U.N. chemical weapons inspectors arrived in Syria three days before Wednesday's incident to investigate previous reports of chemical weapons use.

Since Wednesday, the 20-strong team has been waiting in a Damascus luxury hotel a few miles from the site of what appears to have been the world's worst chemical weapons attack since Saddam Hussein's forces gassed thousands of Iraqi Kurds in 1988.

Their movements must be agreed with the Syrian government, and their inability to reach the site of attacks just a short drive away was symbolic of the failure of global diplomacy to have any real impact during two and a half years of war.

State television showed footage of tanks moving on Sunday into what it said was the eastern Damascus suburb of Jobar, one of the districts where the mass poisoning occurred.

Opposition activists in Damascus said the army was using surface-to-surface missiles and artillery in the area.

"The fact is that much of the evidence could have been destroyed by that artillery bombardment," said Britain's Hague.

Obama met his top military and national security advisers on Saturday to debate options. U.S. naval forces have been repositioned in the Mediterranean to give Obama the option of an armed strike.

Assad's two main allies spoke out in his defense. Iran, echoing Obama's own language, said Washington should not cross a "red line" by attacking Syria. Russia welcomed the decision to allow the U.N. investigation and said it would be a "tragic mistake" to jump to conclusions over who was to blame.

It is not clear how much impact the U.N. investigation would have on decision-making by Western countries.

In past incidents, the United States, Britain and France obtained what they said was their own proof Assad used small amounts of chemical arms. But if the U.N. team obtains independent evidence, it could be easier to build a diplomatic case for intervention.

BODIES

Throughout a war that has killed more than 100,000 people, the United States and its allies have yet to take direct action, despite long ago saying Assad must be removed from power.

In June, after concluding that Assad's forces had used a small amount of nerve gas, Obama authorized sending U.S. weapons to Syrian rebels. Those shipments were delayed due to fears radical Sunni Islamist groups in the opposition could gain further ground in Syria and become a threat to the West.

But Obama's administration is reluctant to be drawn deep into another war in the Muslim world after pulling U.S. forces out of Iraq and preparing to withdraw from Afghanistan.

Senator Jack Reed from Obama's Democratic Party said any response had to have international military support and Washington could not get into a "general military operation".

About 60 percent of Americans surveyed in a Reuters/Ipsos poll published on Saturday opposed U.S. intervention. Nine percent thought Obama should act.

The Syrian opposition says between 500 and well over 1,000 civilians were killed by gas in munitions fired by pro-government forces. The medical charity Medecins Sans Frontieres said three hospitals near Damascus had reported 355 deaths in the space of three hours out of about 3,600 admissions with neurotoxic symptoms.

The head of the al Qaeda-linked Nusra Front rebel group has pledged to target communities from Assad's Alawite sect with rockets in revenge.

"For every chemical rocket that had fallen on our people in Damascus, one of their villages will, by the will of God, pay for it," Abu Mohammad al-Golani said in a recording on YouTube.

Additional reporting by Khaled Yacoub Oweis in Amman, Mahmoud Habboush in Dubai Yeganeh Torbati in Dubai; Writing by Philippa Fletcher and Peter Graff; Editing by Jon Boyle.

Any opinions expressed here are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of The 5^th Estate.

This news site contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, etc.  We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.

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Fukushima Operator Pleads For International Help As Radiation Crisis Deepens

Nothing new here, except the lethal radiation plume and growing exposure of the cover-up by TEPCO and the Japanese government

RT
08/22/2013

TEPCO, operator of the crippled Fukushima nuclear plant, admits it needs overseas help to contain the radioactive fallout, after 18 months of trying to control it internally. It comes after the latest leak at the facility was deemed a “serious incident.”

"Many other countries outside of Japan have experienced decommissioning reactors, so we hope we can consult them more and utilize their experience,” TEPCO’s vice president, Zengo Aizawa, said at a news conference on Wednesday night.

