Monday, November 30, 2015

Escalation II: Russia Arms Su-34s With Air-To-Air Missiles, Russia Has 'More Proof' That ISIS Oil Is Routed Through Turkey



Russia arms Su-34s with air-to-air missiles in Syria for 1st time


Russian Su-34 bombers, additionally equipped with air-to-air missiles, have set out on their first mission in Syria, said Igor Klimov, spokesman for the Russian Air Force.

“Today, Russian Su-34 fighter-bombers have made their first sortie equipped not only with high explosive aviation bombs and hollow charge bombs, but also with short- and medium-range air-to-air missiles," Klimov said.

"The planes are equipped with missiles for defensive purposes," he added.
The missiles have target-seeking devices and are “capable of hitting air targets within a 60km radius,” he said.

President Vladimir Putin on Saturday signed a decree imposing a package of economic sanctions against Turkey. The measures include banning several Turkish organizations and the import of certain goods. Under the sanctions, the visa-free regime for Turkish nationals traveling to Russia will be suspended starting next year. The Russian government has also been tasked with introducing a ban on charter flights between Russia and Turkey and to enhance security control at Russian ports on the Sea of Azov and Black Sea.

On Thursday, Moscow recalled its military representative from Turkey. At the same time Russian Defense Ministry said that all channels of military cooperation with Ankara were suspended including a hotline set up to share information about Russian airstrikes in Syria.







A month ago, US and Russian military officials signed a memorandum of understanding that included steps their pilots should take to avoid an inadvertent clash over Syria as they carry out separate air strikes against armed groups. That MoU has now been shredded, as it certainly did not involve Russian fighter jets operating above Syria being armed with short and medium range air-to-air missiles as a direct threat to other fighter jets also operating above Syria - mostly those of Turkey, France and the US. 
Which is precisely what Russia has done as disclosed in an announcement moments ago by the Russian defense ministry, and furthermore, has released a clip as a warning to not only Turkey, but all NATO forces in the region, that any further provocations at its jets will be met with an immediate and proportional response.
Igor Klimov, spokesman for the Russian Air Force, said that "today, Russian Su-34 fighter-bombers have made their first sortie equipped not only with high explosive aviation bombs and hollow charge bombs, but also with short- and medium-range air-to-air missiles The planes are equipped with missiles for defensive purposes."





Russia is now equipping its Su-34 fighters with air-to-air missiles in preparation for potential dogfights with NATO over Syria.

“Today, Russian Su-34 fighter-bombers have made their first sortie equipped not only with high explosive aviation bombs and hollow charge bombs, but also with short- and medium-range air-to-air missiles,” Russian Air Force spokesman Igor Klimov told RT. “The planes are equipped with missiles for defensive purposes.”
He also added the missiles are “capable of hitting air targets within a 60km radius.”
It’s obvious that Russia is not equipping its jets with air-to-air missiles to fight ground-based ISIS militants but rather to prevent Turkish F-16s from shooting down more of its planes.
“In the wake of the downing, President Vladimir Putin on Saturday signed a decree imposing a package of economic sanctions against Turkey,” RT reported. “The measures include banning several Turkish organizations and the import of certain goods.”
“Under the sanctions, the visa-free regime for Turkish nationals traveling to Russia will be suspended starting next year.”
Turkey responded by reportedly blocking Russian ships from passing through the Strait of Bosphorus linking the Black Sea to the Mediterranean, which prevents Russia’s Black Sea fleet from traveling to the rest of the world or even back to its home port.

But Putin has also ordered 150,000 Russian troops deployed into Syria while also sending another 7,000 Russian troops with tanks, rocket launchers and artillery to the Turkish border at Armenia with orders to be “fully combat ready.”

Even though Turkey initiated its stand-off with Russia by intentionally shooting down the Su-24 near the Syrian border, it could potentially invoke Article 5 of the NATO Treaty which requires all NATO members, including the U.S., to come to its defense if Turkey goes to war with Russi






Russia has received additional intelligence confirming that oil from deposits controlled by Islamic State is moved through Turkey on an industrial scale, said Vladimir Putin. President Recep Erdogan said he will resign if this is confirmed.

