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Radiation To Cover Entire Hemisphere

Swedish Government: Radiation To Cover Entire Northern Hemisphere

Amplify’d from www.infowars.com

Paul Joseph Watson

Infowars.com

March 17, 2011

Swedish Government: Radiation To Cover Entire Northern Hemisphere 170311top2

Suggesting that levels of radiation leaks from the stricken Fukushima plant are being grossly underreported by Japanese authorities, a Swedish government agency told Reuters today that not only will the radiation reach North America, but it will subsequently cover the entire northern hemisphere.

“Lars-Erik De Geer, research director at the Swedish Defense Research Institute, a government agency, was citing data from a network of international monitoring stations established to detect signs of any nuclear weapons tests,” reports Reuters.

“Stressing that the levels were not dangerous for people, he predicted the particles would continue across the Atlantic and eventually also reach Europe.”

De Geer said he was “convinced it would eventually be detected over the whole northern hemisphere,” according to the report, adding that radioactive particles would “eventually also come here,” referring to Europe.

De Geer’s prognosis arrives on the back of a study of data by the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty Organization, which confirmed that the radioactive plume from Fukushima would reach the Aleutian Islands on Thursday before hitting southern California late on Friday. The CBTO has a network of radiation monitors deployed globally that can detect radioactive particles such as caesium and iodine isotopes.

Experts are correct in assuming that the initial waves of radiation will be low, but expect levels to rise in subsequent days as the effects of the three blasts to impact the Fukushima facility, which occurred on Saturday, Monday and Tuesday, manifest themselves in the form of increased radiation injected into the atmosphere.

“Naturally, with the credibility of every government around the world shot, it is no surprise that most consumer Geiger counter stores are sold out of inventory at this point, at virtually all price points,” writes Tyler Durden.

As we reported earlier, having confidence in the trustworthiness of governments globally who have habitually lied about the true threat posed by radiation, notably after the 3 Mile Island accident and the Chernobyl disaster, is somewhat less than wise.

However, at least the Swedes can be trusted to know a thing or two about detecting radiation. While the Soviets were furiously engaged in a cover-up of the Chernobyl disaster which occurred on April 26 1986, Swedish workers at the Forsmark Nuclear Power Plant were the first ones to detect the fallout from the accident two days later on April 28.

It was only after the workers failed to find the source of any radioactive leak at their own plant that the true horror of what had happened 1,100 km (680 miles) away in the western Soviet Union began to unravel.

The whole planet is united in hoping that Japanese technicians find some way to restore power and water cooling system to the Fukushima plant before that terrible scenario has any chance of repeating.

The video below shows how far the radiation clouds from Chernobyl spread across Europe, smothering virtually the entire continent within 7 days. Although agencies like the WHO and the IAEA claimed that only 9,000 people died as a consequence, more contemporary studies have shown that nearly a million people have been killed from cancers caused by the disaster over the course of the last 25 years.

Paul Joseph Watson is the editor and writer for Prison Planet.com. He is the author of Order Out Of Chaos. Watson is also a regular fill-in host for The Alex Jones Show.

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New Proposal to Wiretap Raises Concerns

New Proposal to Wiretap Suspected Infringers Raises Privacy Concerns

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David Makarewicz

Activist Post

March 17, 2011

This is Part II of a series of articles analyzing specific aspects of the Obama Administration’s White Paper (available for download here), recommending legislative changes to combat online piracy and counterfeiting. Click here for if you missed our overview of the White Paper in Part I.

One of the most troubling recommendations in the White Paper is the Obama Administration’s request for Congress to grant its enforcement agencies the power “seek a wiretap for criminal copyright and trademark offenses.” This would require Congress to amend the Wiretap Act, which does not currently include copyright and trademark infringement among the offenses that justify a privacy invasion as extreme as a wiretap.

In order to preserve the private nature of communications, the Wiretap Act (as amended by the The Electronic Communications Privacy Act of 1986), 18 U.S.C. § 2511, makes it generally illegal for anyone, including the Government, to “intercept, any wire, oral, or electronic communication.” However, the law has carved out certain exceptions to this rule under which the Government can request permission to intercept certain communications for a limited time.

Wiretapping is only permitted for certain types of offenses. The United States Supreme Court has explained that wiretapping is only permitted “when law enforcement officials are investigating specified serious crimes.”

