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Monday 16 April 2012

Rosneft, ExxonRussia Stunned After Japanese Plan to Evacuate 40 Million Revealed

 circulating in the Kremlin today prepared by the Foreign Ministry on the planned re-opening of talks with Japan over the disputed Kuril Islands during the next fortnight states that Russian diplomats were “stunned” after being told by their Japanese counterparts that upwards of 40 million of their peoples were in “extreme danger” of life threatening radiation poisoning and could very well likely be faced with forced evacuations away from their countries eastern most located cities…including the world’s largest one, Tokyo.


The Kuril Islands are located in Russia's Sakhalin Oblast region and stretch approximately 1,300 km (810 miles) northeast from Hokkaidō, Japan, to Kamchatka, Russia, separating the Sea of Okhotsk from the North Pacific Ocean. There are 56 islands and many more minor rocks. It consists of Greater Kuril Ridge and Lesser Kuril Ridge, all of which were captured by Soviet Forces in the closing days of World War II from the Japanese.


The “extreme danger” facing tens of millions of the Japanese peoples is the result of the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Disaster that was a series of equipment failures, nuclear meltdowns, and releases of radioactive materials at the Fukushima I Nuclear Power Plant, following the Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami on 11 March 2011.

According to this report, Japanese diplomats have signaled to their Russian counterparts that the returning of the Kuril Islands to Japan is “critical” as they have no other place to resettle so many people that would, in essence, become the largest migration of human beings since the 1930’s when Soviet leader Stalin forced tens of millions to resettle Russia’s far eastern regions.

Important to note, this report continues, are that Japanese diplomats told their Russian counterparts that they were, also, “seriously considering” an offer by China to relocate tens of millions of their citizens to the Chinese mainland to inhabit what are called the “ghost cities,” built for reasons still unknown and described, in part, by London’s Daily Mail News Service in their 18 December 2010 article titled “The Ghost Towns Of China: Amazing Satellite Images Show Cities Meant To Be Home To Millions Lying Deserted” that says:

“These amazing satellite images show sprawling cities built in remote parts of China that have been left completely abandoned, sometimes years after their construction. Elaborate public buildings and open spaces are completely unused, with the exception of a few government vehicles near communist authority offices. Some estimates put the number of empty homes at as many as 64 million, with up to 20 new cities being built every year in the country's vast swathes of free land.”

Foreign Ministry experts in this report note that should Japan accept China’s offer, the combined power of these two Asian peoples would make them the largest super-power in human history with an economy larger than that of the United States and European Union combined and able to field a combined military force of over 200 million.

To how dire the situation is in Japan was recently articulated by Japanese diplomat Akio Matsumura who warned that the disaster at the Fukushima nuclear plant may ultimately turn into an event capable of extinguishing all life on Earth.

According to the Infowars.Com News Service: “Matsumura posted [this] startling entry on his blog following a statement made by Japan’s former ambassador to Switzerland, Mitsuhei Murata, on the situation at Fukushima.

Speaking at a public hearing of the Budgetary Committee of the House of Councilors on 22 March 2012, Murata warned that “if the crippled building of reactor unit 4 – with 1,535 fuel rods in the spent fuel pool 100 feet (30 meters) above the ground – collapses, not only will it cause a shutdown of all six reactors but will also affect the common spent fuel pool containing 6,375 fuel rods, located some 50 meters from reactor 4,” writes Matsumura.

In both cases the radioactive rods are not protected by a containment vessel; dangerously, they are open to the air. This would certainly cause a global catastrophe like we have never before experienced. He stressed that the responsibility of Japan to the rest of the world is immeasurable. Such a catastrophe would affect us all for centuries. Ambassador Murata informed us that the total numbers of the spent fuel rods at the Fukushima Daiichi site excluding the rods in the pressure vessel is 11,421.”

Disturbingly, the desperate situation facing Japan is, also, facing the United States as Russian military observers overflying the US this week as part of the Open Skies Treaty are reporting “unprecedented” amounts of radiation in the Western regions of that country, a finding that was further confirmed by scientists with the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute who have confirmed that a wave of highly radioactive waste is headed directly for the US west coast.

