Moody's cuts nuclear operator Tepco rating to junk status

– Mon Jun 20, 6:33 am ET

TOKYO (Reuters) – Moody's Investors Service cut its credit rating on Tokyo Electric Power Co to junk status on Monday and kept the operator of Japan's crippled nuclear power plant on review for possible further downgrade, citing uncertainty over the fate of its bailout plan.

Moody's said it had lowered Tokyo Electric Power's (Tepco) senior secured rating to Ba2 from Baa2 and long-term rating to B1 from Baa3, citing rising costs and compensation fees related to the disaster at Tepco's Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant after the March 11 earthquake and tsunami, the world's worst nuclear disaster in 25 years.

"The latest downgrade reflects further escalation of costs and damages from the continuing Fukushima nuclear plant disaster and increased concern that government support measures may not completely protect creditors from losses," Moody's said.

"The continued review for possible further downgrade is due to the uncertainty surrounding the passage of the support plan through the Diet, and the difficulty in estimating the ultimate total for Tepco's total compensation liability," it said.

The move follows a similar downgrade to junk status by ratings agency Standard and Poor's, which late last month cut its long-term credit rating on Tepco to B+ from BBB, and the utility's secured bonds rating to BB+ from BBB.

Moody's said likely damages were now beyond Tepco's ability to finance without government support, and the ratings agency said it is "very likely that a support program in some form will be legislated eventually due to TEPCO's role as Japan's largest provider of electricity."

Tepco is Japan's largest corporate bond issuer, and its shares are widely held by financial institutions.

"A failure to approve the support program would result in a multi-notch downgrade to reflect likely default through some form of debt restructuring, or court-supervised bankruptcy proceeding," Moody's said.

Even if a support program is enacted on a timely basis, Moody's said it expected Tepco to remain financially weak for several years.

Tepco will likely face rising costs for replacement power, bear higher costs for stabilizing the Fukushima plant, as well as its decommissioning, Moody's said.

"Prospects for passing higher costs onto its customers in timely manner that meets the company's financial needs are in doubt under the current regulatory regime and in view of the unfavorable economic environment," Moody's said.

"These factors would together put its equity base under significant pressure. In addition, no losses have yet been booked for compensation claims which size is still uncertain," Moody's said.

Reactor cooling systems were knocked out by the earthquake and tsunami, causing a meltdown at three of the reactors and forcing the evacuation of about 80,000 residents near the plant.

Efforts to restore control over the plant have faced repeated setbacks, with the latest on Saturday, when a rise in radiation halted the clean-up of radioactive water at the Fukushima plant hours after it got under way.

Japan's government last month agreed to set up a fund with taxpayer money to help Tepco avoid insolvency and compensate victims of the radiation crisis at the plant.

Japan's ruling party will extend a session of parliament to approve extra spending needed to rebuild areas ravaged by the earthquake, although it is unclear if the bills will win support from a combative opposition. Besides the extra budget, lawmakers have yet to approve a draft law on compensation to Tepco victims, among others.

There is much criticism about the scheme.

Japan's main opposition Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) is not prepared to accept the government's scheme to help Tepco pay billions of dollars in compensation to victims of its nuclear plant disaster, a LDP lawmaker said on Monday.

But the LDP is not united on its own counterproposal to a government bill that would allow the establishment of a fund to help Tepco compensate those affected by radiation leaks, Taro Kono told the Reuters Rebuilding Japan Summit in Tokyo.

Tepco's next shareholder meeting will be held on June 28.

(Reporting by Chikako Mogi; Editing by Chris Gallagher)

Prestigious doctor: US nuclear 'Baby valley of death,' Millions to die (video)

• June 20, 2011 2:14 am ET

Deborah Dupre

Dr. Mark Sircus bearer of tragic radiation news

Sunday, the prestigious Doctor Mark Sircus released a new report concurring with a host of scientists and other doctors giving evidence that people of Japan and United States have been subjected to dangerous levels of radiation since Fukushima nuclear plant meltdowns, and also subjected to a tight cover-up by authorities and media, the result of which will be millions of baby deaths and new cancer victims. Japanese and American children are already suffering with symptoms that appear to be the first signs of Radiation Sickness.

