TEPCO says Fukushima clean-up pump isn’t working

Fukushima clean-up system hit by new problem – TEPCO

RT: February 28, 2014

The radioactive water clean-up system at the stricken Fukushima plant was hit by another issue as its alarm went off. The warning alerted that one of the two clean-up pumps had stopped functioning.

After the alarm, a pump for sending tainted water into equipment where radioactive materials are absorbed stopped working, the facility’s operator Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO) said.

The damaged line was one of the two currently in test operation.

With only one line working, the daily clean-up capacity stands at 250 tons per line.

The problem lies in one of the three lines of the Advanced Liquid Processing System (ALPS), according to TEPCO officials, as cited by Jiji, a local media outlet.

By March 2015, TEPCO plans to increase its total ALPS capacity to dispose of 340,000 tons of radioactive water currently stored in tanks, as well as large amounts of infected water in the basements of reactor and other buildings.

This is not the first incident surrounding Fukushima that has emerged this year.

(Read the full article at RT)

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Webcam images from millions of users intercepted by GCHQ

In one six-month period in 2008 alone, the agency collected webcam imagery – including substantial quantities of sexually explicit communications – from more than 1.8 million Yahoo user accounts globally.

Yahoo webcam images from millions of users intercepted by GCHQ

By Spencer Ackerman and James Ball
The Guardian: February 27, 2014

Britain’s surveillance agency GCHQ, with aid from the US National Security Agency, intercepted and stored the webcam images of millions of internet users not suspected of wrongdoing, secret documents reveal.

GCHQ files dating between 2008 and 2010 explicitly state that a surveillance program codenamed Optic Nerve collected still images of Yahoo webcam chats in bulk and saved them to agency databases, regardless of whether individual users were an intelligence target or not.

In one six-month period in 2008 alone, the agency collected webcam imagery – including substantial quantities of sexually explicit communications – from more than 1.8 million Yahoo user accounts globally.

Yahoo reacted furiously to the webcam interception when approached by the Guardian. The company denied any prior knowledge of the program, accusing the agencies of “a whole new level of violation of our users’ privacy”.

GCHQ does not have the technical means to make sure no images of UK or US citizens are collected and stored by the system, and there are no restrictions under UK law to prevent Americans’ images being accessed by British analysts without an individual warrant.

The documents also chronicle GCHQ’s sustained struggle to keep the large store of sexually explicit imagery collected by Optic Nerve away from the eyes of its staff, though there is little discussion about the privacy implications of storing this material in the first place.

Optic Nerve, the documents provided by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden show, began as a prototype in 2008 and was still active in 2012, according to an internal GCHQ wiki page accessed that year.

The system, eerily reminiscent of the telescreens evoked in George Orwell’s 1984, was used for experiments in automated facial recognition, to monitor GCHQ’s existing targets, and to discover new targets of interest. Such searches could be used to try to find terror suspects or criminals making use of multiple, anonymous user IDs.

Rather than collecting webcam chats in their entirety, the program saved one image every five minutes from the users’ feeds, partly to comply with human rights legislation, and also to avoid overloading GCHQ’s servers. The documents describe these users as “unselected” – intelligence agency parlance for bulk rather than targeted collection.

One document even likened the program’s “bulk access to Yahoo webcam images/events” to a massive digital police mugbook of previously arrested individuals.

“Face detection has the potential to aid selection of useful images for ‘mugshots’ or even for face recognition by assessing the angle of the face,” it reads. “The best images are ones where the person is facing the camera with their face upright.”

The agency did make efforts to limit analysts’ ability to see webcam images, restricting bulk searches to metadata only.

However, analysts were shown the faces of people with similar usernames to surveillance targets, potentially dragging in large numbers of innocent people. One document tells agency staff they were allowed to display “webcam images associated with similar Yahoo identifiers to your known target”.

Optic Nerve was based on collecting information from GCHQ’s huge network of internet cable taps, which was then processed and fed into systems provided by the NSA. Webcam information was fed into NSA’s XKeyscore search tool, and NSA research was used to build the tool which identified Yahoo’s webcam traffic.

(Read the full report at The Guardian)

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U.S. Government & Mexican Cartel Partners in Drug Plot?

By Clarence Walker
Gangsters Inc.: February 25, 2014

The recent capture in Mexico of Sinaloa Cartel leader Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, the world’s richest, most dangerous and powerful drug lord labeled by U.S. Government as Public Enemy Number 1. Guzman’s high-profile arrest has triggered a worldwide news media frenzy as government authorities here in the U.S. and abroad work together to take down the remaining Mexico’s Cartel leaders and their henchmen. Responsible for thousands of drug-related murders and once considered the most elusive wanted outlaw behind Osama bin Laden, Joaquin Guzman is the biggest story in the drug world.