Important to note is that this new wave of Fukushima radiation headed towards the US is in addition to earlier radiation events that American scientists are now blaming for radioactive particles from Japan being detected in California kelp.

Though the news of this ongoing global catastrophe is still being heavily censored in the US, the same cannot be said about Japan, and as recently reported by the leading Japanese newspaper The Mainichi Daily News that reports:

“One of the biggest issues that we face is the possibility that the spent nuclear fuel pool of the No. 4 reactor at the stricken Fukushima No. 1 Nuclear Power Plant will collapse. This is something that experts from both within and outside Japan have pointed out since the massive quake struck. TEPCO, meanwhile, says that the situation is under control. However, not only independent experts, but also sources within the government say that it’s a grave concern.

The storage pool in the No. 4 reactor building has a total of 1,535 fuel rods, or 460 tons of nuclear fuel, in it. The 7-story building itself has suffered great damage, with the storage pool barely intact on the building’s third and fourth floors. The roof has been blown away. If the storage pool breaks and runs dry, the nuclear fuel inside will overheat and explode, causing a massive amount of radioactive substances to spread over a wide area. Both the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) and French nuclear energy company Areva have warned about this risk.

A report released in February by the Independent Investigation Commission on the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Accident stated that the storage pool of the plant’s No. 4 reactor has clearly been shown to be “the weakest link” in the parallel, chain-reaction crises of the nuclear disaster. The worse-case scenario drawn up by the government includes not only the collapse of the No. 4 reactor pool, but the disintegration of spent fuel rods from all the plant’s other reactors. If this were to happen, residents in the Tokyo metropolitan area would be forced to evacuate.”

Even though this crisis in Japan has been described as “a nuclear war without a war,” and the US Military is being reported is now stocking up on massive amounts of anti-radiation pills in preparation for nuclear fallout, there remains no evidence at all the ordinary peoples are being warned about this danger in any way whatsoever.

 




The ghost towns of China: Amazing satellite images show cities meant to be home to millions lying deserted



 These amazing satellite images show sprawling cities built in remote parts of China that have been left completely abandoned, sometimes years after their construction.


Elaborate public buildings and open spaces are completely unused, with the exception of a few government vehicles near communist authority offices.


Some estimates put the number of empty homes at as many as 64 million, with up to 20 new cities being built every year in the country's vast swathes of free land.


The photographs have emerged as a Chinese government think tank warns that the country's real estate bubble is getting worse, with property prices in major cities overvalued by as much as 70 per cent.

 Of the 35 major cities surveyed, property prices in eleven including Beijing and Shanghai were between 30 and 50 per cent above their market value, the China Daily said, citing the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.

Prices in Fuzhou, capital of the southeastern province of Fujian, had the worst property bubble with average house prices more than 70 per cent higher than their market value, according to the survey conducted in September.

The average price in the 35 cities surveyed was nearly 30 per cent above the market value, the report said.

Property prices have remained stubbornly high despite the government adopting a slew of measures since April including hiking minimum downpayments to at least 30 per cent and ordering banks not to provide loans for third home purchases.

Prices in 70 major cities were up 0.2 per cent in October from the previous month and 8.6 percent higher than a year ago, official data showed.

The increase came after prices gained 0.5 per cent month on month in September, which was the first increase since May.

Massive stimulus measures taken since 2008 to fend off the financial crisis injected huge amounts of liquidity in the market and have been blamed for fuelling real estate prices.

'The government target is not clear and policy is incoherent,' CASS senior research Ni Pengfei was quoted saying.

According to research carried out by Time magazine, fixed-asset investment in the Asian country accounted for more than 90 per cent of its overall growth - with residential and commercial real estate investment making up nearly a quarter of that.

Regional governments across China have been building massive real estate projects, including Kangbashi in Inner Mongolia and Zhengzhou New District, which have remained empty, because of the high prices and interest in investment.

Kangbashi, which was built in just five years, was meant to be the urban centre for Ordos City - a wealthy coal-mining hub home to 1.5million people.