Those serious crimes are listed in 18 U.S.C. § 2516, which authorizes a federal agency to intercept “wire or oral communications” if the wiretapping might provide evidence of certain crimes specifically named in the statute. In addition to the inclusion of obvious crimes like murder, rape or sabotaging a nuclear facility, among the extensive list of serious crimes are sex trafficking, transportation of biological weapons, passport forgery, child pornography and economic espionage.

Although “piracy” is listed, it does not cover online copyright infringement. The statute is literally referring to a person who “on the high seas, commits the crime of piracy.”

In the White Paper, the Obama Administration is asking Congress to amend 18 U.S.C. § 2516 to add copyright and trademark offenses to its list of crimes for which wiretapping is allowed. However, the Administration provides no clear explanation as to why intellectual property offenses are the types of “serious crimes” that should be listed alongside offenses like those listed above or presidential assassination or terrorist attacks against mass transportation.

The Administration’s stated explanation seems more like an attempt to confuse the issue. Page 11 of the White Paper baldly states:

Wiretap authority for these intellectual property crimes … would assist U.S. law enforcement agencies to effectively investigate those offenses, including targeting organized crime and the leaders and organizers of criminal enterprises.

It is not clear how we jumped from “those offenses” to “organizers of criminal enterprises.” I can’t help but be suspicious of the strange structure of this request. It seems like the Administration wants us all to focus only on the targeted criminal enterprises and ignore the fact that it would actually be permitting wiretapping for all copyright or trademark infringement.

This would be like asking for the right to use deadly force on all shoplifters, including those attempting to blow up the mall. If we are only talking about wiretapping criminal enterprises, let’s limit the amendment to that. If we are actually talking about wiretapping individual suspected infringers, let’s call it what it is.

Commentators have begun to question whether these types of crimes justify a governmental privacy invasion of the magnitude of wiretapping. Washington Post blogger Alexandra Petri is also wondering where it will stop. Petri wrote:

And another suggestion in the white paper — that wiretapping authority be extended to intellectual property crimes — seems troubling, too. Wiretapping? For intellectual property violations? I know it “would assist U.S. law enforcement agencies to effectively investigate those offenses, including targeting organized crime and the leaders and organizers of criminal enterprises,” but so would ordinances that allow you to frisk anyone who has visited an Arby’s, even once, and you don’t see the White House asking for those.

Petri is correct to concede that allowing wiretapping would help the government to track down and prosecute copyright infringers. In addition to the usual reasons to want to wiretap a suspect, without the amendment, if the FBI or DHS wants to investigate a suspected infringer, the Wiretap Act greatly limits their ability to intercept packets en route to or from the infringer’s computer. An en route packet is typically interpreted by courts to meet the statutory definition of an “electronic communication” that can only be intercepted in limited circumstances.

However, even if it would assist investigative efforts, the purpose of the Wiretapping Act was not to give the Government a new crime fighting tool. It was to limit the Government’s ability to trample its citizens’ privacy rights by monitoring their communications.

Computer & Communications Industry Association chief Ed Black is going even further. In an explosive statement, Black said:

Some in Congress and the White House have apparently decided that no price is too high to pay to kowtow to Big Content’s every desire, including curtailing civil liberties by expanding wiretapping of electronic communications. Even the controversial USA PATRIOT Act exists because of extraordinary national security circumstances involving an attack on our country. Does Hollywood deserve its own PATRIOT Act?

There are also technical reasons that electronic surveillance should be avoided. Computer engineer Susan Landau, author of Surveillance or Security? The Risks Posed by New Wiretapping Technologies, warns that building Internet eavesdropping solutions can unwittingly open computers up to non-government spying. She told NPR last month about a case in Greece in which a cell phone wiretapping system opened a hole so big it allowed spies to monitor the prime minister and other Greek officials.

Additionally, even when a wiretap is authorized, the Internet creates a difficult environment for the trackers. Last month, the F.B.I. complained to the House Judiciary Committee about the variety of technical problems that prevent them from effectively carrying out an authorized wiretap.

Hopefully, Congress will carefully consider the reasons that only certain serious offenses are presently authorized by the Wiretap Act and not blindly add two seemingly less serious crimes. At a minimum, the Obama Administration has a responsibility to honestly articulate the reasons that copyright and trademark theft are more important than the privacy rights of its citizens.

David Makarewicz is an attorney practicing internet law concerning privacy rights and copyright defense for websites and blogs.

