Japanese Look To Ancient Traditions For Strength

Tokyo, Japan — When uncounted thousands have died in a disaster such as last week’s earthquake and tsunami, where will the Japanese people find spiritual strength?

Experts on Japanese culture say they’ll find it in the critical, comforting rituals of religion.
They will rely on centuries-old traditions of a distinctive Buddhist culture and the ancient Shinto beliefs of their earliest people. Japan is 90 percent Buddhist or Shinto or a combination of the two, with young urban Japanese more inclined to have drifted from religious attachments.
Right now, most Japanese survivors are at the stage, like survivors of the 9/11 attacks, of posting photos of missing loved ones. For families who have found their dead, wakes, funeral prayers and cremations may already be under way, said Duncan Williams, a survivor of the Friday (March 11) quake and a scholar of Japanese Buddhism at the University of California, Berkeley.

Seven days after the quake and tsunami, memorials will begin in whatever temples remain near the disaster zone. In Buddhist traditions, the seventh day ritual begins 33 years of formal mourning ceremonies, Williams said.
Just as Christians and Jews in the West may offer prayers for those who have died and those who mourn, so these rituals and prayers will come from throughout Japan, as well as from Thailand and Taiwan, where many share the Japanese form of Buddhism, said Williams, a native of Japan.
Buddhism addresses and tries to alleviate suffering, physical and mental. It stresses compassion while still acknowledging that death is part of life. Monks in Japan will assure people that they survived for a reason, Williams said.
“In the memorial services, after prayers and chants, the monks and the people will offer all the merit, the good karma, from these rituals to those who have perished and those who are suffering. They will pray to the gods that “the kings of hell will not take your loved one away,”
Williams said.

Such talk of gods and hell kings doesn’t sound like the meditative Buddhism better known in the West, cultural anthropologist John Nelson said. He’s an expert on Shinto and Buddhist shrines and chairman of the department of theology and religious studies at University of San
Francisco.
Nelson described Shinto culture as “like Native American or tribal religions, it is strongest in rural environments. If you are in the mountains, you speak of the mountain deities, for example. It’s all about the local spirits of that particular place, and they may have a dual nature — beneficial or destructive.”
By contrast, Buddhism, the dominant religion now, is less about the spirits of the natural world and more about rituals of society, family and state, Nelson said.
“Japanese Buddhism is similar to Western religions with deities that can be petitioned and can intervene in worldly affairs, and there are many mechanisms to appeal to them, to pray for miracles,” he said.
Even so, the idea that gods also punish people turned up Monday in the Japanese press. Nelson said he read at online sites of two major newspapers that the governor of Tokyo described the tsunami as “punishment from heaven for the greed of the Japanese.”

http://www.buddhistchannel.tv/index.php?id=44,9992,0,0,1,0

"Four Cuts" Military Operation Launched on Western Burmese Border

The Burmese army is waging war against ethnic insurgent groups on the western Burmese border using a “four cuts” strategy after the War Office in Naypyidaw recently ordered offensives launched against insurgent groups throughout Burma.

The operation launched on 28 February against the Arakan Liberation Army, or ALA, an armed insurgent group in western Burma that opposes the Burmese military government.

Joint Secretary 2 Khaing Thu Kha, a spokesperson for the ALA, said, “The Burma army has been conducting an operation on the Indo-Burma border with the four cuts strategy since 28 February. There are four battalions from the Burmese army involved in the operation. But the operation has been unsuccessful due to many problems here.”

The operation has been conducted by four army battalions – Light Battalions 34, 232, and 289, and Light Infantry Battalion 580 – in order to wipe out insurgent groups on the western Burmese border.

“There have been no problems for us despite the Burmese army conducting the operation using the four cuts strategy against us because there are many deep forests and high mountains along the border. We are easily able to avoid their offensive. We have still been connected with the public in rural areas during the operation,” he added.

With the operation on the western Burmese border, armed clashes between the ALA and Burmese army have taken place three times, resulting in three Burmese soldiers killed and two seriously injured.

“The first armed clash took place at Ngwe Lat Wa Village near the Indian border on 8 March. Our troops killed three Burmese soldiers and injured two soldiers. On that day, we fought the Burmese army in three small battles,” Mr. Thu Kha said.

According to a local source, many villagers on the border have fled the area of the operation because the Burmese army has been using them as porters. The Burmese army sent many reinforcements to the border area through northern Buthidaung Township near Bangladesh. The army is likely to attack ALA forces through Bangladesh territory, said many sources on the border.

The Burmese army’s “four cuts” policy was adopted to wipe out insurgent groups around Burma in the 1970’s during the former regime of the Burmese Socialist Programme Party. The four cuts strategy is intended to cut off access to food, funds, information, and recruitment, often with devastating consequences.

http://www.narinjara.com/details.asp?id=2901

Foreign monks rounded up

Authorities yesterday inspected Talom Temple in Phasi Charoen district following reports that 400 foreign Buddhist monks there go out begging in the afternoon and make money selling the alms.

Immigration and other police and officials of the National Buddhism Office found that many monks from countries such as Sri Lanka, India, Bangladesh, Cambodia and Laos lived in tents set up on temple grounds. A dozen Indian monks and one novice could not produce passports.