It was filled with office towers, administrative centres, museums, theatres and sports facilities as well as thousands of homes, but remains virtually deserted.

Prices have continued to soar, investors have increasingly turned to property speculation fuelling the continued bubble.

The onset of the 2008 global recession was the bursting of the real estate bubble in the U.S. and experts fear a similar situation in China could prove catastrophic for still struggling economies and banking systems.

Beijing has introduced measures to cool 'ridiculous' property prices, but the risks of a crash mean the campaign is unlikely to ease up in the next year.

Public discontent has been fuelled by high prices in China's cities and the measures, introduced in April, have made it more difficult for speculators and developers to hoard land and chase up prices as lending has been restricted.

Wang Shi, chairman of China Vanke - the country's largest property developer - said: 'Tightening measures will not loosen next year.

'If we can control the pace of property price gains within a reasonable range, it's already an achievement.'



 Property sales for Vanke already exceeded $15billion so far this year, but Mr Shi has insisted China will not end up in a worse place than Dubai - where a property price bubble imploded during the global financial crisis.

He said: 'It could be really, really bad without the government stepping in.

'If the bubble bursts, Japan's past will be China's present.'

But short-seller Jim Chanos has issued a more dire warning, and said he expected China's economy to implode in a real estate bust.

He said the country was 'on an economic treadmill to hell' and the country's bubble was 'Dubai times 1,000'.

In the 1980s, Tokyo saw a massive rise in property prices and a subsequent crash. The Hong Kong property market experienced a similar phenomenon in the 1990s.





 Rosneft, Exxon Mobil sign landmark deal to develop Arctic reserves..

 

 

Rosneft and Exxon Mobil have signed a partnership deal, which will see them work together to develop the Arctic's rich untapped reserves.

The deal also hands Russia's top oil firm access to projects in North America developed by Exxon.

Contracts creating two operating companies to develop projects in the Kara and Black Seas, worth around $1bn were signed by Rosneft president Eduard Khudainatov and Exxon Mobil CEO Rex Tillerson in the presence of Russia’s president-elect Vladmir Putin.

Russian Deputy PM & former Rosneft Chairman Igor Sechin told media that at least 15 sea platforms would be built on the Arctic Kara Sea. “The drilling process will be very complex and will require significant investment. Preliminary estimates put the Kara sea investment at up to $300 bln. Under the Black Sea exploration deal drilling is expected to start in 2015 and will require injections of up to $55 bln. Investments into other projects is still to be defined”.

Sechin estimates Kara Sea deposit reserves at about 4.9 billion tons of oil and 8.3 trillion of cubic meters of gas. The Black Sea shelf deposit reserves are estimated at 1.2 billion tons of oil.

Vladimir Rozhankovsky, Head of Research at Nord Capital in Moscow, however, says it’s too early to call the agreements game-changers. “It’s just a number of framework deals, which I believe will become a full-scale cooperation deals not until we know the name of the next US president. Politics is weighing on such big deals a lot. I don’t think real joint exploration will kick-off any time soon, as the US is still treating its Russian partners with a shade of caution.”

Under a separate deal Rosneft will gain 30% stakes in three Exxon Mobil projects in the US, the Gulf of Mexico and Canada.

Rosneft & Exxon Mobil also inked an agreement to study development of difficult to reach oil reserves  (Achimovka and Tyumen layers) in Western Siberia which Rosneft estimates at about 1.7 billion tonnes.

Sechin also mentioned last week’s decree lifting all export duties for new projects in the Аrctic shelf to boost investment into the area. It’s estimated that the Arctic may contain 20 percent of the world's oil and gas reserves, though the reserves are notoriously hard to reach and present huge environmental challenges.

“The huge Arctic deposit may contain up to 70% of Russia’s reserves. Exxon Mobil is a strong partner, which can offer Russia its shelf exploration expertise and technical facilitation. In turn it is likely to seek no less than a 49% stake in the joint venture, with Rosneft of course preserving the 51% blocking stake,” continues Rozhankovsky.

Rosneft had tried to partner up with BP last year, but it fell through as the British oil major became entangled in a legal battle with its existing Russian partners TNK-BP.



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