"In that sense, we need support, not only from the Japanese government but from the international community to do this job."

The call comes after one of the 1,060 temporary tanks used to store highly contaminated water sprang a leak on Wednesday, discharging as much as 300 tons of radioactive liquid containing large amounts of cesium. Further tests revealed excessive radiation levels elsewhere in the facility.

Japan’s Nuclear Regulation Authority (NRA) rated the incident 3 on the International Nuclear and Radiological Event Scale, which spans from 1 to 7.

"The current situation is at the point where more surveillance won't be enough to keep the accidents from happening," declared Shunichi Tanaka, chairman of the NRA.

The UN’s International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has said that it is “taking this matter seriously and remains ready to provide assistance on request." 

Japanese government liar extraordinaire Yukio Edano

In the past, Japan has been averse to letting foreign entities help with eradicating the nuclear fallout from the Tohoku Disaster of March 2011. The vast majority of clear-up tenders were won by local companies, and outside experts have observed from afar.

The leak is the latest - and most serious - in a string of accidents that have kept the station in the headlines throughout the summer.

 TEPCO admitted that groundwater that floods the damaged basements of the destroyed reactors is becoming contaminated and flowing out into the ocean.  Three-hundred tons of the radioactive liquid reached the open water each day, even as TEPCO continued to deny the existence of the problem.

The financially-troubled company is attempting to construct a chemical and steel double barrier to stop this outflow, but the obstacle is not impermeable and  only covers a limited area - requiring water to be pumped away to stop it from building up and bursting through.
 

Its tanks, which are used to keep the coolant that prevents the damaged reactors from overheating dangerously, are considered to be unsuitable because they were made for other industrial purposes. They were adapted following the emergency, but they are nearly full. TEPCO estimates that it has already reached 85 percent capacity, although plans to create a more permanent facility have so far not materialized. The latest leak was the fifth time that toxic water escaped from a basin.

TEPCO has been slow in measuring the levels of radioactive elements that have flowed out of the station, as well as publishing its data.  The company finally revealed this month that highly unsafe tritium and cesium levels had been detected in the seawater near the plant. A concentration of these elements could damage the marine environment and build up in marine life, possibly endangering humans further up the food chain.

"The contaminated water remains a problem that could lead to a crisis," Aizawa conceded during the press call.

“Unfortunately, TEPCO waited until a severe emergency arose to finally report how bad things really are. Historically, everything TEPCO says always turns out to be much worse than they initially admit,” nuclear accident researcher Christina Consolo told RT.

Most experts say that it could take between four decades and a century to eliminate the impact of the Fukushima disaster.


 

Any opinions expressed here are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of The 5^th Estate.

This news site contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, etc.  We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.

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CIA Commandos, U.S. Special Forces Entered Syria: Report

Obama's CIA/FSA mercs deployed to destroy evidence of U.S. sponsored gassing with munitions provided by the Qatari dictatorship; as if Assad would launch a gas attack with UN investigators present     

PRESS TV
08/23/2013

US special operations and CIA teams, along with Israeli and Jordanian troops, have entered Syria to command members of the militant groups fighting against the Syrian government, according to a French newspaper.

U.S. taxpayer dollars at work:  Murdering CIA/FSA scum

“According to our information, Le Figaro reported on Thursday, “The regime's opponents, supervised by Jordanian, Israeli and American commandos have been moving towards Damascus since mid-August.”

US and Jordanian teams have set up a training camp in Jordan where special operations units are training members of the militant groups in Syria.

According to Le Figaro, the first group of these specially trained militant fighters, commanded by American special forces, crossed the border into Syria on August 17 along with a number of CIA operatives. A second group joined them two days later, the report said.

The newspaper cites military sources saying the operation began in the southern Syrian region of Deraa.

DEBKAfile, an Israeli website, also reported that up to 250 US-trained rebels entered an area of Syria near the Israeli border this past Saturday and were joined by an additional 300 on Monday. 