Moscow has grounds to suspect that the Su-24 was downed by Turkish jets on November 24 to secure illegal oil deliveries from Syria to Turkey, he said speaking on the sidelines of the climate change summit in Paris on Monday. 
“At the moment we have received additional information confirming that that oil from the deposits controlled by Islamic State militants enters Turkish territory on industrial scale,” he said.
“We have every reason to believe that the decision to down our plane was guided by a desire to ensure security of this oil’s delivery routes to ports where they are shipped in tankers,” Putin said.
Speaking in Paris on Monday, President Recep Erdogan said that he will leave office if there is proof of Turkey’s cooperation with IS.
 “We are not that dishonest as to buy oil from terrorists. If it is proven that we have, in fact, done so, I will leave office. If there is any evidence, let them present it, we’ll consider [it],” he said, as quoted by TASS.
The countries from which Turkey buys oil are “well known,” said Erdogan.
He called on Russia to comment on the US’ recent black-listing of Kirsan Ilyumzhinov, the World Chess Federation President, accusing him of “materially assisting and acting for or on behalf of the Government of Syria.” Erdogan alleged Ilyumzhinov had been dealing with Islamic State oil.

Terrorists have been abusing the visa-free regime between Russia and Turkey to move freely, the Russian leader said adding that Ankara failed to address the issue after Russia raised it.
“We have been asking [Ankara] for a long time to pay attention” to the threat posed by some terrorists active in separate regions of Russia, including the northern Caucuses, that have been “emerging on Turkish territory,” Putin said.
Moscow has asked Ankara to “stop this practice,” he added, but pointed out that “we have traced some located on the territory of the Turkish Republic and living in regions guarded by special security services and police that have used the visa-free regime to return to our territory, where we continue to fight them,” he added.
Answering a question as to whether Moscow wants to form a broad based anti-terrorist coalition, Putin said Russia has always supported this initiative, “but this cannot be done while someone continues to use several terrorist organizations to reach their immediate goals.”
Putin admitted that he was personally saddened by the deterioration of relations with Turkey. He explained that “problems do exist and they emerged a long time ago and we have been trying to resolve them in dialogue with our Turkish partners.”
Putin said he has heard Ankara’s claims that it was not Erdogan who made the decision to down the Russian jet. However, he stressed that for Russia “it doesn’t really matter” which official made the decision. 
“As a result of this criminal campaign our two soldiers died – a crew commander and a marine, who was part of the rescue team of the [Su-24] crew,” he said, adding that Turkey’s actions had been “a huge mistake.”





“I’ve shown photos taken from space and from aircraft which clearly demonstrate the scale of the illegal trade in oil and petroleum products,” Vladimir Putin told reporters earlier this month on the sidelines of the G-20 summit in Antalya. Putin was of course referencing Islamic State’s illicit and highly lucrative oil trade, the ins and outs of which we’ve documented extensively over the past two weeks:

Turkey’s move to shoot down a Russian Su-24 warplane near the Syrian border afforded the Russian President all the motivation and PR cover he needed to expose Ankara’s alleged role in the trafficking of illegal crude from Iraq and Syria and in the aftermath of last Tuesday’s “incident,” Putin lambasted Erdogan. “Oil from Islamic State is being shipped to Turkey,” Putin said while in Jordan for a meeting with King Abdullah. In case that wasn’t clear enough, Putin added this: “Islamic State gets cash by selling oil to Turkey.”

Some believe Erdogan’s son Bilal - who owns a marine transport company called BMZ Group - is heavily involved in the trafficking of Kurdish and ISIS crude. Most of the ships BMZ owns are Malta-flagged. 
In light of the above, some have speculated that Turkey shot down the Su-24 in retaliation for Russia’s bombing campaign that recently has destroyed over 1,000 ISIS oil trucks. Here’s what Syrian Information Minister Omran al-Zoub said on Friday:


“All of the oil was delivered to a company that belongs to the son of Recep [Tayyip] Erdogan. This is why Turkey became anxious when Russia began delivering airstrikes against the IS infrastructure and destroyed more than 500 trucks with oil already. This really got on Erdogan and his company’s nerves. They’re importing not only oil, but wheat and historic artefacts as well."



“In the last eight months ISIS has managed to sell ... $800 million dollars worth of oil on the black market of Turkey. This is Iraqi oil and Syrian oil, carried by trucks from Iraq, from Syria through the borders to Turkey and sold ...[at] less than 50 percent of the international oil price."