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Passengers Trigger U.S. Airport Detector

Tokyo Passengers Trigger U.S. Airport Detectors

Amplify’d from www.infowars.com

Alan Purkiss

Bloomberg

March 17, 2011

Radiation detectors at Dallas-Fort Worth and Chicago O’Hare airports were triggered when passengers from flights that started in Tokyo passed through customs, the New York Post reported.

Tests at Dallas-Fort Worth indicated low radiation levels in travelers’ luggage and in the aircraft’s cabin filtration system; no passengers were quarantined, the newspaper said.

Details of the incident at O’Hare weren’t immediately clear, the Post said.

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Gingrich Funnels $125K Via Hate Group

Gingrich Said to Funnel $125K Via Hate Group to Punish Iowa Justices

Amplify’d from www.splcenter.org
by Leah Nelson

A nonprofit group led by former Republican House Speaker Newt Gingrich channeled $125,000 through a hard-line anti-gay organization to support a 2010 campaign to oust three Iowa Supreme Court justices who voted to legalize same-sex marriage in that state, The Associated Press (AP) reported Tuesday. The donation to the American Family Association (AFA), which was designated a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) earlier this year, was part of a total of $350,000 Gingrich reportedly helped steer to Iowa for Freedom, which led the successful campaign against the justices, the only ones on the court who were up for reelection.

The SPLC lists AFA as a hate group principally because of its regular use of false propaganda to demonize gays and lesbians. Especially remarkable are the views expressed by Bryan Fischer, its shrill director of issue analysis for government and policy. Fischer has proposed criminalizing homosexual behavior, advocated forcing gays into “reparative” therapy, and claimed gays were responsible for the Holocaust. (For more on Fischer’s claims, click here, here, here and here.)

The story of Gingrich’s below-the-radar assistance to Iowa for Freedom started to dribble out on March 3, when The Los Angeles Times reported that Gingrich helped the organization get its start, offering strategic advice and arranging a $200,000 gift from an anonymous donor. The remaining $150,000, the AP reported, was raised in the form of donations to Renewing American Leadership (ReAL), a nonprofit group Gingrich founded that promotes his books, TV appearances, and films. It was ReAL Action, an arm of ReAL, that reportedly gave $125,000 of that $150,000 to AFA Action, the political wing of AFA. The final $25,000 was given by ReAL Action to Iowa Faith and Freedom Coalition. Both AFA Action and Iowa Faith and Freedom Coalition then supported Iowa for Freedom’s efforts, the AP said.

The assistance turned out to critical. The campaign to force the Iowa judges out “wouldn’t have happened without Newt,” David Lane, executive director of Iowa for Freedom, told the Los Angeles Times. “Newt provided strategic advice and the initial seed money, about $200,000, which is what got everything started.”

Gingrich, a twice-divorced man and recent convert to Catholicism not previously known for his commitment to evangelical issues, was vocal about his desire to see the three judges ousted. In August, he denounced them for “substituting their values for the values of Iowa voters” and exercising “dictatorial” power.

Gingrich’s ReAL Action gave the $150,000 to AFA and Iowa Faith and Freedom Coalition in the form of “general purpose grants,” which were then used to aid the Iowa campaign, according to the news reports. Rick Tyler, ReAL’s founding director, told the Des Moines Register that the decision to funnel money through other nonprofits instead of giving it directly to Iowa for Freedom was based on lawyers’ advice about the legal requirement that, in order to retain its nonprofit status, ReAL avoid electoral politics. “We leave up to the groups receiving the money to determine how they would spend the money,” Tyler said.

It’s not clear if ReAL’s pass-through strategy is kosher. Marcus Owens, an attorney who led the IRS tax-exempt division for 10 years, told the AP: “It is not customary in the political world for large sums of money to shift hands without a clear objective. To give money unfettered to organizations that have announced they are going to be undertaking a recall effort is not going to protect you” from potential sanctions for electioneering, which most nonprofit groups are not allowed to do.

Gingrich founded ReAL about two years ago, shortly after remarrying and converting to Catholicism. ReAL’s mission is to “preserve America’s Judeo-Christian heritage by defending and promoting the three pillars of American civilization: freedom, faith and free markets.” Its small board of directors is packed with evangelical heavy-hitters, including chairman Jim Garlow, the San Diego pastor who helmed the 2008 campaign to pass Proposition 8, a ballot initiative to end same-sex marriage in California. (The measure is still tied up in the federal courts.) Also on the board is Vivian Berryhill, head of the National Coalition of Pastors’ Spouses.

