U.N. Program to Ship Contaminated Fish from Japan to Developing Countries

 x-skf

Another "win" for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, who operates the ODA (Official Development Assistance). They have managed to obtain support from the United Nations on this one.

I first wrote about this particular ODA in June last year, with the follow-up post in September when the Ministry of Foreign Affairs formally requested the appropriation for the 3rd supplementary budget.

Now it's official, with the help of the UN. Canned fish from Tohoku will be given to people in developing countries in the world so that the fisheries in the disaster-affected areas can recover and "baseless rumors" disappear.

The fish cans will go to Cambodia and 4 other countries and will be used in school lunches to feed school children.

From Sankei Shinbun (3/30/2012):

食料支援で風評被害解消　被災地の缶詰を途上国に

Food aid to dispel baseless rumors, by sending canned food made in disaster-affected areas to developing countries

政府は、東日本大震災の被災地で製造された水産加工品を発展途上国の人々に食べてもらうため、国連機関の世界食糧計画（ＷＦＰ）と政府開発援助（ＯＤＡ）に関する書簡を交換した。食料支援を通じ、被災地の水産業振興と風評被害の解消につなげるのが狙いだ。

The Japanese government exchange letters with the UN WFP (World Food Programme) regarding the ODA (Official Development Assistance) so that people in developing countries will be able to eat processed marine products made in the areas affected by the March 11, 2011 earthquake and tsunami. The purpose is to promote [the recovery of] fisheries industry in the disaster-affected areas and to dispel baseless rumors [that food in Japan is contaminated with radioactive materials].

政府が平成２３年度第３次補正予算に計上した１０億円を元手に、ＷＦＰが青森、岩手、茨城、千葉の４県の水産加 工場で製造されたイワシやサバなどの水煮の缶詰を調達。カンボジアなど５カ国で学校給食などに役立ててもらう。加藤敏幸外務政務官は書簡交換の式典で、 「甚大な被害を受けた被災地の水産加工企業は、操業の全面再開に向け努力している」と強調した。

The Japanese government allocated 1 billion yen in the fiscal 2011 3rd supplementary budget. Using this money, WFP will purchase cans of boiled sardines and mackerels made in factories in Aomori, Iwate, Ibaraki, and Chiba Prefectures. The cans will be shipped to 5 countries including Cambodia for the use in school lunches. Toshiyuki Kato, parliamentary secretary of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs [No.3 politician at the ministry] emphasized in the letter exchanging ceremony, "The marine product processing companies in the disaster-affected areas have sustained grave damage, and they are doing their best to resume full operation."

このＯＤＡをめぐっては、東京電力福島第１原発事故の影響を懸念する一部の市民団体などが反発。外務省幹部は「放射線量を検査し、安全性に問題がないものを輸出することで、海外に根強い風評被害の打破を図りたい」と説明している。

There are a few citizens' groups who oppose this particular ODA program as they are worried about the effect of the Fukushima I Nuclear Power Plant accident. The top officials at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs explain that the radiation measurement will be conducted, and only those products without any worry of safety will be exported so that the baseless rumors that still persist overseas are dispelled.

When the Japanese government officials say "without any worry of safety", their safety equals 100 becquerels/kg of radioactive cesium starting April 1, 2012.

I couldn't find any press release on this, and no information as to other 4 countries receiving the canned fish from Japan.

Here's from the feedback page of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. You can contact them by mail or by phone, or you can contact the embassies and consulates around the world.

The UN's WFP contact information is here: http://www.wfp.org/contact

Possible RTA election fraud focus of lawsuit

Arizona Daily Independent

This week Pima County administrator Chuck Huckleberry claimed that a law forward by State Representative Terry Proud and signed by the Governor, HB2408, was retaliatory. The law calls for an audit of the Pima County Bonding disbursements. Huckleberry and an editorial in the newspaper, the Arizona Daily Star, argued that if Proud wanted the information, all she had to do was ask for it.

However, for over 4 years, various interests have asked Huckleberry for information regarding the Regional Transportation Authority (RTA) election on May 16, 2006. At the time of the election, questions arose regarding the election results almost immediately. They persist in the form of a lawsuit in Arizona Superior Court.

The stated goal of a lawsuit filed in Arizona Superior Court by Tucson attorney Bill Risner on behalf of the Libertarian Party is “to protect the “purity of elections” in the future, starting with the 2012 elections. The lawsuit is based on two facts; “At the present time it is easy to cheat using our election computers and impossible to challenge a rigged election.”