The US troops and intelligence officers reportedly made their way into Syria a few days before reports emerged that hundreds of men, women and children were killed by an alleged chemical weapons attack in the suburbs of Damascus.

The alleged chemical attack, which some experts argue was suspicious, prompted the United States and other Western courtiers to call for a military response.

US officials said Thursday that the Pentagon was refining its military options for possible strikes on a number of government and military installations in Syria, the Wall Street Journal reported.

Syria's foreign-backed opposition claimed on Wednesday that around 1,300 people were killed in a government chemical attack on militant strongholds in the Damascus suburbs of Ain Tarma, Zamalka and Jobar.

The Syrian government and the army categorically denied any role in the alleged chemical attack.

HJ/HJ

 

Any opinions expressed here are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of The 5^th Estate.

This news site contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, etc.  We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.

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EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW WITH YOICHI SHIMATSU : In The Belly Of The Beast Called FUKUSHIMA

Veteran Investigator and former Japan Times Editor Yoichi Shimatsu braves high radiation levels in the exclusion zone and defies Japanese government thugs to deliver this report from ground-zero at Fukushima

The 5th Estate

By Yoichi Shimatzu

08/18/2012

Your recent “unauthorized” trip to Fukushima was obviously difficult and entailed a certain amount of risk, both from the Japanese authorities and from the radiation exposure.  When and why did you decide to go?

Regional utility companies have been lobbying to restart Japan's nuclear power plants, which were all shut down for stress tests on seismic safety. Then the national government approved resumption of operations at the Ohi plant on the Japan Sea coast despite the fact that it has yet to clear stress test criteria. Active fault lines surround Ohi, and countermeasures including a higher seawall and stronger foundations have yet to be constructed. The post-Fukushima nuclear safety campaign is a farce.

TEPCO Fukushima No.2 nuclear plant, on the shore just 10 km south of the melted down reactors of plant No.1, was damaged by quake and the area remains highly radioactive

Also gearing up for restart are the operators of quake-damaged nuclear plants Tepco Fukushima No.2, located 10 km south of the melted-down reactors at Fukushima No.1, and Onagawa, 100 km northeast of Fukushima, where an ongoing cover-up of serious damage has been covered up by the Tohoku power company, the nuclear safety commission and the IAEA. 

The village road to Fukushima Exclusion Zone

The global nuclear industry is presenting falsified data to regulatory agencies, the media and NGOs in its drive to double the number of nuclear power plants around the world, notably in Southeast Asia and India as well as the UK and Eastern Europe. Hitachi is partnered with GE, and Toshiba is the major shareholder in Westinghouse, so the nuclear power is a global industry that makes massive payoffs to politicians, bureaucrats, regulators, the media and NGOs.

Given the complicity of regulators and public-interest NGOs, there's only one way to prove that the nuclear experts are lying through their teeth about safe radiation levels, and that is to go into the belly of the beast, which means entering the Fukushima Exclusion Zone. So once the rainy season ended in mid-July, I went.

Inside the Exclusion Zone: J-Village sports center is now the site of a temporary worker's camp directly adjoining Fukushima No.2

 

Was the level of destruction reported by the “mainstream media” more or less than what you found?

The mass media is led by the nose on tours of sanitized areas inside nuclear power plants, and consequently repeat what they hear like a flock of parrots. At the south gate of Fukushima No.2, right on the exclusion line, my dosimeter picked up a reading of 0.78 milliSieverts, which is high enough to kill anyone living there within six months. Incredibly, people were staying in cabins nearby, with their laundry flapping in the wind. A rice paddy, just inside the exclusion zone, measured more than 1 mSv. 

Meanwhile over the public address system, I suppose for my benefit being the only outsider in the town, a female announcer said that the measurement throughout the area was 0.24 mSv. The official figures are off by a factor of 3-to-4, not counting even higher hotspots like drainpipes. While levels are lower in more distant regions, radiation is pervasive through the main islands of Japan and moving up through the food chain.