But the most remarkable board member is self-described “historian” David Barton, a frequent guest of conspiracy-mongering Fox News host Glenn Beck guest. According to the Anti-Defamation League, Barton spoke twice during the early 1990s to adherents of the viciously racist and anti-Semitic theology known as Christian Identity.

Read more at www.splcenter.org
 

Rainbow cloud over Mount Everest

Amplify’d from www.dailymail.co.uk

Heavenly haze: Remarkable rainbow cloud towers over Mount Everest

Hovering in the sky, this rainbow cloud over Mount Everest took an astonished astronomer by surprise.

Oleg Bartunov, 51, caught the spectacle on camera during a Himalayas expedition in Nepal.

His two images show almost the whole spectrum of the rainbow in a natural event rarely recorded at Mount Everest.


Dazzling: A rainbow cloud dwarfs Mount Everest in the Himalayas, taking photographer Oleg Bartunov by surprise

Dazzling: A rainbow cloud dwarfs Mt Everest in the Himalayas, taking photographer Oleg Bartunov by surprise

The phenomenon is caused by light reflecting off tiny ice crystals inside the body of the cloud's water vapour.

'I only took a couple of shots as I was
overwhelmed with feelings and wanted to see everything with my eyes and
prolong the moment,' Mr
Bartunov said.

More...

'The light was coming from the sun, which was right under the clouds at the perfect angle to create the magical effect.'

When he witnessed the event he could
hardly believe this eyes, so asked others nearby to confirm that it
really was a rainbow cloud.

Mr Bartunov, who is a fellow at the Sternberg
Astronomical Institute in Moscow, said: 'There was a group of elderly English women there.


'I told them to look at the clouds
and they started to moan and sigh and started to photograph the clouds
with their small photo cameras.'




Enlarge

 
Psychedelic: The phenomenon is caused by light reflecting off tiny ice crystals inside the body of the cloud's water vapour

Psychedelic: The phenomenon is caused by light reflecting off tiny ice crystals inside the body of the cloud's water vapour

'Later I asked many local people who
were there if they saw these clouds,' he added. 'Not many had seen them
before either, so it must be a very rare event.

"It's not a surprise as people rarely watch the sky at that altitude because the sun's rays are more
harmful to the eyes up there.'

The psychedelic nature of the rainbow cloud wasn't lost on Mr Bartunov.

He said: 'If this was the 60s I could
have sworn it was some kind of album by The Beatles because the colours
were so vivid and dream-like.



Cameraman: Mr Bartunov only took a couple of photos so he could appreciate the spectacle with his own eyes

Cameraman: Mr Bartunov only took a couple of photos so he could appreciate the spectacle with his own eyes

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Experts unravel 'churkey' appearance

Amplify’d from www.bbc.co.uk

Experts unravel 'churkey' appearance mystery

Transylvanian naked neck chickens (Pic: The Roslin Institute, University of Edinburgh)
The Transylvanian naked neck chicken has been dubbed the "churkey"

The "churkey" owes its distinctive look to a complex genetic mutation, according to scientists.

Experts at Edinburgh University set out to discover how the Transylvanian naked neck chicken came by its appearance.

The bird, which has also been dubbed the turken, has the neck of a turkey and the body of a chicken.

The scientists said the effects of the genetic mutation were enhanced by a vitamin A-derived substance produced around the bird's neck.

This causes a protein, BMP12, to be produced, suppressing feather growth and causing the bird to have its bald neck, according to researchers at the Roslin Institute at Edinburgh University.

The team said the findings could help poultry production in hot countries because chickens with naked necks were better equipped to withstand the heat.

They also have implications for understanding how birds, including vultures, evolved to have featherless necks.

Transylvanian naked neck chickens, which are thought to have originated from the north of Romania, were introduced to Britain in the 1920s.

Researchers analysed DNA samples from naked neck chickens in Mexico, France and Hungary to find the genetic mutation.

Skin samples from embryonic chickens were also analysed using complex mathematical modelling.

Dr Denis Headon, who led the research, said: "Not only does this help our understanding of developmental biology and give insight into how different breeds have evolved, but it could have practical implications for helping poultry production in hot countries, including those in the developing world."

The research, published in the journal PLoS, was funded by the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council.

Read more at www.bbc.co.uk
 

$5 ATM fees coming our way?

Amplify’d from money.cnn.com

$5 ATM fees coming our way?

hand_at_atm.top.jpg
By Blake Ellis, staff reporter

NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- ATM fees are on the rise at some of the country's biggest banks.

