See this Amp at http://amplify.com/u/bvg3n
Radiation fears drive sales of kelp
Amplify’d from us.mobile.reuters.com
By Alex Dobuzinskis
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Fears of radiation from Japan have driven some customers at health food stores on the West Coast to stock up on kelp out of a belief its iodine content can protect against thyroid cancer, health food retailers said on Friday.
Health officials have repeatedly said United States residents face no risk from radiation drifting across the Pacific Ocean from Japan's stricken nuclear plants.
But that has not stopped some Americans from buying potassium iodide, considered a defense against radiation poisoning. Authorities have warned against taking potassium iodide unnecessarily because of a potential for side-effects.
Meanwhile, consumers are turning to more health-friendly sources of iodine, with kelp tablets high on the list and suppliers running out, health store owners and managers along the West Coast told Reuters.
Seaweed snacks and blue-green algae liquid are also popular items, and one Washington State homeopath is even recommending miso soup and brown rice, because of an anecdote that it helped a Japanese doctor protect against radiation decades ago.
Jenny Rask, 39, a Los Angeles stay-at-home mother, has been giving her three children seaweed in their lunches.
"Luckily they love it," she told Reuters. "And we are eating sushi tonight. Sounds a little cuckoo. But eating veggies can help, I hope."
Willow Follett, 66, the owner of Willow's Naturally on Bainbridge Island in Washington State, said that she quickly sold out of kelp tablets after the disaster in Japan.
She said that while iodine can saturate the thyroid gland and prevent the absorption of radioactive iodine from a nuclear disaster, it has to be taken in high doses to be effective.
"You get much much less in kelp, but kelp is really good for you anyway," she said. "It's a good thing to take, but I wouldn't take it for this."
Follett said consumers are "just grasping at straws" in an effort to do anything they can to protect themselves, even though they face no risk.
California health officials have spent the last several days trying to tamp down panic over fears of the nuclear disaster in Japan somehow affecting people on the West Coast.
"We do not anticipate any amounts of radiation that could cause health effects," Dr. Howard Backer, head of the California Department of Public Health, said on Thursday.
That did not stop the phone from ringing off the hook at Justin Brotman's Seattle supplements and health food store Heleo, from people worried about nuclear radiation.
Callers asked about potassium iodide, which Brotman said he would not sell them because of its potential side effects. Instead, he sold them the more healthy alternative of blue-green algae, which also has some iodine.
"I even stopped answering the phone to be honest with you", said Brotman, 29.
(Additional reporting by Nichola Groom: Editing by Dan Whitcomb and Greg McCune)
See this Amp at http://amplify.com/u/bvfgc
National Guard to leave Mexico border
Amplify’d from us.mobile.reuters.com
PHOENIX, Arizona (Reuters) - More than a thousand National Guard troops brought in last year to shore security on the U.S.-Mexico border will go home in June, authorities said on Friday.
President Barack Obama's administration provided 1,200 National Guard troops to back up Border Patrol agents while the government hired more federal border and immigration police and bought additional equipment.
The troops have helped agents gather intelligence as well as providing surveillance and reconnaissance support since they began their deployment last August, U.S. Customs and Border Protection spokesman Mark Qualia said.
The Guard have helped seize over 14,000 pounds of drugs and contributed to the apprehension of 7,000 illegal immigrants, U.S. Department of Homeland Security spokesman Matthew Chandler said.
Shortly after the first troops began their deployment last August, Obama signed a bill with $600 million in funding to beef up border security.
It provided funds to hire 1,500 additional federal border police, customs inspectors and investigators, as well as two additional unmanned surveillance drones and improved tactical communications systems, Chandler said.
It was not immediately clear how many new border security agents have been hired.
Despite the additional resources, Arizona's Republican Governor Jan Brewer spoke out against the troop drawdown this week, calling it "inexplicable and inexcusable," The Arizona Republic newspaper reported.
Last month Brewer sued the Obama administration, charging it had failed to secure the porous southwest border..
(Reporting by Tim Gaynor; Editing by Greg McCune)
See this Amp at http://amplify.com/u/bvfg8
Quake rocks Japan but no damage reported
Amplify’d from us.mobile.reuters.com
TOKYO (Reuters) - An earthquake with a preliminary magnitude of 6.1 hit northern Japan on Saturday, broadcaster NHK said. The epicenter was not far from Japan's stricken nuclear power plant.
