Monday, March 14, 2011
Japanese Ordered Ind
Japanese Ordered Indoors In Nuclear Nightmare
SOMA, Japan (AP) — Radiation leaked from a crippled nuclear plant in tsunami-ravaged northeastern Japan after a third reactor was rocked by an explosion Tuesday and a fourth caught fire in a dramatic escalation of the 4-day-old catastrophe. The government warned anyone nearby to stay indoors to avoid exposure.
Nuclear Expert Talks
Nuclear Expert Talks About Effects In Japan And United States
A placard showing a skull has been left by anti-nuclear protesters near the Reichstag building on March 14, 2011 in Berlin. (Johannes Eisele/AFP/Getty Images)The nuclear disaster at Fukushima, Japan is continuing to deteriorate. Multiple explosions have blown roofs and outer walls off reactor buildings, and a dire struggle is under way to prevent the worst.
For several days, authorities have attempted to reassure the public. Now, they are pleading for help.
To get independent answers about the risks faced by people, GlobalPost turned to Arnold Gundersen, a 39-year veteran of the nuclear industry. Now chief engineer at Fairwinds Associates, he has worked as a nuclear plant operator and he served as an expert witness in the investigation into the Three Mile Island accident.
GlobalPost: Officials have said the possibility of a large-scale radiation release is small. Do you agree?
Arnold Gundersen: I think that the probability of a large scale release is about 50-50, and I don’t call that small.
GlobalPost: Why do you think that?
Gundersen: For several reasons. One, you’ve got three reactors involved. Two, you’re already picking up radiation on aircraft carriers a hundred miles away at sea, on helicopters 60 miles to the north, and in town. So clearly, as these plants become more and more difficult to control, it becomes quite likely that a containment now will have a gross failure. And a gross failure will release enormous amounts of radiation quickly.
GlobalPost: The New York Times is reporting that radioactive releases could go on for weeks or months. How concerned should we be about that? At what point does a reactor like this becomes less menacing?
Gundersen: The chain reaction has stopped. That happened in two seconds. But the radioactive isotopes are still decaying away. They’ll decay for at least a year. So you have to release the pressure from that containment pretty much every day. With releasing the pressure will come releasing radioactive isotopes as well.
So yes, the Times is right that every plant — there are now three or four of them — will be opening up valves every day to make sure the pressure is down. And there will be releases from these plants for at least a year.
GlobalPost: How much of a health threat is that?
Gundersen: Within 90 days, the iodine health risks will disappear, because that will decay away. But the nasty isotopes — the cesium and strontium will remain for 30 years. And they’re volatile.
After Three Mile Island, strontium was detected 150 miles away from the reactor. That ends up in cow’s milk and doesn’t go away for 300 years. The releases from these plants will last for a year, and will contain elements that will remain in the environment for 300 years, even in the best case.
If we have a meltdown, it will be even worse than that.
GlobalPost: The ultimate risk in any nuclear accident is that the heat can grow so intense that the steel containment vessel is ruptured, releasing a large amount of radiation. You say there’s a 50-50 chance of this happening. What kind of health effects can we expect?
Gundersen: First, it’s important to know that this steel containment is about an inch thick. It’s not some massive battleship of steel. The reactor is already open, because the pressure relief valves have to stay open.
On top of that, these containments have already breached. We saw iodine and cesium in the environment before the first unit exploded. When you see that, that’s clearly an indication that the containment has breached.
Now, is it leaking 1 percent a day? Probably. Is it leaking 100 percent a day? No. I think for the neighboring towns out to 2 miles, they won’t have anybody back in them for five years. Out to 15 miles, I doubt you’re going to see anyone back for six months. And that’s in the best case, without a meltdown.
If we have a meltdown, I don’t think anyone will be back within 20 miles for 10 or 15 years.
GlobalPost: What would happen if they did return?
Gundersen: There would be higher incidence of cancer. The groundwater would be contaminated. With a meltdown, you’re worried about surface contamination of everything within miles of the plant, and groundwater contamination as well.