Abbot Phra Maha Boontheung Chutintharo claimed that the foreigners possessed certificates for monkshood and had entered the country legally to study Dharma. They did not have the same custom of completing their gathering of alms by 10am, but he had already explained the practice here to them so they wouldn’t do it again.

However a monk who asked not to be named said that only 10 per cent of the foreign monks studied Dharma and that he heard that they went out in the afternoon to collect alms, reportedly keeping only the dried food and cash donations and throwing the cooked food away. The monks reportedly sold the dried food to a shop, he said.

One foreign monk told him he was invited to stay at the temple in exchange for paying US$2,000 (Bt60,000) in fees.

http://www.nationmultimedia.com/home/Foreign-monks-rounded-up-30151150.html

Sri Lankans quizzed

Thai authorities today rounded up a group of monks including some from Sri Lanka after the Talom Temple in Phasi Charoen district was inspected following reports that 400 foreign Buddhist monks there go out begging in the afternoon and make money selling the alms, the Thai media reported.
According to The Nation in Bangkok, Immigration and other police and officials of the National Buddhism Office found that many monks from countries such as Sri Lanka, India, Bangladesh, Cambodia and Laos lived in tents set up on temple grounds. A dozen Indian monks and one novice could not produce passports.
Abbot Phra Maha Boontheung Chutintharo claimed that the foreigners possessed certificates for monkshood and had entered the country legally to study Dharma. They did not have the same custom of completing their gathering of alms by 10am, but he had already explained the practice here to them so they wouldn’t do it again.
However a monk who asked not to be named said that only 10 per cent of the foreign monks studied Dharma and that he heard that they went out in the afternoon to collect alms, reportedly keeping only the dried food and cash donations and throwing the cooked food away. The monks reportedly sold the dried food to a shop, he said.
One foreign monk told him he was invited to stay at the temple in exchange for paying US$2,000 (Bt60,000) in fees, The Nation reported.

http://www.newsnow.lk/top-story/lankan-monks-quizzed

U.N. Security Council approves no-fly zone in Libya

Read the resolution approved by the U.N. Security Council (PDF)

United Nations (CNN) — Jubilant Libyan rebels in Benghazi erupted with fireworks and gunfire after the U.N. Security Council voted Thursday evening to impose a no-fly zone and permit “all necessary measures” to protect civilians.

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The opposition, with devoted but largely untrained and under-equipped units, has suffered military setbacks this week. It has said such international action was necessary for it to have any chance of thwarting Moammar Gadhafi’s imminent assault on the rebel stronghold.

“We’re hoping and praying that the United Nations will come up with a very firm and very fast resolution and they will enforce it immediately,” said Ahmed El-Gallal, a senior opposition coordinator, before the vote.

“We should not arrive too late,” French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe said at the U.N.

The resolution was approved with 10 votes, including those of the United States and the United Kingdom.

There were no opposing votes on the 15-member council, but China, Russia, Germany, India and Brazil abstained. Germany said it was concerned about a protracted military conflict.

U.N. member states can “take all necessary measures … to protect civilians and civilian populated areas under threat of attack in the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya, including Benghazi, while excluding a foreign occupation force,” according to the resolution.

Moments after the vote, anti-Gadhafi forces in Benghazi broke into cheers, waving flags and chanting. Antiaircraft tracer fire lit up the sky at one rally.

It was not immediately clear just how an international military operation and possible strikes against the Libyan military might unfold. The no-fly zone prohibits Libya’s air forces from entering certain zones within the country.

The United States and NATO partners have contingencies in place to act within hours, according to an administration official familiar with planning. President Barack Obama will insist on a major Arab role in any no-fly zone, the official said.

The contingencies include air strikes and cruise missile attacks designed to cripple Libyan air defenses and punish military units leading Gadhafi’s push on opposition strongholds in the east, the official said.

Obama called British Prime Minister David Cameron and French President Nicolas Sarkozy after the vote. The three “agreed that Libya must immediately comply with all terms of the resolution and that violence against the civilian population of Libya must cease,” the White House said in a statement.

Libyan Deputy Foreign Minister Khaled Kaim, speaking in Tripoli, told reporters after the vote that the country will safeguard civilians and its territorial integrity.

He called on the international community to send a fact-finding mission to the African nation but not lend material support to rebels.

A few dozen pro-Gadhafi supporters chanted, “Down with the U.N.! Down with Britain! Down with the United States!”

The U.S. military does not view a no-fly zone alone as sufficient to stop Gadhafi.

Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Norton Schwartz told a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on Thursday that establishing a zone would take “upwards of a week.”

U.S. military officials have said that a no-fly zone would not halt the heavy artillery the regime is using on the ground.

Gadhafi’s son Saadi told CNN Thursday evening that troops will change their tactics and take up positions around Benghazi Saturday or Sunday and assist people fleeing from the city.

The younger Gadhafi said there will be no large-scale assault. Instead police and anti-terrorism units will be sent into the rebel stronghold to disarm the opposition. Unspecified humanitarian groups can help with the exodus of civilians from Benghazi, Saadi Gadhafi said.

In a radio address aired on Libyan state TV, Gadhafi criticized residents of Benghazi and called them “traitors” for seeking help from outsiders.

The Security Council resolution condemns the “gross and systematic violation of human rights, including arbitrary detentions, enforced disappearances, torture and summary executions.”

It details enforcement of an arms embargo against Libya, the freezing of assets and a ban on most flights.