On Monday, Putin was back at it, saying that Russia has obtained new information that further implicates Turkey in the Islamic State oil trade. “At the moment we have received additional information confirming that that oil from the deposits controlled by Islamic State militants enters Turkish territory on industrial scale," Putin said on the sidelines of the climate change summit in Paris. "We have traced some located on the territory of the Turkish Republic and living in regions guarded by special security services and police that have used the visa-free regime to return to our territory, where we continue to fight them."

"We have every reason to believe that the decision to down our plane was guided by a desire to ensure security of this oil’s delivery routes to ports where they are shipped in tankers," he added, taking it up another notch still. 

The real question is how NATO will react now that Turkey is quickly becoming a liability. Furthermore, you can be sure that the US, Saudi Arabia, and Qatar (who are all heavily invested in the Sunni extremist cause in Syria), are getting nervous. No one wants to see this blown wide open as that would mean the Western public getting wise to the fact that it is indeed anti-ISIS coalition governments that are funding and arming not only ISIS, but also al-Nusra and every other rebel group fighting to wrest control of the country from Assad. Worse, if it gets out that the reason the US has refrained from bombing ISIS oil trucks until now is due to the fact that Ankara and Washington had an understanding when it comes to the flow of illicit crude to Cehyan, the American public may just insist on indicting "some folks." 
Remember, when it comes to criminal conspiracies, the guy who gets caught first usually ends up getting cut loose. It will be interesing to see if Erdogan starts to get the cold shoulder from Ankara's "allies" going forward.





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Russian Prosecutors Ban Soros Organizations As A Threat To Russia's Constitutional Order And National Security




Prosecutors ban Soros Foundation as ‘threat to Russian national security’ — RT Russian politics


The Russian Prosecutor General’s Office has recognized George Soros’s Open Society Institute and another affiliated organization as undesirable groups, banning Russian citizens and organizations from participation in any of their projects. 
In a statement released on Monday, prosecutors said the activities of the Open Society Institute and the Open Society Institute Assistance Foundation were a threat to the foundations of Russia’s Constitutional order and national security. They added that the Justice Ministry would be duly informed about these conclusions and would add the two groups to Russia’s list of undesirable foreign organizations.
Prosecutors launched a probe into the activities of the two organizations - both sponsored by the well-known US financier George Soros - in July this year, after Russian senators approved the so-called “patriotic stop-list” of 12 groups that required immediate attention over their supposed anti-Russian activities. Other groups on the list included the National Endowment for Democracy; the International Republican Institute; the National Democratic Institute; the MacArthur Foundation and Freedom House.
In late July, the Russian Justice Ministry recognized the US National Endowment for Democracy as an undesirable group after prosecutors discovered the US NGO had spent millions on attempts to question the legitimacy of Russian elections and tarnish the prestige of national military service.
The Law on Undesirable Foreign Organizations came into force in early June this year. It requires the Prosecutor General’s Office and the Foreign Ministry to draw up an official list of undesirable foreign organizations and outlaw their activities. Once a group is recognized as undesirable, its assets in Russia must be frozen, its offices closed and the distribution of any of its materials must be banned.
If the ban is violated, the personnel of the outlawed group and any Russian citizens who cooperate with them could face heavy fines, or even prison terms in the case of repeated or aggravated offences.



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Turkey-Syrian Border: The Next Conflict? Fukushima Update




It is somewhat coincidental that both of these articles came up in a general search, but it seems like an obvious potential conflict:






US demands Turkey to “seal” notorious 100 km border region with Syria, but may be pretext to invade and establish long-sought after “safe haven” for terrorists in Syria.

In the most open admission yet that NATO-member Turkey has been allowing a torrent of supplies, weapons, fighters, and equipment to flow across its borders with impunity and into the hands of the self-proclaimed “Islamic State” (ISIS), the US has urged Ankara to seal the remaining 100 km border region yet to be closed by Syrian and Kurdish forces.

The Wall Street Journal in its article, “U.S. Urges Turkey to Seal Border,” reported that:


The Obama administration is pressing Turkey to deploy thousands of additional troops along its border with Syria to cordon off a 60-mile stretch of frontier that U.S. officials say is used by Islamic State to move foreign fighters in and out of the war zone. 