GlobalPost: How far would the ground water contamination spread?
Gundersen: Chernobyl had a meltdown, and that groundwater wedge is gradually working its way toward Kiev, which is a very large city [about 80 miles away]. That groundwater contamination lingers for 300 years. It’s not something that’s easy to mitigate.
GlobalPost: That’s a serious issue in a country like Japan with a large population and a small land area.
Gundersen: That’s right.
GlobalPost: You mentioned that the containment vessels have already been damaged. It appears that officials are reporting the opposite. How do you know you’re right?
Gundersen: We’re seeing iodine and cesium in the environment. That’s an indication that the containments are leaking. Exactly how much they’re leaking it’s hard to say.
I can’t understand how officials can say that the releases are low, when they don’t have any instruments that are working. Their batteries have failed, and when the batteries fail, all of the instruments stop working. So it’s hard to determine what the radiation levels are, and what the pressure levels are.
The Japanese and the nuclear industry are heavily, heavily financially invested in this. My experience is that, after Three Mile Island and after Chernobyl, everybody said there wasn’t a problem, until there was a problem. So I really don’t put much faith in official pronouncements the first week of an accident.
GlobalPost: So the people who have access to information have a self interest in making that information look as benign as possible?
Gundersen: Yes. On top of that, the officials don’t want to provoke a panic. So there’s a financial long term interest to try to minimize the impact. The flip side of that is that in the process you lose transparency. There is no transparency right now. We’re dealing with second hand information.
I understand from one source that the second unit cannot be vented, because the vent is jammed. I don’t know if that’s true or not. I have one source, and I like to have two. But this accident hasn’t played out yet. It could clearly get worse before it gets better.
GlobalPost: When you say the venting system is jammed, does that mean that pressure will keep building up until something catastrophic happens?
Gundersen: Yes.
GlobalPost: That sounds bad. There have been explosions at two of the buildings where the reactors are housed. You used to operate nuclear reactors. Would the control rooms be affected by these explosions? And how do they continue controlling the reactors under these circumstances?
Gundersen: Yes. The control rooms have become almost uninhabitable. The operators would have to be in Scott air packs, because the ventilation failed. Otherwise they would be breathing contaminated air. The control room is very close to these reactors. Probably 200 feet away. I doubt there’s much being done in the control rooms. They’re contaminated, and the air is unfit to breathe. It’s very difficult to get anything done if you’re wearing an air pack and a bubble suit.
GlobalPost: So how do they release the pressure? Are they sending people to the reactor to manually do these things?
Gundersen: They’ll send someone out to manually open a valve. And then that person will go back out to manually close a valve. In a high radiation field, there are only so many trips you can make before you’ve exceeded what they call emergency limits. So these people are picking up very large doses in very short periods of time. For their personal health, you can’t send them out again.
So they’re running through the available number of operators to do these high risk maneuvers.
GlobalPost: Is it highly skilled work?
Gundersen: Yes.
GlobalPost: Do these doses endanger their health, or are they below thresholds that would cause a problem?
The probability of these workers getting cancer is dramatically increasing, because the doses they receive in a day are higher than what they get in a year. For every 250 rem received, there will be a cancer. That’s pretty well defined. So if one person picks up 2.5 rem, for every hundred people, one of them will get a cancer. That’s just a statistical crapshoot.
GlobalPost: How safe is Tokyo at this point?
The radiation is being diluted by the wind and spread out. Tokyo is a long way away. Germany is a long way from Chernobyl, and the ground in Germany is so contaminated that they are still prohibiting the hunting of wild boars, 25 years later.
But we don’t have a lot of accurate measures. There’s a U.S. aircraft carrier 100 miles away, and the workers on that aircraft carrier received in one hour the dose they would normally get in one month.
GlobalPost: Is there any risk that the radiation would reach American shores?
Oh it will. Chernobyl reached the U.S. The question is how much radiation? There’s not a lot of data to make that determination right now.