The main gate of Fukushima No.2. The truck  is one of hundreds hauling radioactive waste from the Fukushima No.2 plant to a dump site in the mountains

 

Did you find any civilians inside the exclusion area, and if so were you able to speak with them?

There were thousands of temporary nuclear workers staying inside trailer homes in a soccer stadium and on tennis courts. Conversations were hasty because of the surveillance system and a manager did spot me, but a couple of workers quickly told similar stories. Most are young married men with one child, who've been unable to find any other work in Japan's economic recession. The pay is low, not as you would think, because so many young men are desperate for income. Most of the workers come from the poorer former colonial regions of Okinawa and Hokkaido, and some usually work as cleaners hosing down the insides of oil tankers. They're used to toxic working conditions, but none are prepared for or told about the hazards of radiation exposure.

A dump truck enters a quake-cracked tunnel. Whenever a truck passes, the radiation level doubles to about 0..28 milliSieverts

A manager with a major contractor told me, off-record of course, that workers who show any signs of radiation-related symptoms, like teeth falling out, hair loss or heart palpitations, are immediately fired and expelled from the province. No other industry will hire them in their poor state of health, and so dozens have committed suicide. Some workers are hired for just two days every three months, and their job lasts only 15 minutes - inside the damaged reactor buildings. Any longer and they would be dead. From what was being described, Fukushima nuclear has got to be the worst labor violations in the world today, up there with the most horrific in human history - brutal and inhumane, it would not be an exaggeration to say it's murderous.

Construction workers dismantle a quake-hit home. The blue tarp indicates radioactive waste to be disposed of at a low-level dump site

 

We just ran a story on “mutant” butterflies in the exclusion zone.  Did you witness any unusual animal or plant oddities or did the zone appear relatively normal aside from increased radiation levels?

I was keeping an eye out for mutants. A lot of animal species have gone extinct over the past year, for example rare types of dragonflies. Last summer, there were a lot of dead sea slugs, hardy bottom dwellers with circulation systems and thick hides, washed ashore. The beaches are barren and lifeless now except for small crabs and mussels, though there are still fish in the sea. A vast kill-off seems to have already happened.

Roadside dandelions register a dangerously high 0.84 mSv reading

As for mutations, in a cove near the exclusion line, I was curious about some very tall flowers. Rising up to my shoulder, they included an unfamiliar purple species and black-eyed susans, the latter the size of a dinner plate and petals as wide as two or three fingers. I felt like a Lilliputian walking in an English garden. When I asked a surviving farmer if these flowers were unusually large, he replied: "They've been like that, they are natural - we don't plant them." This means that radiation has been leaking for decades and mutated these species long ago.

Wreckage from the tsunami is radioactive. Timbers like these are burned in urban incinerators with emitted smoke reaching the jetstream and flowing to North America

You have seen images of the Chernobyl exclusion zone, were there any similarities?

I am quite familiar with Chernobyl, Semipalatinsk and Nevada Ground Zero. Those test sites were in sparsely inhabited arid areas. Fukushima, by contrast, is by the ocean, wet in all seasons, and the air is humid. This means that radioactive isotopes, which are salts, are more easily conveyed in the moisture, and therefore are quickly absorbed through respiration, drinking, eating and by one's clothing. The population density of Japan also means that local residents cannot be easily evacuated or accommodated. Ukraine, Kazakhstan and the USA have huge territories, but Japan is small and overcrowded. So a lot of residents have to stay put in heavily irradiated areas of the northeast known as Tohoku. These stay-behinds realize the threat, but have no other options. In anything, the government is reopening towns inside the Exclusion Zone to rid itself of having to support the evacuees. This is beyond cruel, it's sadistic. 

The fishing buoy is measured at a very high 1.22 mSv

Are the Japanese authorities and TEPCO accounts of the damage and radiation levels consistent with what you found?