The U.S. hasn’t officially requested a specific number of soldiers. Pentagon officials estimated that it could take as many as 30,000 to seal the border on the Turkish side for a broader humanitarian mission. Cordoning off just one section alone could take 10,000 or more, one official estimated.


Coincidentally, the Wall Street Journal also reports that 30,000 troops are also precisely what is estimated to be needed to carve out a NATO-occupied “safe zone” within Syria, one US policymakers have planned since 2012 as a means of protecting Western-backed militants from Syrian – and now Russian – attacks.


The WSJ reports:

U.S. officials, including the Pentagon and the State Department, conducted an assessment this fall of how many troops it would take to create a safe zone, and concluded that it would take about 30,000 troops. Officials used that figure as a reference point to estimate the needs for a cordon, but said that could turn out to require fewer troops.


US Intentions are Dubious at Best 
Although some may find US calls for the border to be secured from the Turkish side welcomed, in reality, the summation of support for ISIS and other terrorist groups operating in Syria have long been crossing Turkey’s borders, with Ankara and Washington’s full knowledge and with Ankara and Washington having orchestrated the immense multi-year logistical operation themselves.
Not only has it been revealed that the US State Department itself was running terrorists and weapons from as far as Croatia and Libya, through Turkey, and into northern Syria, it has been reported by prominent Western newspapers, including the New York Times that both US intelligence agents and US special forces have been operating along the very Turkish-Syrian border ISIS and other terrorist organizations have been moving weapons and fighters over since the conflict began in 2011.

Increasing pressure from Washington on Ankara appears directly proportional not to America’s will to defeat ISIS, but the to the necessity of addressing growing public awareness that indeed, ISIS is being supported from beyond Syria’s borders by certain state sponsors and not from within Syria itself.

That coincidentally the same number of troops needed to invade and occupy northern Syria have been called up to line the Turkish-Syria border to “secure it” is likely not a coincidence at all. In all likelihood, the West would like to attempt to make an incursion into Syria under the guise of having been provoked at the border, and then “needing” to cross over into Syria to pursue the provocateurs.

The United States and Turkey, with their ambush of a Russian Su-24 over Syria, have proven just how far the West is willing to go to get an advantage, even superficially, over Russia, even if it means resorting to extreme treachery. Another “power move” wrung from this impending “border operation” seems all but inevitable.

This increasingly desperate geostrategic posture comes at a time when Russia has begun bombing ISIS-bound convoys emerging from Turkish territory almost on the border itself. Syrian armed forces are likewise close to closing off this very border region from within their own territory. Syrian troops have approached the Euphrates River’s west bank and will begin moving north toward the Turkish border itself. Once this region is retaken by Russian-backed Syrian troops, there will be no “safe zone” for NATO to establish.

To ensure that NATO’s plans are fully derailed along the Turkish-Syrian border, Russian-backed Syrian troops much ensure a substantial deterrence exists specifically to face this threat. Diplomatically, offers to establish a border guard or peacekeeping force on the Syrian side to compliment NATO’s within Turkish territory may be the best way to ensure NATO’s ambitions remain where they are.






Russia is ready to coordinate practical steps to block the Turkish-Syrian border in cooperation with Damascus, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said Friday after talks with Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Muallem.
Lavrov recalled that French President Francois Hollande earlier voiced the proposal to adopt specific measures to block the Turkish-Syrian border.
“We actively support that. We are open for coordination of practical steps, certainly, in interaction with the Syrian government,” he said. “We are convinced that by blocking the border we will in many respects solve the tasks to eradicate terrorism on Syrian soil.”
“We hope that initiative by President Hollande will be implemented within the framework of our joint work, including in the Group of Support for Syria,” the minister said.

