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Miami
Area Nuclear Plant In Partial Shutdown After Steam Leak
Perhaps
the most dangerous nuclear reactor in the U.S. is in partial shutdown
following the discovery of a steam leak.
South
Florida's ailing Turkey Point nuclear power station is in the news
again, with Unit 4, one of its two reactors, taken offline Sunday due
to a steam leak,
according to a Dec. 1st update
released byIndustrial
Info Resources online.
Conspicuously, as of the writing of this article, there is no
indication that this highly concerning event has received mainstream
media coverage.
In
a recent report, Is
Miami on the Brink of a Nuclear Disaster?,
we discussed the imminent possibility of a Fukushima-style meltdown
at Florida Power & Light's Turkey Point facility, only 41 miles
south of Miami near Homestead; a reactor so primitively designed that
it uses a 168-mile network of open air canals to cool it's ancient
reactors (built in 1972), reminiscent of a Medieval moat system.
Back
in 2011, an online article published at Miami
New Times titled,
"Five
reasons Turkey Point could be the next nuclear disaster,"
identified the Turkey Point facility as the country's next most
likely reactor to undergo a full-scale meltdown; one which would make
Miami uninhabitable, virtually overnight. It is an article well worth
reading to get up to date on the gravity of the situation there.
A
battery of recent reports reveals that the Turkey Point plant is in
an ongoing struggle to keep its reactors cool enough to prevent a
mandatory shut down; they are still in operation only because they
lobbied for special permission to violate water temperature safety
thresholds from the previous 100 degree limit up to their new one of
103 degrees:
- Miami Herald, August 28th: Florida Power & Light cooling canals at Turkey Point nuclear power plant still too hot
Even
if we assume the Turkey Point facility will pass through this year's
cooling crises without reaching the 104 degree temperature threshold
for immediate shut down, the problem will not stop there. With
increased canal temperatures linked to accumulating salinity and an
inadequate water supply within its canal system, climate change, a
storm surge from a hurricane or tidal wave associated with an off
shore seismic event, a power outage generated by a class X solar
flare, or simply sea level rise – any of these could theoretically
permanently incapacitate the reactors main and diesel back-up cooling
systems, leading to a meltdown.
What will follow will be
irreversible, devastating and beyond remediation.
FT
talks about “anger and dismay” in Eastern Europe. “Make your
own bed and sleep in it”.
Bulgarian
pres calls for South Stream Euro partner talks
:
South
Stream's European partners should be allowed have their say in the
pipeline project's future, the Bulgarian President has said.
"South
Stream is not a project of Russia and Bulgaria; it’s of Russia and
the European Union. A decision on it can only be made in the
Russia-EU format," Rosen Plevneliev said Tuesday.
"The
participant states of South Stream have done serious preparatory work
and authorized the European Commission to hold talks with the Russian
leadership to take a final decision on the project," he said.
The
president stressed that there will be no objections to the gas
project if Russia agrees to comply with EU legislation.
"I
oppose the idea that a kind of confrontation is happening,” he
said. “When laws and regulations are observed, all large and small
projects work out. I believe that no one in the EU will say ‘no’
to South Stream if Russia complies with the requirements of European
legislation," Plevneliev concluded.
Earlier
on Tuesday Bulgaria’s Economy Minister Bozidar Lukarsky said the
country will consider South Stream an operating project until it
receives an official announcement from Russia.
"For
me, the South Stream project isn’t closed yet; we haven’t
received any official announcement from Russia. When it comes, then
we will comment on this topic," said Lukarsky.
Deputy
Prime Minister Meglena Kuneva also declined to comment, but stressed
that "Bulgaria supports the idea of having a cost-effective
project and at the same time comply with European legislation."
Italian
construction company Saipem is involved in South Stream construction
and has said it continues to work on the project, since it hasn’t
received official notification about a halt to South Stream.....
American,
Georgian and Lithuanian get key jobs in Ukraine’s new government
The
natives of the US, Georgia and Lithuania were hastily granted
Ukrainian citizenship in order to become key ministers in the new
government of Ukraine, which was approved by the country’s
parliament on Tuesday.