Chase, for example, is testing out $5 fees for non-customers. That means if you stumble upon a Chase on your way to dinner and decide to take out 20 bucks, you'll pay a 25% fee. And that doesn't even include what your own bank charges you for going out of network, which is typically around $3.

JP Morgan Chase (JPM, Fortune 500) is currently testing the $5 ATM fee in Illinois and a $4 ATM fee in Texas -- both for non-customers who use its ATMs -- to see if they bring in enough revenue to introduce nationwide, according to sources familiar with the tests. A Chase spokesman declined to comment.

Out of the bank's network of 16,000 ATMs, more than 20% -- or about 3,600 -- are located in these two states. Chase spent an estimated $400 million to build the entire network and pays $200 million a year to run it. So the bank is making non-customers pay a significant amount for the convenience of using this large network.

Meanwhile, HSBC Bank USA (HBC) this month started charging all non-customers a $3 fee for using its ATMs, saying that this pricing is more competitive. Previously, about 60% of its ATMs charged a $3 fee for non-customers, while the remaining 40% charged either $1.75 or $2.50.

While other megabanks like Wells Fargo (WFC, Fortune 500), Bank of America (BAC, Fortune 500) and Citi (C, Fortune 500) haven't made similar changes yet, CardHub.com CEO Odysseas Papadimitriou says they're not far away.

"It's easy to compare debit cards by looking at the monthly fee, so banks are going to try to minimize the monthly fees and load you with fees in different ways -- and ATM fees are going to become one of the most popular ways to do that," said Papadimitriou.

Even some of the banks that CNNMoney once called the least evil -- because they had free checking and zero ATM fees for customers -- are having to reconsider.

PNC Bank (PNC, Fortune 500), for example, is keeping its free checking account. But starting in September, it will stop reimbursing ATM fees for free-checking customers who use non-PNC ATMs and charge them $2 a pop.

Starting Sept. 12, customers who want to avoid the ATM fees must open a Performance Checking account and carry a balance of $1,500 or pay a $10 monthly fee, a PNC spokesman said.

TD Bank made a similar change. While it used to let customers use any ATM free of charge, the bank is now charging $2 for customers who use out-of-network ATMs -- unless you have a "deeper relationship" with the bank (which translates into carrying a high minimum balance and paying a monthly fee of $25).

"We changed our policy for basically two reasons -- in part because of competition in the industry and regulatory environment, but also because when we had this policy we had a smaller network," a TD spokeswoman said. "Now that we have invested in thousands of ATMs and mobile banking, people can get access to money when and how they want it, and it's a fee people can avoid if they want to."

The changes in ATM fees come on the heels of a proposed rule that would cap the fees banks charge retailers each time customers swipe their debit cards to make purchases.

CardHub expects the proposed Durbin amendment to cost banks an average of $27 per card per year -- adding up to a loss of more than $13 billion a year for the industry. So along with adding fees for non-customers or eliminating rebates for out-of-network ATMs fees, banks may even start making their own customers pay to use their ATMs.

More banks may also begin offering prepaid cards, said Papadimitriou. Since they wouldn't be regulated by the Durbin amendment, banks would still be able to collect the same "swipe fees" as they do now.

"They need to maintain a certain profitability for the services they provide, so they're going to get the money one way or another," he said. "They will be experimenting with a whole gamut of things, and ATM fees are just one way of getting the money back that the Durbin Amendment is taking away from them." To top of page

Read more at money.cnn.com
 

Russia to introduce new IDs

One card to rule them all: Russia to introduce new IDs







Russians will soon be paying their bills and making appointments with a single piece of plastic.



President Dmitry Medvedev has ordered the government to come up with a road map for the introduction of multi-purpose ID cards by May 1, 2011.



The idea behind these cards is to store on one chip all the data concerning each citizen. The card is to serve as passport, insurance and driving license at once.



This will considerably ease all document-related procedures, be it the issuing of an international passport or registration of an individual entrepreneur.



The cards will also be part of a new national payment system. This will enable Russians to use them to pay taxes, transportation fares, community bills and even purchase goods. The president ordered the government to develop a system of bonuses (such as lower taxes) for those who will obtain state and municipal services in electronic form.



Medvedev said that new ID cards are expected to usher in a new level of citizen interaction with the state and various bureaucratic structures, as well as the development of “a better digital culture” in Russia.



The president ordered the government to draft detailed specifications for the new cards. It is planned to use foreign chips before Russian engineers come up with a national version.