GlobalPost: Should people be concerned about food contamination?
Certainly in Japan they should.
I’ve gone out and bought potassium iodine pills, and I plan to take potassium iodine starting in about 10 days, just because I’m concerned about food contamination. That’s a personal choice right now. My experience says that it would be prudent to get potassium iodine pills and take them, to avoid any of the iodine that might come over. But there’s not a lot of data to support whether or not potassium iodine really helps.
GlobalPost: Is that something that you can buy in a health food store?
Yes, you can get these pills in health food stores and online, although I hear that they’re selling out.
Tokyo Detects Small
Radiation levels in
Radiation May Reach Tokyo With Population Of 13 Million Within 10 Hours - CBS News
Low-level radioactive wind from the nuclear reactor in could reach Tokyo within 10 hours, based on current winds, the French embassy says. Radiation at up to 9 times the normal level was briefly detected in Kanagawa near Tokyo.
Radiation Spewing From Japanese Nuclear Plant | KSTP TV - Minneapolis and St. Paul
Radiation spewed Tuesday from a crippled nuclear power plant in tsunami-ravaged northeastern Japan in a dramatic escalation of the 4-day-old catastrophe that prompted the government to tell people within 19 miles (30 kilometers) to stay indoors to avoid exposure.
Radiation threat to U.S. minimal | Philly | 03/14/2011
Japan's nightmare continues, with death tolls and damage estimates rising, but fears that the environmental fallout of the catastrophe would ripple to the United States are ebbing.
Based on current wind forecasts, it could take up to a week for any of the plumes from the earthquake-damaged Fukushima Daiishi nuclear plant to reach North America, says Jeff Masters, meteorologist with the popular Weather Underground site.
By then, he said, most of the radioactive particles would have settled or been rained out of the atmosphere.
He points out that the 1986 accident at the Chernobyl nuclear plant, in what is now the Urkraine was a far-more intense nuclear disaster but didn't export damaging radioactive material more than 1,000 miles.
Incidentally, AIR Worldwide, the insurance catastrophe-modeling concern in New England, estimates up to $35 billion in insured losses as a result of the quake, but that number is likely to be a rapidly moving target.
Hurricane Katrina, in 2005, resulted in about $65 billion in insured losses.
So far, very low risk of West Coast contamination from Japanese nuclear accident, experts say - San Jose Mercury News
As emergency workers struggled to prevent a full-scale meltdown at a Japanese nuclear plant, public health experts said Monday there is little risk that radioactive material could reach California and the West Coast -- unless the disaster gets a lot worse.
And even then, the public health threat probably remains very small.
"Based on the type of reactor design and the nature of the accident, we see a very low likelihood -- really a very low probability -- that there's any possibility of harmful radiation levels in the United States, or in Hawaii or in any other U.S. territories," said Greg Jaczko, chairman of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, at Monday's White House press briefing.
Japan's PM says 4th reactor of Fukushima NPP on fire | World | RIA Novosti
A fire at the fourth reactor of the Fukushima 1 nuclear power plant resulted in a leak of highly concentrated radiation, the Japanese premier said on Tuesday.
Prime Minister Naoto Kan called on the citizens residing within the 20-km (13 miles) distance from the reactor to immediately leave this zone and those living more than 20-30 km (13-17 miles) from the NPP to stay in their houses, but to shut windows and doors.
Japan faces catastro
Japan Faces Prospect
Japan Faces Prospect of Nuclear Catastrophe as Workers Leave Plant
TOKYO — Japan faced the likelihood of a catastrophic nuclear accident Tuesday morning, as an explosion at the most crippled of three reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station damaged its crucial steel containment structure, emergency workers were withdrawn from the plant, and much larger emissions of radioactive materials appeared immiment, according to official statements and industry executives informed about the developments.
Japanese Prime Minsiter Naoto Kan made a televised address to the nation at 11 a.m. Tokyo time to discuss the latest developments in the crisis.