President
Poroshenko has also announced he will sign a decree to grant
citizenship to foreigners fighting on Kiev’s side in the east of
the country.
Natalie
Jaresko of the US, who currently heads the Kiev-based Horizon Capital
investment fund, will take reigns at the Ukrainian Finance Ministry.
In
1992-1995, Jaresko served as the first Chief of the Economic Section
of the US Embassy in Ukraine.
Before
that she occupied several economic positions in the US State
Department, according to Horizon Capital website.
The
position of health minister went to Aleksandr Kvitashvili, who
occupied a similar post in the Georgian government in 2009-2012.
"Ukraine
spends 8 per cent of its GDP on healthcare, but half of this money is
being plundered. Aleksandr Kvitashvili must implement radical reforms
as he has no ties with the Ukrainian pharmaceutical mafia,” Ukrainian
PM, Arseny Yatsenuk, said as he presented the new minister to the
deputies.
Alexander Kvitashvili, a candidate for
head of the Ukrainian health ministry, at a session of Verkhovna
Rada in Kiev (RIA Novosti / Mikhail Polinchak)
Lithuanian
Aivaras Abromavicius has been approved as the economy minister by the
new parliament, the Verkhovna Rada.
Abromavicius,
who is a partner at the $3.6 billion-worth East Capital asset
management group, conducts his operations from Kiev after marrying a
Ukrainian.
“There’s
hard work ahead of us because Ukraine is a very poor and corrupt
country and we’ll have to use radical measures,” he
told MPs from the Rada tribune.
288 out of 450 deputies supported the cabinet proposed by Ukrainian president Petro Poroshenko, with the new ministers sworn in right after the vote.
“I
congratulate the Ukrainians with the formation of the pro-European
government,” Poroshenko
wrote on his Twitter page.
He
told the Rada that he views the foreigners as some kind of
anti-crisis management need due to the difficult situation in
economy, the fighting in Donbas, the necessity of radical reforms and
large-scale corruption.
Earlier
on the Tuesday, the president has signed special a decree granting
Ukrainian citizenship to Jaresko, Kvitashvili and Abromavicius.
Dual
nationality is forbidden in Ukraine and the trio has already written
applications to give up the citizenship of foreign states, Yury
Lutsenko, the head of the Petro Poroshenko Block (PPB), said.
Poroshenko
said that there’ll be even more foreigners on administrative
positions in Ukraine as the county “must
attract the best international experience, which includes assigning
positions in the government to representative of states friendly to
Ukraine.”
Also
on Tuesday, the MPs from Poroshenko’s ruling bloc have registered a
draft law in the Rada on amending the Ukrainian legislation for it to
allow citizens of other states in the government.
It
had been announced by Poroshenko a week ago. This move has been
dubbed “unprecedented” and
attracted criticism from experts with some calling it “allegiance
to the so-called European choice,” and
others expressing concern that it can be a sign of Ukraine losing its
sovereignty.
Poroshenko
also promised to grant the citizenship of Ukraine to all foreigners
fighting for Kiev against the militias in the country’s eastern
Donetsk and Lugansk regions.
“I’m
going to sign a decree conferring Ukrainian citizenship to those, who
defended Ukraine with arms in their hands,” he
wrote on Twitter.
However,
not everybody in the parliament supported the inclusion of foreigners
into the Ukrainian government.
Earlier,
the MP from the Opposition Block said Aleksandr Vilkul suggested that
by inviting people from abroad the Ukrainian authorities are trying
to absolve themselves of responsibility for the state of things in
the country.
Vilkul
colleague, Yury Boyko, said he can’t understand how it wasn’t
possible to find 10 candidates for the cabinet among Ukraine’s
40-million population.
Egyptian
court sentences 188 to death for attack on police
An
Egyptian judge sentenced 188 Muslim Brotherhood supporters to death
Tuesday after 11 policemen were killed in an attack last August
during one of the most violent crushing of protest camps in Egypt’s
modern history.
The
ruling will however allow those who have been sentenced to
participate in an appeals process.
