Japan has agreed to buy disputed East China Sea islets, claimed by both Tokyo and Beijing, from their private Japanese owners, Japanese media said on Wednesday, a move likely to fuel tensions between Asia's two largest economies.
The uninhabited islands, known as Senkaku in Japan and Diaoyu in China, have long been a source of friction. Japan and China have competing territorial claims to the islets and surrounding fishing areas and potentially rich gas deposits.
The Japanese government will buy the islets for 2.05 billion yen ($26.15 million) and the owners will sign a contract soon, the Japanese dailies Asahi and Yomiuri said.
The planned purchase of the islands, controlled by Japan and claimed by Taiwan as well, will be approved in a cabinet meeting as early as mid-September, the newspapers said.
The row is part of a broader series of territorial disputes in the South China and East China Seas that have set China against US regional allies such as Japan and the Philippines.
On Tuesday, China warned the United States not to get involved in the disputes, just as US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton arrived in Beijing pledging to send a strong message on the need to calm regional tension.
The Japanese coast guard last month detained Chinese activists who sailed from Hong Kong and landed on the East China Sea islands, triggering anti-Japanese demonstrations in China.
Last week, a man ripped a Japanese flag from a car carrying Japan's ambassador in Beijing in the latest flare-up of the territorial row.
The Japanese government's plan to purchase the islets comes after Tokyo's nationalist governor, Shintaro Ishihara, proposed a similar plan earlier this year. The Tokyo metropolitan government sent a team of officials to waters near the islets at the weekend to conduct a survey. ($1 = 78.3900 Japanese yen)
In November of 1988, Boy A (then 18), Boy B (Jo Kamisaku, then 17, Kamisaku was a new family name he took after being released from prison), Boy C (then 16) and Boy D (then 17) from Tokyo abducted and held Furuta, a second year high school (grade 11) student from Saitama Prefecture in Misato, for 44 days. They kept her captive in the house owned by the parents of Boy C.
To forestall a manhunt, Boy A coerced Furuta into calling her own parents and telling them that she had run away from home, but was with "a friend" and was not in danger. He also browbeat her into posing as one of the boys' girlfriends when the parents of the house where she was held were around, but when it became clear that the parents would not call the police, he dropped this pretext. Furuta tried to escape several times, begging the parents more than once to help her, but they did nothing, apparently out of fear that Boy A would hurt them. Boy A was at the time a low-level yakuza leader and had bragged that he could use his connections to kill anyone who interfered.
According to their statements at their trial, the four of them raped her, beat her, introduced foreign objects including an iron rod into her vagina, made her drink her own urine and was fed cockroaches, inserted fireworks into her anus, and set them off, forced Furuta to masturbate, cut her nipple with pliers, dropped dumbbells onto her stomach, and burned her with cigarettes and lighters. (One of the burnings was punishment for attempting to call the police.) At one point her injuries were so severe that according to one of the boys it took more than an hour for her to crawl downstairs to use the bathroom. They also related that "possibly a hundred different people" knew that Furuta had been imprisoned there, but it is not clear if this means they visited the house at different times while she was imprisoned there, or themselves either raped or abused her. When the boys refused to let her leave, she begged them on several occasions to "kill her and get it over with".
On January 4, 1989, using one of the boys' loss at mah-jongg as a pretext, the four beat her with an iron barbell, poured lighter fluid on her legs, arms, face and stomach, and set her on fire. She died later that day of shock. The four boys claimed that they were not aware of how badly injured she was, and that they believed she had been malingering.
The killers hid her corpse in an 55-gallon drum filled with cement; the perpetrators disposed the drum in a tract of reclaimed land in Koto, Tokyo.
Arrest and punishment
The boys were arrested and tried as adults; but, because of Japanese handling of crimes committed by juveniles, their identities were sealed by the court. However, a weekly magazine Shukan Bunshun reported their real names, claiming "Human rights aren't needed for brutes."[2] Furuta's real name and details about her personal life were reported exhaustively in the media. Kamisaku was judged as a sub leader, at least according to the official trial.