The sharp deterioration came after government officials said the containment structure of the No. 2 reactor, the most seriously damaged of three reactors at the Daichi plant, had suffered damage during an explosion shortly after 6 a.m. on Tuesday.
They initially suggested that the damage was limited and that emergency operations aimed at cooling the nuclear fuel at three stricken reactors with seawater would continue. But industry executives said that in fact the situation had spiraled out of control and that all plant workers needed to leave the plant to avoid excessive exposure to radioactive leaks.
If all workers do in fact leave the plant, the nuclear fuel in all three reactors is likely to melt down, which would lead to wholesale releases of radioactive material — by far the largest accident of its kind since the Chernobyl disaster 25 years ago.
Reports of an imminent worsening of the problem came after a frantic day and night of rescue efforts focused largely on the No. 2 reactor. There, a malfunctioning valve prevented workers from manually venting the containment vessel to release pressure and allow fresh seawater to be injected into it. That meant that the extraordinary remedy emergency workers have been using to keep the nuclear fuel from overheating no longer worked.
As a result, the nuclear fuel in that reactor was exposed for many hours, increasing the risk of a breach of the container vessel and a more dangerous emissions of radioactive particles.
By Tuesday morning, the plant’s operator, Tokyo Electric Power, said it had fixed the valve and resumed seawater injections, but that they had detected possible leaks in the containment vessel that prevented water from fully covering the fuel rods.
Then the explosion hit the same reactor. The operator initially reported that the blast may have damaged the bottom part of the container vessel, but later said radiation levels had not risen high enough to suggest a major escalation of the problem. While they did not immediately provide a detailed account of what happened at the reactor, government and company officials initially ruled out a serious breach that could lead to massive radioactive leaks or a full meltdown of the nuclear fuel.
Even if a full meltdown is averted, Japanese officials have been facing unpalatable options. One was to continue flooding the reactors and venting the resulting steam, while hoping that the prevailing winds, which have headed across the Pacific, did not turn south toward Tokyo or west, across northern Japan to the Korean Peninsula. The other was to hope that the worst of the overheating was over, and that with the passage of a few more days the nuclear cores would cool enough to essentially entomb the radioactivity inside the plants, which clearly will never be used again. Both approaches carried huge risks.
While Japanese officials made no comparisons to past accidents, the release of an unknown quantity of radioactive gases and particles — all signs that the reactor cores were damaged from at least partial melting of fuel — added considerable tension to the effort to cool the reactors.
“It’s way past Three Mile Island already,” said Frank von Hippel, a physicist and professor at Princeton. “The biggest risk now is that the core really melts down and you have a steam explosion.”
Hiroko Tabuchi reported from Tokyo, Keith Bradsher from Hong Kong and Matthew L. Wald from Washington.
New explosion report
Special report: Big
FedEx halts Tokyo-bo
FedEx halts Tokyo-bound shipments; other Memphis firms respond to Japan crisis » The Commercial Appeal
Aftershocks from Friday's earthquake and tsunami in Japan continued to be felt Monday in the Memphis business community.
FedEx Express stopped taking shipments bound for Tokyo's Narita International Airport on Monday morning until further notice.
Special report: Big California quake likely to devastate state - Yahoo! News
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – California will experience unthinkable damage when the next powerful quake strikes, probably within 30 years, even though the state prides itself on being on the leading edge of earthquake science.
Modern skyscrapers built to the state's now-rigorous building codes might ride out the big jolt that experts say is all but inevitable, but the surviving buildings will tower over a carpet of rubble from older structures that have collapsed.
New explosion reported at Japan nuclear plant - World Watch - CBS News
(CBS/AP) SOMA, Japan - A third explosion in four days rocked the earthquake-damaged Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant in northeast Japan early Tuesday, the country's nuclear safety agency said. Some workers were reportedly told to leave the site, and there are reports of rising radiation levels nearby, although authorities insist the situation is under control.
Fresh explosion hear
Fresh explosion heard at stricken Japan reactor | Reuters
(Reuters) - A fresh explosion was heard on Tuesday at a quake-stricken Japanese nuclear power plant, the country's nuclear safety agency said.