There was no tsunami threat and no immediate reports of injuries or damage, NHK added. Japan has been hit by hundreds of aftershocks since a massive earthquake and tsunami smashed the northeast coast on March 11, triggering a nuclear power crisis.
(Reporting by Mark Bendeich)
See this Amp at http://amplify.com/u/bvfg6
Poles take iodine radiation from Japan
Amplify’d from us.mobile.reuters.com
WARSAW (Reuters) - Pharmacies in several Polish cities were running out of iodine Saturday as people rushed to buy medicine to protect themselves from radiation from the Japanese nuclear crisis.
Poland is half the world away from Japan and authorities say there is no danger, but its citizens have powerful memories of the radiation emergency they faced in the Chernobyl nuclear disaster in 1986, in what is now neighboring Ukraine.
Back then, authorities distributed a treatment called Lugol's iodine syrup on a mass scale. Pharmacists said poles were again buying the syrup just in case.
"We have noticed increased interest in iodine syrups and pills lately. They are no longer available. We've run out," a salesman at a Warsaw pharmacy told the Polsat News broadcaster.
Experts said there was no reason to take iodine in Poland and warned the public that it could be dangerous.
"Such medicines taken without prior consultations with a doctor can have serious side-effects. If there is a danger, we will inform the public about that and everybody will get medicine," said Maciej Hamankiewicz of the Chamber of Physicians and Dentists.
(Writing by Gabriela Baczynska)
See this Amp at http://amplify.com/u/bvfg3
Nuclear Reactors in Japan Periodic Table
Amplify’d from www.youtube.com
Nuclear Reactors in Japan - Periodic Table of Videos
See more at www.youtube.com
See this Amp at http://amplify.com/u/bvffr
Rising radiation levels in food
Amplify’d from www.guardian.co.uk
Radioactive material found in Tokyo water
Discovery comes after Japan banned sales of some food from the area of the Fukushima power plant and engineers battled to cool a overheated reactor
A fire truck sprays water at reactor 3 of the Fukushima nuclear power plant to help cool reactors and stop the spread of radiation. Photograph: Reuters
The Japanese government has reported that trace amounts of radioactive iodine have been detected in tap water in Tokyo and five other areas, amid concerns about leaks from the crippled Fukushima nuclear power station.
The ministry says the amounts did not exceed government safety limits, but the announcement has added to safety fears among the Japanese people. Earlier in the day, Japan banned the sale of food products from near Fukushima after finding elevated radiation levels in spinach and milk from the area's farms.
The International Atomic Energy Agency said: "Though radioactive iodine has a short half-life of about eight days and decays naturally within a matter of weeks, there is a short-term risk to human health if radioactive iodine in food is absorbed into the human body."
Tainted milk was found 30km (20 miles) from the plant and contaminated spinach was collected up to 100km (65 miles) to the south.
Chief cabinet secretary Yukio Edano told reporters in Tokyo that the radiation levels exceeded the limits allowed by the government, but the products "pose no immediate health risk" and testing was being done on other foods..
"It's not like if you ate it right away you would be harmed," Edano said. "It would not be good to continue to eat it for some time."
Edano said the amount of radiation detected in the milk was the equivalent to one CT scan – the series of X-rays used for medical tests – if consumed continually for a year.
Low levels of radiation have been detected well beyond Tokyo, which is 220km south of the plant, but hazardous levels have been limited to the plant itself.
The food scare is the latest consequence of the cascade of disasters unleashed by the earthquake on 11 March.
Emergency teams scrambled on Saturday to restore power to the Fukushima plant so it could cool dangerously overheated fuel.
Firefighters pumped tons of water directly from the ocean into the cooling pool for used fuel rods at the plant's unit 3. The rods are at risk of burning up and sending a broad release of radioactive material into the environment.
Just outside the bustling disaster response centre in the city of Fukushima, 60km north-west of the plant, government nuclear specialist Kazuya Konno was able to take only a three-minute break for his first meeting with his wife Junko and their children since the earthquake.
"It's very nervewracking. We really don't know what is going to become of our city," Junko told Associated Press. "Like most other people, we have been staying indoors unless we have to go out."
She brought her husband a small backpack with a change of clothes and snacks. The girls, aged four and six and wearing pink surgical masks decorated with Mickey Mouse, gave their father hugs.