“The United States stands with the Libyan people in support of their universal rights,” said U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Susan Rice.

The resolution deplores the use of mercenaries by Libyan authorities, expresses concern about the safety of foreign nationals and demands an immediate cease-fire. Kaim said the Gadhafi government supports a cease-fire, but is working out certain details.

The Arab League’s U.N. ambassador, Yahya Mahmassani, said two Arab countries would take part in a no-fly zone operation, but he was not sure which two.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said the Arab League will be critical to the response to Gadhafi, and that he will travel to the region “to advance our common efforts in this critical hour.”

British Foreign Secretary William Hague said the U.N. vote shows the need for Libyan citizens “to have a more representative government.”

Earlier Thursday, Libyan state TV said Benghazi would soon come under attack.

Gadhafi said that his forces would enter the city to rid it of those “traitors” and that his forces will search everyone for weapons. He added that his forces gave amnesty to those who gave up their weapons in the city of Ajdabiya. “We will not allow further bloodshed among Libyans,” Gadhafi said.

“Search for the traitors, for the fanatics. Show them no mercy. We will look for them behind every wall,” Gadhafi said. “This farce cannot go on.”

There were air strikes on Benghazi’s airport Thursday, with three blasts hitting the site about 30 kilometers (about 18 miles) outside the city.

The opposition has been using the airport to launch its own air strikes, using a handful of jets that rebels have managed to get off the ground, opposition leaders said.

It is not clear that Gadhafi’s ground forces are actually within striking range of Benghazi, but they have been fighting their way in that direction for several days.

State TV claimed Thursday that Gadhafi’s forces were in control of Ajdabiya, on the road to Benghazi, a claim disputed by opposition leaders.

El-Gallal, speaking from eastern Libya, said “morale is high” and people do not want to leave strongholds because Gadhafi “is willing to kill everybody here.”

The government forces have taken control of the eastern and western gates to Ajdabiya and are trying to breach the inside, opposition leaders said. The opposition says it controls the southern entrance.

The opposition says it has a handful of jets that are no match with Gadhafi’s superior air power and a pair of Russian-made “Hind” attack helicopters.

Ajdabiya is the last major point between pro-government forces and Benghazi. If it is retaken by pro-Gadhafi forces, it would give access to roads leading to the heart of the opposition’s base.

In remarks to the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee, William Burns, the under secretary for political affairs at the State Department, said Gadhafi’s forces are only about 160 kilometers outside Benghazi.

“They’ve made advances, taking full advantage of their overwhelming military superiority in military firepower,” Burns said.

He expressed fear that Gadhafi, now isolated by the world community, could turn to terrorism again.

“I think there is also a very real danger that if Gadhafi is successful on the ground, that you will also face a number of other considerable risks as well: The danger of him returning to terrorism and violent extremism himself, the dangers of the turmoil that he could help create at a critical moment elsewhere in the region,” Burns told the committee.

http://edition.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/africa/03/17/libya.civil.war/index.html

Disaster is heavy burden to bear for Japan’s elderly

(CNN) — Their stories have been of loss and of resilience.

Hiromitsu Shinkawa, a 60-year-old from Minamisoma, was rescued at sea two days after seeing his wife and house swept away by a tidal wave.

A 70-year-old woman in Iwate prefecture who, along with her house, was carried away by the tsunami, but managed to survive the ordeal.

An 83-year-old Japanese woman escaped the tsunami by jumping on her bicycle Video and riding to safe ground.

In Japan, where nearly a quarter of the population is aged 65 and older and where women hold the world record for longest life expectancy, many of the faces of the disaster have been elderly.

The 9.0-magnitude quake that hit the northeastern coast last Friday wiped out rural villages and towns — areas which “tend to be older because young people have left for the cities,” according to Richard Jackson, head of the Global Aging Initiative at the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies.

Sarah Harper, director of the Oxford Institute of Population Aging, said: “In many rural areas, there’s a rural-out migration and you have communities that have high percentages of independent self-sufficient older people in their 80s and 90s.”

The quake and its ensuing tsunami have killed more than 5,000, as of Thursday, and almost 10,000 still remain missing, according to the National Police Agency. Japan has mobilized the largest call-up of its Self-Defense Forces since World War II to deal with the catastrophe, which in addition to causing billions of dollars of damage, has unleashed a nuclear crisis that is still unfolding.

Map: Impact of Japan tsunami and earthquake

Richard Blewitt, CEO of HelpAge International, a global non-profit that helps disadvantaged older people, said Japan’s large older population could be among the hardest hit by the disaster.

Many older people have found it hard to cope because of vulnerabilities like mobility, he said. “The sad thing is that in a tsunami, there is really very little evacuation time,” he said. “Japan had good preparedness plans and no doubt included plans for older people, but sadly this just wasn’t enough.”

As the emphasis shifts from rescue to relief and recovery efforts, there are specific challenges facing Japan’s elderly victims in the weeks and months and even years ahead, experts said.

“When faced with disaster, older people are physically and psychologically affected in different ways than younger people,” said Sarah Harper, who studies the implications of aging societies.

In emergency situations, older people are more susceptible to environmental changes, such as changes in temperature and lack of food or water. In the aftermath of the Japan disaster, below-freezing temperatures and snow have been hampering relief efforts.

A staff member of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, reporting over the weekend from Miyagi prefecture, said there is concern about the elderly, “who have been particularly hard hit and are extremely vulnerable to hypothermia.”