The lawsuit alleges that “Pima County, through the direction and control of its county administrator C.H. “Chuck” Huckelberry, has systematically subverted critical controls required to protect the purity of elections. The elimination of those controls has permitted county management to take advantage of the ability to cheat presented by defects in our computerized election system.”

The central allegation in the suit is that “county management fraudulently rigged the Regional Transportation Authority election.”

The Pima County Democratic Party had previously taken on the issue. It was through the Discovery process in that effort, that the current suit bases its allegations. In papers filed with the court, lawyers claim that from “three other lawsuits involving the Pima County Democratic Party and Pima County,” a path was provided “for future discovery that must be followed in this lawsuit.”

The Libertarian Party argues that “The ease of cheating when matched with the impossibility of challenging any specific election requires court intervention in order to protect the purity of elections and ensure that we will have free elections.” They cite three Arizona Constitution sections as the basis of their claim, including Arizona Constitution Art. 2 § 21, which requires all elections to be “free and equal

Lawsuit highlights:

It Is Easy To Cheat With Pima County’s Computerized Election System

The most important legal and factual building block of this lawsuit is the agreed upon fact that it is very easy to cheat with our election computer software. The ease of cheating may be counterintuitive, especially among those least familiar with computers, but it is a fact. The ease of cheating may be a surprise even to those who are familiar with computers but whose familiarity was derived from securely developed programs. Our election computer system has quite simply been built to cheat and, at least for that goal, it has succeeded.

Egypt warns against arming Syria rebels

PressTV

Egyptian Foreign Minister Mohamed Kamel Amr has warned against arming Syrian rebels, saying such a move could lead to a full-blown civil war in Syria.

Amr made the remarks on Monday, calling for a peaceful solution to the situation in the country.

"We want to give a chance for UN-Arab League envoy Kofi Annan's mission to Syria to see what will come of it… I hope that there would be a non-military solution to the crisis through the Arab states' initiative,” he said.

"Arming the Syrian opposition, as Egypt sees it, will increase the rate of killings and will transform the situation in Syria as a whole to a full civil war," Amr added.

The comments came a day after representatives from Western and some Arab states met in Turkey to discuss the situation in Syria.

Oh Canada! Imposing Austerity on the World’s Most Resource-rich Country

Web of Debt
Ellen Brown

Even the world’s most resource-rich country has now been caught in the debt trap. Its once-proud government programs are being subjected to radical budget cuts—cuts that could have been avoided if the government had not quit borrowing from its own central bank in the 1970s.

Last week in Ottawa, the Canadian House of Commons passed the federal government’s latest round of budget cuts and austerity measures. Highlights included chopping 19,200 public sector jobs, cutting federal programs by $5.2 billion per year, and raising the retirement age for millions of Canadians from 65 to 67. The justification for the cuts was a massive federal debt that is now over C$ 581 billion, or 84% of GDP.

An online budget game furnished by the local newspaper the Globe and Mail gave readers a chance to try to balance the budget themselves. Possibilities included slashing transfer payments for elderly benefits, retirement programs, health benefits, and education; cutting funding for transportation, national defense, economic development and foreign aid; and raising taxes. An article on the same page said, “The government, in reality, doesn’t have that many tools at its disposal to close a large budgetary deficit. It can either raise taxes or cut departmental program spending.”

It seems that no gamer, lawmaker or otherwise, was offered the opportunity to toy with the number one line item in the budget: interest to creditors. A chart on the website of the Department of Finance Canada titled “Where Your Tax Dollar Goes” showed interest payments to be 15% of the budget—more than health care, social security, and other transfer payments combined. The page was dated 2006 and was last updated in 2008, but the percentages are presumably little different today.

Penny wise, Pound Foolish

Among other cuts in the 2012 budget, the government announced that it would be discontinuing the minting of Canadian pennies, which now cost more than a penny to make. The government is focusing on the pennies and ignoring the pounds—the massive share of the debt that might be saved by borrowing from the government’s own Bank of Canada.