Lavrov pointed out that Russia has question about Ankara’s real plans, including those on counter-terrorist efforts.
“The hotbed of terrorist treat is concentrated in vast territories of Syria and Iraq,” he said. “It is the so-called Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, and we have a common opinion that it can be exterminated only without any double standards. Special responsibility in terms of denouncing such double standards and acting in a united front against terrorism rests on Syria’s neighbor countries.”
“We think it highly cynical when some of the countries speak about their commitment to the corresponding United Nations Security Council resolutions and declare themselves members of anti-terrorist coalitions but in reality are playing a game where terrorists are allocated the role of secret allies,” Lavrov stressed. “We have more and more questions about Ankara’s real plans and the degree of its readiness to exterminate terrorism, in particular in Syria, and its commitment to the normalization of the situation in Syria.”
“We are ready to take due account of these or those concerns and interests of the countries committed to anti-terrorist efforts and are ready for such formats of coalition, cooperation and coordination that would cause no discomfort to anyone,” he said. “Now it is up to our partners, including those who are members of the coalition formed last year by the United States, which has yielded no visible results as of yet.”
Has the Deal with Erdogan Made Europe a Supporter of Terrorism?
In a desperate bid to put an end to the tide of illegal immigration, European politicians have been trying to make friends with Turkey on whatever terms they can negotiate. For instance, German Chancellor Angela Merkel has put billions of euros on the table to obtain Ankara’s assistance in resolving the refugee crisis.

 However, many Western media sources, including Deutsche Wirtschafts Nachrichten, are wondering is it really necessary to make a deal with a country that has been heavily engaged in the sponsoring of terrorists, while buying oil from them at the same time?

 German journalists argue that it would seem that there’s more than enough evidence to expose Turkey‘s connections with the Islamic State, so European politicians would be better off treating Erdogan differently, since he is indirectly involved in the killings of European citizens. Different media sources do not hesitate to cover the illegal oil business that is run by Erdogan’s family (including the German Bild), along with its bid in the production of synthetic drugs.

 What’s even more curious is that in the situation where there’s absolutely no transparency in the affairs of the sitting Turkish authorities, the billions allocated by European politicians might be as well spent on the support of Islamist militants in Syria and Iraq. It won’t be surprising, since Erdogan’s connections with radical Islam have been officially confirmed by a prominent Iraqi politician Mowaffak Baqer al-Rubaie. According to al-Rubaie, Turkey is selling stolen oil at the rate of 20 dollars per barrel, which provides it with the income of 10 million dollars a week. Thus, in just eight months Turkey received over 800 million dollars from Iraqi stolen oil and gas.

 One shouldn’t forget that that the ruling AKP party has been based on the former Islamist movement and the banned Islamic Virtue Party. As for Erdogan, he has repeatedly demanded to undermine the principles of the secular state, putting Turkey on tracks of restoration of the Ottoman Empire.

 According to the Turkish news center 7 Sabah, it’s not a coincidence that the leader of the radical Islamist organization Jaish Al-islam wrote an open letter to Erdogan to congratulate him with the victory on the recent elections. In his letter the leader of this terrorist group urged Turkish nation to continue its support the so-called “jihad” groups in Syria and around the world. In response to this event, the leader of the Dutch Party for Freedom Geert Wilders stated that Islamic fascists have come to power in Turkey.

 There’ two dangerous flows one is to observe today – there’s a flow of Islamists moving from west to east to join ISIL, and there’s a different flow – thousands of Syrian and Iraqi refugees heading the other way in an attempt to get to the Western Europe. 

  As it has recently been noted by a Turkish journalist, the south of Turkey has been turned into a “boulevard for Islamists”. At the same time, up to two million illegal migrants have attempted to get to Europe this year alone, most of them chose Turkey as a transit stat

 So why would Europe still cooperate with Erdogan? Won’t it only be logical for the Europeans to oppose any form of Islamism?

 The wave of terrorist attack that has struck Turkey last month shows that Turkish authorities do not control the situation in the country and cannot ensure the safety of their citizens. This state has clearly become a transit point for Islamists and refugees alike. In the light of Erdogan’s irresponsible policies and the growing contradictions within Turkish society, we may expect the imminent disintegration of the country.

 So what should we do do? For example, Roland Hureaux, a prominent French politican and diplomat believes that it’s about time for Merkel to demand that Turkey puts an end to the flows of refugees and Islamists, or Europe will be entitled to withdraw all the preferences Turkey enjoyed as a state-candidate that was willing to join the EU.



[Below is just part of a lengthy article but worth reading in full]


It's heart breaking. It's devastating. How do you clean up a dying ocean?
The predictable tragedy at the Fukushima nuclear power plant in March 2011, continues to destroy fish, mammals and critically important ecosystems in the Pacific Ocean. TEPCO and the Japanese government have allowed one of the greatest crimes against humanity to spread devastation and destruction not only to the Japanese people in the area who have suffered massive cancer rates, illnesses and loss of their livelihoods, but an ocean now affecting us whether you live on the East coast or San Francisco.