About 440,000 people have been evacuated from Japan’s stricken zone, according to the World Health Organization. More than 23,000 are still looking for shelter, the global health body said.

“For younger people, to live in a shelter for three to four weeks might not be a big deal, but for an older person it’s completely different,” Harper said.

In the longer run, there are psychological effects that older victims may suffer. “Loss of family, carers and community ties can leave older people without support mechanisms, and abandonment, discrimination and self-exclusion are common,” said Blewitt.

“Japan is incredibly collaborative and community-based and family-based,” Harper said. “I don’t think intentionally older people will be neglected. But for any older person, no matter how supportive communities are, practicalities are of a different dimension if you’re old and frail.”

In the response and reconstruction phases, it’s important to ensure that older people’s needs are built into plans, Blewitt said. “Socially or physically isolated older people need to be identified and given targeted support.”

While the disaster has hit many on a personal level, it could also have implications on the national psyche, according to Jackson, who said older populations like Japan’s may find it harder to overcome adversity.

Will Japan face a mental health crisis?

About 23% of Japan’s population is aged 65 and over. By comparison, in the United States, the figure is just over 13%.

“Younger societies are often energized by a tragedy or challenge, but aging societies may be more likely to despair,” he said.

He continued: “This is a bit speculative because we don’t have any historical experience with societies as old as Japan is. But it seems to me that it’s a real possibility and something that we’ll probably be looking at in years ahead.”

However, the ability of reinvention is deep in the wellsprings of the Japanese national spirit, he noted, citing the extraordinary redirection of the country’s energy following World War II.

“If any aging society can reinvent themselves, then it’s Japan.”

http://edition.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/asiapcf/03/17/japan.elderly.victims/index.html

Japan’s death toll climbs to nearly 7,000

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Tokyo (CNN) — Japan documented more deaths Friday as Prime Minister Naoto Kan sought to reassure a nation reeling from disaster, saying that he is committed to taking firm control of a “grave” situation.

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Japanese paused at the one-week mark following the monster earthquake and ensuing tsunami as the death toll continued its steady climb to 6,911, the National Police Agency reported. Another 10,316 people are missing.

Kan said the disaster has been a “great test for all of the people of Japan,” but he was confident of the resolve of his people.

Amid a raised crisis level at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant from a 4 to 5 — putting it on par with the 1979 incident at Pennsylvania’s Three Mile Island — Kan told his compatriots to bury their pessimism.

“With a tsunami and earthquake we don’t have any room to be pessimistic,” he said. “We are going to create Japan again from scratch. We should face this challenge together.”

Kan acknowledged the situation at the Fukushima plant remains “very grave” and said his government has disclosed all that it knows to both the Japanese people and the international community.

“The police, fire department and self defense forces are all working together, putting their lives on the line, in an attempt to resolve the situation,” he said.

Search teams continued Friday to comb through the rubble and residents of decimated towns sifted through twisted metal and broken wood beams, looking for remnants of the lives they lost. Rescuers planted red flags where they found dead bodies.

“I have no words to express my feelings. I lost my mind. We will have to start from zero,” Hidemitsu Ichikawa said, taking a break from shoveling mud outside his home.

In Miyagi Prefecture, officials observed a moment of silence Friday to mark the one-week anniversary of the quake.

Schools had become impromptu morgues, with names of the dead posted on the doors, Japanese public broadcaster NHK reported.

Long lines snaked around supermarkets as survivors stocked up on supplies.

In the hardest-hit parts of the country, thousands of people, many of them frail and elderly, settled into shelters not knowing when they might be able to leave.

Japanese media have reported difficult living conditions, including kerosene shortages that make it hard to heat the shelters.

Some 380,000 people are staying at 2,200 facilities, Kyodo News reported.

“With all possible measures I’m determined, as part of the government, to improve their living conditions as much as possible,” Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano told reporters Friday.

NHK reported that 25 of the nearly 10,000 evacuees from Fukushima Prefecture have died in shelters.

Twenty of them were elderly people forced to evacuate from nursing homes and a hospital after problems at the Fukushima Daiichi plant. Several died as they rode without adequate medical care on a bus on the way to the high school shelter, Fukushima Prefecture government officials said.

Volunteers tried to care for hundreds of patients in the school’s unheated athletic building. They sent out radio messages asking people to bring in any fuel they could spare, Koyo High School principal Masaaki Tashiro said, choking up as he recounted the struggle.

“It was so far beyond anything we had ever experienced that we were doing our very best, just trying to cope with what was in front of us, he said.

“People are exhausted from the earthquake, tsunami, and now the fear of radiation,” he said.

Japan’s nuclear safety agency described the situation at the earthquake-damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant Friday as a “Level 5” incident , a rating based on the International Nuclear and Radiological Event Scale, with 1 being least and 7 being most severe.

Workers resumed efforts to douse a spent fuel pond outside a nuclear reactor at the Daiichi plant Friday, with its owner saying that earlier attempts had been “somewhat effective” in addressing radiation concerns.

Conditions at the plant itself remain dangerous. Radiation levels Thursday hit 20 millisieverts per hour at an annex building where workers have been trying to re-establish electrical power, “the highest registered (at that building) so far,” a Tokyo Electric official told reporters.

By comparison, the typical resident of a developed country is naturally exposed to 3 millisieverts per year.