They will also have to list the requirements for financial organizations that plan to take part in the project.



The cards are to be issued on demand beginning January 1, 2012 and to everyone older than 14 beginning January 1, 2014. The project will cost Russia around $5 billion.



The initiative comes as part of Medvedev’s electronic government program.

Scientists Project Path of Radiation

Amplify’d from www.nytimes.com

Scientists Project Path of Radiation Plume

Jung Yeon-Je/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

At a rail station in South Korea on Wednesday, passengers viewed news reports about Japan.












A United Nations forecast of the possible movement of the radioactive plume coming from crippled Japanese reactors shows it churning across the Pacific, and touching the Aleutian Islands on Thursday before hitting Southern California late Friday.


Health and nuclear experts emphasize that radiation in the plume will be diluted as it travels and, at worst, would have extremely minor health consequences in the United States, even if hints of it are ultimately detectable. In a similar way, radiation from the Chernobyl disaster in 1986 spread around the globe and reached the West Coast of the United States in 10 days, its levels measurable but minuscule.


The projection, by the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty Organization, an arm of the United Nations in Vienna, gives no information about actual radiation levels but only shows how a radioactive plume would probably move and disperse.


The forecast, calculated Tuesday, is based on patterns of Pacific winds at that time and the predicted path is likely to change as weather patterns shift.


On Sunday, the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission said it expected that no “harmful levels of radioactivity” would travel from Japan to the United States “given the thousands of miles between the two countries.”


The test ban treaty group routinely does radiation projections in an effort to understand which of its global stations to activate for monitoring the worldwide ban on nuclear arms testing. It has more than 60 stations that sniff the air for radiation spikes and uses weather forecasts and powerful computers to model the transport of radiation on the winds.


On Wednesday, the agency declined to release its Japanese forecast, which The New York Times obtained from other sources. The forecast was distributed widely to the agency’s member states.


But in interviews, the technical specialists of the agency did address how and why the forecast had been drawn up.


“It’s simply an indication,” said Lassina Zerbo, head of the agency’s International Data Center. “We have global coverage. So when something happens, it’s important for us to know which station can pick up the event.”


For instance, the Japan forecast shows that the radioactive plume will probably miss the agency’s monitoring stations at Midway and in the Hawaiian Islands but is likely to be detected in the Aleutians and at a monitoring station in Sacramento.


The forecast assumes that radioactivity in Japan is released continuously and forms a rising plume. It ends with the plume heading into Southern California and the American Southwest, including Nevada, Utah and Arizona. The plume would have continued eastward if the United Nations scientists had run the projection forward.


Earlier this week, the leading edge of the tangible plume was detected by the Navy’s Seventh Fleet when it was operating about 100 miles northeast of the Japanese reactor complex. On Monday, the Navy said it had repositioned its ships and aircraft off Japan “as a precautionary measure.”


The United Nations agency has also detected radiation from the stricken reactor complex at its detector station in Gunma, Japan, which lies about 130 miles to the southwest.


The chairman of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Gregory B. Jaczko, said Monday that the plume posed no danger to the United States. “You just aren’t going to have any radiological material that, by the time it traveled those large distances, could present any risk to the American public,” he said in a White House briefing.


Mr. Jaczko was asked if the meltdown of a core of one of the reactors would increase the chance of harmful radiation reaching Hawaii or the West Coast.


“I don’t want to speculate on various scenarios,” he replied. “But based on the design and the distances involved, it is very unlikely that there would be any harmful impacts.”


The likely path of the main Japanese plume across the Pacific has also caught the attention of Europeans, many of whom recall how the much closer Chernobyl reactor in Ukraine began spewing radiation.


In Germany on Wednesday, the Federal Office for Radiation Protection held a news conference that described the threat from the Japanese plume as trifling and said there was no need for people to take iodine tablets. The pills can prevent poisoning from the atmospheric release of iodine-131, a radioactive byproduct of nuclear plants. The United States is also carefully monitoring and forecasting the plume’s movements. The agencies include the Federal Aviation Administration, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the Department of Defense, and the Department of Energy.


On Wednesday, Steven Chu, the energy secretary, told Congress that the United States was planning to deploy equipment in Japan that could detect radiation exposure on the ground and in the air. In total, the department’s team includes 39 people and more than eight tons of equipment.


“We continue to offer assistance in any way we can,” Dr. Chu said at a hearing, “as well as informing ourselves of what the situation is.”

Read more at www.nytimes.com