"Some scientists say Fukushima is worse than the 1986 Chernobyl accident, with which it shares a maximum level-7 rating on the sliding scale of nuclear disasters. One of the most prominent of them is Dr Helen Caldicott, an Australian physician and long time anti-nuclear activist who warns of "horrors to come" in Fukushima. Chris Busby, a professor at the University of Ulster known for his alarmist views, generated controversy during a Japan visit last month when he said the disaster would result in more than 1 million deaths. "Fukushima is still boiling its radionuclides all over Japan," he said. "Chernobyl went up in one go. So Fukushima is worse."

"The official line is that the accident at the plant is winding down and radiation levels outside of the exclusion zone and designated "hot spots" are safe. "But many experts warn that the crisis is just beginning. Professor Tim Mousseau, a biological scientist who has spent more than a decade researching the genetic impact of radiation around Chernobyl, says he worries that many people in Fukushima are "burying their heads in the sand." His Chernobyl research concluded that biodiversity and the numbers of insects and spiders had shrunk inside the irradiated zone, and the bird population showed evidence of genetic defects, including smaller brain sizes. "The truth is that we don't have sufficient data to provide accurate information on the long-term impact," he says. "What we can say, though, is that there are very likely to be very significant long-term health impact from prolonged exposure."


That was in 2012. By 2013, Fukushima was pouring 300 TONS of contaminated water into the ocean EVERY day. I wonder what current testing shows for Bluefin tuna and other species of popular fish? The American people have the right to know, even if the news is bad.


Tritium soaring in water at No. 1 plant (July 2013): "A Nuclear Regulation Authority official recently said contaminated groundwater from the plant, which is being fed cooling water from outside, may be seeping into the ocean and that the matter must be addressed carefully because data is limited." Tritium is a radioactive isotope of hydrogen.

" The Nuclear Regulation Authority said Wednesday it strongly suspects highly radioactive water at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant is seeping into the ground and contaminating the Pacific Ocean. “We must find the cause of the contamination . . . and put the highest priority on implementing countermeasures,” NRA Chairman Shunichi Tanaka told a meeting of the body's commissioners after they had examined recent studies carried out on groundwater samples at the plant that detected high levels of cesium, tritium and other radioactive contamination."


All of these are after Fukushima. Are all of them just a coincidence? Why so many mysteries after Fukushima?

Scientists Confirm Fukushima Radiation in California Kelp, February 7, 2014(that's just one month shy of three years since the melt down began)

"A crisis among California sea lions that has resulted in nearly 1,000 stranded pups and older animals arriving starved and sick on coastal shores has reached the Sonoma Coast, where six animals have been recovered in recent weeks, according to the Marine Mammal Center near Sausalito." Photos of the stranded babies is absolutely heartbreaking.

— Japan Professor: Fukushima posing reproduction risk to marine life, ongoing concern over bio-accumulation of radioactive material
"Senator Penelope Wright, Parliament of Australia, Mar 5, 2015 (emphasis added): “Like many others, I read an article in 2013 by Ivan Macfadyen called ‘The ocean is broken‘. It was published in The Sydney Morning Herald… He is an experienced sailor, so he had the ability to compare his experience then with… other trips. It was chilling. It was heartbreaking really. He had noticed changes in the last years. Basically, he was confronted by the silence that he heard, the silence on the seas, and he realised that this was attributable to the fact that they saw very, very few birds. They also caught very few fish… two fish.”
"Interview with Ivan Macfadyen, Talk Radio Europe, May 24, 2015 (at 14:30 in): “The reality was… if I would have had no spare dry food on the boat — relying on fish this time around — we would have starved to death — because, quite literally, there isn't any fish. There's vast tracks where they're just all gone. Where you could fish reliably, they're just not there… I used to fish here on exactly the same course, at exactly the same time of year… the same ocean, on the same course, into the same place — and I could catch fish everyday, and for some reason now 10 years later they're all gone.”

"Though not discussed in the above interview, Macfadyen has attributed his statement “The ocean is broken” to the impact of Fukushima. Host: "What about sea birds and all of that"? Macfadyen: "As you get closer up to Japan they're all gone, they're not there anymore… Everything's all gone, it's just like sailing in a dead sea… there's nothing… Host: "After Japan you headed [to] America, did you see any impact from…Fukushima?"