The top priority for officials is the nuclear facility’s No. 3 reactor — the sole damaged unit that contains plutonium along with the uranium in its fuel rods, Edano said.

On Thursday, helicopters, fire trucks and police water cannons dumped or shot water on that unit, aiming to cool down the reactor’s spent fuel pool. Experts believe that vapors rising from that pool, which has at least partially exposed fuel rods, may be releasing radiation into the atmosphere.

Significant amounts of radiation have been released since the earthquake hit on March 11, followed by a tsunami that swept away diesel generators needed to keep water pumping over the fuel rods. The disasters spurred several hydrogen explosions at the nuclear plant.

But Japanese government spokesman Noriyuki Shikata tried to allay fears of an imminent meltdown.

“We have not seen a major breach of containment” at any of the plant’s troubled nuclear reactors, he said Thursday.

A meltdown occurs when nuclear fuel rods cannot be cooled and the nuclear core melts. In the worst-case scenario, the fuel can rupture the containment unit spilling out radioactivity through the air and water. That, public health officials say, can cause both immediate and long-term health problems, including radiation poisoning and cancer.

The government has ordered the evacuation of about 200,000 people living in a 20-kilometer (12.4-mile) area around the plant, and told people living between 20 kilometers and 30 kilometers (18.6 miles) from the plant to remain indoors.

“Evacuees, and that can be said of myself as well, are feeling anxious since we are not getting the needed information from the government in a timely manner,” said Seiji Sato, a spokesman for the government of Tamura City, about 20 kilometers from the nuclear facility.

One group of 21 people evacuated from a town near the plant made it to a shelter in Shinjo-shi, 300 kilometers (186 miles) away.

They told officials there that they drove as far away as possible, until they ran out of gas.

http://edition.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/asiapcf/03/18/japan.disaster/index.html

Agency: Japanese nuclear crisis on par with 3 Mile Island

Get up-to-the-minute developments at CNN’s live blog on the disaster in Japan.

Tokyo (CNN) — Japan’s Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency raised the level for the crisis at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant Friday from a 4 to 5 — putting it on par with the 1979 incident at Pennsylvania’s Three Mile Island.

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According to the International Nuclear Events Scale, a level 5 equates to the likelihood of a release of radioactive material, several deaths from radiation and severe damage to a reactor core.

The Chernobyl nuclear accident in the former Soviet Union, for example, rated a 7 on the scale, while Japan’s other nuclear crisis — a 1999 accident at Tokaimura in which workers died after being exposed to radiation — was a 4. The partial meltdown of a reactor core at Three Mile Island was deemed the worst nuclear accident in U.S. history.

Despite the more serious assessment, no expansion of the 12.4-mile (20 kilometer) evacuation zone was necessary, Hidehiko Nishiyama, deputy head of the nuclear agency, said at a briefing Friday.

Earlier evacuation orders took the possibility of greater damage to the plant into account, he said.

The agency raised the level not because of any new damage or increasing threat but because engineers now have images showing fuel rod damage and other problems inside the reactor buildings, he said.

Still, the situation at the plant remains “very grave,” Prime Minister Naoto Kan said Friday.

“In order to overcome this crisis, the police, the fire department, self defense forces are all working together putting their lives on the line in an attempt to resolve the situation,” he said.

The decision to upgrade the assessment came as Japanese authorities came under fire Friday from within and abroad over the lack of timely information on the unfolding nuclear situation as they have battled since March 11 to contain the crisis.

People near the plant are increasingly frustrated, not just with the prolonged fight to curb radioactive emissions, but also the lack of immediate information from authorities, an official with a city government near the plant said.

“Evacuees, and that can be said of myself as well, are feeling anxious since we are not getting the needed information from the government in a timely manner,” said Seiji Sato, a spokesman for the government of Tamura City, about 20 kilometers from the nuclear facility.

The head of the U.N. atomic watchdog agency, Yukiya Amano, pressed the Japanese prime minister to open up lines of communication about the crisis during a meeting in Tokyo.

Kan vowed to do as much, according to Japan’s Kyodo News, saying he’d push to make more information available to the international community and release more detailed data about the nuclear situation.

“The Japanese government and IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) should work doubly hard to pacify the great angst among the international community over this issue,” Amano told reporters.

The comments came as the effort to prevent further crisis at the Fukushima Daiichi plant entered its second week Friday.

Soldiers and utility workers in seven fire engines sprayed the plant’s No. 3 reactor with 50 tons of water on Friday in an effort to replenish water in pools containing used fuel rods that officials fear have caught fire and released radiation into the air, Kyodo News reported.

Friday afternoon’s mission was the fourth, by air and ground, in two days to spray water on damaged areas of the plant.

It has not been determined how effective the efforts have been, said Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano.

But, Edano added, “We observed vapor after the water was (shot in), so we believe that water did reach the pool, for sure.”

On Thursday, one of the IAEA’s top aides Graham Andrew said there appeared to be “no significant worsening” at the plant, located about 240 kilometers (150 miles) north of Tokyo.

Still, no one is close to claiming victory. The nuclear plant’s six reactors are in various states of disrepair and concerns are mounting over a potentially larger release of radioactive material.

Significant amounts of radiation were released after the 9.0-magnitude earthquake hit on March 11, followed by a tsunami that knocked out the plant’s backup power generators and swept away cars and houses along its path.

