Independent researchers reported detecting elevated methane levels as far as 8 miles from the massive, ongoing leak of natural gas from a storage site in northwestern Los Angeles. A ruptured well at Southern California Gas Co.'s Aliso Canyon underground facility has spewed more than 80,000 metric tons of methane into the atmosphere since the leak was discovered Oct. 23. The release of the powerful greenhouse gas led to the evacuation of thousands of people from the affluent Porter Ranch neighborhood a mile from the leak after reports by residents of nosebleeds, rashes, headaches and nausea.Finding elevated methane levels well beyond the Porter Ranch area raises potential health concerns for people living outside the immediate vicinity of the leak, the researchers said. Inhaling low concentrations of methane, the primary component of natural gas, is generally not considered a health concern, but natural gas often contains trace amounts of other, more harmful gases.  "Whatever else may be in the gas-benzene, toluene, xylene -- that is what people may be breathing," said Nathan Phillips, an earth and environment professor at Boston University. "Even though we're not measuring things other than methane, there is a legitimate concern that there is that other nasty stuff in there."  The findings challenge assurances from the South Coast Air Quality Management District, the regional air pollution control agency, and the state's Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment that the leak hasn't increased residents' exposure to toxic gases.  The cumulative methane emissions from the Aliso Canyon facility to date have the greenhouse gas equivalent on the Earth's atmosphere of burning nearly 800 million gallons of gasoline, according to the Environmental Defense Fund.  On Wednesday, Los Angeles City Councilman Mitchell Englander called on SoCal Gas to extend its residential relocation program to residents of neighborhoods adjacent to Porter Ranch, according to the Los Angeles Daily News. People in these communities were also reporting similar symptoms related to the leaking gas, according to the paper. SoCal Gas spokeswoman Kristine Lloyd said the gas company is providing temporary accommodation and air filtration for residents within a five-mile radius of the leak, extending beyond Porter Ranch.  Democratic US Senators Barbara Boxer and Dianne Feinstein of California sent a letter to the Department of Transportation, the Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Justice Wednesday calling on the federal agencies to offer further assistance to the State of California in responding to the gas leak.  In a mapping effort funded by the Home Energy Efficiency Team, a Cambridge, Mass., nonprofit, Phillips and Robert Ackley of Gas Safety Inc. measured methane emissions for the past several days near the Aliso Canyon leak. Gas Safety Inc. provides natural gas leak detection services to industry, businesses and homeowners.  They used a laser-based system mounted to a car. It recorded methane concentrations and plotted the readings on Google Earth. On Tuesday and Wednesday the researchers drove further from the leak and recorded methane concentrations as much as two times higher than background levels, as far as 8 miles away from the site.

The Chinese economy has continued to struggle despite repeated efforts to stimulate activity, according to official data, raising the prospect of further measures from Beijing if the country is to reach its growth targets.  China's enormous manufacturing sector surprisingly contracted for the third consecutive month in October, while its services sector - the economy's growth engine - expanded at the slowest rate since 2008's financial crisis.  The figures raise new fears that growth in the world's second-biggest economy could fall below 7pc this year, after official data last month showed expansion of 6.9pc in the year to September. Weak demand in China has already had a huge effect on the world economy, potentially delaying interest rate rises and hitting commodity prices.  The country's central bank has repeatedly cut bank lending requirements in an attempt to boost growth and ward off deflation, but economists suggested the new figures could herald further measures. "As deflation risks intensify, a further RRR cut [the reserves a bank must hold against lending] before end of this year is still possible," economists at ANZ Bank said. Sunday's PMI figures from China's National Bureau of Statistics gave a reading of 49.8 for the country's manufacturing sector, below the 50 mark that separates contraction from expansion for the third month in a row. Markets had widely expected a rebound, with expectations set at 50..."Because of the recent weak recovery in the global economy and downward pressure in the domestic economy, manufacturers still face a severe import and export situation," Zhao Qinghe, a senior statistician at the NBS, said.  Meanwhile, the services sector, which has helped make up for disappointing factory output, saw its slowest growth for seven years. The non-manufacturing PMI fell from 53.4 in September to 53.1. China's official figures for economic growth, which are widely believed to over-estimate the true level, fell to 6.9pc in the third quarter of the year, the lowest pace of expansion since early 2009. This compares to a rough target of 7pc set by Beijing.