The four boys pled guilty to a reduced charge of "committing bodily injury that resulted in death", rather than murder. Boy A's parents sold their house for approximately 50 million yen and paid this as compensation to Furuta's family.[citation needed]
For his participation in the crime, Kamisaku served eight years in a juvenile prison before he was released, in August 1999. In July 2004, he was arrested for assaulting an acquaintance, whom he believed to be luring a girlfriend away from him, and allegedly bragged about his earlier infamy. [1] Kamisaku was sentenced to seven years in prison for the beating.
Junko's parents were dismayed by the sentences received by their daughter's killers, and enjoined a civil suit against the parents of the boy in whose home the crimes were committed. When some of the convictions were overturned on the basis of problematic physical evidence (the semen and pubic hair recovered from the body did not match those of the boys who were arrested), the lawyer handling the civil suit decided there was no case to be made and refused to represent them further. (There is speculation that the evidence may have been contaminated—for example, by unidentified persons who raped Furuta.
One of the most disturbing parts of this true story is that her killers are now free.
After putting Junko Furuta through all that suffering, they are free men.
The sufferings that she had to go through
DAY 1:
November 22, 1988: Kidnapped
Kept captive in house, and posed as one of boy's girlfriend
Raped (over 400 times in total)
Forced to call her parents and tell them she had run away
Starved and malnutritioned
Fed cockroaches to eat and urine to drink
Forced to masturbate
Forced to strip in front of others
Burned with cigarette lighters
Foreign objects inserted into her vagina/anus
DAY 11:
December 1, 1988: Severely beat up countless times
Face held against concrete ground and jumped on
Hands tied to ceiling and body used as a punching bag
Nose filled with so much blood that she can only breath through her mouth
Dumbbells dropped onto her stomach
Vomited when tried to drink water (her stomach couldn't accept it)
Tried to escape and punished by cigarette burning on arms
Flammable liquid poured on her feet and legs, then lit on fire
Bottle inserted into her anus, causing injury
DAY 20:
December10, 1989: Unable to walk properly due to severe leg burns
Beat with bamboo sticks
Fireworks inserted into anus and lit
Hands smashed by weights and fingernails cracked
Beaten with golf club
Cigarettes inserted into vagina
Beaten with iron rods repeatedly
Winter; forced outside to sleep in balcony
Skewers of grilled chicken inserted into her vagina and anus, causing bleeding
DAY 30:
Hot wax dripped onto face
Eyelids burned by cigarette lighter
Stabbed with sewing needles in chest area
Left nipple cut and destroyed with pliers
Hot light bulb inserted into her vagina
Heavy bleeding from vagina due to scissors insertion
Unable to urinate properly
Injuries were so severe that it took over an hour for her to crawl downstairs and use the bathroom
Eardrums severely damaged
Extreme reduced brain size
DAY 40:
Begged her torturers to "kill her and get it over with"
January 1, 1989: Junko greets the New Years Day alone
Body mutilated
Unable to move from the ground
DAY 44:
January 4, 1989: The four boys beat her mutilated body with an iron barbell, using a loss at the game of Mah-jongg as a pretext. She is profusely bleeding from her mouth and nose. They put a candle's flame to her face and eyes.
Then, lighter fluid was poured onto her legs, arms, face and stomach, and then lit on fire. This final torture lasted for a time of two hours.
Junko Furuta died later that day, in pain and alone. Nothing could compare 44 days of suffering she had to go through.
When her mother heard the news and details of what had happened to her daughter, she fainted. She had to undergo a psychiatric outpatient treatment . Imagine her endless pain.
Her killers are now free men.
Justice was never served, not even after 22 years.