Relatively high, but officially non-hazardous amounts of radiation have been detected in the air and water of Fukushima city, about 80 kilometers (50 miles) from the plant.

Wind patterns pushing radiation from the plant out to sea appear to be minimal for now.

Conditions at the Fukushima Daiichi plant itself remained very dangerous.

Radiation levels Thursday hit 20 millisieverts per hour at an annex building where workers have been trying to re-establish electrical power, “the highest registered (at that building) so far,” a Tokyo Electric official told reporters.

By comparison, the typical resident of a developed country is naturally exposed to 3 millisieverts per year.

The company said Friday afternoon, though, that radiation levels at the plant’s west gate, at .26 to .27 millisieverts, have been fairly stable over a recent 12-hour span

In part of the effort to prevent greater radiation emissions, Edano has said addressing issues at the nuclear facility’s No. 3 reactor — the sole damaged unit that contains plutonium along with the uranium in its fuel rods — remains the top priority.

Authorities are assessing whether to also spray in and around the plant’s No. 1 unit, where seawater is being injected even after a March 12 hydrogen explosion, Edano said.

But, he said, the situation there was not as serious as in the No. 3 reactor.

Units 1, 2 and 3 are “relatively stable,” despite the fact their “cores have suffered damage,” said Andrew.

He said the No. 4 reactor is a “major safety concern,” with the agency noting that no water-temperature data have been collected since Monday from its spent fuel pool.

Still, a Tokyo Electric spokesman said Friday that video of that reactor’s used-fuel storage pool appeared to show it still contained water — rebutting a claim Wednesday by U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission Gregory Jaczko that it had run dry.

On Friday morning, Edano said temperatures in and around the Nos. 5 and 6 reactors have risen, though not enough to pose immediate danger, according to a report by Japan’s Kyodo News agency.

Water is being injected in and an emergency diesel generator has been connected to those two units to cool their spent fuel pools, a spokesman for Japan’s Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency said.

A Tokyo Electric official said an external power source, using what amounts to 1.5 kilometers of cable, should be set up Friday to power cooling systems for the Nos. 1 and 2 reactors.

Still, the official admitted this effort — which had been scheduled to be completed Thursday — “has so far not progressed as fast as we had hoped.” Late Friday afternoon, Edano said that process was still ongoing.

This has been a common theme the past week, as plans to resolve various crises floundering even as new issues emerge daily. The lack of an apparent major setback Thursday hardly means that more problems might not arise, with one expert saying that the efforts to cool the spent fuel pools alone will be a long, dangerous process.

“It’s a 15-round fight, we’re probably in round three,” said Arnold Gundersen, a nuclear safety advocate with 39 years of nuclear engineering experience.

“With this nuclear fire, if you will, when (you) pour water on it one day, you have to go back and do it the same the next and the same the next … It’s a real long slog.”

http://edition.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/asiapcf/03/18/japan.nuclear.reactors/index.html

Libya announces cease-fire amid foreign military moves

(CNN) — Libya announced an “immediate” cease-fire and a halt to military action Friday, hours after the U.N. Security Council authorized the use of force to protect besieged civilians in Libya.

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Libyan Foreign Minister Moussa Koussa said Libya is “obliged to accept the Security Council resolution that permits the use of force to protect the civilian population.”

He said Libya has decided on “an immediate ceasefire and the stoppage of all military operations.”

It was not immediately clear how his announcement could affect plans of some countries to intervene militarily in Libya — authorities in Britain and France had talked before Koussa’s remarks of imminent military action.

Speaking to reporters Friday in Tripoli, Koussa said Libya plans to protect civilians and provide them with humanitarian assistance and that it is obliged to protect all foreigners and their assets. He also called for a fact-finding mission to sort out the events on the ground.

Koussa says the Libya was disappointed in the imposition of a no-fly zone, arguing that it will hurt the civilian populatio. He also said the use of military power violates the country’s sovereignty and goes against the U.N. charter, but he acknowledged that some countries may yet intervene.

“There are signs this indeed might take place,” Koussa said.

Earlier Friday, talk emerged in Europe of swift military action against Moammar Gadhafi’s regime.

Speaking in an interview with RTL radio, French government spokesman Francois Baroin said France plans to participate in what he described as “swift” efforts.

British Prime Minister David Cameron said Britain has started preparations to deploy aircraft, and “in the coming hours” they will move to air bases where they will be positioned for any “necessary action.”

Spain will offer NATO the use of two military bases and also provide air and naval forces for use in operations involving Libya, Defense Minister Carme Chacon said on Friday in Madrid, a defense ministry spokesman told CNN.

The two bases to be offered in southern Spain are the Rota air-naval station, where a contingent of U.S. troops is also based, and the airbase at Moron de la Frontera. Those, as well as the offer to provide air and naval assets, would be subject to parliamentary approval, the minister said at an event at a Spanish air base in Madrid, the spokesman said.

U.S. President Barack Obama plans to make remarks on the Libyan crisis on Friday afternoon.

The council Thursday night voted 10 to 0 with five abstentions to authorize “states to take all necessary measures to protect civilians.” It also imposed a no-fly zone, banning all flights in Libyan airspace, with exceptions that involve humanitarian aid and evacuation of foreign nationals.