But there is another story with links to Guzman’s empire that is expected to take center stage in trial later this year in Chicago involving one of Guzman’s top operatives, a trial that will bear Guzman’s bloody hands in the dope trade, and expose him as one of the world’s worst turncoats to enter the narcotic game.

Recent allegations circulating in the global media allege that Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) and other federal agents had forged a secret alliance with top level Sinaloa drug cartel members by permitting the narco gangsters to traffic drugs into the U.S., and in a reverse sting, the DEA is accused of allegedly allowing the dealers to ship U.S. made weapons into Mexico without facing prosecution. All this work was done on behalf of the U.S. government to achieve the government’s grand mission to play one cartel off another to destroy feuding narcotic organizations.

These allegations have triggered a firestorm of controversy and conspiracy theories in the Mexican nation and throughout the United States as well.

Informants from the Sinaloa Cartel who once worked for the federal government by snitching off on other cartel groups now feel betrayed by arguing the U.S. Government reneged on a promise to grant the Sinaloa immunity from prosecution as long as they provided secret information on their rivals.

“I was an informant for U.S. Federal Agents, and the agents cut a deal with (me), and members of the Sinaloa Cartel that allowed us to traffic tons of narcotics into the U.S., and to traffic illegal guns across the Mexico-U.S. Border without fear of prosecution under an immunity agreement,” said Vicente Zambada-Niebla in a bombshell court filing in federal court in Chicago Illinois.

As the logistical coordinator for the Sinaloa, the sweeping indictment against Zambada-Niebla and 36 co-defendants, allege that the traffickers conspired to import tons of cocaine and “multi-kilo” quantities of cocaine, heroin and marijuana into Chicago Illinois and throughout other U.S. cities between 2005 and 2008. Zambada (right) coordinated the drug loads by using trains, ships, Boeing 747 cargo jets and even submarines.

Extradited from Mexico to Illinois in February 2010 where he is confined in maximum security lockup under 24-hour security awaiting trial, Zambada-Niebla made quick attempts to get off the hook by filing multiple motions in late 2011 to present a “Public Authority” Defense.”

According to federal statue, to mount a Public Authority Defense, the court must find the defendant, “knowingly committed criminal acts but did so in reasonable reliance upon a grant of authority from a government official who had actual authority as opposed to merely authority.”

The major distinction between “actual authority” and “merely authority” boils down to this: If DEA or FBI agents told Zambada-Niebla that he could traffic drugs into the U.S. without facing arrest by snitching on other cartel groups this “merely authority”, as opposed to the higher echelon of “actual authority”, which such agreements are similar to immunity, must first be approved by Justice Department officials.

Federal prosecutors fired back. They suggested during court hearings on the matter that “even if Zambada-Niebla was an informant that he was not authorized to commit the drug crimes as alleged in the indictment.”

The almighty Feds added that Zambada should not be allowed to use the Public Authority Defense unless he can provide the names of agents or officials who approved his illegal activities.

Here’s where things get sticky. Most of the Sinaloa Cartel communications with the DEA were through the Sinaloa’s lawyer identified as Humberto-Loya Castro, according to Zambada Niebla.

Zambada-Niebla is the son of Ismael Zambada-Garcia who is second in charge of the Sinaloa cartel behind top boss Jose “El Chapo” Guzman (right). Sinaloa lawyer Humberto Loya-Castro became a DEA informant in 1995, after being indicted on cocaine conspiracy charges along with top boss Joaquin Guzman. These ongoing controversial stories follow years of suspicion that Guzman who controls the Sinaloa has only succeeded in eluding capture because of his fellow members cooperating with U.S. federal agents, and Mexico authorities.

Guzman is well known for using government authorities against his enemies like he did against rivals within his own organizations identified as Alfredo Beltran and Ignacio “El Nacho” Villareal.

Newspaper Story Controversy and Past Government Corruption

According to a story in the January issue of El Universal, Mexico’s leading newspaper, the team writers reported in an investigative expose that after interviewing numerous sources and reading voluminous court records documented by Mexico and the U.S., that the American Feds worked closely with the Sinaloa Cartel from 2000 to 2012—as part of a “divide and conquer” strategy to eliminate dope rivals competing against the Sinaloa in exchange for the Sinaloa players to provide the government with damaging information on targeted rivals like the blood thirsty Zetas and the La Familia groups.

To prove the government engaged in previous similar practices, court filings by Zambada-Niebla’s attorneys also pointed out: “The United States Government and its various agencies have a long history of providing benefits, permission and immunity to criminals and their organizations to commit crimes, including murder, in return for receiving information against other criminals,” the court motion said.

Attorneys compared Zambada-Niebla’s case with another high-profile case: “Perhaps no better example, is the celebrated case of Whitey Bulger, the Boston Irish crime boss and murderer, who, along with other group members of criminal organizations were given “Carte Blanche” authority by the FBI to commit murders to help the FBI take down the Italian Mafia in the New England area.”