College Board bars AP Government from teaching US Constitution, US wars

The Examiner
Carl Herman

I have been removed from the Advanced Placement (AP) Government listserve for documenting US Constitution promises compared with these recent US ‘laws’ and actions:

• assassination of Americans upon the non-reviewable dictate of the president,
  
  
• control-drown/waterboarding anyone dictated as a “terrorist” despite all US and international case law finding this to be torture,
  
  
• NDAA 2012 and 2006 Military Commissions Act that state a president can dictate any person as a “terrorist suspect,” and then disappear them without challenge,
  
  
• presidential executive order saying the US government can seize any resource, any person, at any time for “national defense.”
  
  
• US wars and armed attacks that violate treaties after both world wars that make use of military unlawful unless a country’s government attacks first (Kellogg-Briand and UN Charter).

There are ~ 2,000 AP Government teachers worldwide; my communications via the listserve documented these important policies that was news to many who only look to corporate media (who also publish our texts). With these communications to teaching colleagues, I used my “academic voice” rather than the “civic voice” I use as a writer. The difference is my academic voice stays to the law and facts without my interpretation and policy position.

I was informed by the listserve moderator that a Bill Tinkler of the College Board had deemed these posts “non-academic,” of “personal nature,” and “unsuitable” for consideration of teachers in a college-level course on government.

Mr. Tinkler ordered the moderator to remove me from the listserve.

Mr. Tinkler never communicated with me to ask any question or state any argument.

I assume that such action would apply to any teacher who juxtaposed the US Constitution with US policies and wars. Therefore, I’m taking Mr. Tinkler’s initial indirect communication with me to voice the College Board’s opposition to AP Government classes teaching the US Constitution as applied to our most important current events. I welcome Mr. Tinkler’s clarification.

I e-mailed our moderator that:

1. Bill Tinkler will have opportunity to explain his position and cite the evidence.
   
2. If Mr. Tinkler cannot support his censorship, he will reinstate me and I'll post to our 2,000 teachers the professional academic standards of refutation for factual claims. If he can support his censorship, I'd be happy to correct my behavior both to the listserve and to the public audience of up to two million views a month.
   
3. Mr. Tinkler will have two choices: either academic professionalism, or my  ongoing public voice of my findings of AP Government leadership.

I invited our moderator to join my voice of obvious US War Crimes and destruction of the US Constitution, and to help our colleagues overcome cognitive dissonance.
I promise to write with Mr. Tinkler’s response.

Video: ‘Long range acoustic device’ and other weapons used on Palestinians on Land Day

Editor's Note:  Starting to understand the phrase, "We're all Palestinians".

MondoWeiss
Alisson Deger

In Friday's Land Day protests, hundreds of Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza were injured by Israeli dispersal weapons, and one in Gaza was killed. Weapons used against the protesters included tear gas canisters, live bullets, and water cannons. In addition, Israeli forces also used a Long Range Acoustic Device, a sound machine designed to emit a high frequency noise. The machine can be heard in the background of both videos. It sounds like a soft and piercing, high pitch.

In the West Bank over 200 were severely injured and at least nine in Gaza. Tens of Palestinians were also arrested in the West Bank. Russia Today was reporting live, and captured the Israeli weapons as they were used against protestors.

Faster, higher, deadlier: US plans nuclear drones

Russia Today

 The United States is planning on building nuclear-powered drones. The innovation will allow an increase in flying time "from days to months," leaving more power available for operating equipment.

­Research for the project was conducted by Sandia National Laboratories, the US government's principal nuclear research and development agency, and defense contractor Northrop Grumman, the Guardian reports.

The technology is to deal with three problems facing the US’ current drone arsenal: insufficient flying time over a potential target, lack of power for running surveillance and weapons systems, and lack of communications capacity.

The team looked at numerous different power systems for large- and medium-sized drones before settling on the nuclear solution.

The research summary deems the technology as highly efficient, saying the results of the research are “to be used in the next generation of unmanned air vehicles used for military and intelligence applications."

However, there is a big concern over safety as drones have a tendency to crash – and should a nuclear-powered drone fall into the hands of terrorists or unfriendly powers, the consequences could be devastating.

FDA Rejects Monumental BPA Ban

Natural Society
Mike Barrett

It was reported not too long ago that the Food and Drug Administration would make a decision on the banning of the endocrine-disrupting chemical bisphenol-A (BPA). Now, the agency has finally come to a decision, and unsurprisingly, it has decided that there is not enough scientific evidence supporting for the ban of BPA – that is to say, BPA will not be banned from use in food products, plastic packaging, and personal care products.