"Finally, three months later, we are getting some numbers on what the real dangers are. And finally we can begin to understand the enormous cover-up of the nuclear doom that is reaching lungs all over the west coast of America, Canada, Alaska, Hawaii and at least half of Japan!" stated Dr. Mark Sircus.

Dr. Sircus Ac., OMD, is director of International Medical Veritas Association (IMVA) http://www.imva.info/. He was trained in acupuncture and oriental medicine at Institute of Traditional Medicine in Sante Fe, N.M., and at the School of Traditional Medicine of New England in Boston. He served at the Central Public Hospital of Pochutla in Mexico, and was awarded the title of doctor of oriental medicine for his work including one of the first nationally certified acupuncturists in the U.S. Dr. Sircus's IMVA is dedicated to unifying various disciplines in medicine with the goal of creating a new dawn in healthcare. 

"For infants, it’s a terrible valley of death we have created for them." says Dr. Sircus. "As we shall see for years, all of them have been born with already polluted bloodstreams and now, the very young ones are dying in greater numbers on the west coast of the United States since Fukushima blew up."

No way to avoid tiny hot particles

 

"After the first week, officials had enough information to call for evacuation of a wide area in Japan and also Hawaii, Alaska and the entire west coast of North America," said Dr. Sircus.

 

All of northern Japan and the U.S. west coast should have been evacuated according to Dr. Sircus, admittedly "as impossible as evacuating the entire planet or the entire northern hemisphere."

 

"Avoiding exposure is always the best plan but there is no way to avoid breathing in air contaminated with tiny hot particles. Inhalation issues are much more frightening than ingestion issues because you can pick and choose what you eat and drink but you can't buy bottled air."

 

"Nuclear Toxicity Syndrome," one of the books authored by Dr. Sircus, is about "how to survive in nuclear and chemical hell," he says. Dr. Sircus, a founding guide of Gulf Coast Barefoot Doctors, deliverers of Detox Survival Kits to hundreds of Gulf Of Mexico BP oil and Corexit poisoned survivors.

 

Echoing the frustration of many Gulf of Mexico "barefoot doctors" and other volunteers since the BP oil catastrophe there over a year ago, Dr. Sircus states that "one cannot do what is necessary to survive hell if a person doesn’t know they are living in one." The problem is that, due to the media blackout on environmental hazards associated with non-renewable energy big business, relatively few people know the hell Gulf Coast people are enduring. Many Gulf Coast residents continue to attribute ongoing illness to a persistent "flu." Just as more people are doing today in relation to Fukushima radiation, many Gulf Coast residents remain in denial that Gulf of Mexico radiation from seeping oil and antibiotic resistant bacteria from the dispersant Corexit are lethal and government has not helped them. This is why Dr. Sircus and many health professionals contributed to the work of Mr. Jeff Rense for his book, "Coming Clean: From Denial to Detox" that he freely offers to save lives.

 

Despite mixed reports from officials and media about the vulnerability of United States nuclear plants threatened by flooding, Dr. Sircus highlights, "It just keeps getting worse by the day, and now we have Fort Calhoun nuclear plant outside Omaha, Nebraska on emergency alert as first fire and now flooding threatens to overwhelm yet another nuclear facility."

We knew nuke power plants were bad news, but who would think they would build them on fault lines or in flood zones?" he asks.

 

Should US West Coast residents be worried?

 

While people like Arnie Gundersen have tiptoed the answer to whether west coasters should be worried about Fukushima fallout, Dr. Sircus answered more bluntly:

"I am afraid I will have to be brutally honest and be the bearer of really terrible news. The information coming out about hot particle concentrations near Fukushima, Tokyo, and now Seattle tell us that not only should all those populations be worrying but their governments should have been issuing evacuation orders months ago."

 

 "Because of the jet stream in April, after the large explosions that destroyed three reactor buildings, it was as dangerous in Seattle and much of the west coast of North America as in Tokyo." (Emphasis added)

According to Dr. Sircus, the average Tokyo resident is thought to have inhaled 10 “hot particles” per day throughout April 2011. Inhabitants of Fukushima were estimated to have inhaled 30-40 times more than that—up to 400 hot particles per day every day that month.

 

In Seattle, WA, it is estimated that the average person absorbed five “hot particles” per day during April 2011, or 10 “hot particles” per day if athletes working out.

 

"These invisible atomic particles become lodged in your lungs, intestines, bone or muscle."