The decisive Security Council move comes after weeks of civil war between the Gadhafi regime and opposition forces, a conflict spurred by an anti-government uprising and regime violence against civilians, which the U.N. resolution cites as “outrageous.”

Details have not fully emerged of how an international military operation might unfold in Libya.

The United States and its NATO partners have several contingencies in place to act quickly, according to an administration official familiar with planning. They include air strikes and cruise missile attacks designed to cripple Libyan air defenses and punish the military units that are leading Gadhafi’s push on opposition strongholds in the east, the official said.

Obama will insist on a major Arab role in any no-fly zone, the official said.

The Arab League’s U.N. ambassador, Yahya Mahmassani, said two Arab countries would take part in a no-fly zone operation, but he was not sure which two.

U.S. Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Norton Schwartz told a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on Thursday that establishing a zone would take “upwards of a week.”

But the U.S. military does not view a no-fly zone alone as sufficient to stop Gadhafi. Military officials have said that this move would not halt the heavy artillery the regime is using on the ground.

All commercial air traffic has been shut down in Libya, an official at Eurocontrol said on Friday.

The opposition, with devoted but largely untrained and under-equipped units, has suffered military setbacks this week. But their hopes were buoyed by the U.N. vote, particularly in rebel-held Benghazi, where an assault by pro-Gadhafi forces has been expected.

The resolution singles out the city. It says U.N. member states can “take all necessary measures … to protect civilians and civilian populated areas under threat of attack in the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya, including Benghazi, while excluding a foreign occupation force.”

Gadhafi’s son Saadi told CNN Thursday evening that troops will change their tactics and take up positions around Benghazi Saturday or Sunday and assist people fleeing from the city.

The younger Gadhafi said there will be no large-scale assault. Instead police and anti-terrorism units will be sent into the rebel stronghold to disarm the opposition. Unspecified humanitarian groups can help with the exodus of civilians from Benghazi, Saadi Gadhafi said.

In a radio address aired on Libyan state TV, Gadhafi criticized residents of Benghazi and called them “traitors” for seeking help from outsiders.

Along with France, Britain and the United States voted for the resolution, which condemns the “gross and systematic violation of human rights, including arbitrary detentions, enforced disappearances, torture and summary executions.”

It details enforcement of an arms embargo against Libya, the freezing of assets and a ban on most flights.

“The United States stands with the Libyan people in support of their universal rights,” said U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Susan Rice.

The abstentions came from China, Russia, Germany, India, and Brazil. Germany said it was concerned about a protracted military conflict. China said it opposes the use of armed force in international relations.

http://edition.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/africa/03/18/libya.civil.war/index.html?hpt=T1

Japan official: Disasters overwhelmed government

TOKYO (AP) — The Japanese government acknowledged Friday that it was overwhelmed by the scale of last week’s twin natural disasters, slowing the response to the nuclear crisis that was triggered by the earthquake and tsunami that left at least 10,000 people dead.

The admission came as Japan welcomed U.S. help in stabilizing its overheated, radiation-leaking nuclear complex, and reclassified the rating of the nuclear accident from Level 4 to Level 5 on a seven-level international scale, putting it on a par with the 1979 Three Mile Island accident.

Nuclear experts have been saying for days that Japan was underplaying the severity of the nuclear crisis, which later Friday the prime minister called “very grave.”

The International Nuclear Event Scale defines a Level 4 incident as having local consequences and a Level 5 as having wider consequences.

Hidehiko Nishiyama of Japan’s nuclear safety agency said the rating was raised when officials realized that at least 3 percent of the fuel in three of the reactors at the Fukushima Dai-ichi plant had been severely damaged, suggesting those reactor cores have partially melted down and thrown radioactivity into the environment.

“The unprecedented scale of the earthquake and tsunami that struck Japan, frankly speaking, were among many things that happened that had not been anticipated under our disaster management contingency plans,” said Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano, admitting that information had not been shared quickly enough.

“In hindsight, we could have moved a little quicker in assessing the situation and coordinating all that information and provided it faster,” he said.

Later, Prime Minister Naoto Kan urged the nation to unite.

“We will rebuild Japan from scratch. We must all share this resolve,” he said in a nationally televised address, calling the crises a “great test for the Japanese people.”

At the stricken complex, military fire trucks sprayed the reactor units for a second day, with tons of water arcing over the facility in desperate attempts to prevent the fuel from overheating and spewing dangerous levels of radiation.

“The whole world, not just Japan, is depending on them,” Tokyo office worker Norie Igarashi, 44, said of the emergency teams working amid heightened radiation levels at the complex.

Last week’s 9.0 quake and tsunami set off the nuclear problems by knocking out power to cooling systems at the Fukushima plant on the northeast coast. Since then, four of its six reactor units have seen fires, explosions or partial meltdowns.

The unfolding crises have led to power shortages in Japan, forced factories to close, sent shockwaves through global manufacturing and triggered a plunge in Japanese stock prices.

“We see it as an extremely serious accident,” Yukiya Amano, the head of the U.N.’s International Atomic Energy Agency, told reporters Friday in Tokyo. “This is not something that just Japan should deal with, and people of the entire world should cooperate with Japan and the people in the disaster areas.”

“I think they are racing against the clock,” he said of the efforts to cool the complex.

One week after the twin disasters – which has officially left more than 6,900 dead and more than 10,700 missing – emergency crews are facing two challenges in the nuclear crisis: cooling the reactors where energy is generated, and cooling the adjacent pools where used nuclear fuel rods are stored in water.