The government ministries and TEPCO consistently, invariably lie. Since Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945, and the Bikini Atoll irradiation of the Lucky Dragon trawler in the early 1950s, the pro-nuclear lobby has woven a fantastical claim of nuclear safety and peaceful uses, when in fact nuclear energy has always been about atomic weapons development.

Fukushima is the only area in Japan with uranium ore deposits, and for that reason the Imperial Army set up mining and research facilities there as early as the 1930s. When I was camping out in the mountains above the Fukushima nuclear plants, local residents told me that there are dozens of hidden facilities in the forests. If anyone goes near, they are accosted, questioned and turned back by a secret security force, which is neither with the police or the military. It's been going on for decades. My high readings by streams below hydro dams indicate that these facilities were once used to produce and extract tritium from water that was neutron-bombarded by uranium in the surrounding rock.

The severity of the blasts and fires on March 14-16 at Fukushima No.1 indicate that highly enriched uranium was being processed there. The blasts were much too powerful to be fueled by hydrogen. Those were probably caused by tritium reactions with isotopes from the meltdowns. The government has not reported on cesium-137 content in the fallout, which is a sure indicator of the presence of weapons-grade uranium, meaning civilian power plants were being used to enrich uranium. 

Fishermen are idled because the local fish are beyond legal radiation limits

I saw several American workers from GE and what appear to be Department of Energy personnel in an urban district south of the Exclusion Zone. The U.S. government has been secretly cooperating with Japan's nuclear weapons program, which by the way is illegal under the Japanese law and its Constitution, a violation of the Non-Proliferation Treaty and also a step that basically nullifies the American nuclear umbrella under the U.S.-Japan Security Treaty. This covert and illegal weapons-development cooperation started under the Bush administration and is continued by the Obama White House. 

Are the Japanese authorities barring journalists from visiting Fukushima?

I happened to visit the Onagawa plant on the morning of a press conference. The staff eagerly invited me into the lobby, but when I told them I have not been an accredited journalist in Japan since 13 years earlier, they escorted me to the exit. Journalists are paid there by their publishers, who receive advertising revenues from the utilities companies, and therefore reporters are made to repeat the lies. In contrast, independent reporters and investigators are treated like burglars.

Evacuees in temporary shelters like these are being pressured by the government to return to their irradiated homes inside the Exclusion Zone

When I got out of the Fukushima Exclusion Zone, the security force caught up with me at a five-corner junction. A plainclothesman jumped out of an unmarked car and demanded: "Are you here to do interviews".  My reply was that everyone in that area was either gone or dead, so interviews are impossible. He told me to register at the town hall if I planned to do interviews.  My repartee was that I would definitely register on my next visit with a list of interview questions. His jaw dropped: "You plan to come back?" Dazed, he went back to his car.

That's press freedom - outside the Exclusion Zone. And I wasn't even there as a journalist.

You mentioned earlier a rather unorthodox technique of dealing with your radiation exposure, could you tell us about it? There was a report awhile back that the Japanese government was instructing the population that smiling would ward off the bad effects of radiation exposure… did you see any evidence of this? Were people following this directive?

Radiation dosages are cumulative, so reducing exposure - externally and internally - is the key to survival. When working inside Fukushima, which I've done on many sojourns since the 3.11 disaster, it is important to stick to a regimen, consisting of protective clothing, avoidance of direct physical contact with irradiated water, not eating obviously contaminated food, taking acidic beverages to remove alkali radioactive salts from the body, detox procedures during and after exposure using citrus soaps, and cancer-suppression with immune-boosting, tumor-fighting herbals. I've done a lot of field research into the few herbs that are effective against exposure, and they have been working well enough for me to repeatedly return and, in fact, my body's radiation level was lower than normal within a week of leaving Japan. I provide this knowledge and herbs to people living in the Fukushima zone free of charge, thanks to the help of friends and supporters. 

