CLG: Radiation detected in groundwater at Exelon's Peach Bottom nuclear plant, WikiLeaks publishes the Saudi Cables

News Updates from CLG
21 June 2015

http://www.legitgov.org/
All links are here:http://www.legitgov.org/#breaking_news

 

Previous edition: Nine dead in shooting at black church in Charleston, South Carolina - police

WikiLeaks publishes the Saudi Cables | 19 June 2015 | Today, Friday 19th June at 1pm GMT, WikiLeaks began publishing The Saudi Cables: more than half a million cables and other documents from the Saudi Foreign Ministry that contain secret communications from various Saudi Embassies around the world. The publication includes "Top Secret" reports from other Saudi State institutions, including the Ministry of Interior and the Kingdom's General Intelligence Services...The Saudi Cables are being published in tranches of tens of thousands of documents at a time over the coming weeks. Today WikiLeaks is releasing around 70,000 documents from the trove as the first tranche. [Gee, I sure hope the correspondence between the Saudi sociopaths and the Bush regime reveals the truth behind the 9/11 inside job. --LRP]

Saudi Arabia regime warns citizens against sharing 'faked documents' [LOL!] | 21 June 2015 | [US anti-democracy ally] Saudi Arabia on Saturday urged its citizens not to distribute "documents that might be faked" in an apparent response to WikiLeaks' publication on Friday of more than 60,000 documents it says are secret Saudi diplomatic communications. The statement, made by the Foreign Ministry on its Twitter account, did not directly deny the documents' authenticity. The released documents, which WikiLeaks said were embassy communications, emails between diplomats and reports from other state bodies, include discussions of Saudi Arabia's position regarding regional issues and efforts to influence media.

U.S. Marine convicted of murdering Iraqi is sentenced by military jury to 'time served' | 19 June 2015 | A U.S. Marine convicted of the 2006 murder of a former Iraqi police officer was sentenced on Thursday to time he had already served in confinement, in a decision by a military jury at Camp Pendleton in California. The jury also gave Marine Sergeant Lawrence Hutchins III a bad-conduct discharge from the Marine Corps...After the killing in Iraq came to light, then-U.S. Navy Secretary Ray Mabus called it a "cold-blooded murder".

 

Spy court clears path to renewing NSA powers | 19 June 2015 | The secretive federal court that oversees the nation's spies is laying the groundwork for temporarily reauthorizing the National Security Agency's (NSA) sweeping collection of U.S. phone records. In an order released on Friday, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court said that a brief lapse in some Patriot Act provisions would not bar the court from renewing the NSA's powers. Although the court asserted its ability to renew the controversial NSA program, it has yet to issue an order giving a green light to the spy agency. The court also decided that it doesn't need the advice of a new expert panel, in its first-ever opportunity to use the friend-of-the-court analysis.

 

Surveillance court moving toward renewal of NSA spying program for 6 months | 19 June 2015 | The secretive court that oversees US government spying requests has indicated that it will temporarily renew the National Security Agency's bulk phone records collection authority despite a new reform law that ended the dragnet. The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) -- often seen as a compliant "rubber stamp" for US government spying requests -- released an order on Friday positing that lapsed spying powers vested in the Patriot Act -- which expired without renewal on June 1 -- would not restrict the court from reauthorizing for six months the phone metadata collection program.

 

Radiation detected in groundwater at Exelon's Peach Bottom nuclear plant | 19 June 2015 | Radiation at levels above industry safety thresholds was detected in groundwater at Peach Bottom Atomic Power Station [Delta, PA], according to an Exelon report to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Exelon, the company that owns and operates the power plant, reported that on April 17, a groundwater monitoring well detected tritium -- a radioactive isotope -- at 37,700 picocuries per liter. Neil Sheehan, Nuclear Regulatory Commission spokesman, said Exelon has to report any level of tritium in excess of 20,000 picocuries per liter, the EPA-endorsed threshold for safe [sic] levels in drinking water.

 

Govt emails reveal Fukushima radiation could cause thyroid cancer to skyrocket in Americans | 19 June 2015 | Censored and heavily redacted emails from U.S. government scientists and officials reveal that there were major concerns among American policymakers shortly after the devastating Fukushima nuclear power plant disaster in March 2011 that there would be widespread radiological contamination and spikes in thyroid cancer rates...Nuclear science experts were clearly concerned that radioactive fallout from the disaster would not merely spread to the U.S. West Coast but cause a spike in thyroid cancer rates there, as well -- though none of those concerns were publicized by reports or expressed publicly by the Obama Administration at the time.

 

Fukushima operator 'knew of need to protect against tsunami but did not act' | 18 June 2015 | The operator of Japan's ruined Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant was aware of the need to improve the facility’s defences against tsunami more than two years before the March 2011 disaster but failed to take action, according to an internal company document. The revelation casts doubt on claims by Tokyo Electric Power (Tepco) that it had done everything possible to protect the plant, which suffered a triple meltdown after being struck by a towering tsunami. The utility disclosed the document this week during a lawsuit brought by more than 40 Tepco shareholders who are demanding damages totalling 5.5 trillion yen from company executives.

 

TPP fight: Fast-track legislation approved in US House, heads to Senate | 19 June 2015 | The US House of Representatives on Thursday reversed course, approving "fast-track" legislation central to President Barack Obama'strade corporate takeover deal with Pacific Rim nations and sending it back to the Senate. The close vote in the House, which last week rejected a related bill, kept alive Mr Obama's goal of bolstering US ties with Asia subjugating the US government to trans-national corporations through a 12-nation Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). The House voted 218-208 to give Mr Obama the fast-track authority to speed 'trade' deals, including the TPP, to conclusion with reduced interference from Congress.