Subsequently Whitey Bulger was convicted of several murders, drug trafficking, racketeering and obstruction of justice.

Government complicity in the drug trade is not new.

During the early 1990’s, the American-based CIA and cabinet members of then-President Ronald Reagan participated in the Iran-Contra scandal by allowing cocaine to be sold throughout America’s ghettos.

To fund the Contra Rebels war against Nicaragua’s socialist government the CIA teamed with Colombian Cartels to traffic drugs into Los Angeles California and throughout the nation, with the profits shipped back to Central America.
Utilizing every trick in the bag to get off the hook, Zambada Niebla unloaded another bombshell by disclosing another secret the Sinaloa had with the government.

He insisted that himself and cartel allies were in cahoots with the Fast and Furious investigation orchestrated by the ATF (Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearm), a gun-walk program responsible for agents allowing informants to traffic into Mexico a cache of American purchased weapons in efforts to build federal weapons charges against targeted cartel organizations.

Zambada’s court depositions further stated that a second part of the immunity agreement,” the ATF armed the Sinaloans with several high-caliber assault rifles to use the firepower to destroy rival drug dealers.”

Led by Senator Darrell Issa (R-Calif), Fast and Furious later became the target of critical Senate hearings to determine which members of the Justice Department authorized the gun-walk operation that reeled in only 34 gun traffickers.

Referring to ATF’s Fast and Furious investigation, Zambada’s attorneys, George Panzer and George Santiangelo further argued in court that if the government will allow guns to be transported across the Mexico-U.S. Border and tried to cover-up the botched scheme then the government is capable of allowing the Sinaloa Cartel to ship illegal drugs into the United States. ATF lost track of approximately 1,700 guns as part of the ill-fated operation including the recovery of an AK-47 used by a Mexican National in December 2010, to murder Brian Terry, a Customs-Border Protection Agent.

Aside from his drug immunity claim, Zambada’s version about his role in “Fast and Furious” raise suspicion for a number of reasons, the most obvious being is that Zambada was arrested in March 2009–more than six months before ATF initiated Fast and Furious.

Despite this red flag, it didn’t stop news blogs and conservative online media from reporting Zambada’s claim about his part in the gun-walk program. Nor has it stopped El Universal stories from inferring that DEA was guilty of granting immunity to the Sinaloa cartel, but once the government used the members to achieve their goal they reneged on the immunity deal.

Even without a written immunity agreement, crack lawyers for Zambada-Niebla went a step further by invoking the Classified Information Procedure Act (CIPA). CIPA is a law focused on showing the government is hiding evidence to exonerate a defendant. No hearing has been set on this matter.

Following El Universal’s big scoop story, many news agencies scrambled to write a titillating spin to vilify the government as conspirators with drug cartels. What sounded like a great story but either the reporting team honestly forgot or downplayed the significant decision of Illinois Federal Judge Ruben Castillo who has already ruled in 2012, that Zambada’s evidence heard in court failed to prove the government granted him immunity from prosecution.

So why did the El Universal story slant its piece to infer that newly released U.S. Government documents suggested a conspiracy between the Sinaloa Cartel and DEA agents simply because DEA admitted meeting with Zambada-Niebla and Sinaloa lawyer Humberto Loya-Castro to discuss information that Zambada wanted to give up on other narco traffickers.

Here are excerpts of the release of U.S. Government documents which firmly refute Zambada’s immunity claims:

(1) DEA agents and Justice Department officials met with Sinaloa and Gulf Cartel top-level members to gather information on other rivals.

(2) During a series of meetings U.S. Officials succeeded in establishing a network of cartel informants.

(3) DEA passed the obtained information from the cooperating cartels to Mexican authorities who used the intelligence to execute narcotic raids.

(4) Mexican authorities never revealed to Mexican media exactly where the information came from that took down high-level dealers and killer squads.

The Mexican government emphasized in their written court response that meeting with cartel members to get information only represents normal intelligence gathering procedure.

(Read the full report at Gangsters Inc.)

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Alberta doctor tells U.S.: Canada is ‘lying’ about tar sands’ health effects

American Senators told that oil sands are linked to a huge spike in cancer, despite Canadian government claims

By Mychaylo Prystupa
Vancouver Observer: February 26, 2014

A northern Alberta doctor warned U.S. Senators on what he says have been the devastating health impacts of the tar sands on families – effects, he says, that have been willfully “ignored” by the Canadian and Alberta governments.

“I appeal to you to keep up the pressure – this is an ongoing tragedy. A total disgrace,” said Dr. John O’Connor, Wednesday in Washington, D.C.

He sighted statistics for rare cancers – of the bile duct for example – that have shot up 400 times for what is considered normal for a tiny community, such as Fort Chipewyan – which is downstream, to the north of the oil sands.