 

Being very conservative and saying this has dropped to even one a day "would still be 30 of these death particles a month, approximately 200 radioactive particles into their lungs and other tissues by now.

 

"When you think that if even one of these 200 is plutonium," states Dr. Sircus, "we have to think in terms of millions of eventual cancer deaths."

 

______________

Dr. Mark Sircus recently released e-books including: Winning the War Against Cancer, Survival Medicine for the 21st Century, Sodium Bicarbonate, Rich Man’s Poor Man’s Cancer Treatment, New Paradigms in Diabetic Care and Bringing Back the Universal Medicine: IODINE.

He is a pioneer in natural detoxification and chelation of toxic chemicals and heavy metals and a champion of the medicinal value of minerals and seawater. Transdermal Magnesium Therapy, his first published work, offers a stunning breakthrough in medicine, an entirely new way to supplement magnesium that naturally increases DHEA levels, brings cellular magnesium levels up quickly, relieves pain, brings down blood pressure and pushes cell physiology in a positive direction. Magnesium chloride delivered transdermally brings a quick release from a broad range of conditions. For more information on Dr. Sircus's contributions, see International Medical Veritas Association: www.imva.info/

and publications.imva.info/.

Deborah Dupré welcomes emails at info@DeborahDupré.com. 

For learning to survive radiation poisoning, download the free ebook that Jeff Rense guaranteed would save lives, "Coming Clean: From Denial to Detox" at TriageTVNews.com. 

To report radiation sickness symptoms for the common good, see the article, "8 radiation sickness signs (Slideshow)" and share your observations after the article, "Children sickness linked to Fukushima radiation."

Suggested by the author:

• 8 radiation sickness signs (Slideshow)
• Children sickness linked to Fukushima radiation
• Fukushima: Radioactive water level too high to clean, American suffering rising
• Nebraska nuclear emergencies: One plant in 'ocean,' other in fire
• Fukushima 3mo anniv protests, Mutant bunny today, human babies tomorrow?(video)

Blacklisted news: more on secrecy of press re Nebraska

As the mainstream media continues to be obsessed with Anthony Weiner and his bizarre adventures on Twitter, much more serious events are happening around the world that are getting very little attention.  In America today, if the mainstream media does not cover something it is almost as if it never happened.


Right now, the worst nuclear disaster in human history 
continues to unfold in Japan , U.S. nuclear facilities are being threatened by flood waters, the U.S. military is bombing Yemen, gigantic cracks in the earth are appearing all over the globe and the largest wildfire in Arizona history is causing immense devastation.  But Anthony Weiner, Bristol Palin and Miss USA are what the mainstream media want to tell us about and most Americans are buying it.In times like these, it is more important than ever to think for ourselves. The corporate-owned mainstream media is not interested in looking out for us. 


Rather, they are going to tell us whatever fits with the agenda that their owners are pushing.That is why more Americans than ever are turning to the alternative media. Americans are hungry for the truth, and they know that the amount of truth that they get from the mainstream media continues to decline.

The following are 12 things that the mainstream media is being strangely quiet about right now….

#1 The crisis at the Fort Calhoun nuclear facility in Nebraska has received almost no attention in the national mainstream media.

Back on June 7th, there was a fire at Fort Calhoun.  The official story is that the fire was in an electrical switchgear room at the plant.  The facility lost power to a pump that cools the spent fuel pool for approximately 90 minutes.  According to the Omaha Public Power District, the fire was quickly extinguished and no radioactive material was released.

The following sequence of events is directly from the Omaha Public Power District website….

• There was no such imminent danger with the Fort Calhoun Station spent-fuel pool.
• Due to a fire in an electrical switchgear room at FCS on the morning of June 7, the plant temporarily lost power to a pump that cools the spent-fuel pool.
• The fire-suppression system in that switchgear room operated as designed, extinguishing the fire quickly.
• FCS plant operators switched the spent-fuel pool cooling system to an installed backup pump about 90 minutes after the loss of power.
• During the interruption of cooling, temperature of the pool increased a few degrees, but the pool was never in danger of boiling.
• Due to this situation, FCS declared an Alert at about 9:40 a.m. on June 7.
• An alert is the second-least-serious of four emergency classifications established by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
• At about 1:15 p.m. on June 7, FCS operators declared they had taken all appropriate measures to safely return to the previously declared Notification of Unusual Event emergency classification. (See first item above.)

