|
Latest Articles: International News
The town that drowned: Fresh pictures from the port where 10,000 people are missing after it was swept away by the megaquake
Post Date: 2011-03-12 20:43:18 by Mad Dog
4 Comments
10,000 people missing in Minamisanriku 24 hours after double disaster struck Official death toll hits 574, but hundreds believed to be buried under rubble or washed away by waves Explosion at nuclear power plant, but experts say reactor is not at risk Number of people contaminated with radiation could reach 160 Region hit by repeated aftershocks, some up 6.8-magnitude Rescue operation begins but some areas still cut off by road damage and flood waters Force of quake shifts Japan 8ft to the East Just 48 hours ago, it was a picturesque fishing town where tourists flocked to enjoy the coastal air and natural hot springs. But this horrifying picture shows all that remains of Minami ...
Sleepwalking Through History: Is A New War Around the Corner?
Post Date: 2011-03-12 19:41:55 by Happy Quanzaa
0 Comments
As Congressman Peter King ended hearings on a pertinent subject, danger signs are everywhere. Like Europe in the 1930s, America is sleepwalking towards world war. Our leaders and most of the mainstream press overlook or excuse them, or admonish those who spotlight the portents. Racists! Bigots. “Islam is a religion of peace,” they exhort. “The majority don’t want Jihad.” Meanwhile, Militant Islam surges, infiltrating Europe in ever-widening enclaves, changing its Western culture and laws, threatening non-Muslim citizens. Its soldiers wage war in Africa and the Middle East, especially against Christians and Jews, the religions of the large majority of people it ...
Japan Fukushima nuclear plant faces new reactor problem (reactor #3 loses cooling)
Post Date: 2011-03-12 18:19:06 by Hondo68
7 Comments
(Reuters) - A quake-hit Japanese nuclear plant reeling from an explosion at one of its reactors has also lost its emergency cooling system at another reactor, Japan's nuclear power safety agency said on Sunday. The emergency cooling system is no longer functioning at the No.3 reactor at Tokyo Electric Power Co's Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power facility, requiring the facility to urgently secure a means to supply water to the reactor, an official of the Japan Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency told a news conference. On Saturday, an explosion blew off the roof and upper walls of the building housing the facility's No. 1 reactor, stirring alarm over a possible major radiation ...
Meltdown - What it is and is not
Post Date: 2011-03-12 15:57:29 by Mad Dog
2 Comments
The term - Meltdown - refers to melting of the fuel in the reactor. Unfortunately, the term has been loosely applied to refer to any case of fuel melting, however minor. Only in several events - Three Mile Island 2 and Chernobyl - has there been significant fuel melting and only in the case of Chernobyl were there significant offsite releases. Overheating of the fuel typically can be caused only if there is an inability to remove heat from the fuel. Two situations are the only likely causes: Loss of coolant in the reactor cooling system followed by a failure of the emergency core cooling systems to operate Failure of the reactor protection system to shutdown the reactor down when ...
Japan Tsunami Update: Nuclear Power Plant in Meltdown
Post Date: 2011-03-12 12:29:38 by go65
4 Comments
TOKYO— A day after Japan’s devastating Tohoku earthquake and tsunami, core meltdown is underway the Fukushima No.1 nuclear power plant and, at this point, appears to be unstoppable. A mid- afternoon blast on Saturday demolished the structure housing an overheated and leaking reactor, raising the probability of a full-scale nuclear disaster, which could release radiation across the U.S. and even parts of Europe. Just past noon in Japan, the Industrial Nuclear Safety Agency reported that the radioactive isotopes cesium and iodine had been detected by a monitoring station near the Fukushima plant. The facility has six reactors, three of them operating at the time of the earthquake. ...
Explosion at Japan nuke plant, disaster toll rises
Post Date: 2011-03-12 06:37:55 by Happy Quanzaa
6 Comments
IWAKI, Japan (AP) -- An explosion at a nuclear power station Saturday destroyed a building housing the reactor amid fears that it was close to a disastrous meltdown after being hit by a powerful earthquake and tsunami. Friday's double disaster, which pulverized Japan's northeastern coast, has left 574 people dead by official count, although local media reports said at least 1,300 people may have been killed. Tokyo Power Electric Co., the utility that runs the Fukushima Dai-ichi plant, said four workers had suffered fractures and bruises and were being treated at a hospital. A nuclear expert said a meltdown may not pose widespread danger. Footage on Japanese TV showed that the ...