The
court decision comes after all charges were dropped against Hosni
Mubarak, fourth President of Egypt from 1981 to 2011, who was
initially charged for the death of 239 protesters – a fraction of
the 850 people activists believe died in the 2011 uprising that ended
the 30-year rule.
Those
who were sentenced had been protesting and demanding that Islamist
President Mohammed Morsi be reinstated after his ousting at the
beginning of July 2013.
They
were charged with killing 11 police in Kerdasa, a town west of Cairo
In August last year, and attempts to kill ten more in an ambitious
assault on Egyptian security forces.....
White
Cop Mistakes Black NYPD Officer For Criminal And Shoots Him Dead
“This
is always a black cop’s fear, that he’d be mistaken for a
suspect,” an unnamed source told The Daily News five years ago when
NYPD Officer Omar Edwards got shot dead by a white cop from a
different unit, who mistook him for a suspect.
That’s
right. Apparently, even being a police officer isn’t enough to keep
a young black man from getting killed by a white cop. Edwards was out
of uniform on a plainclothes detail — an earlier Daily News report
said he was “off-duty” — and chasing down an actual crime
suspect whom he’d caught breaking into a car.
Officer
Andrew Dunton saw the chase, and called out, “Police! Stop! Drop
it!” When Edwards started to turn around but failed to drop his gun
quickly enough, Dunton shot him three times. It happened on Good
Friday, May 9th, 2009, and more recent incidents of excessive lethal
force by police against black men proves we’ve learned little or
nothing since then. Edwards was only 27 years old, and left behind
his wife Danielle and their two young sons.
Here’s
the news report on Dunton shooting Edwards from Fox News– which of
course refers to the incident as “friendly fire.”
Detroit
power grid down: police stations, jails without electricity
Power
is slowly returning to Detroit, Michigan, after a massive power
outage on Tuesday morning left much of the Motor City in the dark.
As
of 2:15 p.m., about 33 percent of the power outages had been
restored, according to the Detroit Free Press, while the majority of
city buildings should have electricity back by the evening. In a
statement, the city said the power grid was shut down following a
"major cable failure."
"The
city's public lighting grid suffered a major cable failure that has
caused the entire grid to lose power at approximately 10:30 this
morning," read the statement. "The outage is affecting all
customers on the PLD grid. We have isolated the issue and are working
to restore power as soon as possible."
Spokespeople
for the city and DTE Energy confirmed at around 11:00 a.m. local time
on Tuesday that most of Detroit’s municipal grid is offline,
preventing power from being delivered to police stations, schools,
traffic lights and other city-run facilities and services.
Municipal
buildings were being evacuated, WXYZ Radio anchor Alicia Smith
tweeted early Tuesday, although eyewitnesses on the ground told her
shortly after 11 a.m. that people were reportedly becoming stuck in
elevators.
“It
looks like the entire Detroit Public Lighting system is down.
Affecting about 100 buildings, places like The Joe, Frank Murphy Hall
of Justice, fire stations, schools. We were notified about 10:30 a.m.
We’re working with them to help resolve the situation. We’ll help
investigate the problem and make repairs. It’s too early yet to
determine what has caused the shutdown,” Scott Simons of DTE Energy
Co. told the Detroit
News.
Detroit
Fire Chief Jack Wiley added to Fox 2 that every one of the city’s
firehouse was experiencing outages early Tuesday. Around 50 buildings
on the local Wayne State University campus were impacted as well,
according to the college, and grade schools in the city were shutting
down for the day.
“We
have crisis plans in place. There are backup generators running in
buildings, especially buildings with labs,” Tom Reynolds, associate
director of public relations for Wayne State University, told Detroit
News journalist Holly Fournier.
Wife,
Daughter Of ISIS Leader Captured
In
a surprise development involving the leader of the Islamic State, Abu
Bakr al-Baghdadi, earlier today security officials announced that the
Lebanese army had captured the wife and daughter of Islamic State
leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi as they crossed from Syria nine days ago.
According to Reuters, the woman was identified as Saja al-Dulaimi, an
Iraqi, by a Lebanese security official and a senior political source.
The Lebanese newspaper As-Safir reported she had been detained in
coordination with "foreign intelligence."