"Macfadyen: It's dead. That's where I coined the phrase, ‘The ocean's broken’ – because, for thousands of miles, there's nothing. No birds, no fish, no sharks, no dolphins, no turtles… they're not there… all those beautiful creatures, they're just all gone… We'd seen a whale, round about probably 1,000 miles [off] Japan, just lying on the surface with like a big tumor… just behind its head… it looked like it was going to die… it didn't try to get away, it didn't flap its tail, it didn't do anything… It had such a profound effect on me… Just talking about it makes me feel like I want to cry."

"A record 2,250 sea lions, mostly pups, have washed up starving and stranded in Southern California, a 20-fold increase in the level of strandings averaged for the same three-month period over the past decade, and twice the number documented in 2013, the previous worst winter season recorded for Southern California sea lions." 

"According to two University of Washington scientific research papers that were recently released, a 1,000 mile stretch of the Pacific Ocean has warmed up by several degrees, and nobody seems to know why this is happening. This giant “blob” of warm water was first observed in late 2013, and it is playing havoc with our climate. And since this giant “blob” first showed up, fish and other sea creatures have been dying in absolutely massive numbers. So could there be a connection? And what is going to happen if the Pacific Ocean continues to warm up? Could we potentially be facing the greatest holocaust of sea life in the Pacific that anyone has ever observed? If so, what would that mean for the food chain and for our food supply?...

"Meanwhile, while this has been going on, scientists have also been noticing that sea creatures in the Pacific have been dying in record numbers. In fact, last summer I wrote an article entitled “Why are massive numbers of sea creatures dying along the west coast right now?” Since then, things have continued to get even worse. For instance, it was recently reported that the number of sea lions washing up on Southern California beaches is at an all-time record high…

"A record 2,250 sea lions, mostly pups, have washed up starving and stranded on Southern California beaches so far this year, a worsening phenomenon blamed on warming seas in the region that have disrupted the marine mammals’ food supply. "The latest tally, reported on Monday by the National Marine Fisheries Service, is 20 times the level of strandings averaged for the same three-month period over the past decade and twice the number documented in 2013, the previous worst winter season recorded for Southern California sea lions. "And of course fish are being deeply affected as well. Sardines have declined to their lowest level in six decades, and National Geographic says that a whole host of tiny fish species at the bottom of the food chain are dying off rapidly."

Radiation Expert: Enormous amount of contamination flowing from Fukushima will probably imperil entire Pacific Ocean — Threatens other countries, food chain — Absolutely can reach U.S. and Canadian shores, August 12 2013: Title: Fukushima Radiation Leakage Still Going on / Source: CCTV (China Central Television of Beijing)

"Anand Naidoo, CCTV anchor: From what we know about what is going on at the plant right now, is this going to get worse?
"Dr. Janette Sherman, radiation expert: I hate say this, but yes I think it will. And my concern is the enormous amount of radioactive material flowing with the water into the Pacific Ocean. And we know that the ocean flows northward along Alaska and down the coast of Canada and the United States. And I think it probably will imperil the entire Pacific Ocean, and the the sea life that's in it.

"Naidoo: What you're saying here is that this water can actually reach other shores, can reach other countries as well?
"Sherman: Oh absolutely, we already know that.
"Naidoo: The radioactive content in this water — does it dissipate, or does it just stay in the water all the time?

"Sherman: Well both cesium and strontium have a half-life about thirty years. It takes 10 half-lives for each of these isotopes to decay down to nothing. We contaminate the plankton, and that's eaten by shrimp and oysters and fish and mammals. And as most of these move up the food chain they get concentrated. Particularly strontium-90 gets concentrated in the bones."





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Sunday, November 29, 2015

PM Netanyahu: 'We Will NotHand Over Even One Meter Of Land', Paris Climate Change Talks






Channel 2 had reported that Netanyahu had planned as well to hand some portion of that territory over to the Palestinian Authority.


Israel is not planning to unilaterally hand over portions of Area C in the West Bank to the Palestinian Authority, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told Likud ministers on Sunday.

“There won’t be any transfer of territory to the Palestinians, not 40,000 [dunams or 10,000 acres], not 10,000 and not even one meter,” Netanyahu said on Sunday.