This story from 1989 is true. Please spread her story around. Everyone should know about the existence of Junko Furuta's unimaginable and incomprehensible suffering
A producer from Japan was touched about this story and made this as a movies ( Concrete – 2002 )
VZCZCXRO0106 RR RUEHBI RUEHCI RUEHDBU RUEHLH RUEHNEH RUEHPW DE RUEHKA #0120/01 0410341 ZNY CCCCC ZZH R 100341Z FEB 10 FM AMEMBASSY DHAKA TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC 9997 INFO RUCNCLS/ALL SOUTH AND CENTRAL ASIA COLLECTIVE RUEHBK/AMEMBASSY BANGKOK 8640 RUEHBJ/AMEMBASSY BEIJING 0700 RUEHML/AMEMBASSY MANILA 1494 RUEHRO/AMEMBASSY ROME 0513 RUEHKO/AMEMBASSY TOKYO 1205 RHHMUNS/COMSOCPAC HONOLULU HI RHHJJPI/PACOM IDHS HONOLULU HI
C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 DHAKA 000120
SIPDIS
DEPT PLEASE PASS USAID DEPT FOR SCA/INSB
E.O. 12958: DECL: 02/09/2020 TAGS: EINVEAIDELTNBEXPPRELBG SUBJECT: THE ROAD TO AWAMI LEAGUE RE-ELECTION: BANGLADESH MINISTER MAPS TRANSPORT INFRASTRUCTURE
REF: 09 DHAKA 568
Classified By: Ambassador James F. Moriarty, Reasons 1.4 (b) and (d)
SUMMARY -------
¶1. (C) Bangladesh's Communications Minister, who is responsible for the nation's bridges, roads and rail, told the Ambassador February 3 that completing major infrastructure projects in southwest, southeast and northern Bangladesh was critical to the Awami League's re-election chances in four years. Minister Syed Abul Hossain said the massive Padma Bridge project was ready to move to the bidding process provided donors could agree on the packaging of the project's contracts; he requested USG assistance in persuading Japan to agree to the contract format preferred by the Government of Bangladesh (GOB), World Bank and Asian Development Bank (ADB). The Minister also described progress on road projects in southeastern and northern Bangladesh. Finally, he requested USG support for an elevated road project in Dhaka. The Minister, who has a reputation for less-than-honest business dealings, remains focused on delivering the infrastructure projects he and Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina have promised to Bangladesh voters.
PADMA BRIDGE -- ONE STRUCTURE OR TWO? -------------------------------------
¶2. (C) At a February 3 dinner he hosted, Communications Minister Syed Abul Hossain expressed satisfaction with the levels of support donors planned to provide for the Padma Bridge project, which will for the first time link southwestern Bangladesh with Dhaka and the more prosperous eastern region of the country. According to the Minister, the World Bank pledged $1.5 billion, the ADB $550 million, the Japanese International Cooperation Agency (JICA) $500 million, and the Islamic Development Bank $130 million, primarily in soft loans.
¶3. (C) However, the Minister complained that JICA was insisting on dividing the contract for the bridge itself into two parts: a contract for the bridge's sub-structure and one for the super-structure. Under this plan JICA's loan would fund the sub-structure. The GOB, World Bank, ADB and others opposed this plan on the grounds that a single over-arching contract for the bridge itself would limit competing claims of liability in the event of future problems. The Japanese proposal to split the bridge into two structures, Hossain said, would allow two different contractors to lay the blame for any problems on the other contractor. The Minister asked the Ambassador to use his good offices with Japan and USG support for the World Bank and ADB to urge JICA to reconsider its stance.
DESPITE CHALLENGES INTEREST IN PADMA BRIDGE REMAINS HIGH --------------------------------------------- -----------
¶4. (C) Hossain and the Ambassador agreed there were many companies interested in bidding on the Padma Bridge project. The Minister said he knew of 13 firms who had expressed interest. The Ambassador added that one U.S. firm had demonstrated interest in the river dredgeing portion of the project and that there were sure to be more U.S. companies stepping forward as the bidding process progressed. The Minister outlined an ambitious timeline, a call for pre-qualification submissions by the end of February, winning bidders and contracts finalized before the end of 2010 and a target completion date of 2013.
