Asia

The 50 people still working at Japan’s stricken Fukushima reactor are not “being sacrificed”, Dutch nuclear researcher Folkert Draaisma says. It’s not like Chernobyl, where workers were sent in without protection, he adds.
The 50 engineers hold the future of hundreds of thousands of people in their hands. The levels of radiation they are braving have made them heroes to many.

High levels of radiation have leaked from the Fukushima nuclear plant in Japan after a third explosion at the crippled plant. The latest blast seriously damaged the Number Two reactor’s steel containment structure. In addition, a fire briefly broke out at the plant’s reactor Number Four. Officials just south of the plant reported up to 100 times the normal levels of radiation.

Nine people have been injured in a second blast at Japan’s Fukushima 1 nuclear power plant. The explosion at the plant’s number three reactor destroyed a wall and sent a plume of smoke billowing into the sky.
On Saturday, the building surrounding the plant’s number one reactor was blown apart but the seal around the reactor was not damaged.

Over 45 countries, ranging from sophisticated economies to developing nations, were actively considering embarking upon nuclear power programmes. Whether the shocking experience Japan is undergoing despite its hi-tec reactors, will have impact policy makers in countries striving to build atomic power plants and others which already have these, remains to be seen.

An explosion has occurred at a nuclear power plant in Japan in the wake of massive earthquake and tsunami. The blast left four workers injured and raised fears of a nuclear meltdown at the Fukushima Daiichi complex, just 250 kilometers northeast of Tokyo. Reactor cooling systems failed at the plant, triggering the explosion which destroyed walls and roof of facility.

Beyond Nuclear maintains a round-the-clock vigil, monitoring the situation at Japan’s nuclear reactors after the giant earthquake, and provides information about it. The past 24+ hours have witnessed the unfolding nightmare of a potential nuclear reactor meltdown after unit 1 at Fukushima Daiichi was crippled due to loss of power after the 8.9 magnitude earthquake.

International Women’s Day – March 8, 2011 – is a special day meant to remind everyone that women continue to have particular disadvantages even today, despite general emancipation, owing to the unnecessary restrictions in our male-dominated societies. More than that, womens’ rights continue to be severely curtailed in many places.

Living in Germany one tends to view the world from a European perspective, and focus only on the lessons Europe has learned from the Second World War in the last sixty-five years. Visits to East Asia, however, not only help to adjust one’s lenses but also provide new insights. Japan is a distinguished example of a country that has been undergoing a bottom-up process of change.

The success of popular movements in the Middle East has raised the apprehensions of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), which has been reminded of its own weakness and soft underbelly.
President Hu Jintao has issued orders to party officials to “solve prominent problems which might harm the harmony and stability of the society.”
By Gunjan Singh*

*Mass Protest Rally held 28 February 2011 by the Peoples’ Campaign for Right to Water (PCRW), against anti-people Water Laws and Policies of Karnataka and the US Water Trade Mission. Urban development Minister subsequently reiterates opposition to Water Privatisation and distances Government from US Mission. Another people-power success story, so far…*