“These are published, peer-reviewed studies that indicate that the government of Alberta and Canada have been lying, misrepresenting the impact of industry on the environment,” said O’Connor.

The Alberta government has long denied cancer links with the province’s multi-billion-dollar crown energy jewel. It states on its website that there is “insufficient evidence to link the incidence of cancer in Fort Chipewyan to oil sands operations” and rates of cancer are “within the expected range.”
O’Connor finds that hard to believe.

“All of the scientific studies that have accumulated, it’s almost like they don’t exist,” he said.

A new study for example, shows Leukaemia and non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma have spiked in the last 10 years — especially among men who live downwind of pollution plumes from the oil, gas and tar sands facilities east of Edmonton.

(Article continues at Vancouver Observer)

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The Entrapment of Jesse Snodgrass

He was a friendless high school loner struggling with autism. So why did an undercover cop target him as a drug dealer?
By Sabrina Rubin Erdely
Rolling Stone: February 26, 2014

Jesse Snodgrass plodded around yet another stucco corner, searching for Room 254 in time for the second-period bell, only to find he was lost yet again. Jesse felt a familiar surge of panic. He was new to Chaparral High School and still hadn’t figured out how to navigate the sprawling Southern California campus with its outdoor maze of identical courtyards studded with baby palm trees. Gripping his backpack straps, the 17-year-old took some deep breaths. Gliding all around him were his new peers, chatting as they walked in slouchy pairs and in packs. Many of their mouths were turned up, baring teeth, which Jesse recognized as smiles, a signal that they were happy. Once he regained his composure, he followed the spray-painted Chaparral Puma paw prints on the ground, his gait stiff and soldierly, and prayed that his classroom would materialize. He was already prepared to declare his third day of school a disaster.

At last, Jesse found his art class, where students were milling about in the final moments before the bell. He had resigned himself to maintaining a dignified silence when a slightly stocky kid with light-brown hair ambled over and said, “Hi.”

“Hi,” Jesse answered cautiously. Nearly six feet tall, Jesse glanced down to scan the kid’s heart-shaped face, and seeing the corners of his mouth were turned up, Jesse relaxed a bit. The kid introduced himself as Daniel Briggs. Daniel told Jesse that he, too, was new to Chaparral – he’d just moved from Redlands, an hour away, to the suburb of Temecula – and, like Jesse, who’d recently relocated from the other side of town, was starting his senior year.

Jesse squinted and took a long moment to mull over Daniel’s words. Meanwhile, Daniel sized up Jesse, taking in his muscular build and clenched jaw that topped off Jesse’s skater-tough look: Metal Mulisha T-shirt, calf-length Dickies, buzz-cut hair and a stiff-brimmed baseball hat. A classic suburban thug. Lowering his voice, Daniel asked if Jesse knew where he might be able to get some weed.

“Yeah, man, I can get you some,” Jesse answered in his slow monotone, every word stretched out and articulated with odd precision. Daniel asked for his phone number, and Jesse obliged, his insides roiling with both triumph and anxiety. On one hand, Jesse could hardly believe his good fortune: His conversation with Daniel would stand as the only meaningful interaction he’d have with another kid all day. On the other hand, Jesse had no idea where to get marijuana. All Jesse knew in August 2012 was that he had somehow made a friend.

Though it smacks of suburban myth or TV make­believe, undercover drug stings occur in high schools with surprising frequency, with self-consciously dopey names like “Operation D-Minus” and, naturally, “Operation Jump Street.” They’re elaborate stings in which adult undercover officers go to great lengths to pass as authentic teens: turning in homework, enduring detention, attending house parties and using current slang, having Googled the terms beforehand to ensure their correctness. In Tennessee last year, a 22-year-old policewoman emerging from 10 months undercover credited her mom’s job as an acting coach as key to her performance as a drug-seeking­ student, which was convincing enough to have 14 people arrested. Other operations go even further to establish veracity, like a San Diego-area sting last year that practically elevated policing to performance art, in which three undercover deputies had “parents” who attended back-to-school nights; announcing the first of the sting’s 19 arrests, Sheriff Bill Gore boasted this method of snaring teens was “almost too easy.”

The practice was first pioneered in 1974 by the LAPD, which soon staged annual undercover busts that most years arrested scores of high schoolers; by the Eighties, it had spread as a favored strategy in the War on Drugs. Communities loved it: Each bust generated headlines and reassured citizens that police were proactively combating drugs. Cops loved the stings, too, which not only served as a major morale boost but could also be lucrative. “Any increase in narcotics arrests is good for police departments. It’s all about numbers,” says former LAPD Deputy Chief Stephen Downing, who now works with the advocacy group Law Enforcement Against Prohibition and views these operations with scorn. “This is not about public safety – the public is no safer, and the school grounds are no safer. The more arrests you have, the more funding you can get through federal grants and overtime.”

