CLG: Hanford DOE plan to wait two years to pump radioactive waste 'unacceptable', Missing Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370: Passengers' Mobile Phones Ring But Not Answered, et al

News Updates from CLG11 Mar 2014

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Previous edition: Has Blackwater been deployed to Ukraine? Notorious U.S. mercenaries 'seen on the streets of flashpoint city' (Google subscribers: Google Filter Instructions for CLG Newsletter.)

Missing Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370: Passengers' Mobile Phones Ring But Not Answered --A man from Beijing also called his missing brother on the plane, and reported to the airlines that the phone connected three times and rang before appearing to hang up, according to Shanghai Daily. 10 Mar 2014 The mystery surrounding the missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 has deepened with the Chinese media reporting that several of the passengers' mobile phones were connecting when called by relatives, but the calls were not picked up. The sister of one of the Chinese passengers on board the vanished flight rang his phone live on TV, the Mirror reports...The Straits Times reported that many of the family members told MAS commercial director Hugh Dunleavy that the commuters' mobile phones were ringing but they were not picked up. Dunleavy replied that MAS was calling the mobile phones of the crew members as well, which were ringing, and that he had given the numbers to Chinese investigators. Relatives of the passengers are urging the authorities to search for the location of phones that rang using the Global Positioning System.

Missing Malaysia Airlines plane passenger: 'Stop hiding the truth from us!' 10 Mar 2014 ANGER, anxiety and false hope filled a meeting room in a Beijing hotel yesterday where more than a hundred family members and loved ones of Flight MH370 passengers were gathered, wanting only one thing: answers. Malaysia Airlines (MAS) had few, and when commercial director Hugh Dunleavy addressed the families in the afternoon with no new information, several people started shouting for him to "stop hiding the truth from us!" A disturbing twist arose when the authorities confirmed that two passengers had boarded the plane with stolen passports. In the holding room of about 1,500 sq ft at Metropark Lido Hotel, rumours spread that as many as five passengers were using stolen passports. "They are not updating us that it is a possible hijacking," said a white-haired man who gave his name as Mr Li. His daughter was on board. "This means a greater chance that they are alive."

CIA Accused of Illegally Searching Computers Used by Senate Committee 11 Mar 2014 The chairwoman of the Senate intelligence committee said Tuesday that the Central Intelligence Agency had improperly [aka illegally] searched computers her committee had been using to investigate C.I.A. interrogation procedures at its secret Bush-era prison system. Senator Dianne Feinstein, Democrat of California and the chairwoman of the committee, said on the Senate floor that the agency had violated federal law and undermined Congress's constitutional right to oversee the actions of the executive branch. The dispute stems from an effort by her committee to investigate allegations of torture and to determine whether what the Bush administration labeled "enhanced interrogation methods" ever produced useful intelligence.

Feinstein accuses CIA of torture report smears --US senator and intelligence committee chair accuses CIA of intimidation in effort to block publication of controversial torture report 11 Mar 2014 The chairwoman of the Senate intelligence committee, Dianne Feinstein, on Tuesday accused the Central Intelligence Agency of a catalogue of cover-ups, intimidation and smears aimed at investigators probing its role in an "un-American and brutal" programme of post-9/11 detention and interrogation. In a bombshell statement on the floor of the US Senate, Feinstein, normally an administration loyalist, accused the CIA of potentially violating the US constitution and of criminal activity in its attempts to obstruct her committee’s investigations into the agency’s use of torture. She described the crisis as a "defining moment" for political oversight of the US intelligence service. Her unprecedented public assault on the CIA represented an intensification of the row between the committee and the agency over a still-secret report on the torture of terrorist suspects after 9/11.

TEPCO wants to dump hundreds of thousands of tonnes of radioactive water into Pacific Ocean 10 Mar 2014 A senior adviser to the operator of the wrecked Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant has told the firm that it may have no choice but to eventually dump hundreds of thousands of tonnes of contaminated [radioactive] water into the Pacific Ocean. Speaking to reporters who were on a rare visit to the plant on the eve of the third anniversary of the March 2011 nuclear disaster, Dale Klein said Tokyo Electric Power [Tepco] had yet to reassure the public over the handling of water leaks that continue to frustrate efforts to clean up the site.

DOE plan to wait two years to pump radioactive waste 'unacceptable' - state of Washington 10 Mar 2014 The Department of Energy's plan to wait at least two years to pump radioactive waste from a damaged double-shell tank at Hanford is unacceptable, the state of Washington says. DOE's plan "demonstrates the federal government's lack of commitment to set a firm, near-term schedule for the removal of [radioactive] waste from leaking double-shell Tank AY-102," the state Department of Ecology said in a statement Monday. DOE confirmed in October 2012 that Tank AY-102, the oldest of Hanford's 28 double-shell tanks, had leaked [radioactive] waste from its inner shell. The [radioactive] waste then was in two places in the space between the inner and outer shells, and DOE says no waste has breached the outer shell to reach the soil beneath the underground tank.

Russian Paratroopers Hold Massive Drills as Crimea Vote Nears 11 Mar 2014 An airborne division based in central Russia began large-scale exercises Tuesday against the backdrop of an ongoing political and security crisis in Ukraine. The Defense Ministry said units of the 98th Guards Airborne Division, based in Ivanovo, a city east of Moscow, were put on high alert and moved to unspecified locations to "check readiness" in simulated combat conditions. Four thousand troops, 36 military transport aircraft and an unspecified number of combat vehicles are taking part in the exercises, which will run until March 14.

Bridge scandal hearing draws gaggle of Christie protesters 11 Mar 2014 Today's court hearing on the George Washington Bridge scandal drew more than 50 protesters outside the Mercer County courthouse -- including those who are unhappy with Gov. Chris Christie on other issues. As Bridget Anne Kelly, Christie's former deputy chief of staff, arrived this morning for her first public appearance since Bridgegate erupted, she had to push past a noisy line of picketers and a crush of cameras. Kelly, a key figure in the controversial lane closures at the bridge last September, was there for a court showdown over whether a state legislative committee investigating the scandal can compel Kelly and Bill Stepien, Christie's former campaign manager, to hand over subpoenaed documents.

Christie bridge scandal hearing begins on fight over subpoenas 11 Mar 2014 Lawyers for a legislative committee and two former advisers to Gov. Chris Christie implicated in the lane closings at the George Washington Bridge tangled today over whether the pair had to turn over records subpoenaed by the panel. "This is not, has not been, and the subpoenas are not fishing expeditions of any sort," Reid Schar, a lawyer for the legislative committee, told Judge Mary Jacobson. But a lawyer for one of the former advisers argued that the committee's assertion that its subpoena was specific enough to identify documents it knew existed was "astonishing."

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