DHAKA-CHITTAGONG AND DHAKA-MYMENSINGH ROADS -------------------------------------------
¶5. (C) The other two linchpins in the Minister's infrastructure-for-elections plan are expanding roads from Dhaka southeast to Chittagong, Bangladesh's second largest city, and north to the district of Mymensingh. The Minister said he had already awarded the contracts for $200 million project to expand the road that links the capital to Bangladesh's main port city, Chittagong. Of the ten
DHAKA 00000120 002 OF 003
contracts that make up the Dhaka-Chittagong road expansion project, foreign, mainly Chinese, firms won seven bids, and local companies won three bids.
¶6. (C) Part of the Minister's plans for northern road expansion include a 32-km, $2 billion elevated expressway to be built through a public-private partnership project. The Minister told the Ambassador that a Korean firm and a Thai-Italian consortium presented solid proposals during recent pre-bid discussions.
ELEVATED ROAD AND RAIL WITHIN DHAKA -----------------------------------
¶7. (C) The Minister also urged the USG to support a Dhaka infrastructure project that would be tangible proof of the strong U.S.-Bangladesh relationship. "We need a visible USAID project in the metropolitan area," Minister Hossain said. He proposed the USG fund a 3-km, $34 million project to build an elevated road and rail crossing that would connect northwestern Dhaka with Zia International Airport in the northeast across Dhaka's military cantonment, which bisects northern Dhaka.
¶8. (C) The Ambassador noted that the USG had largely gotten out of the business of funding large infrastructure projects. He described other examples of U.S. support for infrastructure in Bangladesh, including in the power sector and, most recently, in our commitment to build scores of cyclone shelters/schools around southern Bangladesh.
¶9. (C) The Communications Minister described several initiatives to modernize Bangladesh's decrepit railways. In addition to expanding the Dhaka-Chittagong highway, the Minister said construction to broaden the single rail line between the two cities to a double rail line would begin within a couple of months. The Minister said the Prime Minister had also tasked him to develop an elevated rail system in Dhaka to alleviate the city's traffic crisis. According to the Minister, JICA had expressed interest in loaning funds for the $3 billion project; alternatively, the elevated rail system could be a public-private partnership project. Finally, the Minister described plans to transform Bangladesh Rail into an independent, though government-owned, entity from its current structure as a government-run enterprise. The Minister was confident that these plans to "corporatize" and then perhaps privatize Bangladesh Rail would greatly improve the firm's efficiency and quality of service.
COMMENT -------
¶10. (C) According to contacts in the Dhaka-based donor community, Japan is pushing hard to divide the Padma Bridge project into a contract each for the sub-structure and super-structure. The Japanese have lobbied at World Bank headquarters in Washington and at ADB in Manila, in addition to the GOB in Dhaka. Donors speculate the Japanese government supports the two-contract format so it could encourage Japanese firms to bid on the sub-structure contract JICA would fund.
¶11. (C) Allegations of corruption continue to surround the Communications Minister (reftel). Other high-ranking GOB officials have acknowledged to us problems with the Minister's way of doing business. The Minister is also reputed to have close ties to China. (NOTE: The Prime Minister is scheduled to visit China in April. END NOTE.) That said, the Minister is clearly determined to fulfill his mission to develop infrastructure with a view to improving connectivity and securing votes for the Awami League. The numerous projects described by the Minister all represent opportunities for U.S. business. Mission Dhaka will work to publicize these opportunities and work with interested U.S. firms to secure contracts in a legal and transparent manner.
Sony hacked again as attackers target Sony Music Japan. This is getting tiresome.
Just when you couldn’t imagine it getting any worse for Sony, a new wave of attacks have been levelled on the Sony Music Japan website, exposing databases using SQL injection techniques.
NakedSecurity reports that the highlighted databases do not contain sensitive information, with no names, passwords or personally identifiable information thought to have been exposed in the attacks.
However, the attackers, who mock Sony with a note stating “This isn’t a 1337 h4x0r, we just want to embarass Sony some more”, do note that two other databases on the site are vulnerable but it is not known whether they contain sensitive information. Lulz Security takes claim for the breach, the same hackers that targeted Fox.com earlier in the month.