Authorities at the Fukushima Daiichi complex, damaged in Friday's massive earthquake and tsunami, are trying to prevent meltdowns in all three of the plant's nuclear reactors.
Twice before, there have been explosions which have ripped off some roofing from the plant, but these had not damaged the reactor vessels, authorities have said. There was no immediate word on any damage from this third blast.
Scientists Say They
Scientists Say They May Have Found Lost City of Atlantis Near Spain | Popular Science
Donaña National Park, Spain Scientists believe the lost city of Atlantis is buried in the mudflats of Spain's Donaña National Park. Harres via FlickrAll the news about devastating tsunamis is drawing greater attention to a new claim that researchers have found the lost city of Atlantis — buried in mud on the southern tip of Spain. Scientists say they have found proof of a 4,000-year-old civilization that was buried by a tsunami.
The research was unveiled Sunday in a new TV special.
This effort to find Atlantis began in 2004, when German physicist Rainer Kuhne identified some strange features on satellite photos. Swamps at the mouth of Spain’s Guadalquivir River, northwest of Cadiz, held strange geometric shadows that some thought resembled the remains of a ringed city.
To follow up on the findings, teams of researchers from three countries used ground-penetrating radar, electrical resistivity tomography, magnetometers and spectrometers to map the ground and sniff out evidence of human-built objects buried in the mud. They say they found a communal oven and evidence of canal systems buried in Spain’s Donaña National Park.Related Articles
Atlantis on Google Earth New Corpse-Detection System Finds Where the Bodies Are Buried Diving for Ancient History, Scientists Discover New Species Tags
Science, Rebecca Boyle, ancient artifacts, antiquities, archaeology, atlantis, controversy, history, lost city, myths, spain, TsunamiRichard Freund, an archaeologist from Hartford University in Connecticut, said a tsunami flooded the ancient community, located 60 miles inland.
“This is the power of tsunamis,” he said, according to Reuters.
The team also found artifacts from farther north that suggest refugees may have settled a second city, where they built memorial artworks to commemorate the one they lost.
Other researchers criticized the results, however, including members of a Spanish team who have been studying the site since 2005.
Archaeologists have been looking for Atlantis since Plato first described it about 2,600 years ago in one of his late dialogues. He said the city was located near the “pillars of Hercules,” which classical scholars say is the Strait of Gibraltar. (The mudflats are just north of the strait.) Plato said Atlantis “in a single day and night... disappeared into the depths of the sea.”
Previous attempts to find it have looked on the ocean floor; on various Mediterranean and Aegean islands; the Bermuda Triangle; Bolivia; and even Antarctica. Historians have said Atlantis was inspired by the 1600 BCE volcanic explosion at Santorini, one of the largest in recorded history. Others maintain it’s simply a myth.
The Spanish team said they will present their own findings later this year.
[via Vancouver Sun]
UPDATE 4-Violent protests across Yemen, 3 soldiers dead - Yahoo!
* 3 soldiers killed in province bordering Saudi Arabia
* Austrian oil firm OMV stops oil transports by trucks
* Protesters stab governor of oil, gas-producing Maareb
* Authorities deport 4 Westerners, 3 of them journalists
(Adds oil transports by trucks suspended in southern province)
SANAA, March 14 (Reuters) - Scattered clashes broke out
across Yemen on Monday, with three soldiers killed in the north,
as military forces were deployed to check nationwide protests
demanding the resignation of President Ali Abdullah Saleh.
The impoverished Arabian Peninsula state has been rocked by
weeks of demonstrations that have undermined Saleh's 32-year
grip on power, with both pro- and anti-government supporters
appearing to resort increasingly to violence in the struggle.
Seven demonstrators and three soldiers have died in clashes
since Saturday, raising the death toll from unrest above 30.
The United States, which has long seen Saleh as a bulwark
against a dynamic al Qaeda wing based in Yemen, has condemned
the bloodshed and backed the right for peaceful protest, but has
insisted only dialogue can end the political crisis.
