http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,752704,00.html
TEPCO has a history of safety issues.
“The tone of Katsumata’s speech was clear: The numerous past incidents were in no way isolated mistakes made by individual employees. Instead, they were the result of a corporate culture at Tepco that had allowed hair-raising breaches in safety to occur.”
The guy heading up the current disaster, Katsumata, had to resign but now is back because the CEO went MIA.
Just a few weeks before this disaster TEPCO had missing 33 safety reports. There was an issue about a diesel generator.
It is corrupt organization and those plants were not safe.
How many times do CEO’s have to resign before they straighten it out.
Now, the world is going to pay for their corrupt climate.
The issue is that Japanese culture is very against publicly admitting anything. So much so, they will intentionally hide things in order to save face.
There is corruption in EVERYTHING humans do. It becomes a question of level and seriousness. Tepco operates actual working power plants, they simply can not do that at all without a level of seriousness and responsibility I suspect you are unfamiliar with in your daily life and experiences.
btw, one more thing to consider
http://classic.cnbc.com/id/42550204
Yes, I am a cynic. I have no doubt in my mind that the slow release of information is IN PART to give time to people to get out of positions to save their butts.
More bad news coming from Japan. They just can’t tell you, yet.
People need to deal with their carry trade postions:
“Heightened risk aversion prompted investors to unwind some carry trade positions using the Japanese yen as a low interest rate currency to buy higher yielding assets. “Our positioning data shows some carry trades are pretty extended,” said Chris Walker, currency strategist at UBS. The yen firmed to a 1-1/2 week high versus the dollar but gains are likely to be curbed by the Bank of Japan’s perceived determination to keep monetary policy loose to aid economic recovery. Still, the steadier yen offered the dollar some respite, allowing the greenback to stay above Friday’s 16-month lows against a basket of major currencies.”
btw, the world’s largest Bond fund sold off US treasuries after the earthquake. Have they bought back in, yet?
I am not promoting this as truth, just food for thought. I stumbled on it while trying to get a handle on the situation:
Secret Weapons Program Inside Fukushima Nuclear Plant?
Source: http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=24275
As far as trying to figure out the seriousness of the fallout hitting N. America, I’ve collected some sources I’ll share (notably none are from the US gov’t.):
http://www.irsn.fr/FR/popup/Pages/irsn-meteo-france_30mars.aspx
http://www.radiationnetwork.com/
http://www.woweather.com/weather/news/fukushima?LANG=us&VAR=niludmanc133&HH=46&LOOP=1 (three types of fallout - check N. American Hemisphere and run the looping programs)
http://www.youtube.com/user/dutchsinse#g/u (look for his radiation monitoring videos - there’s one that has a source I missed saving; IIRC a university in Maryland)
Finally, here’s a question that I’ve been pondering: Why would Japan have a nuke facility of such size and outdated design with a cooling pool containing an obscene number of spent rods on an upper floor right on the coast of the island in the middle of a very active earthquake zone? It does not seem to me to be something a rational, advanced technology society would condone. Neither does it seem to be a sensible location for a nuclear weapons program. So why? Anyone have any suggestions?
Yes, it was very bad of them to take money under the table from that evil historic earthquake, and then let it just happen and generate a once-in-a-lifetime tsunami. They should have reported that to the authorities.