Geologists
have long puzzled over anecdotal reports of strange atmospheric
phenomena in the days before big earthquakes. But good data to back up
these stories has been hard to come by.
In
recent years, however, various teams have set up atmospheric monitoring
stations in earthquake zones and a number of satellites are capable of
sending back data about the state of the upper atmosphere and the
ionosphere during an earthquake.
Last
year, we looked at some fascinating data from the DEMETER spacecraft
showing a significant increase in ultra-low frequency radio signals
before the magnitude 7 Haiti earthquake in January 2010
Today,
Dimitar Ouzounov at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Centre in Maryland and
a few buddies present the data from the Great Tohoku earthquake which
devastated Japan on 11 March. Their results, although preliminary, are
eye-opening.
They say that before the M9 earthquake, the total electron content of
the ionosphere increased dramatically over the epicentre, reaching a
maximum three days before the quake struck.
At the same time,
satellite observations showed a big increase in infrared emissions from
above the epicentre, which peaked in the hours before the quake. In
other words, the atmosphere was heating up.
These kinds of observations are consistent with an idea called the
Lithosphere-Atmosphere-Ionosphere Coupling mechanism. The thinking is
that in the days before an earthquake, the great stresses in a fault as
it is about to give cause the releases large amounts of radon.
The
radioactivity from this gas ionises the air on a large scale and this
has a number of knock on effects. Since water molecules are attracted to
ions in the air, ionisation triggers the large scale condensation of
water.
But the process of condensation also releases heat and it
is this that causes infrared emissions. “Our first results show that on
March 8th a rapid increase of emitted infrared radiation was observed
from the satellite data,” say Ouzounov and co.
These emissions go on to effect the ionosphere and its total electron content.
It
certainly makes sense that the lithosphere, atmosphere and ionosphere
are coupled in a way that can be measured when one of them is perturbed.
The question is to what extent the new evidence backs up this idea.
The
Japan earthquake is the largest to have struck the island in modern
times and will certainly turn out to be among the best studied. If good
evidence of this relationship doesn’t emerge from this data, other
opportunities will be few and far between.
Ref: arxiv.org/abs/1105.2841:
Atmosphere-Ionosphere Response to the M9 Tohoku Earthquake Revealed by
Joined Satellite and Ground Observations. Preliminary Results.
Secret US-Israeli Nuke Transfers Led To Fukushima Blasts
By 島津洋一
Sixteen
tons and what you get is a nuclear catastrophe. The explosions that
rocked the Fukushima No.1 nuclear plant were more powerful than the
combustion of hydrogen gas, as claimed by the Tokyo Electric Power
Company. The actual cause of the blasts, according to intelligence
sources in Washington, was nuclear fission of. warhead cores illegally
taken from America's sole nuclear-weapons assembly facility. Evaporation
in the cooling pools used for spent fuel rods led to the detonation of
stored weapons-grade plutonium and uranium.
The
facts about clandestine American and Israeli support for Japan's
nuclear armament are being suppressed in the biggest official cover-up
in recent history. The timeline of events indicates the theft from
America's strategic arsenal was authorized at the highest level under a
three-way deal between the Bush-Cheney team, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe
and Elhud Olmert's government in Tel Aviv.
Tokyo's Strangelove
In
early 2007, Vice President Dick Cheney flew to Tokyo with his closest
aides. Newspaper editorials noted the secrecy surrounding his visit - no
press conferences, no handshakes with ordinary folks and, as diplomatic
cables suggest, no briefing for U.S. Embassy staffers in Tokyo.
Cheney
snubbed Defense Minister Fumio Kyuma, who was shut out of confidential
talks. The pretext was his criticism of President George Bush for
claiming Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction. The more immediate
concern was that the defense minister might disclose bilateral secrets
to the Pentagon. The Joint Chiefs of Staff were sure to oppose White
House approval of Japan's nuclear program.
An
unannounced reason for Cheney's visit was to promote a quadrilateral
alliance in the Asia-Pacific region. The four cornerstones - the US,
Japan, Australia and India - were being called on to contain and
confront China and its allies North Korea and Russia.. From a Japanese
perspective, this grand alliance was flawed by asymmetry: The three
adversaries were nuclear powers, while the U.S. was the only one in the
Quad group.
To
further his own nuclear ambitions, Abe was playing the Russian card. As
mentioned in a U.S. Embassy cable (dated 9/22), the Yomiuri Shimbun
gave top play to this challenge to the White House : "It was learned
yesterday that the government and domestic utility companies have
entered final talks with Russia in order to relegate uranium enrichment
for use at nuclear power facilities to Atomprom, the state-owned nuclear
monopoly." If Washington refused to accept a nuclear-armed Japan, Tokyo
would turn to Moscow.