Two soldiers and an officer were killed as clashes broke out
in the northern al-Jawf province, which borders oil giant Saudi
Arabia, Yemen's state news agency Saba said.
Fighting intensified after protesters stormed a municipal
building. Security forces fired on them, wounding 10, but could
not stop them seizing the building, a local official said.
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More on Middle East unrest: [nTOPMEAST] [nLDE71O2CH]
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In the central Maarib province, where several oil and gas
fields of international companies are located, a man stabbed
governor Naji Zayedi, critically wounding him as he and police
tried to break up a crowd of thousands at a sit-in.
"Members of the opposition stabbed the governor and wounded
three others as security tried to stop protesters from inciting
chaos," a local official said.
OIL TRANSPORT BY TRUCKS SUSPENDED IN SOUTH
In the southern province of Shabwa, an official at Austrian
oil firm OMV said the company had suspended its
transports of crude by trucks from an oil field to the pumping
station of a pipeline because of the unrest.
"The suspension is temporary and due to the current security
instability," the official told Reuters, without saying how much
oil was carried by trucks and what portion of it was for export.
Yemen is a small oil producer pumping about 300,000 barrels
per day of crude.
As tensions in Yemen rose, three journalists and a
researcher from Britain and the United States were abruptly
deported on Monday. An airport official said they had all
entered on tourist visas and were not entitled to work there.
Saleh has made many verbal concessions to the protesters,
promising to step down in 2013 and offering a new constitution
giving more powers to parliament, but he has steadfastly refused
his critics' main demand that he leave office immediately.
Soldiers and armoured vehicles tried to cut off an area in
the capital, where around 20,000 have held a sit-in for weeks.
"We're expecting an attack at any minute, but we're not
leaving until the regime falls, " said protester Taha Qayed.
Crowds chanted: "Leave, leave you murderer."
Police fired in the air to try to break up tens of thousands
of protesters in Taiz, 200 km (125 miles) south of the capital
Sanaa. Three were hurt, but protesters continued demonstrating.
As demonstrations gather steam across the country, a string
of Saleh's allies have recently defected to the protesters, who
are frustrated by rampant corruption and soaring unemployment.
Some 40 percent of the population live on $2 a day or less in
Yemen, and a third face chronic hunger.
Activists said the former religious endowments minister of
Yemen, sacked a day earlier, joined protests in Sanaa on Monday.
"We call on all ministers and all noble people to resign and
join the revolution in Sanaa," leading activist Mohammed
al-Sharfi told Reuters.
Thousands were also protesting in al-Hawta, the regional
capital of southern Lahej province, residents said.
"Al-Hawta is in a state of paralysis. The opposition has
called for a general strike to protest at the repression of
demonstrators," a resident told Reuters by phone.
Popular revolts in Egypt and Tunisia have inspired this
latest wave of unrest in Yemen, but the country was already
seething with intermittent rebellions in the north and south.
(Additional reporting by Mohammed Mukhashaf in Aden;
Writing by Erika Solomon; Editing by Crispian Balmer)
Saudi Troops Enter B
AccuWeather.com –
AccuWeather.com - Weather News | Winds at Japan Power Plants Should Send Radiation out to Sea
"You can calculate how long the release of a radiation would take to cross the Pacific from Japan to the U.S. by choosing different speeds that the radioactive particles might be moving and using the direct distance between given locations- say Sendai, Japan, and Seattle, Wash.," Andrews added.
However, even that calculation may not reflect how long the particle would take to cross the Pacific, since it would not likely cross the ocean in a direct path. This is the case because the wind flow is often a complicated pattern.
A typical wind trajectory across the Pacific is westerly, since there is often a large dome of high pressure over the central Pacific and an area of low pressure in the Gulf of Alaska.
Any storm systems moving across the Pacific would add kinks in the westerly flow that would make the path of a particle crossing the Pacific longer.
"In other words, it would be a very intricate and difficult calculation," said Andrews.
