The Philippines has begun moving troops and equipment to a disputed island in the South China Sea which is claimed by both Manila and Beijing, a Philippines general said. It comes ahead of construction, including lengthening an airstrip on the island.
The troops and initial supplies arrived at Pag-asa Island last week, Lt. Gen. Raul del Rosario, head of the Philippine military's Western Command, said as quoted by AP.
Some 1.6 billion pesos (US$32 million) has been set aside for construction on the island, which will include reinforcing and lengthening and airstrip and building dock, according to the official.
Solar power, a desalination plant and refurbishment of military housing, as well as sites for marine research and tourists, are set to be built on the island.
Earlier this month, Chinese Ambassador Zhao Jianhua warned that any construction on the island, known internationally as Thitu, would be illegal.
“We view the occupation by the Philippine side of those islands as illegal. And so the building on it are also illegal,” he said, as quotedby the Manila Times.
Zhao added that China would give “warning” to any intruding aircraft in the island's airspace, as well as any unwelcome planes which may fly in the airspace of the larger Kalayaan Island Group.
The Philippines' Department of Foreign Affairs shrugged off Zhao's statements, with spokesman Robespierre Bolivar stating that the island and the Kalayaan Island Group are “a municipality of Palawan,” a province of the Philippines.
China protested a visit to the island by Philippines defense and military chiefs last month, weeks after Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte vowed to occupy and fortify islands in the South China Sea in order to make a “strong point”amid its territorial dispute with Beijing.
The U.S. Department of Energy activated the Emergency Operations CenterTuesday due to a tunnel collapse at the Hanford nuclear site.
According to KING-TV, a “tunnel in a plutonium finishing plant collapsed in Hanford early Tuesday morning. The tunnel was full of highly contaminated materials such as hot radioactive trains that transport fuel rods.”
As Breaking911 reports, some workers were being evacuated while others were advised to shelter-in-place. The Hanford Fire Department is on scene and updates will be posted as they are available. Workers in the vicinity are still being sheltered as a precaution.
From the U.S. Department of Energy
“The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Richland Operations Office activated the Hanford Emergency Operations Center at 8:26 a.m., after an alert was declared at the 200 East Area. There are concerns about subsidence in the soil covering railroad tunnels near a former chemical processing facility. The tunnels contain contaminated materials.”
As we detailed previously, radioactive leak problems at the Hanford Site, a nuclear storage tank in Washington State, are nothing new.
We first wrote about the ongoing radioactive leakage at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation, created as part of the Manhattan Project to build the atomic bomb, in 2013.
The Hanford site represents two-thirds of the nation’s high-level radioactive waste by volume. Today, Hanford is the most contaminated nuclear site in the United States and is the focus of the nation’s largest environmental cleanup. The government spends $2 billion each year on Hanford cleanup — one-third of its entire budget for nuclear cleanup nationally. The cleanup is expected to last decades.
However, as Krugman would say, the government was not spending nearly enough, and after a major documented leak in 2013, over the weekend, thousands of gallons of radioactive waste are estimated to have leaked from the Site once again, triggering an alarm and causing one former worker to label it as “catastrophic.”
As AP reported, the expanded leak was first detected after an alarm went off at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation on Sunday, and on Monday workers were preparing to pump the waste out of the troubled area. They were also trying to determine why the leak became worse.
It’s unclear exactly how much waste spilled out, but estimates place the amount at somewhere between 3,000 and 3,500 gallons, according to the Tri-City Herald.
In March, the US Department of Energy began pumping what was left in the storage tank, which originally held some 800,000 gallons of waste. However, after leak detector alarms sounded early Sunday morning, crews at Hanford lowered a camera into the two-foot-wide space between the tank’s inner and outer walls. They discovered 8.4 inches of radioactive and chemically toxic waste has seeped into the annulus.
But one former tank farm worker said the leak should be considered a major problem.
“This is catastrophic. This is probably the biggest event to ever happen in tank farm history. The double shell tanks were supposed to be the saviors of all saviors (to hold waste safely from people and the environment),” said former Hanford worker Mike Geffre.
He should know: Geffre is the worker who first discovered that the tank, known as AY-102, was failing in 2011. In a 2013 series, “Hanford’s Dirty Secrets,” the KING 5 Investigators exposed that the government contractor in charge of the tanks, Washington River Protection Solutions (WRPS), ignored Geffre’s findings for nearly a year. The company finally admitted the problem in 2012.