The Japanese government's unspoken policy, to be frank, is not to save lives but to intensify economic hardships for the victims - local residents and nuclear workers - so that they become penniless, fall into unbearable debt, suffer deprivation and finally end it all by committing suicide, preferably entire families. Suicide is not a question of personal depression, it is the exit strategy hatched by government policy - just as it was for Okinawans in the final days of World War II, the victims of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and the Minamata mercury sufferers. Sacrifice of a subgroup is supposedly required for the national welfare when, in truth, it is solely done for the industrial elite to keep its privileges intact. 

Though on paper sovereignty is based on the people, the stark reality remains a caste society in which the most vulnerable people are scorned and systematically destroyed - while the upper class, better society, the educated and the investors pretend like nothing is happening. The expensive drinking establishments in Tokyo and Sendai are packed, and the towns near the Fukushima nuclear plants lack any low-cost restaurants but there are still hundreds of bars open for the nuclear industry managers and construction executives to enjoy their evenings. I suppose it's the same everywhere in the world. Hypocrisy rules.

In 1977 Ishihara Shintaro, then Minister of the Environment and now a leading nuclear booster, apologized to Minamata victims after using his position of authority to attempt to discredit their quest for compensation. He said that many Minamata sufferers were “fakes” and that their court petition “looked like it had been written by a moron”

Do you believe the exclusion zone should be expanded?

To include all of Japan? The entire archipelago is contaminated. On this most recent journey, I hiked up mountains in Fukushima, in the Kanto region near Tokyo and southernmost Kyushu to take measurements. Radiation was streaming in with the clouds and mists from the Pacific Trench, where much of the Fukushima radiation settles. The remainder, by the way, flows to North America along the North Pacific Current. The upper atmosphere is seriously contaminated worldwide, and the plankton in the waters of the Pacific is radioactive enough to wipe out invertebrates like squid and sea urchin, which are the prime feed stock for fish and sea mammals. Nuclear power is threatening life on Earth, and the IAEA, a U.N. agency, wants to build more. 

Are there any recommendations that you would have for civilians living close to the exclusion zone?

People who have been left behind are subsistence farmers or fishermen, who have to fend for themselves, since the government has yet to pay any compensation and TEPCO made its application process nearly impossible to comprehend for anyone other than a CPA. Residents have no choice but to tend their gardens and go fishing for their protein. I am working with some volunteers to develop a program to teach soil decontamination and to test fish and vegetables for exposure levels. It's slow going because most of the NGOs are connected with government ministries and, in subtle ways, are collaborating with the cover-up. Most nuclear-equipped utility companies donate lots of money to NGOs, and when a nuclear disaster occurs, the non-profits are obliged to keep their mouths shut and their eyes blindfolded. So they end up giving away past-expiry date food and old clothes, while pocketing the millions in donations for their administrative costs and executive bank accounts. It's all window-dressing, corruption being just another disaster atop the natural catastrophes and nuclear crisis.

Are there any other observations you would like to report?

Nowhere on this planet is it safe from radiation spewing out of Fukushima, and the threat will not go away for at least three or more generations. Despite the handwriting on the wall, the monstrous bureaucracy that protects the nuclear industry is determined to expand the number of nuclear plants worldwide. Every nuclear plant releases unacceptable levels of radiation into the water and atmosphere, and the actual amount is never disclosed to the public. The only solution to shut down the nuclear industry, before it shuts down your grandchildren. The American Declaration of Independence opens with a clause about the legitimate right of a people to depose an unrepresentative and tyrannical government. The global nuclear dictatorship must be overthrown. 

Yoichi Shimatsu is director of Above & Beyond, a Hong Kong-based environmental consultancy that specializes in promoting sustainable land use and herbal therapy. His team of science and medical advisors were active in the public health and agriculture response to the outbreaks of SARS Corona virus and avian influenza in Hong Kong and Thailand. He is former editor of the Japan Times Weekly in Tokyo and has since been a freelance science writer. 

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