Yet despite the busts’ popularity, their inner workings were shrouded in secrecy, with few details publicly released about their tactics and overall effectiveness. And as time went on, officers and school administrators became alarmed by the results they saw: large numbers of kids arrested for small quantities of drugs – and who, due to “zero tolerance” policies, were usually expelled from school. No studies appear to exist on the efficacy of high school drug stings, but the data on undercover operations in general isn’t encouraging. A 2007 Department of Justice-funded meta-analysis slammed the practice of police sting operations, finding that they reduce crime for a limited time – three months to a year – if at all. “At best, they are a stopgap measure,” and at worst, an expensive waste of police resources, which “may prevent the use of other, more effective problem­solving techniques.” The federal study concludes that sting operations reap little more than one consistent benefit: “favorable publicity” for police.

To be sure, public-relations speed bumps have appeared now and again, like when a female LAPD narc allegedly romanced a high school football player, which surfaced via her steamy love letters, or when a developmentally disabled child was swept up in another L.A. bust after selling $9 worth of marijuana to an undercover. But until now, no department seems to have gone so far as to lay a trap for an autistic kid.

(Article continues at Rolling Stone)

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Some Israeli killings of Palestinian civilians in West Bank may be war crimes

RT: February 27, 2014

Israeli forces have killed dozens of Palestinian civilians, including children, over the last three years, and with almost complete impunity, according to the latest Amnesty International report.

Some of the killings were unnecessary and willful, which may qualify them as war crimes.

The report called “Trigger-happy: Israel’s use of excessive force in the West Bank” reveals the unnecessary and brutal killings, as well as human rights abuses in the Occupied Palestinian Territories.

The Palestinians killed by Israelis didn’t present an immediate or direct threat to the soldiers’ lives – in all cases studied by Amnesty since 2011, the human rights group’s website stated. In a few incidents, the killings were apparently willful, which would amount to war crimes.

Several victims were shot in the back, allegedly trying to flee and posing no danger to the Israeli military forces, others were stone-throwing demonstrators attacked by lethal means.

“The report presents a body of evidence that shows a harrowing pattern of unlawful killings and unwarranted injuries of Palestinian civilians by Israeli forces in the West Bank,” Philip Luther, director of the Middle East and North Africa program at Amnesty International, said.

In the latest incident Thursday, Israeli forces opened fire and killed a Palestinian man they were seeking to arrest in the occupied West Bank, after he barricaded himself inside his house, Reuters reported. An eyewitness told the news agency that no shots were heard from inside the home before the Israeli forces opened fire.

Despite many incidents having happened a few years ago, the findings of the investigations haven’t been disclosed.

The Amnesty officials are sure that those are not separate incidents, but Israeli government policy.

“The frequency and persistence of arbitrary and abusive force against peaceful protesters in the West Bank by Israeli soldiers and police officers – and the impunity enjoyed by perpetrators – suggests that it is carried out as a matter of policy,” Luther said.

(Read the full report at RT)

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Corporate welfare study breaks down $110 billion in subsidies

By AlternativeFreePress.com

“Subsidizing the Corporate One Percent” breaks down $110 billion in corporate welfare and highlights how big business is being propped up and bailed out, while the middle class disappears. The study details several layers of holding companies, shell firms and ownership agreements.

Good Jobs First discovered that $110 billion — 75% of cumulative disclosed subsidy dollars — are going to just 965 large companies.

This report is detailed, but also highlights the inconsistent quality of state and local disclosure as the award numbers include some for which no dollar amount has been disclosed.

Dow Chemical was awarded 416 subsides. Following it are Berkshire Hathaway (310), General Motors (307), Wal-Mart Stores (261), General Electric (255), Walgreen (225) and FedEx (222). Cumulatively, Boeing, has received more than $13 billion.

These 965 corporate welfare bums averaged 26 subsidies each and the average total dollar amount (from awards for which this information is disclosed) is $102 million.