Japan struggling to 'cool down' nuclear plant, minister says
Post Date: 2011-03-11 13:46:01 by go65
23 Comments
Tokyo (CNN) -- Officials ordered an evacuation Friday of residents living near a Japanese nuclear power plant, saying there has been no sign yet of leaks but indicating a struggle to "cool down" the facility. An 8.9-magnitude earthquake led to cooling problems at one nuclear power plant and a fire at another, both of which were close to the quake's epicenter, government officials said. Late Friday, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano told reporters that people within 2 to 3 kilometers (1.2 to 1.8 miles) of the Fukushima Daiichi power plant had been told to leave the area. Those farther away - - within 3 to 10 kilometers -- were asked to stay home. Japan's Kyodo News ...
Obama jealous of Hu Jintao, wishes he were president of China
Post Date: 2011-03-11 09:28:47 by Happy Quanzaa
1 Comments
President of China?Obama's lament. “Mr. Obama has told people that it would be so much easier to be the president of China. As one official put it, ‘No one is scrutinizing Hu Jintao’s words in Tahrir Square.’” “Obama Seeks a Course of Pragmatism in the Middle East,” The New York Times, March 11, 2011. Mr. Obama is right. If you’re president of China, people around the world who are fighting for freedom don’t really expect you to help. If you’re president of China, you don’t have to put up with annoying off-year congressional elections, and then negotiate your budget with a bunch of gun-and-religion-clinging congressmen and ...
MASSIVE QUAKE HITS JAPAN
Post Date: 2011-03-11 09:11:11 by go65
9 Comments
Tokyo (CNN) -- The most powerful earthquake to hit Japan in at least 100 years unleashed walls of water Friday that swept across rice fields, engulfing towns, dragging houses onto highways and tossing cars and boats like toys, apparently killing hundreds. Prime Minister Naoto Kan said the "enormously powerful" earthquake has caused "tremendous damage over a wide area." The quake, which struck at 2:46 pm local time, sparked fires in at least 80 locations, Japan's Kyodo News Service reported, and prompted the U.S. National Weather Service to issue tsunami warnings for at least 50 countries and territories. Police in Miyagi Prefecture say between 200-300 have been ...
'I'm still in love with Bill': Friends say why Monica Lewinsky has never got married or had kids.
Post Date: 2011-03-10 17:48:15 by A K A Stone
4 Comments
The scandal almost destroyed his career and left his presidency permanently tainted.
But 15 years on, Bill Clinton’s former intern Monica Lewinsky has not got married or had children because she is reportedly still in love with him and 'always will be'.
Miss Lewinsky, 37, has run a successful business, hosted a reality television show and moved overseas - but has never found love, according to friends.
‘Monica still hasn’t got over Bill and would take him back in a second,’ a friend said.
‘She told me: “There will never be another man in my life that could make me as happy as he did",' the friend told the National Enquirer magazine.
‘Monica still carries a torch for him. ...
Saudi police open fire during protest
Post Date: 2011-03-10 17:42:11 by A K A Stone
0 Comments
CAIRO (AP) -- Saudi police opened fire Thursday to disperse a protest in the section where minority Shiites live, leaving at least one man injured, as the government toughened its efforts to prevent a wave of unrest sweeping the Arab world from reaching the kingdom.
The rare violence raised concern about a crackdown ahead of planned protests after Friday prayers in different cities throughout the oil-rich kingdom. Violence there could reverberate through the world's markets because of the importance of Saudi oil exports.
Discord is common between authorities and the country's Shiites, who make up 10 percent of the kingdom's 23 million citizens. They have long complained of ...
The Fisher King
Post Date: 2011-03-10 15:46:07 by Biff Tannen
11 Comments
The story begins with the Fisher King as a boy – who had to spend a night alone in the forest so that he could become king. While he was alone in the forest, he’s visited by a sacred vision. Out of the fire appeared the Holy Grail; the symbol of God's divine grace. And a voice spoke to the boy, saying, "You shall be the keeper of the Grail, that it may heal the hearts of men." But the boy was blinded by greater visions; by a life filled with power and glory and beauty ... and in this state of radical amazement, he felt for a brief moment not like a boy, but invincible, like God.
And so he reached into the fire to take the Grail. And the Grail vanished, leaving him with his hand in the ...