It’s been a tough month for Sony, which first saw its PlayStation Network brought down for weeks after hackers stole sensitive information hosted on the platform. Soon after that, it emerged that a phishing site was found on Sony’s Thailand portal before it attackers managed to breach the company’s Greek website using a similar SQL injection attack.
Sony is reported to have lost $171 million as a result of attacks on its gaming platform, but its reputation could suffer more than its bank balance if events continue to play out as they currently are.
FUTABA, Japan (AP) — Residents rushed back into the 12-mile (20-kilometer) evacuation zone around Japan's radiation-spewing nuclear power plant Thursday, grabbing whatever belongings they could before an order went into effect legally banning entry to the area.
A man wearing a protective suit walks along a street in deserted town of Futaba, inside the 20-kilometer (12-mile) evacuation zone, in Fukushima Prefecture, Japan, Thursday, April 21, 2011. Japan declared the 20-kilometer (12-mile) area evacuated around its radiation-spewing nuclear power plant a no-go zone on Thursday, urging residents to abide by the order for their own safety or possibly face fines or detention. (AP Photo/Sergey Ponomarev)
A stream of evacuees ventured into deserted towns near the plant, some in white protective suits and others in face masks and rain gear they hoped would protect against radiation. Most raced through the zone with car windows closed, their vehicles crammed with clothing and valuables.
"This is our last chance, but we aren't going to stay long. We are just getting what we need and getting out," said Kiyoshi Kitajima, an X-ray technician, who dashed to his hospital in Futaba, a town next-door to the plant, to collect equipment before the order went into effect at midnight.
Officials said the order announced Thursday was meant to limit exposure to radiation leaking from the plant and to prevent thefts. Almost all the zone's nearly 80,000 residents left when the area was evacuated on March 12, but police had not been able to legally block them from going back.
Police had no estimate Thursday of the exact number of people who have returned to the zone or who still might be living there.
Under a special nuclear emergency law, people who enter the zone will now be subject to fines of up to 100,000 yen ($1,200) or possible detention of up to 30 days. Up to now, defiance of the evacuation order was not punishable by law.
The order angered some residents who fled their homes nearly empty-handed when they were told to evacuate after last month's tsunami and earthquake wrecked the Fukushima Dai-ichi plant's power and cooling systems.
"I initially thought we would be able to return within a few days. So I brought nothing except a bank card," said Kazuko Suzuki, 49, also from Futaba.
"I really want to go back. I want to check if our house is still there," said Suzuki, who fled with her teenage son and daughter. "My patience has run out. I just want to go home."
The no-go order was not due to any particular change in conditions inside the plant, which appear to have somewhat stabilized. Even under the best-case scenario, however, the plant's operator says it will take at least six months to bring its reactors safely into a cold shutdown.
Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano said authorities would arrange brief visits, allowing one person per household to return by bus for a maximum of two hours to collect necessary belongings. Participants would have to go through radiation screening, he said.
"We beg the understanding of residents. We really want residents not to enter the areas," Edano told reporters. "Unfortunately, there are still some people in the areas."
Residents chafed at the limit to just one person per household.
No visits will be allowed in a two mile (three kilometer) area closest to the plant, said Hidehiko Nishiyama of Japan's Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency, confirming reports that zone would be completely off-limits.
Details were still being worked out.
Katsunobu Sakurai, mayor of Minami Soma, where about half the 71,000 residents lived in areas that will now be off-limits, questioned the rationale for the way the evacuation zone was decided.
"It feels like some outsider who doesn't know anything about our geography sat at a desk and drew these circles," Sakurai said. "The zones have zero scientific basis. Radiation doesn't travel in neat circles. Just putting up circles around the plant is unreasonable."
Prime Minister Naoto Kan, who has been under fire from the opposition over the government's handling of the crisis, visited the region Thursday, giving a giving a pep talk to workers at a nuclear crisis management center in Fukushima.
Fukushima's governor, who has also been critical of the government's performance, said he urged Kan to ensure the government properly handles the disaster and related compensation issues.