1 Boeing
$13,174,075,797
137
2 Alcoa
$5,635,305,059
91
3 Intel
$3,867,492,085
58
4 General Motors
$3,494,237,703
307
5 Ford Motor
$2,522,304,454
173
6 Fiat
$2,060,988,039
93
7 Royal Dutch Shell
$2,038,202,298
66
8 Nike
$2,024,582,002
23
9 Nissan
$1,799,585,041
25
10 Cerner
$1,732,784,334
15
11 Cheniere Energy
$1,693,646,504
10
12 Dow Chemical
$1,408,228,374
416
13 ArcelorMittal
$1,338,284,411
58
14 Advanced Technology
Investment
$1,224,997,961
4
15 Berkshire Hathaway
$1,063,809,399
310
16 Toyota
$1,051,586,557
77
17 IBM
$1,026,845,249
208
18 Delta Air Lines
$869,754,989
7
19 Texas Instruments
$727,848,327
39
20 Pyramid Companies
$703,596,595
15
21 Goldman Sachs
$661,979,222
28
22 Volkswagen
$657,778,311
14
23 JPMorgan Chase
$653,474,481
133
24 Hyundai Motor
$649,041,683
7
25 Google
$632,044,922
26
26 Teck Resources
$597,871,991
5
27 Mayo Clinic
$585,000,000
1
28 Forest City Enterprises
$582,389,708
37
29 Clean Coal Power Operations
$550,000,000
1
30 Sematech
$550,000,000
3
31 Scripps Research Institute
$545,000,000
1
32 Daimler
$544,749,000
42
33 Nucor
$534,974,717
46
34 Sears
$534,616,673
54
35 Silver Lake
$482,025,256
85
36 FedEx
$456,750,126
222
37 NRG Energy
$449,990,674
49
38 Apple
$446,485,233
6
39 Honda
$438,179,224
38
40 McEagle Properties
$430,650,000
5
41 Cornell University
$400,000,000
1
42 Shin-Etsu Chemical
$398,842,605
40
43 Severstal
$396,013,300
26
44 General Electric
$394,212,107
255
45 Onex
$388,603,757
118
46 Walt Disney
$381,525,727
36
47 Mitsubishi Group
$379,243,036
42
48 Morgan Stanley
$366,284,480
47
49 Triple Five Worldwide
$358,000,000
2
50 Michelin
$357,416,880
46
51Community Health Systems
$355,703,779
94
52 Aker Philadelphia Shipyard
$350,000,000
1
53 H&R Block
$341,317,824
9
54 Exxon Mobil
$340,271,846
71
55 United Continental
$337,081,638
20
56 Amazon.com
$330,756,147
39
57 LG
$327,082,717
14
58 Duke Energy
$325,877,242
15
59 Revel AC
$323,000,000
2
60 Samsung
$317,148,838
17
61 Huntington Ingalls
Industries
$312,056,400
5
62 Weyerhaeuser
$300,575,457
92
63 Orca Bay Seafoods
$296,849,235
6
64 Jackson Laboratory
$291,000,000
1
65 Anschutz Company
$290,000,045
4
66 Areva
$289,116,137
13
67 Citigroup
$286,228,767
64
68 Sasol
$279,262,538
27
69 Peabody Energy
$278,095,289
22
70 Electrolux
$278,068,356
19
71 ConAgra Foods
$271,306,014
145
72 Nestle
$264,262,725
163
73 General Dynamics
$262,528,332
84
74 Valero Energy
$262,298,522
54
75 Yahoo
$261,078,455
17
76 Eli Lilly
$258,216,376
15
77 BMW
$254,326,405
13
78 Orascom Group
$251,000,000
1
79 UBS
$247,608,178
11
80 Cabela’s
$247,189,539
16
81 Wacker Chemie
$241,325,051
34
82 Comcast
$239,337,579
62
83 Sanford-Burnham Institute
$233,600,000
2
84 Virdia
$230,000,000
1
85 Prudential Financial
$225,734,997
30
86 International Paper
$222,836,793
196
87 Baxter International
$212,892,487
20
88 Pfizer
$210,072,210
123
89 Johnson Controls
$210,010,267
106
90 Caterpillar
$208,982,443
127
91 Blackstone
$203,193,594
141
92 Convergys
$199,690,351
21
93 Triumph Group
$196,342,629
57
94 Max Planck Florida Institute
$193,000,000
2
95 Goodyear Tire & Rubber
$190,432,390
118
96 CME Group
$188,000,000
6
97 Simon Property
$187,000,000
2
98 Summit Power
$183,221,842
2
99 CA Inc.
$181,258,193
20
100 Bank of America
$179,959,106
119

Sources for this article:
1. Subsidizing the Corporate One Percent: Subsidy Tracker 2.0 Reveals Big-Business Dominance of State and Local Development Incentives by Philip Mattera http://www.goodjobsfirst.org/sites/default/files/docs/pdf/subsidizingthecorporateonepercent.pdf

Written by Alternative Free Press
Creative Commons License
Corporate welfare study breaks down $110 billion in subsidies by AlternativeFreePress.com is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

Is Roundup the Cause of ‘Gluten Intolerance’?

A compelling new peer-reviewed report from two U.S. scientists argues that increased use of Monsanto’s glyphosate herbicide (trade name Roundup) could be the cause of the epidemic of symptoms labeled as “gluten intolerance.”

From the Journal of Interdisciplinary Toxicology
motherearthnews: Feb. 25, 2014

Is Roundup the Cause of ‘Gluten Intolerance’?