Peter King's pro-terrorist past
Post Date: 2011-03-10 10:48:57 by The Blue Cat
1 Comments
Peter King's hearings on extremism in the American Muslim community start tomorrow, and today, the New York Times reminds us of a part of King's past that he'd rather not have seen on the front page of his newspaper today: Long before [King] became an outspoken voice in Congress about the threat from terrorism, he was a fervent supporter of a terrorist group, the Irish Republican Army. "We must pledge ourselves to support those brave men and women who this very moment are carrying forth the struggle against British imperialism in the streets of Belfast and Derry," Mr. King told a pro-I.R.A. rally on Long Island, where he was serving as Nassau County comptroller, in ...
Kissinger calls for Pollard clemency
Post Date: 2011-03-10 10:40:55 by The Blue Cat
1 Comments
(JTA) -- Former U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger has called for the release of convicted spy Jonathan Pollard. Kissinger sent a letter to President Obama requesting that he commute Pollard's sentence to time served. Pollard was a U.S. Navy analyst when he passed classified information to Israel. He has been in prison since 1985. "At first I felt I did not have enough information to render a reasoned and just opinion,” Kissinger said in a letter dated March 3, but released Tuesday. “But having talked with [former Secretary of State] George Shultz and read the statements of former CIA Director [R. James] Woolsey, former Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman ...
Wrongfully convicted rapist is freed after 17 years.. and hit with a $110,000 bill for backdated child maintenance
Post Date: 2011-03-09 17:14:31 by A K A Stone
1 Comments
An innocent man jailed for 17 years after being wrongfully convicted of rape will not get any compensation for the time he spent behind bars - but he has been given a $111,000 bill for backdated child maintenance payments. Alan Northrop and co-defendant Larry Davis were arrested following the January 1993 rape of a woman near Vancouver, Washington State. In July of that year, the pair were given jail terms of more than 23 years after being convicted of first-degree rape, kidnapping and burglary. But in a dramatic turnaround last year, Washington State prosecutors were forced to withdraw the charges in light of fresh DNA evidence, and the men were released having served 17 years in jail ...
Space weather: Are we ready for a solar strike?
Post Date: 2011-03-09 13:11:29 by go65
2 Comments
Almost two years ago I asked the question, "Do Solar Storms Threaten Life as We Know it?" The answer then and even more so now could very well be a scary "yes" - even within the next few years - as an increase in solar activity coincides with the increasing vulnerability of technology-dependent societies to powerful solar storms. Moreover, should there be a solar strike capable of causing widespread blackouts and crippling disruptions of satellilte and radio communications, it's likely there would be little advance notice, and currently there is virtually no capability to shield much of the planet and virtually no planning o Click for Full Text!
Anti-war hero Scott Ritter set for trial after child sex sting
Post Date: 2011-03-09 10:50:09 by A K A Stone
8 Comments
Scott Ritter, the former UN weapons inspector who strived to put the brakes on the 2003 invasion of Iraq by loudly disputing claims that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, was in court last night on charges of soliciting sex with a minor over the internet.
The trial, barring a last-minute plea bargain, was expected to get under way in a Stroudsburg court in Pennsylvania with jury selection later this week. It stems from his arrest in November 2009 for allegedly soliciting a girl calling herself Emily and showing acts of masturbation via live streaming video -- in an internet chat room. Emily was in fact a male vice officer.
The case is the third in which Mr Ritter has been accused ...
Point Of No Return: U.S. And NATO Prepare For War With Libya
Post Date: 2011-03-09 10:33:53 by A K A Stone
6 Comments
March 7 was a pivotal moment in plans by Western powers to launch military operations against Libya. After meeting with Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard in Washington, President Barack Obama stated "we've got NATO, as we speak, consulting in Brussels around a wide range of potential options, including potential military options, in response to the violence that continues to take place inside of Libya." In an interview she gave to The Australian newspaper immediately before her departure for the U.S., Gillard stated that she supported the "US placing more military forces on Australian soil if it believes this is necessary in the light of the growing might of ...
Phil Collins confirms retirement
Post Date: 2011-03-09 07:55:20 by A K A Stone
6 Comments
British singer and drummer Phil Collins has confirmed reports he is to retire from the music business. "I am stopping so I can be a full time father to my two young sons on a daily basis," he wrote on his website. His decision, he said, was not down to "dodgy reviews", "bad treatment in the press" or "because I don't feel loved". Collins' announcement was in response to a series of "distorted" articles that had erroneously painted him as "a tormented weirdo", he added. "There's no need for the straitjacket!" joked the 60-year-old, whose hits include In the Air Tonight and Another Day in Paradise. A former ...