With
Its Gold "Vaporized", A Furious Ukraine Turns On Its
Central Bankers
As
reported two
weeks ago,
following a stunning announcement by the head of Ukraine's central
bank, Valeriya Gontareva, on primetime TV we learned that (virtually)
all of Ukraine's gold was gone, or - in the parlance of Jon Corzine -
had "vaporized."
And
as we also predicted two weeks ago, it was only a matter of time
before Ukraine's people - the vast majority of whom are innocent
pawns in a vast game of realpolitik between the west and east -
finally got angry and demanded some answers, if not heads. That time
came earlier today when as Interfax.ua reported
"a
Kyiv-based court has instructed Kyiv prosecutors to bring an action
against National Bank of Ukraine (NBU) Governor Valeriya Gontareva on
charges of abuse of power or misuse of office to obtain illegal
profit, the Vesti newspaper reported on Tuesday."
According to
Interfax,
"This decision was taken by Kyiv's Pechersk district court on
December 1 after it had examined case No. 757/33660/14. It
ordered the Kyiv prosecutor's office to launch an investigation and
include it in the register of pre-trial investigations," the
newspaper reported.
Gontareva
is charged with abuse of power or misuse of office under Article 364
of the Criminal Code of Ukraine.
The
charges against the chief banker involve foreign currency
interventions by the Central Bank in August 2014: On August 5 the NBU
bought U.S. dollars on the interbank forex market for UAH 11.93 per
U.S. dollar and sold them for UAH 12.26 per U.S. dollar. During the
same week, on August 8, it traded in foreign currency at a higher
rate: UAH 12.45-12.6 per U.S. dollar. First it sold $69 million on
the interbank forex market at a lower rate, and some days later it
bought $35 million at a more favorable price.
As
a result of these transactions, the NBU lost 19 kopecks per U.S.
dollar, Kravets said.
Kravets
claims that by acting so, Gontareva "has intentionally committed
an extremely unfavorable transaction for the gold and forex reserves
of Ukraine, despite
the fact that under Ukraine's Constitution it is the Central Bank
that is in charge of maintaining the country's gold reserves."
* *
*
That,
and of course, there is also that as a result of central bank
"transactions" the Ukraine central bank is now essentially
gold-free, which per Gontareva's recent appearance, has just 1% of
total reserves in the form of the yellow metal.
And
while it remains to be seen if this will be the spark that lights the
counter-revolution (after all it took Egypt not less than a year to
turn against the puppet regime dumped upon it by the CIA and the US
State Department) others are already sensing which way the wind is
blowing. As Bloomberg reported moments ago, another central banker,
Olena Shcherbakova who is head of the monetary policy department at
the Ukrainian central bank, said she is resigning. When reaced by
phone she stated that she "has the right to step down,"
without giving reason for decision.
She
sure does, although we doubt even a former Goldman Sachs partner
would be willing to replace her, as the realization among the Ukraine
people finally seeps through that they were thoroughly betrayed by
the same people who promised they would fix the country following the
February presidential coup.
US
claims Iran is bombing ISIS in Iraq
The
United States understands that Iran is also bombing areas of Iraq
where extremist group Islamic State is operating, a defense official
has confirmed, but it will not respond to Tehran’s presence unless
there is an immediate threat to US forces.
"We
are aware of that. I wouldn't say we're necessarily concerned with it
- we kind of have our eyes on it," the official told The
Huffington Post, adding that Iran is bombing targets close to its own
border with Iraq.....
ISIS
claims to have developed dirty bomb – reports
So-called
Islamic State militants claim to have developed a crude nuclear
weapon using materials seized from Mosul University, Iraq. A British
extremist boasted of the damage the dirty bomb would do if detonated
in Iraq, UK media reports.
One
of the militants bragging about the device online was Hamayun Tariq,
fighting under the nom de guerre of Muslim-al-Britani, the Daily
Mirror reports. Britani, a Briton who claims to be a bomb expert,
tweeted:
"O
by the way, Islamic State does have a dirty bomb. We found some
radioactive material from Mosul University."
He
continued: “We’ll find out what dirty bombs are and what they do.
We’ll also discuss what might happen if one actually went off in a
public area.”....
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