The Chinese government’s heavy handed efforts to contain recent stock market volatility – the latest move prohibits short-selling and sales by major shareholders – have seriously damaged its credibility. But China’s policy failures should come as no surprise. Policymakers there are far from the first to mismanage financial markets, currencies, and trade. Many European governments, for example, suffered humiliating losses defending currencies that were misaligned in the early 1990s.
Still, China’s economy remains a source of significant uncertainty. Indeed, although the performance of China’s stock market and that of its real economy has not been closely correlated, a major slowdown is under way. That is a serious concern, occupying finance ministries, central banks, trading desks, and importers and exporters worldwide. China’s government believed it could engineer a soft landing in the transition from torrid double-digit economic growth, fuelled by exports and investments, to steady and balanced growth underpinned by domestic consumption, especially of services. And, in fact, it enacted some sensible policies and reforms. But rapid growth obscured many problems. For example, officials, seeking to secure promotions by achieving short-term economic targets, misallocated resources; basic industries such as steel and cement built up vast excess capacity; and bad loans accumulated on the balance sheets of banks and local governments.

Brussels is bent on destroying the private sector - apart from the European conglomerates. We will become like Russia - controlled by the State and a few oligarchs in hock to the leaders. The agenda is of course to destroy the independence of the States that make up the EU and what better way, than by destroying their independent businesses.  Hopefully Europe, the sick old man of the global economy, quietly shuffles off into further isolation and less prominence, with a whimper and not a bang. If European history of the last 2 centuries is of any indication however, that may prove to be wishful thinking. These verbose toffs may look effeminate to American eyes, but they have a peculiar genius for slaughtering each other and much worse, dragging every one else into the fray with them...It probably won't play-out quite as bloodily as in the past, but it could all be just as damaging when all is said and done, I'm afraid....If I remember rightly, I read somewhere (probably in the DT) that a senior member of the Saudi government had declared the country's intention to maintain current production even if the price of oil fell to $20 a barrel -- hence, presumably, the headline of this article....Motivation? Well, the high price of oil for the last number of years, driven in large part by the rapidly expanding Chinese economy, has motivated the exploitation of previously unviable sources of oil, as well as the development of shale, and the development of new technology in engine fuel economy. This wasn't a problem as long as the Chinese were prepared to buy whatever oil the world could produce, but now that the Chinese economy's expansion is slowing, they need less oil, which means there is now a glut. Saudi, which can produce it relatively easily and cheaply, has an opportunity to regain market share and put the kibosh on all the new technologies....If the long term average is $60/bbl, why would it drop to $20/bbl this year? $20/bbl in today's money doesn't compare at all with $20/bbl 15 years ago - this is a silly assumption. Similarly, $100/bbl oil price won't cause a revolution in major oil producing countries, $20/bbl risks widespread budget defects and revolution's. The ruler's of Saudi Arabia and their ilk have enough domestic issues to allow a low oil price to add to it. The US will not allow Saudi Arabia to persist with low oil prices indefinitely, they have a shale industry to protect. If the last goodness knows how many years has shown anything, it is that America survives on protectionism and aggression to protect its economy.

Radiation levels around Japan's Fukushima nuclear plant are 18 times higher than previously thought, Japanese authorities have warned.

Last week the plant's operator reported radioactive water had leaked from a storage tank into the ground. It now says readings taken near the leaking tank on Saturday showed radiation was high enough to prove lethal within four hours of exposure. The plant was crippled by the 2011 earthquake and tsunami. The Tokyo Electric Power Company (Tepco) had originally said the radiation emitted by the leaking water was around 100 milliseverts an hour.

However, the company said the equipment used to make that recording could only read measurements of up to 100 milliseverts.

The new recording, using a more sensitive device, showed a level of 1800 milliseverts an hour. The new reading will have direct implications for radiation doses received by workers who spent several days trying to stop the leak last week, the BBC's Rupert Wingfield-Hayes reports from Tokyo. In addition, Tepco says it has discovered a leak on another pipe emitting radiation levels of 230 milliseverts an hour.  The plant has seen a series of water leaks and power failures. The 2011 tsunami knocked out cooling systems to the reactors, three of which melted down.

The damage from the tsunami has necessitated the constant pumping of water to cool the reactors. This is believed to be the fourth major leak from storage tanks at Fukushima since 2011 and the worst so far in terms of volume. After the latest leak, the Japanese nuclear energy watchdog raised the incident level from one to three on the international scale that measures the severity of atomic accidents.

Experts have said the scale of water leakage may be worse than officials have admitted.

Gas-land and the EU goons

Guvernul României a concesionat suprafețe mari din unele dintre cele mai frumoase zone ale țării, pentru începerea fracturării hidraulice în vara lui 2013. Locuitorii acestor zone au protestat vehement, dar toate aceste proteste au fost până acum ignorate de presă și de autorități.