Pirates to be brought to Japan after attack on tanker in Indian Ocean
Post Date: 2011-03-08 20:21:47 by A K A Stone
1 Comments
TOKYO — The Japanese government will bring to Japan four pirates who were captured after attacking a tanker operated by Mitsui O.S.K. Lines Ltd. off the coast of Oman in the Indian Ocean, government sources said Tuesday. It will be the first transfer of pirates to Japan since the creation of the country’s antipiracy law in 2009, and experts are watching closely how Tokyo will handle captured pirates when there are no widely recognized international rules on handling them. The Tokyo District Public Prosecutors Office dispatched prosecutors to Oman Tuesday night, investigative sources said, most likely to question crew members of the tanker and make arrangements for the ...
Queens man accused of bashing Lana Rosas into coma defends actions: 'It was out of reflex'
Post Date: 2011-03-08 20:19:34 by Ferret Mike
6 Comments
Lana Rosas was knocked out (above) in fight over a parking space with Oscar Fuller (below) on E. 14th St., on Feb. 25. Rosas is now in a coma. The Queens man accused of bashing a woman into a coma over an East Village parking space says he wishes he never raised his fist. Speaking publicly for the first time since the attack on Lana Rosas, Oscar Fuller said he didn't realize the power of his punch until cops arrested him last Tuesday on felony assault charges. "I wish I just let her hit me," Fuller told the Daily News on Sunday. "It was out of reflex, just a reaction that went the wrong way," he said of the Feb. 25 beatdown. "I don't believe this is ...
Chinese man held for exporting US military know-how
Post Date: 2011-03-08 20:17:22 by A K A Stone
0 Comments
FBI agents Tuesday arrested a Chinese national working for a US technology company for exporting information about sensitive military know-how to China, justice officials said. Liu Sixing, also know as Steve Liu, was arrested at his home in Deerfield, Illinois and charged with one count of exporting defense-related technical data without a license, the Justice Department said in a statement. Liu, a Chinese national with permanent residency in the United States, worked for the New Jersey-based company from March 2009 until November 2010 as a senior engineer on a team developing precision navigation devices. According to the charge, he boarded a flight from Newark last November to China, ...
Bill To Reform Patent System Would Kill Innovation In U.S.
Post Date: 2011-03-08 20:14:35 by A K A Stone
1 Comments
n September 1941, Japan's leaders had a question for Adm. Isoroku Yamamoto: Could he cripple the U.S. fleet in Hawaii? Yes, he said. Then he had a question for the leaders: But then what? Following an attack, he said, "I shall run wild considerably for the first six months or a year, but I have utterly no confidence" after that. Yamamoto knew America: He had attended Harvard and been naval attache in Japan's embassy in Washington. He knew Japan would be at war with an enraged industrial giant. The tide-turning defeat of Japan's navy at the Battle of Midway occurred June 7, 1942 — exactly six months after Pearl Harbor. Today, some Washington voices are calling ...
Israel may ask U.S. for $20 billion more in security aid, Barak says
Post Date: 2011-03-08 16:40:02 by A K A Stone
2 Comments
Defense Minister tells Wall Street Journal that Israel must be on guard considering the unrest sweeping the Arab world, adding increased aid could help make Israel a 'stabilizer in such a turbulent region'. Israel may request an addition $20 billion in military aid from the United States in light of the unrest sweeping the Arab world, Defense Minister Ehud Barak told The Wall Street Journal in an interview published Monday. Barak deemed the changes in the region a "movement in the right direction", and said that in the long run, Israel should not fear the "movement of Arab societies toward modernity." But in the more immediate future, he told the WSJ, Israel ...
Two Exceptionally Ugly Women Headline International Women's Day
Post Date: 2011-03-08 13:39:20 by Happy Quanzaa
0 Comments
First Lady, Secretary of Statecelebrate InternationalWomen's Day WASHINGTON – First Lady Michelle Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton marked the 100th anniversary of International Women's Day Wednesday by honoring 10 women from around the world with awards that recognize efforts they have made to further women's rights. During the 2011 Women of Courage Awards ceremony held at the State Department, Clinton called recipient of this year's awards "remarkable," while Obama lauded it as the "one of the most important" events she will attend. Those honored included Roza Otunbayeva, President of the Kyrgyz Republic and the first woman head of ...
Latest [Newer] 201 202 203 204 205 206 207 208 209 210 211 212 213 214 215 216 217 218 219 220 [Older]
|