 

South Korea reports three new cases of MERS, taking total to 169 | 20 June 2015 | South Korea's Health Ministry reported on Sunday three more cases of Middle East Respiratory Syndrome, bringing the total to 169 in an outbreak that is the largest outside of Saudi Arabia. The ministry late on Saturday reported the 25th fatality, a patient who had suffered a heart ailment and diabetes.

 

Dozens sick at Antioch, Calif., water park after being exposed to chemical --Hazmat crews on scene to determine cause of exposure | 18 June 2015 | Officials are reporting at least 40 people, mostly children, are being treated for minor respiratory issues after being exposed to a chemical at Antioch's Prewett Family Water Park this afternoon. At 2:29 p.m., emergency crews responded to reports of a child complaining of respiratory problems after swimming at the water park, according to a fire inspector with Contra Costa Fire Protection...As of 4 p.m., 10 to 15 people had been taken to the hospital, fire inspector Lisa Martinez said.

 

East Texas firefighter fired after Charleston shooting post | 19 June 2015 | A volunteer firefighter from East Texas was terminated Friday after a post the man allegedly made in response to the deadly Charleston, S.C. shooting. On their Facebook page early Friday afternoon, the Mabank Fire Department said Kurtis Cook was "terminated" and "trespassed from all Mabank Fire Department property" after an investigation into allegations against the volunteer firefighter. According to a KLTV.com report, Cook was accused of making a post on a South Carolina newspaper's Facebook page that said Dylann Roof "needs to be praised for the good deed he has done."

 

F.B.I., Charleston police officials examine Dylann Roof's purported website and manifesto | 20 June 2015 | Dylann Roof posed for pictures wearing a No. 88 T-shirt, had 88 Facebook friends and wrote that number -- white supremacist code for "Heil Hitler" -- in the South Carolina sand. A website discovered Saturday appears to offer the first serious look at Mr. Roof's thinking, including how the case of Trayvon Martin, the black Florida teenager shot to death in 2012 by George Zimmerman, a neighborhood watch volunteer, triggered his racist rage...It is not clear whether the manifesto was written by Mr. Roof or if he had control of it. The F.B.I. and Charleston police officials say they are examining the site.

 

Suspect Roof held without bail on 9 murder charges in church shooting; $1M for gun charge --Dylann Roof appeared Friday at bond court in North Charleston, SC | 19 June 2015 | Dylann Storm Roof stood up during a Bible study Wednesday at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church, pulled a .45-caliber pistol from a fanny pack and shot nine people several times, according to arrested affidavits released Friday. The details emerged as family members of the nine victims' faced Roof, 21, through closed-circuit television during a bond hearing. The proceeding was a formal airing of the nine counts of murder and the gun charge that Roof faces.

 

Charleston terror suspect Dylann Roof wore jacket bearing images of flags from apartheid-era South Africa --What We Know About South Carolina Shooting Suspect Dylann Roof | 18 June 2015 | Police have reportedly arrested Dylan Storm Roof as the chief suspect in the fatal shooting of nine people Wednesday night at a historic black church in South Carolina. Roof is a 21-year-old white man from Lexington, South Carolina, the Associated Press reports...A Facebook page in the name of Dylann Roof, featuring a photo released by Berkeley County authorities in South Carolina, suggest the suspect attended White Knoll High School and was from the city of Columbia. In the picture featured on the Facebook page [page has been disabled by Fb-see CLG stored image, below], he is wearing a jacket bearing images of the flags of apartheid-era South African and the Republic of Rhodesia, the name for Zimbabwe when it was run by a post-colonial white minority in the 1970s.

 

South Carolina church shooting: police hunt gunman after 'hate crime' attack | 18 June 2015| At least nine people have been killed after a gunman opened fire at a historic black church in Charleston, South Carolina, in what police have described as a "hate crime"... Police released a image of the gunman and a car from video at a press conference on Thursday. The suspect, who is still on the loose, has been described as a clean-shaved, white male aged approximately 21, with a small, slender build, wearing a grey sweatshirt with jeans and boots.

 

Police converge on NY towns where escaped prisoners said sighted | 20 June 2015 | Heavily-armed police converged on towns in western New York state on Saturday to investigate possible sightings of two convicted murderers who escaped a maximum-security prison two weeks ago, police said. A witness saw two men who might have been the escapees walking along a railroad track in Friendship, a community of about 2,000 residents in a rural patch of Allegany County, New York State Police said in a statement. Police set up a perimeter in the area of Friendship, about 280 miles (450 km) southwest of the Clinton Correctional Facility where the escaped convicts had been serving sentences for murder, said New York State Police spokesman Beau Duffy.

 

U.S. top court rules for death row inmate over intellectual disability claim | 18 June 2015 | The U.S. Supreme Court ruled on Thursday that a federal judge was correct to hold a hearing on whether a convicted cop killer on Louisiana's death row is intellectually disabled and therefore potentially ineligible for the death penalty...The court, in a 5-4 decision, threw out an appeals court ruling that said Kevan Brumfield was not eligible for the special hearing in which the lower court judge found he was intellectually disabled. Brumfield will remain on death row for now, as the appeals court has yet to decide if the judge was correct to find that Brumfield was ineligible for the death penalty.

 

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