He spoke after Samaria Regional Council head Yossi Dagan publicly charged that the Office of the Coordinator for Government Activities in the Territories and the Civil Administration is continuing work on a plan to transfer 10,000 dunams of territory in Area C to the Palestinian Authority.

But Netanyahu told the Likud ministers that he would not execute any such plan.

Likud ministers Ophir Akunis, Ze’ev Elkin, Haim Katz, Israel Katz and Miri Regev raised the issue with Netanyahu at the weekly cabinet meeting.

“Together with the international community, we have to demand that the Palestinians fight terrorism and stop the incitement against our forces and our citizens. That is what is required and not the transfer of territory,” Akunis said after the meeting.

The West Bank is divided into three areas: Areas A and B are under the PA’s civil control, and Area C, which makes up 60 percent of the West Bank, not including east Jerusalem, is under Israeli military and civil control.

It is presumed that any final-status agreement for a two-state solution to the Israeli- Palestinian conflict would involve the transfer of portions of Area C to the Palestinians.

Netanyahu has repeatedly said he will not uproot settlements, all of which are located in Area C.







Almost 150 heads of state, including David Cameron, Barack Obama and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, are heading to Paris for the start of the most important environmental meetingfor decades.
Ahead of the summit, more than 175 countries have tabled pledges (known as intended nationally determined contributions, or INDCs) to cut their carbon emissions which, if enacted, would be enough to limit global warming to 2.7C. But the United Nations has pledged to limit climate change to 2C – and would much prefer it to be 1.5C.





A team of European researchers have unveiled a scientific model showing that the Earth is likely to experience a “mini ice age” from 2030 to 2040 as a result of decreased solar activity.
Their findings will infuriate environmental campaigners who argue by 2030 we could be facing increased sea levels and flooding due to glacial melt at the poles.
However, at the National Astronomy Meeting in Wales, Northumbria University professor Valentina Zharkova said fluctuations an 11-year cycle of solar activity the sun goes through would be responsible for a freeze, the like of which has not been experienced since the 1600s.
From 1645 to 1715 global temperatures dropped due to low solar activity so much that the planet experienced a 70-year ice age known as Maunder Minimum which saw the River Thames in London completely frozen. 






When future generations look back on the global-warming scare of the past 30 years, nothing will shock them more than the extent to which the official temperature records – on which the entire panic ultimately rested – were systematically “adjusted” to show the Earth as having warmed much more than the actual data justified. 
Two weeks ago, under the headline “How we are being tricked by flawed data on global warming”, I wrote about Paul Homewood, who, on his Notalotofpeopleknowthat blog, had checked the published temperature graphs for three weather stations in Paraguay against the temperatures that had originally been recorded. In each instance, the actual trend of 60 years of data had been dramatically reversed, so that a cooling trend was changed to one that showed a marked warming. 
This was only the latest of many examples of a practice long recognised by expert observers around the world – one that raises an ever larger question mark over the entire official surface-temperature record.






An intensive scientific study of both Earth's poles has found that from 2009 to 2016 overall temperature has dropped in the southern polar region.
NASA’s Operation IceBridge is an airborne survey of polar ice and has finalised two overlapping research campaigns at both the poles. 
In the last few weeks NASA has revealed the overall amount of ice has increased at the Antarctic and the amount of sea ice has also extended.

Christopher Shuman, a University of Maryland, Baltimore County glaciologist working at Goddard, said: "Field data suggests that there’s been a modest cooling in the area over the 2009–2015 time period, and images collected during that time by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer on the Terra and Aqua satellites show more persistent fast ice (sea ice that is attached to the shore) in the Larsen A and Larsen B embayments”












A deep freeze in California's Sierra is continuing, with one spot east of Redding recording minus-11 degrees.


An earlier version of this article said the low in California was minus-14. It was actually minus-11, according to the National Weather Service.


A few other mountain areas posted below-zero temperatures overnight.

A series of winter storms have dumped large amounts of snow in the Sierra, with some places receiving more than 20 inches. The NWS said another storm could move in by Thursday. 


A good blanket of snow is now sticking to the ground across the mountain range, according to the weather service. The cold temperatures are good news for ski resorts, which are off to a strong seasonal start after several years of drought conditions.
A freeze warning was in place in the Sacramento Valley for Sunday. Officials warned residents to protect outdoor plants and pipes.



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