Since
the Liberal Democratic Party selected him as prime minister in
September 2006, the hawkish Abe repeatedly called for Japan to move
beyond the postwar formula of a strictly defensive posture and
non-nuclear principles. Advocacy of a nuclear-armed Japan arose from his
family tradition. His grandfather Nobusuke Kishi nurtured the wartime
atomic bomb project and, as postwar prime minister, enacted the civilian
nuclear program. His father Shintaro Abe, a former foreign minister,
had played the Russian card in the 1980s, sponsoring the Russo-Japan
College, run by the Aum Shinrikyo sect (a front for foreign
intelligence), to recruit weapons scientists from a collapsing Soviet
Union.
The
chief obstacle to American acceptance of a nuclear-armed Japan was the
Pentagon, where Pearl Harbor and Hiroshima remain as iconic symbols
justifying American military supremacy.The only feasible channel for
bilateral transfers then was through the civilian-run Department of
Energy (DoE), which supervises the production of nuclear weapons.
Camp David Go-Ahead
The
deal was sealed on Abe's subsequent visit to Washington. Wary of the
eavesdropping that led to Richard Nixon's fall from grace, Bush
preferred the privacy afforded at Camp David. There, in a rustic lodge
on April 27, Bush and Abe huddled for 45 minutes. What transpired has
never been revealed, not even in vague outline.
As
his Russian card suggested, Abe was shopping for enriched uranium. At
99.9 percent purity, American-made uranium and plutonium is the world's
finest nuclear material. The lack of mineral contaminants means that it
cannot be traced back to its origin. In contrast, material from Chinese
and Russian labs can be identified by impurities introduced during the
enrichment process.
Abe
has wide knowledge of esoteric technologies. His first job in the early
1980s was as a manager at Kobe Steel. One of the researchers there was
astrophysicist Hideo Murai, who adapted Soviet electromagnetic
technology to "cold mold" steel. Murai later became chief scientist for
the Aum Shinrikyo sect, which recruited Soviet weapons technicians under
the program initiated by Abe's father. After entering government
service, Abe was posted to the U.S. branch of JETRO (Japan External
Trade Organization). Its New York offices hosted computers used to crack
databases at the Pentagon and major defense contractors to pilfer
advanced technology. The hacker team was led by Tokyo University's top
gamer, who had been recruited into Aum.
After
the Tokyo subway gassing in 1995, Abe distanced himself from his
father's Frankenstein cult with a publics-relations campaign. Fast
forward a dozen years and Abe is at Camp David. After the successful
talks with Bush, Abe flew to India to sell Cheney's quadrilateral pact
to a Delhi skeptical about a new Cold War. Presumably, Cheney fulfilled
his end of the deal. Soon thereafter Hurricane Katrina struck, wiping
away the Abe visit from the public memory.
The Texas Job
BWXT
Pantex, America's nuclear warhead facility, sprawls over 16,000 acres
of the Texas Panhandle outside Amarillo. Run by the DoE and Babcock
& Wilson, the site also serves as a storage facility for warheads
past their expiration date. The 1989 shutdown of Rocky Flats, under
community pressure in Colorado, forced the removal of those nuclear
stockpiles to Pantex. Security clearances are required to enter since it
is an obvious target for would-be nuclear thieves.
In
June 2004, a server at the Albuquerque office of the National Nuclear
Security System was hacked. Personal information and security-clearance
data for 11 federal employees and 177 contractors at Pantex were lifted.
NNSA did not inform Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman or his deputy Clay
Sell until three months after the security breach, indicating
investigators suspected an inside job.
While
Bush and Abe met at Camp David, 500 unionized security guards at Pantex
launched a 45-day strike. Scabs were hired, but many failed to pass the
entry exam, according to the Inspector General's office at DoE. The IG
report cited witnesses who said: "BWXT officials gave passing grades to
some replacement guards even though they actually flunked tests," and
"contractor officials gave correct answers to those that failed the
tests." Although the scene was nearly as comical as the heist in
"Ocean's Eleven", Pantex is not some Vegas casino. At stake was nuclear
Armageddon.
At
an opportune moment during the two-month strike, trucks loaded with
warhead cores rolled out of the gates. Some 16 metric tons of nuclear
cores packed in caskets were hauled away in refrigerated containers to
prevent fission. At the port of Houston, the dangerous cargo was loaded
aboard vessels operated by an Israeli state-owned shipping line. The
radioactive material was detected by port inspector Roland Carnaby, a
private contractor working under the federal program to interdict
weapons of mass destruction.