Another problem: tank AY-102 is just one of 28 double-shell tanks at Hanford (there are 177 underground tanks total) holding nuclear byproducts from nearly four decades of plutonium production on the Hanford Nuclear Site, located near Richland. Initially, the plutonium was used to fuel the bombed dropped on Nagasaki, Japan, in World War II.
The new leak poses problems on several fronts. The outer shell of AY-102 does not have the exhaust or filtration system needed to keep the dangerous gases created by the waste in check. Workers have been ordered to wear full respiratory safety gear in the area, but the risk remains. And unlike Fukushima where cleanup crews are aware of the danger, in Hanford virtually nobody is aware of the dangers of the radioactive seepage.
“The hazards to workers just went up by a factor of 10,” said Geffre.
The breakdown calls into question the viability of three other double-shell tanks at Hanford that have the exact design of AY-102. It is not clear how many of them may have comparable “extremely small” leaks which have gotten bigger, and even if there was it is likely that the DOD would not reveal them.
“The primary tanks weren’t designed to stage waste like this for so many years,” said a current worker. “There’s always the question, ‘Are the outer shells compromised’”?
Oh, and let’s not forget that the accumulation of waste in the outer shell also means “the deadliest substance on earth is that much closer to the ground surrounding the tank. And currently, there is no viable plan in place to take care of it.”
Or, as Ben Bernanke would say, the Plutonium is contained.
“It makes me sad that they didn’t believe me that there was a problem in 2011,” said Geffre. “I wish they would have listened to me and reacted faster. Maybe none of this would be happening now. It’s an example of a culture at Hanford of ‘We don’t have problems here. We’re doing just fine.’ Which is a total lie,” said Geffre.
Archaeologists have exhumed an ancient discovery which proves Israel’s existence long before Palestine was even a thought.
It surrounds the story of King Hezekiah, or King Hez-Ki as his ancient homies used to call him.
Seriously, these researchers were ecstatic to reveal that they have stumbled upon the first found seal of a biblical Israelite king.
Charisma News reports that the royal seal of King Hezekiah, who ruled around 700 B.C., has been added to the nation’s extensive collection of ancient artifacts.
Hezekiah ruled around 700 BC and was described in the Bible as a daring monarch—”There was no one like him among all the kings of Judah, either before him or after him” (2 Kin. 18:5)—who was dedicated to eliminating idolatry in his kingdom.
“This is the first time that a seal impression of an Israelite or Judean king has ever come to light in a scientific archaeological excavation,” Mazar said.
The detailed clay seal, known as a bulla, was uncovered near the southern part of the wall surrounding Jerusalem’s Old City. It was mistakenly buried in a refuse dump around the time of the Israelite king. After five years of research, a team member was able to decipher the text.
Still, this incredible seal precedes even the earliest mention of an official derivative of “Palestine,” in which the historian Herodotus called the area “Palaistinē” in the 5th century B.C., 200 years after King Hezekiah.
This means that there is tangible proof that an Israelite king ruled the area known as Israel today long before anyone mildly considered a Palestinian lived in the area.
Even then, the first Islamic Empire had not conquered the area until the Battle of Yarmouk in 636 A.D., a highlighted battle in the Muslim conquests of Syria. This led to Muawiyah I being named the Caliph, following his crowning in Jerusalem.
Global health experts are sounding the alarm on a nightmare superbug that is resistant to nearly all antibiotics. Doctors warn the bacterial infection is becoming more widespread with little to no treatment options available.
“If we have more and more people developing these kinds of infections, and without options, people will die,” said Dr. Susan Bleasdale, Medical Director of Infection Control at the University of Illinois at Chicago. “It’s serious.”
The World Health Organization in February published its first ever list of drug-resistant bacteria to advocate for new antibiotics that are urgently needed.
A group of dangerous bacteria, called Carbapenem-resistant Enterobacteriaceae, or CRE, topped WHO’s list.
Local doctors said Illinois appears to be ground zero for CRE cases in the United States. The state was home to one of the largest outbreaks of CRE infections in the country.
In 2013, 39 patients were infected with the drug-resistant bacteria at Advocate Lutheran General Hospital in Park Ridge. A hospital spokesperson said the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention linked the outbreak to a tainted medical device. Two patients died.
Billionaire globalist George Soros has become the target of a $10 billion lawsuit that accuses him of being a "racketeer billionaire" and manipulating the politics and economics of Guinea, a sovereign African nation, for his own benefit.