Both need water to stop their uranium from heating up and emitting radiation, but with radiation levels inside the complex already limiting where workers can go and how long they can remain, it’s been difficult to get enough water inside.

Water in at least one fuel pool – in the complex’s Unit 3 – is believed to be dangerously low. Without enough water, the rods may heat further and spew out radiation.

“Dealing with Unit 3 is our utmost priority,” Edano told reporters.

Edano said Tokyo is asking the U.S. government for help and that the two are discussing the specifics. “We are coordinating with the U.S. government as to what the U.S. can provide and what people really need,” Edano said.

While Tokyo quickly welcomed international help for the natural disasters, the government initially balked at assistance with the nuclear crisis. That reluctance softened as the problems at Fukushima multiplied. Washington says its technical experts are now exchanging information with officials from Tokyo Electric Power Co., which owns the plant, and with government agencies.

A U.S. military fire truck was also used to help spray water into Unit 3, according to air force Chief of Staff Shigeru Iwasaki, though the vehicle was apparently driven by Japanese workers.

The U.S. vehicle was used alongside six Japanese military fire trucks normally used to extinguish fires at plane crashes.

The fire trucks allowed emergency workers to stay a relatively safe distance from the radiation, firing the water with high-pressure cannons. The firefighters also are able to direct the cannons from inside the vehicle.

Officials shared few details about Friday’s operation, which lasted nearly 40 minutes, though Iwasaki said he believed some water had reached its target.

The U.S. has also now conducted overflights of the reactor site, strapping sophisticated pods onto aircraft to measure airborne radiation, U.S. officials said. Two tests conducted Thursday gave readings that U.S. Deputy Energy Secretary Daniel B. Poneman said reinforced the U.S. recommendation that people keep away from a 50-mile (80-kilometer) radius around the Fukushima plant.

Tsunami survivors observed a minute of silence Friday afternoon to mark one week since the quake, which struck at 2:46 p.m. on March 11. Many were bundled up against the cold in the disaster zone, pressing their hands together in prayer.

Low levels of radiation have been detected well beyond Tokyo, which is 140 miles (220 kilometers) south of the plant, but hazardous levels have been limited to the plant itself. Still, the crisis has forced thousands to evacuate and drained Tokyo’s normally vibrant streets of life, its residents either leaving town or hunkering down in their homes.

The Japanese government has been slow in releasing information on the crisis, even as the troubles have multiplied. In a country where the nuclear industry has a long history of hiding its safety problems, this has left many people, in Japan and among governments overseas, confused and anxious.

After meeting with Kan and other senior officials, the U.N.’s Amano complained that his agency had not been receiving critical information. He said, for instance, the IAEA wanted to know what kind of radioactive elements were being released but could not get the data.

“This kind of information is needed in a timely way, and we hope the Japanese government will provide it. We hope everything will be better,” Amano told reporters.

At times, Japan and the U.S. – two very close allies – have offered starkly differing assessments over the dangers at Fukushima. U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission Chairman Gregory Jazcko said Thursday that it could take days and “possibly weeks” to get the complex under control. He defended the U.S. decision to recommend a 50-mile (80-kilometer) evacuation zone for its citizens, wider than the 12-mile (20-kilometer) band Japan has ordered.

Crucial to the effort to regain control over the Fukushima plant is laying a new power line to the plant, allowing operators to restore cooling systems. The operator, Tokyo Electric Power Co., missed a deadline late Thursday but hoped to completed the effort late Friday, said nuclear safety agency spokesman Minoru Ohgoda.

But even once the power is reconnected, it was not clear if the cooling systems were intact and will still work.

Workers were completing laying cables around Units 1 and 2 on Friday, a power company official said, and hoped to reach more units Saturday. Even so, experts will have to check for anything volatile to avoid an explosion when the electricity is turned on.

“There may be sparks, so I can’t deny the risk,” said Teruaki Kobayashi.

President Barack Obama assured Americans that officials do not expect harmful amounts of radiation to reach the U.S. or its territories. He also said the U.S. was offering Japan any help it could provide.

Police said more than 452,000 people made homeless by the quake and tsunami were staying in schools and other shelters, as supplies of fuel, medicine and other necessities ran short. Both victims and aid workers appealed for more help, as the chances of finding more survivors dwindled.

About 343,000 Japanese households still do not have electricity, and about 1 million have no water.

At the Fukushima plant, a core team of 180 emergency workers has been rotating out of the complex to minimize radiation exposure.

The storage pools need a constant source of cooling water. Even when removed from reactors, uranium rods are still extremely hot and must be cooled for months, possibly longer, to prevent them from heating up again and emitting radioactivity.

The actions authorities are taking to cool the reactors are the best ones available, experts say. Eventually, the plant may be entombed in concrete, as was done hastily after the 1986 Chernobyl reactor accident.

But pressures and temperatures must be controlled before then, said Mario V. Bonaca, an adviser to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Otherwise, he said, overheated nuclear fuel will melt or burst through the sand, cement or other covering and release more radiation.

—

Talmadge reported from Yamagata. Associated Press writers Elaine Kurtenbach, Tim Sullivan, Shino Yuasa and Jeff Donn in Tokyo, Todd Pitman in Shizugaza and Kelly Olsen in Narita, Japan contributed to this report.

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