In his latest ministerial update from Tokyo, Edano said: "The situation at the nuclear complex still remains unpredictable. But at least we are preventing things from deteriorating."
A fire truck with a high-pressure cannon parked outside the plant's unit 3 began shooting a continuous arc of water nonstop into the pool for seven hours. Because of high radiation levels, firefighters will only go to the truck every three hours when it needs to be refueled. They expect to pump about 1,400 tons of water, nearly the capacity of the pool.
Hidehiko Nishiyama of Japan's Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency said backup power systems at the plant had been improperly protected, leaving them vulnerable to the tsunami that ravaged the north-eastern coast of Japale.
The failure enabled uranium fuel to overheat and was a "main cause" of the crisis, Nishiyama said. "I cannot say whether it was a human error, but we should examine the case closely."
A spokesman for Tokyo Electric, which owns and runs the complex, said it was protected against tsunamis of up to five metres (16ft) but a six-metre wave of water struck Fukushima on 11 March.
Plant operators said they would reconnect four of the plant's six reactor units to a power grid on Saturday. Workers have to methodically work through badly damaged and deeply complex electrical systems to make the final linkups without setting off a spark and potentially an explosion.
"Most of the motors and switchboards were submerged by the tsunami and they cannot be used," Nishiyama said.
Even once the power is reconnected, it is not clear if the cooling systems will still work.
The storage pools need a constant source of cooling water. Even when removed from reactors, uranium rods are still extremely hot and must be cooled for months, possibly longer, to prevent them from heating up again and emitting radioactivity.
Meanwhile, some Britons in the country have begun their journey back to the UK to escape from radiation fears, power shortages, business closures and a lack of food in shops.
Buses and planes ferried people to safety on Friday, with 24 British nationals leaving tsunami-flattened Sendai on two coaches heading for Tokyo.
The Foreign Office block-booked seats for Britons wanting to fly home on commercial flights, the first of which was a Cathay Pacific flight to Hong Kong, and said two other flights to Hong Kong would be made available on Saturday.
Those directly affected by last week's devastating earthquake and tsunami can fly free of charge, but people wishing to leave Japan who have not been directly affected will pay about £600 per seat.
Lastest images from Japan as its people deal with the hardship caused by the 11 March disaster
Read more at www.guardian.co.uk
See this Amp at http://amplify.com/u/bvffn
N.Y. ARCHBISHOP DOLAN ON 60 MINUTES
NEW YORK ARCHBISHOP DOLAN TO APPEAR ON 60 MINUTES ON SUNDAY MARCH 20
Amplify’d from reform-network.net
* * *
POSTED BY ROCCO PALMO AT 18:25
“This Sunday on ‘60 Minutes’”
On his second St Patrick’s Day in New York—and first as chief of the Stateside bench—the Man from Gotham looked to be enjoying himself as the 250th Parade wended past his Fifth Avenue base through the afternoon.
Hours after releasing his second pastoral letter as head of the nation’s second-largest local church, though, word came that—a month after it was originally slated to air—Tim Dolan’s most prominent turn to date in the national spotlight will come Sunday night, as CBS News’ 60 Minutes runs the archbishop’s interview with Morley Safer, requested by the show following Dolan’s historic November election as USCCB president.
Alongside announcing this week’s lineup for the Sunday-prime institution, Black Rock issued the following teaser-clip…
…and some added text:
Asked if he feared the impact of the [clergy sex-abuse] scandal would go on forever, Dolan replies, “In some ways, I don’t want it to be over, because…this was such a crisis in the Catholic Church that in a way, we don’t want to get over it too easily,” he tells Safer. “This needs to haunt us.”…
The archbishop was tasked with airing out the child sex abuse scandal in Milwaukee, where he replaced an archbishop who stepped down over his own sex scandal. Dolan published the names of 43 abusive priests. He recalls the times he spent with victims and their families.
”Those were some of the more difficult, wrenching, touching moments in my life,” he tells Safer. “Some of them were terribly painful and did not go well. Others I remember with gratitude. Praying together, crying together,” he says, “Those were very powerful moments that you don’t forget.”
See this Amp at http://amplify.com/u/bvcqj
Excerpts: Philadelphia Grand Jury Report
Amplify’d from reform-network.net
These excerpts were put together by my New York friend Tim Walsh.
Thanks, Tim.