• Fracturarea hidraulică e o metodă extrem de periculoasă de extragere a gazelor naturale, care ne poate otrăvi apa, aerul și solul.

• Chimicalele (peste 500 de substante chimice ce pot provoca diverse tipuri de moarte) folosite pentru forare sunt toxice și pot contamina apa în urma unor scurgeri sau accidente; pentru foraj sunt necesare milioane de litri de apă, ceea ce poate epuiza rezervele locale.

• Apa reziduală rezultată în urma fracturării conține substanțe radioactive și chimicale toxice și este extrem de periculoasă, ceea ce face depozitarea ei extrem de dificilă și riscantă.

• În urma fracturării hidraulice, gazul natural poate “migra” în rezervele de apă potabilă, punând locuințele și fântânile din vecinătate în pericol de explozie. În SUA au fost documentate peste 1.000 de cazuri de contaminare a apei în apropierea zonelor de extracție.

• Fracturarea hidraulică accelerează schimbările climatice și este asociată cu alunecări de teren și cutremure (sursa: http://www.avaaz.org/ro/spune_nu_fracturaerii_hidraulice_an_romania/?pv=13)

Mai multe state – printre care Franța, Bulgaria și câteva landuri germane și cantoane elvețiene – au interzis fracturarea hidraulică sau au instituit moratorii împotriva acestei metode.

Nigel Farage tonight-Get your money out of europe-BANK RUN, NOW !!!!

Nigel Farage tonight-Get your money out of europe-BANK RUN

“I must say the thing I find the shabbiest about it is there insisting that it doesn’t need to be subjected to a vote in the Cypriot Parliament. I very much hope that the members of the Cypriot Parliament say, ‘To hell with that, we demand another vote.’

It’s funny isn’t it, the Germans are going to have a vote on it in their Parliament, but the Cypriots are being told that they shouldn’t have a vote on it. If that’s not moving into a German dominated Europe, I don’t know what is.

I said last week that I felt any savers who had money in other eurozone banks, particularly in the Southern eurozone countries, really ought to think seriously about getting their money out. Well, this afternoon something far more serious has happened. The Dutch Finance Minister, about an hour and a half ago, said that he saw the Cyprus eurozone bailout as now being a template of how they intend to act in the future. So the burden of all of this will now fall on the private sector, and not on the public sector.

Frankly, what that now says is that anybody that has money, or anybody that has big money sitting in a Spanish or an Italian bank, and particularly if you happen to be a financial officer for a company, it would be criminally negligent of you to now leave your money or a company’s money in a Spanish or an Italian bank.

I think what they’ve done today is to spark a major run on those banks. I see that some of the banks stocks have fallen 6% this afternoon, and I think in their desperation to keep the eurozone propped-up, I really believe that long-term they have made an absolutely fatal error. They have now crossed the bounds into one of complete criminality, and from this their reputations will never, ever recover.”

A summit of leaders on Feb. 4 produced no breakthrough, with Germany and France introducing new proposals for boosting competitiveness across the zone, prompting renewed disagreement among states. Another summit is due to be held after March 9 to sustain momentum towards a deal, with the complete package expected to be finalised at another summit on March 24-25 in Brussels. Below are ideas that have been discussed formally or informally and could be included. Some measures face strong opposition from Germany and appear unlikely to make it.

INCREASING THE EFFECTIVE LENDING CAPACITY OF THE EFSF

There is a strong chance of this step being adopted. The nominal lending capacity of the European Financial Stability Facility, the euro zone bailout fund, is 440 billion euros, but because of a system of guarantees to secure a triple-A credit rating, the special purpose vehicle has an effective lending capacity of only around 250 billion euros. The European Commission, France, Germany and others agree that the effective lending capacity should be boosted to the full 440 billion and talks are focusing on how to do that. The idea of raising the EFSF's overall size above 440 billion euros was rejected by euro zone ministers on Jan. 17.

HOW COULD THE EFSF'S CAPACITY BE INCREASED?

Lifting the EFSF's effective capacity could require euro zone states to increase their guarantees, forcing some governments to seek fresh approval from their parliaments. This could be politically tricky in countries such as Germany where public opinion is against bailouts of countries that have been overspending or not kept budgets in check. Berlin has indicated that instead, euro zone countries with a rating below the top notch could inject cash into the EFSF, making up for their lack of a triple-A grade. If the 11 non-AAA countries in the euro zone injected cash, the fund would no longer need cash buffers to secure its rating and could therefore lower its interest rate. But non-AAA countries are not keen to spend cash, so the end-result could be a mix of both options, euro zone sources have indicated.