Increased use of Monsanto’s glyphosate herbicide (trade name Roundup) could be the cause of the epidemic of “gluten intolerance”, according to a compelling new peer-reviewed report from two U.S. scientists. Farmers are now using glyphosate not only to control weeds but also to dry down wheat, rice, sugarcane and other crops just before harvest, resulting in higher residues in the foods we eat. The abstract from the paper “Glyphosate, Pathways to Modern Diseases II: Celiac Sprue and Gluten Intolerance” is below. You can read the full report here and view graphs in the Slideshow connecting increased use of glyphosate with growing rates of celiac incidence, deaths from intestinal infections, acute kidney disease and deaths due to Parkinson’s.

Abstract:
Celiac disease, and more generally, gluten intolerance, is a growing problem worldwide, but especially in North America and Europe, where an estimated 5 percent of the population now suffers from it. Symptoms include nausea, diarrhea, skin rashes, macrocytic anemia and depression. It is a multifactorial disease associated with numerous nutritional deficiencies as well as reproductive issues and increased risk to thyroid disease, kidney failure and cancer. Here, we propose that glyphosate, the active ingredient in the herbicide, Roundup, is the most important causal factor of this epidemic. Fish exposed to glyphosate develop digestive problems that are reminiscent of celiac disease. Celiac disease is associated with imbalances of gut bacteria that can be fully explained by the known effects of glyphosate on gut bacteria. Characteristics of celiac disease point to impairment in many cytochrome P450 enzymes, which are involved with detoxifying environmental toxins, activating vitamin D3, catabolizing vitamin A, and maintaining bile acid production and sulfate supplies to the gut. Glyphosate is known to inhibit cytochrome P450 enzymes. Deficiencies in iron, cobalt, molybdenum, copper and other rare metals associated with celiac disease can be attributed to glyphosate’s strong ability to chelate these elements. Deficiencies in tryptophan, tyrosine, methionine, and selenomethionine associated with celiac disease match glyphosate’s known depletion of these amino acids. Celiac disease patients have an increased risk to non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, which has been implicated in glyphosate exposure. Glyphosate residues in wheat and other crops are likely increasing recently due to the growing practice of crop desiccation just prior to harvest. We argue that the practice of “ripening” sugar cane with glyphosate may explain the recent surge in kidney failure among agricultural workers in Central America. We conclude with a plea to governments to reconsider policies regarding the safety of glyphosate residues in foods

(Read the full report at motherearthnews.com from the Journal of Interdisciplinary Toxicology)

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Alternative Free Press -fair use-

Fukushima’s Radioactive Ocean Water Arrives In Canada

Fukushima’s Radioactive Ocean Water Arrives At West Coast

By Becky Oskin
LiveScience.com: February 24, 2014

Radiation from Japan’s leaking Fukushima nuclear power plant has reached waters offshore Canada, researchers said today at the annual American Geophysical Union’s Ocean Sciences Meeting in Honolulu.

Two radioactive cesium isotopes, cesium-134 and cesium-137, have been detected offshore of Vancouver, British Columbia, researchers said at a news conference. The detected concentrations are much lower than the Canadian safety limit for cesium levels in drinking water, said John Smith, a research scientist at Canada’s Bedford Institute of Oceanography in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia.

Tests conducted at U.S. beaches indicate that Fukushima radioactivity has not yet reached Washington, California or Hawaii, said Ken Buesseler, a senior scientist at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute in Woods Hole, Mass.

“We have results from eight locations, and they all have cesium-137, but no cesium-134 yet,” Buesseler said. (Isotopes are atoms of the same element that have different numbers of neutrons in their nuclei. In this case, cesium-137 has more neutrons than cesium-134.)

The scientists are tracking a radioactive plume from Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. Three nuclear reactors at the power plant melted down after the March 11, 2011, Tohoku earthquake. The meltdown was triggered by the massive tsunami that followed the quake.

Cesium signals

The initial nuclear accident from the Fukushima reactors released several radioactive isotopes, such as iodine-131, cesium-134 and cesium-137. Cesium-137 has a half-life of 30 years and remains in the environment for decades. Cesium-134, with a half-life of only two years, is an unequivocal marker of Fukushima ocean contamination, Smith said.

“The only cesium-134 in the North Pacific is there from Fukushima,” he said. Cesium-137, on the other hand, is also present from nuclear weapons tests and discharge from nuclear power plants.

Smith and his colleagues tracked rising levels of cesium-134 at several ocean monitoring stations west of Vancouver in the North Pacific beginning in 2011. By June 2013, the concentration reached 0.9 Becquerels per cubic meter, Smith said. All of the cesium-134 was concentrated in the upper 325 feet (100 m) of the ocean, he said. They are awaiting results from a February 2014 sampling trip.

The U.S. safety limit for cesium levels in drinking water is about 28 Becquerels, the number of radioactive decay events per second, per gallon (or 7,400 Becquerels per cubic meter). For comparison, uncontaminated seawater contains only a few Becquerels per cubic meter of cesium.