In April, the lawsuit (BSG Resources (Guinea) Limited et al v. Soros et al) states that "Mining companies associated with Israeli billionaire Beny Steinmetz accused investor George Soros in New York federal court Friday of being a 'racketeer billionaire' who extorted and smeared the Steinmetz entities to steal the rights to an iron ore deposit in Guinea, costing them $10 billion."
“Soros was motivated solely by malice,” BSGR states in the suit, “as there was no economic interest he had in Guinea.”
Many media outlets have barely given coverage to the lawsuit.
“Companies controlled by Israeli mining magnate Beny Steinmetz sued fellow billionaire George Soros, claiming he cost them at least $10 billion through a defamation campaign that stripped them of rights to an iron ore deposit in Guinea and other business opportunities around the world,” Bloomberg reported. “Soros funded law firms, transparency groups, investigators and government officials in Guinea in a coordinated effort to ensure BSG Resources Ltd. lost the rights to the Simandou deposit in April 2014, BSGR said in a complaint filed [April 14] in Manhattan federal court.”
There is war going on now between government and the American people. It’s being fought on many fronts. Only a few Americans are aware of the depth and breadth of what is happening, and fewer still are seriously concerned.
The vast majority of Americans are unaware, and unaware that they are unaware. They are blown to and fro and easily excited over every fake meme and outrage making its way across social media and headlined on mainstream media outlets.
So yes, you are guilty! Believe me, anyone in America can be prosecuted on some tax or other nebulous pretext. There is a crime for all of us. Currently there are some 4,500 listed criminal offenses. These listed Federal offenses have exploded well beyond the statute books and into the morass of the Code of Federal Regulations, giving federal prosecutors thousands of additional vague, complex and technical prohibitions removed from congressional authority or any authority but the federal prosecutors themselves. People are targeted and a crime is found to fit.
As Harvey Silverglate writes in his book, “Three Felonies a Day: How the Feds Target the Innocent,” it’s more than likely that every American commits at least three felonies every day just going about the normal, everyday task of living.
John Stuart Mill wrote in his classic work On Liberty, “Let us not flatter ourselves that we are yet free from the stain of legal persecution.” Oxford World Classics 1998 ed. pp34.
Even though government is on the brink of collapse, no one will relinquish power.
Federal judges, as a whole, only rule in favor of the government. Few Americans are aware that the judiciary of the United States is accountable to no one. Thomas Jefferson was correct when he said the most ruthless, dishonest and dangerous segment in our government is the unaccountable judiciary.
Everything lies in their hands, from property values to the national wealth itself. When the rule of law becomes the self-interest of the state, nobody is safe. Your future is destroyed and your savings and assets are not secure.
There is no incentive to obey any law when prosecutors (prosecuting attorneys) and all judges have absolute immunity and when persons of privilege and stature are exonerated for wrongdoing that puts others under the prison (Hillary Clinton and Huma Abedin). It does not matter if they are in direct conflict with the established law and the U.S. Constitution.
The government legal system forces pleas of guilty on threat of much larger sentences if one goes to trial. This, too, is our modern version of the old Star Chamber. You see, we don’t have to call it Star Chamber.
Federal, state and local police agencies have become branches of the military (the standing army the Founders feared), outfitted in full military garb and with all the weapons of war. They are trained with an us-versus-them mentality (many of them now come out of the Middle East wars) and respond to even the most minor of all incidents with overwhelming force.
Like judges and prosecutors, LEOs (legally entitled to oppress) enjoy qualified immunity. They are rarely held accountable when their actions lead to the death or injury of someone they suspect of being a criminal. So any system or government agent immune from prosecution can never be wrong, and tyranny reigns. So it is government against the people, not government by the people.
The major parties and the press – aided by foreign money (George Soros) — are also fomenting civil war among the masses. These battles are breaking out in cities across the nation under the guise of protests against offensive speech or ideology and defense of free speech.
But the participants are largely paid actors who are working to incite the populace against itself. What we are witnessing is the Hegelian Dialectic or synthesis, of creating a new order or thesis.
The U.S. is past the point of no return. Even though the system is stained with blood, it will not and it cannot self-correct. And certainly it will not through the political process, which only rearranges the deck chairs. It will have to totally collapse.
So to answer the original interrogative: Can times get better in America without a major crisis?
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