IN THE COURT OF COMMON PLEAS
FIRST JUDICIAL DISTRICT OF PENNSYLVANIA
CRIMINAL TRIAL DIVISION
MISC. NO. 0009901-2008
REPORT OF THE GRAND JURY
R. SETH WILLIAMS
District Attorney of Philadelphia
the following are Excerpts(with page references)…
pg. 1
In September 2003, a grand jury of local citizens released a report detailing a sad history of sexual abuse by priests of the Archdiocese of Philadelphia. That abuse was known, tolerated, and hidden by high church officials, up to and including the Cardinal himself. The previous grand jury was frustrated that it could not charge either the abusers or their protectors in the church, because the successful cover-up of the abuse resulted in the expiration of the statute of limitations. Now, measures taken in response to the previous report have led to new information about more recent abuse, which this grand jury was empaneled to investigate.
Victim “Assistance” Procedures
pg.s 6 – 9
Prompted by the pressure of the prior grand jury report, the Archdiocese has in recent years revamped its policies for handling victims of clergy sexual abuse. Now, at least in some cases, the church reports abusers to law enforcement authorities, something that in the past never occurred. And the Archdiocese pays for counseling, and sometimes other expenses. Those are positive steps, if small ones.
7
Instead, the present process is burdened by misinformation and conflict of interest. The Archdiocese’s “victim assistance coordinators,” for example, mislead victims into believing that their discussions with the coordinators are protected by confidentiality. That is not the case. InPennsylvania, licensed rape counselors are indeed required by statute to maintain confidentiality, like lawyers. The church’s victim assistance coordinators, however, are not licensed counselors to whom the statutory mandate applies – and they do not keep victims’ statements confidential. They turn the statements over to the Archdiocese’s attorneys, who of course have an ethical obligation to protect their client from potential civil and criminal liability.
In a further breach of confidentiality, church employees press victims to sign releases as to records in the possession of third parties, such as outside therapists and the military. Victims are led to believe that these releases will assist the coordinators in helping them. In reality, the records secured through these releases are, once again, turned over to the attorneys. The church’s position, it appears, is that coordinators mustuncover every fact in order to make a determination about whether to refer the case to
8
law enforcement. But that is not true. No detailed information is necessary for a referral. Public officials will conduct their own investigation, assuming they are ever told about the accusation.
The only rational explanation for such procedures is not to guarantee the victim’s recovery, but to guard the church against what its highest officials repeatedly refer to as “scandal.” We found notations on records in both Billy’s and Mark’s victim assistance files that discussed the statute of limitations – a legal defense that would be asserted by the church or its priests to block civil and criminal liability. Indeed the military records that Mark was asked to release had no relevance to his case except for that one purpose: to assist the church in calculating whether any potential legal claims against it were still within the limitations statute. And once they were done making those calculations, church employees handed Mark’s (previously) confidential records over to the last person in the world he would have given them to: his abuser, Father Brennan.
One additional practice during the victim assistance process is of particular concern. The manner in which the coordinators pursue statements can have no salutary purpose. The policy is not even to ask the abuser to speak, although he is obviously a crucial witness; the explanation we were given for this policy is that it might “put the priest in position of admitting” his guilt.
In contrast to this kid-glove treatment of the abuser, victims are virtually hounded to give statements. Victim coordinators (like Monsignor Lynn before them) make it their business to “get details – even unimportant” ones. The only possible reason for this tactic would be to use the statements as ammunition to impeach victims, in an effort to make
9
them appear incredible. Thus Billy was practically chased out of his house in pursuit of a statement, after repeatedly declining to speak. Mark, meanwhile, was accosted by an “assistance” coordinator while he was still in the hospital, recovering from his suicide attempt.
Such procedures are, to state it softly, one-sided – and the side taken is not that of the victim. They are not worthy of a church that says it is committed to righting the wrong of clergy sex abuse.
Excerpts from a N.Y. Grand Jury:
“The evidence before the Grand Jury ”Clearly Demonstrates” that Diocesan officials agreed to engage in conduct that resulted in the prevention, hindrance and delay in the discovery of criminal conduct by priests. They conceived and agreed to a plan using deception and intimidation to prevent victims from seeking legal solutions to their problems.”- Pg.173
“Within Diocesan circles the Office(Office of Legal Affairs) and it’s handling of cases involving the criminal sexual abuse of children, was applauded.”
See this Amp at http://amplify.com/u/bvcq0
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)