But the crisis at Fort Calhoun is not over.  Right now, the nuclear facility at Fort Calhoun is essentially an island. It is surrounded by rising flood waters from the Missouri River.

Officials claim that there is no danger and that they are prepared for the river to rise another ten feet.

The Cooper Nuclear Station in Brownville, Nebraska is also being threatened by rising flood waters.  A “Notification of Unusual Event” was declared at Cooper Nuclear Station this morning at 4:02.  This notification was issued because the Missouri River’s water level reached 42.5 feet.

Right now the facility is operating normally and officials don’t expect a crisis.

But considering what has been going on at Fukushima, it would be nice if we could have gotten a lot more coverage of these events by the mainstream media.

1 of 12 things the media is strangely quiet about right now

The crisis at Fukushima continues to get worse.  Arnold Gundersen, a former nuclear industry senior vice president, recently made the following statement about the Fukushima disaster….

“Fukushima is the biggest industrial catastrophe in the history of mankind”

TEPCO has finally admitted that this disaster has released more radioactive material into the environment than Chernobyl did.  That makes Fukushima the worst nuclear disaster of all time, and it is far from over.

Massive amounts of water is being poured into the spent fuel pools in order to keep them cool.  This is creating “hundreds of thousands of tons of highly radioactive sea water” that has got to go somewhere.  Inevitably much of it will get into the ground and into the sea.

Arnold Gundersen says that the scope of this problem is almost unimaginable….

“TEPCO announced they had a melt through. A melt down is when the fuel collapses to the bottom of the reactor, and a melt through means it has melted through some layers. That blob is incredibly radioactive, and now you have water on top of it. The water picks up enormous amounts of radiation, so you add more water and you are generating hundreds of thousands of tons of highly radioactive water.”

The mainstream media is not paying as much attention to Fukushima these days, but that doesn’t mean that it is not a major league nightmare.

Elevated levels of radiation are being reported by Japanese bloggers all over eastern Japan.  There are reports of sick children all over the region.  One adviser to the government of Japan says that an area approximately 17 times the size of Manhattan is probably going to be uninhabitable.

Of course the mainstream media has been telling us all along that Fukushima is nothing to be too concerned about and that authorities in Japan have everything under control.

If the mainstream media is not going to tell us the truth, how are they going to continue to have credibility?

US orders news blackout over crippled Nebraska Nuclear Plant: report

A shocking report prepared by Russia’s Federal Atomic Energy Agency (FAAE) on information provided to them by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) states that the Obama regime has ordered a “total and complete” news blackout relating to any information regarding the near catastrophic meltdown of the Fort Calhoun Nuclear Power Plant located in Nebraska.

According to this report, the Fort Calhoun Nuclear Plant suffered a “catastrophic loss of cooling” to one of its idle spent fuel rod pools on 7 June after this plant was deluged with water caused by the historic flooding of the Missouri River which resulted in a fire causing the Federal Aviation Agency (FAA) to issue a “no-fly ban” over the area.

Located about 20 minutes outside downtown Omaha, the largest city in Nebraska, the Fort Calhoun Nuclear Plant is owned by Omaha Public Power District (OPPD) who on their website denies their plant is at a “Level 4” emergency by stating: “This terminology is not accurate, and is not how emergencies at nuclear power plants are classified.”

Russian atomic scientists in this FAAE report, however, say that this OPPD statement is an “outright falsehood” as all nuclear plants in the world operate under the guidelines of the International Nuclear and Radiological Event Scale (INES) which clearly states the “events” occurring at the Fort Calhoun Nuclear Power Plant do, indeed, put it in the “Level 4” emergency category of an “accident with local consequences” thus making this one of the worst nuclear accidents in US history.

Though this report confirms independent readings in the United States of “negligible release of nuclear gasses” related to this accident it warns that by the Obama regimes censoring of this event for “political purposes” it risks a “serious blowback” from the American public should they gain knowledge of this being hidden from them.

Interesting to note about this event was the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) Chief, Gregory B. Jaczko, blasting the Obama regime just days before the near meltdown of the Fort Calhoun Nuclear Power Plant by declaring that “the policy of not enforcing most fire code violations at dozens of nuclear plants is “unacceptable” and has tied the hands of NRC inspectors.”