Emergency cooling effort failing at Japanese reactor, deepening crisis - The Times of India
TOKYO: Japan's struggle to contain the crisis at a stricken nuclear power plant worsened sharply early on Tuesday morning, as emergency operations to pump seawater into one crippled reactor failed at least temporarily, increasing the risk of an uncontrolled release of radioactive material, officials said.
Japan Raises Nuclear
Japan nuclear crisis
America on nuclear a
Japan nuclear crisis escalates as third Fukushima reactor faces meltdown | World news | The Guardian
The nuclear crisis in Japan's stricken north-east escalated as officials admitted a third nuclear reactor could be in partial meltdown and warned the situation was "even worse" than in the other two stricken units. It followed a second dramatic hydrogen explosion at the plant.
The announcement came as the official death toll from the worst earthquake and tsunami in Japan's recorded history reached almost 1,900, with tens of thousands still unaccounted for. Millions of survivors struggled through another day with dwindling supplies of food and fuel, amid aftershocks, blazes and tsunami alerts.
In Japan, the search
In Japan, the search for life yields death and devastation - The Globe and Mail
The squad of police officers made their way tentatively across what was once the parking lot of the Sendai Army Flight School, poking at the shifting ground beneath their feet with long wooden poles.
They used their sticks to prod at the wreckage of lives that had been lifted up by Friday’s tsunami and deposited here on southern edge of this battered city. Splintered homes, flipped cars, a living-room chair, a basketball.
Social Is Too Import
Japan earthquake shu
Social Is Too Important For Google To Screw Up With A Big Launch Circus
Google will launch a “major new social network” imminently at the SXSW conference, said Read/Write Web early this morning. They were stupendously wrong on timing – Google told us and others that there was absolutely nothing launching in the next few days at the event.
Libyan Rebels Report
Japan’s economy st
Stricken Japan nucle
Stricken Japan nuclear plant rocked by 2nd blast - Yahoo! News
SOMA, Japan – The second hydrogen explosion in three days rocked a Japanese nuclear plant Monday, devastating the structure housing one reactor and injuring 11 workers. Water levels dropped precipitously at another reactor, completely exposing the fuel rods and raising the threat of a meltdown.
The morning explosion in Unit 3 of the Fukushima Dai-ichi plant was felt 25 miles (40 kilometers away), but the plant's operator said the radiation levels at the affected reactor were still within legal limits. Hours later, officials reported that the fuel rods at another reactor, Unit 2, were fully exposed, at least temporarily.
Japan's economy stumbling in wake of disaster - latimes.com
Reporting from Tokyo and BeijingThe world's third-largest economy faltered Monday, the first full business day since Friday's devastating earthquake, with the Japanese stock market plunging and the country's central bank moving to inject $183 billion into money markets to try to stem the financial damage.
Although the quake's fury bypassed Japan's industrial heartland, the shock waves were felt throughout the business sector, from big auto plants to small mom-and-pop establishments. Many of Japan's leading companies, such as Sony Corp. and Toyota Motor Corp., closed some production facilities, further jeopardizing the exporting powerhouse.
Libyan Rebels Report Airstrikes on Eastern Town | Africa | English
Libyan rebels say government forces launched new airstrikes Monday, as four shells fell on the opposition-held eastern town of Ajdabiyah.Rebels had moved toward the town Sunday, after fleeing the oil port of Brega amid heavy shelling from advancing government forces.
Libyan state television said Monday the government would offer amnesty to any soldier who had defected to join the rebels, but returns and surrenders to the military.
Saudi troops enter Bahrain as violent clashes continue
DAMMAM, Saudi Arabia: More than 1000 Saudi troops have entered Bahrain where anti-regime protests have raged for a month, a Saudi official has said.
They were reported to have entered Bahrain yesterday to help maintain order following clashes between protesters and police.
The Crown Prince of Bahrain is understood to have formally invited the security forces into his country, as part of a request for support from the six-member Gulf Co-operation Council.