Cesium-137 levels at U.S. beaches were 1.3 to 1.7 Becquerels per cubic meter, Buesseler said. That’s similar to background levels in the ocean from nuclear weapons testing, suggesting the Fukushima plume has not reached the U.S. coastline yet, he said.

The new monitoring data does not show which of two competing models best predicts the future concentration of Fukushima radiation along the U.S. West Coast, Smith said. These models suggest that radionuclides from Fukushima will begin to arrive on the West Coast in early 2014 and peak in 2016. However, the models differ in their predictions of the peak concentration of cesium — from a low of 2 to a maximum of 27 Becquerels per cubic meter. Both peaks are well below the highest level recorded in the Baltic Sea after Chernobyl, which was 1,000 Becquerels per cubic meter.

“It’s still a little too early to know which one is correct,” Smith said.

(Read the full article at LiveScience)

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Alternative Free Press -fair use-

Study shows THC blood tests can’t test impairment

By AlternativeFreePress.com

Per se laws criminalize blood content rather than impaired driving. This is systemic chemical bigotry and these laws are ineffective at detecting or deterring impairment.

A new study examines the plasma and blood levels of both occasional and frequent cannabis users, before and after smoking cannabis: “Frequent and occasional smokers resided on a closed research unit and smoked one 6.8% THC cannabis cigarette ad libitum. Blood and plasma cannabinoids were quantified on admission (approximately 19 h before), 1 h before, and up to 15 times (0.5–30 h) after smoking.”

“Cannabinoid blood and plasma concentrations were significantly higher in frequent smokers compared with occasional smokers at most time points for THC and 11-OH-THC and at all time points for THCCOOH and THCCOO-glucuronide.” Both the participants’ baseline concentration levels & how much THC was in their blood when the study began did not change the outcome. The study found that the median time blood THC levels over 5 ng/ml were detectable was 3.5 hours in frequent smokers (ranging from 1.1 – 30 hours), and 1 hour in most occasional smokers (ranging from 0 – 2.1 hours). Particularly interesting is that 2 occasional smokers did not test over 5 ng/ml at all.

These results highlight how occasional cannabis users could pass a blood test even if impaired while a frequent cannabis user would fail even when not impaired at all. There is a dramatic difference in the amount of time THC remains in the blood of users that is not based on the amount of cannabis consumed, but rather on the frequency of cannabis use. Because THC remains in frequent users blood much longer than in those who consume cannabis occasionally, frequent cannabis users are significantly more likely to be charged with impaired driving despite their lower chance of impairment due to higher tolerance and experience. A first time user with no experience or tolerance would very likely pass a roadside blood test while being the most likely users to feel impaired.

The study concludes; “Cannabis smoking history plays a major role in cannabinoid detection. These differences may impact clinical and impaired driving drug detection.”

Testing drivers blood for ng/ml of THC is stupid policy which does not determine if a driver is impaired. On top of the policy being ineffective at determining impairment, decades of studies show that cannabis does not typically impair driving to begin with.

Cannabis users are safe drivers

In 1983 a study by the US National Highway Transportation Safety Administration (NHTSA) tested drivers on simulators, and concluded that the only statistically significant effect associated with marijuana use was slower driving. A NHTSA study in 1992 found that marijuana is rarely involved in driving accidents, except when combined with alcohol, concluding, “the THC-only drivers had an [accident] responsibility rate below that of the drug free drivers. While the difference was not statistically significant, there was no indication that cannabis by itself was a cause of fatal crashes.” A separate NHTSA study from1993 tested Dutch drivers high on THC on real Dutch roads, concluding, “THC’s adverse effects on driving performance appear relatively small.” In 1998 a study by the University of Adelaide and Transport South Australia analyzed blood samples from 2,500 accidents, and found that drivers with cannabis in their system were less likely to cause accidents than those without. A University of Toronto study from 1999 found that cannabis users typically refrained from passing cars and drove at a more consistent speed than sober drivers.

More recently, studies have found that fatal car accidents are reduced by 9% when medicinal marijuana is legalized. The rate of fatal crashes where a driver has consumed alcohol drops by 12% and crashes involving high levels of alcohol fall by 14%.

Sources for this article:
1. Phase I and II Cannabinoid Disposition in Blood and Plasma of Occasional and Frequent Smokers Following Controlled Smoked Cannabis. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24563491?report=abstract

2. Stoned Drivers Are Safe Drivers http://www.cannabisculture.com/articles/1775.html

3. Why Medical Marijuana Laws Reduce Traffic Deaths http://healthland.time.com/2011/12/02/why-medical-marijuana-laws-reduce-traffic-deaths/

RELATED : Since Marijuana Legalization Highway Fatalities in Colorado are at Near Historic Lows

Written by Alternative Free Press
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