The
intelligence community is still buzzing about his shooting death. On
April 29, 2008, Houston police officers pursued Carnaby on a highway
chase and gunned him down. His port monitoring contract was later
awarded to the Israel-based security firm NICE (Neptune Intelligence
Computer Engineering), owned by former Israeli Defense Force officers.
Throughout
the Pantex caper, from the data theft to smuggling operation, Bush and
Cheney's point man for nuclear issues was DoE Deputy Director Clay Sell,
a lawyer born in Amarillo and former aide to Panhandle district
Congressman Mac Thornberry. Sell served on the Bush-Cheney transition
team and became the top adviser to the President on nuclear issues. At
DoE, Sell was directly in charge of the U.S. nuclear weapons complex,
which includes 17 national laboratories and the Pantex plant. (Another
alarm bell: Sell was also staff director for the Senate Energy
subcommittee under the late Sen. Ted Stevens of Alaska, who died in a
2010 plane crash.)
An Israeli Double-Cross
The
nuclear shipments to Japan required a third-party cutout for plausible
deniability by the White House. Israel acted less like an agent and more
like a broker in demanding additional payment from Tokyo, according to
intelligence sources. Adding injury to insult, the Israelis skimmed off
the newer warhead cores for their own arsenal and delivered older ones.
Since deteriorated cores require enrichment, the Japanese were furious
and demanded a refund, which the Israelis refused. Tokyo had no recourse
since by late 2008 principals Abe had resigned the previous autumn and
Bush was a lame duck.
The
Japanese nuclear developers, under the Ministry of Economy, Trade and
Industry, had no choice but to enrich the uranium cores at Fukushima
No.1, a location remote enough to evade detection by nonproliferation
inspectors. Hitachi and GE had developed a laser extraction process for
plutonium, which requires vast amounts of electrical power. This meant
one reactor had to make unscheduled runs, as was the case when the March
earthquake struck.
Tokyo
dealt a slap on the wrist to Tel Aviv by backing Palestinian rights at
the UN. Not to be bullied, the Israeli secret service launched the
Stuxnet virus against Japan's nuclear facilities.
Firewalls
kept Stuxnet at bay until the Tohoku earthquake. The seismic activity
felled an electricity tower behind Reactor 6. The power cut disrupted
the control system, momentarily taking down the firewall. As the
computer came online again, Stuxnet infiltrated to shut down the back-up
generators. During the 20-minute interval between quake and tsunami,
the pumps and valves at Fukushima No.1 were immobilized, exposing the
turbine rooms to flood damage.
The
flow of coolant water into the storage pools ceased, quickening
evaporation. Fission of the overheated cores led to blasts and
mushroom-clouds. Residents in mountaintop Iitate village overlooking the
seaside plant saw plumes of smoke and could "taste the metal" in their
throats.
Guilty as Charged
The Tohoku earthquake and tsunami were powerful enough to damage Fukushima
No.1. The natural disaster, however, was vastly amplified by two
external factors: release of the Stuxnet virus, which shut down control
systems in the critical 20 minutes prior to the tsunami; and presence of
weapons-grade nuclear materials that devastated the nuclear facility
and contaminated the entire region.
Of
the three parties involved, which bears the greatest guilt? All three
are guilty of mass murder, injury and destruction of property on a
regional scale, and as such are liable for criminal prosecution and
damages under international law and in each respective jurisdiction.
The
White House, specifically Bush, Cheney and their co-conspirators in the
DoE, hold responsibility for ordering the illegal removal and shipment
of warheads without safeguards.
The
state of Israel is implicated in theft from U.S. strategic stockpiles,
fraud and extortion against the Japanese government, and a computer
attack against critical infrastructure with deadly consequences,
tantamount to an act of war.
Prime
Minister Abe and his Economy Ministry sourced weapons-grade nuclear
material in violation of constitutional law and in reckless disregard of
the risks of unregulated storage, enrichment and extraction. Had Abe
not requested enriched uranium and plutonium in the first place, the
other parties would not now be implicated. Japan, thus, bears the onus
of the crime.
The
International Criminal Court has sufficient grounds for taking up a
case that involves the health of millions of people in Japan, Canada,
the United States, Russia, the Koreas, Mongolia, China and possibly the
entire Northern Hemisphere. The Fukushima disaster is more than an
human-rights charge against a petty dictator, it is a crime against
humanity on par with the indictments at the Nuremberg and Tokyo
tribunals. Failure to prosecute is complicity.
If
there is a silver lining to every dark cloud, it's that the Tohoku
earthquake and tsunami saved the world from even greater folly by
halting the drive to World War III.