On Friday the agency made the decision due to lack of scientific evidence to justify the new restrictions, despite tons of evidence showcasing BPAs dangers. The FDA’s problem? Much of the research was performed using mice, and so they claimed that the findings don’t relate to humans.

“While evidence from some studies have raised questions as to whether BPA may be associated with a variety of health effects, there remain serious questions about these studies, particularly as they relate to humans,” the FDA says.

But it seems that many other nations and companies seem to disagree with the FDA, in that they have already taken action in banning or removing the chemical from use. Canada banned BPA from baby bottles in 2007, while the European Union, Turkey, and other countries banned BPA from baby bottled in 2008. What’s more, various companies such as Toys “R” Us and even Walmart claimed to have discontinued use of BPA in children’s items.

While the FDA continues to fall behind many nations in the ban due to ‘lack of scientific evidence’, it seems that the agency secretly doesn’t want the ban altogether. The recent decision made by the FDA was prompted only due to a lawsuit against it after they failed to respond to petition requesting the ban. It took the FDA more than 180 days to respond to the National Resources Defense Council’s petition, which is surpassing a deadline it must reach regarding response to petitions.

BPA has been shown to prompt hyperactivity and depression in young girls, while also being linked to breast cancer in more than 130 studies. Infertility and fertility defects are also caused by BPA exposure. The chemical is used so widely that it has been found in the urine of nearly 93 percent of Americans, with one study finding that eating canned soup can spike urinary bisphenol-A levels by 1,200 percent compared to fresh soup.

Man whose WMD lies led to 100,000 deaths confesses all

The Independent
Jonathan Owen


Defector tells how US officials 'sexed up' his fictions to make the case for 2003 invasion 

A man whose lies helped to make the case for invading Iraq – starting a nine-year war costing more than 100,000 lives and hundreds of billions of pounds – will come clean in his first British television interview tomorrow.

"Curveball", the Iraqi defector who fabricated claims about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction, smiles as he confirms how he made the whole thing up. It was a confidence trick that changed the course of history, with Rafid Ahmed Alwan al-Janabi's lies used to justify the Iraq war.

He tries to defend his actions: "My main purpose was to topple the tyrant in Iraq because the longer this dictator remains in power, the more the Iraqi people will suffer from this regime's oppression."
The chemical engineer claimed to have overseen the building of a mobile biological laboratory when he sought political asylum in Germany in 1999. His lies were presented as "facts and conclusions based on solid intelligence" by Colin Powell, US Secretary of State, when making the case for war at the UN Security Council in February 2003.

But Mr Janabi, speaking in a two-part series, Modern Spies, starting tomorrow on BBC2, says none of it was true. When it is put to him "we went to war in Iraq on a lie. And that lie was your lie", he simply replies: "Yes."

US officials "sexed up" Mr Janabi's drawings of mobile biological weapons labs to make them more presentable, admits Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson, General Powell's former chief of staff. "I brought the White House team in to do the graphics," he says, adding how "intelligence was being worked to fit around the policy".

As for his former boss: "I don't see any way on this earth that Secretary Powell doesn't feel almost a rage about Curveball and the way he was used in regards to that intelligence."

Another revelation in the series is the real reason why the FBI swooped on Russian spy Anna Chapman in 2010. Top officials feared the glamorous Russian agent wanted to seduce one of US President Barack Obama's inner circle. Frank Figliuzzi, the FBI's head of counterintelligence, reveals how she got "closer and closer to higher and higher ranking leadership... she got close enough to disturb us".

Hundreds arrested for swarming NATO HQ in Belgium

PressTV

Police in Belgium have arrested some 483 peace activists from hundreds of protesters, who tried to break into the North Atlantic Treaty Organization headquarters in Brussels.

The Sunday demonstration organized by the Belgian Association Action for Peace was called to protest NATO intervention in Afghanistan and Libya, and nuclear arming.

The activists crossed fields and sought to climb over fences leading to the NATO compound but were stopped by the five to six hundred police officers who were deployed to counter the protesters.

"We neither want the anti-missile shield, nor intervention by NATO in Libya or Afghanistan, nor nuclear bombs that are illegal in our country," a spokesman for Action for Peace, Benoit Calvi said.

Demonstrators most of them in their twenties, came from 10 European countries including Britain, Finland, France, Germany, Spain, and Sweden.

"A military alliance that intervenes all over the world and has nuclear weapons is a threat to world peace," Action for Peace said.

The protest came ahead of next month’s NATO summit in Chicago.