"I told the prime minister that I strongly hope that evacuees can return home as early as possible," said the governor, Yuhei Sato.
Meanwhile, new data from Japan's National Police Agency showed that two-thirds of the victims identified in last month's earthquake and tsunami were elderly — and almost all of them drowned.
The agency said 65 percent of the 11,108 confirmed fatalities of known age were 60 or older. Another 1,899 victims were of unknown age.
Adding those who are still missing, the earthquake and resulting tsunami killed an estimated 27,500 people. The police agency said nearly 93 percent of the victims had drowned. Others perished in fires, were crushed to death or died from other causes.
The northeastern coast hardest hit by the disasters had a high concentration of elderly residents.
Copyright 2011 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
TOKYO (AP) — A magnitude-7.4 aftershock rattled Japan on Thursday night, knocking out power across a large swath of the northern part of the country nearly a month after the devastating earthquake and tsunami that flattened the northeastern coast.
Japan's meteorological agency issued a tsunami warning but canceled it about 90 minutes later. Officials said power was out in all of three northern prefectures (states) and in parts of two others.
There were no immediate reports of serious injuries or damage. The aftershock was the strongest since the March 11 megaquake and tsunami that killed some 25,000 people, tore apart hundreds of thousands of homes and caused an ongoing crisis at a nuclear power plant.
The operator of the tsunami-ravaged Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant said there was no immediate sign of new problems caused by the aftershock, and Japan's nuclear safety agency says workers there retreated to a quake-resistant shelter in the complex. None were injured. The crisis there started when the tsunami knocked out cooling systems. Workers have not been able to restore them.
Thursday's quake knocked out several power lines at the Onagawa nuclear power plant north of Sendai, which has been shut down since the tsunami. One remaining line was supplying power to the plant and radiation monitoring devices detected no abnormalities. The plant's spent fuel pools briefly lost cooling capacity but an emergency diesel generator quickly kicked in.
Officials said the aftershock hit 30 miles (50 kilometers) under the water and off the coast of Miyagi prefecture. The U.S. Geological Survey in Golden, Colo., later downgraded it to 7.1.
Buildings as far away as Tokyo shook for about a minute.
The quake struck at 11:32 p.m. local time. Moments beforehand, residents in the western Tokyo suburb of Fuchu were warned on a neighborhood public address system of an imminent quake.
In Ichinoseki, inland from Japan's eastern coast, buildings shook violently, knocking items from shelves and toppling furniture, but there was no heavy damage to the buildings themselves. Immediately after the quake, all power was cut. The city went dark, but cars drove around normally and people assembled in the streets despite the late hour.
Prime Minister Naoto Kan huddled with staff members in his office shortly afterward, according to deputy Cabinet spokesman Noriyuki Shikata.
A separate government emergency response team met shortly after midnight to monitor any reports of damage and urged firefighters, police and other emergency personnel to aid those in need.
Paul Caruso, a geophysicist at USGS, said the quake struck at about the same location and depth as last month's huge one.
Another USGS geophysicist, Don Blakeman, said it was the strongest aftershock since March 11, although several aftershocks on that day were bigger.
The USGS said the aftershock struck off the eastern coast 40 miles (65 kilometers) from Sendai and 70 miles (115 kilometers) from Fukushima. It was about 205 miles (330 kilometers) from Tokyo.
Copyright 2011 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
MINAMI SOMA, Japan (AP) — Japanese police raced Thursday to find thousands of missing bodies before they completely decompose along a stretch of tsunami-pummeled coast that has been largely off-limits because of a radiation-leaking nuclear plant.
Nearly a month after a 9.0-magnitude earthquake generated the tsunami along Japan's northeastern coast, more than 15,000 people are still missing. Many of those may have been washed out to sea and will never be found.
Japanese police, wearing suits to protect them from radiation, search for victims inside the deserted evacuation zone, established for the 20 kilometer radius around the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear reactors, in Minamisoma, Fukushima prefecture, northeastern Japan, Thursday, April 7, 2011. Hundreds of Japanese police and soldiers were mobilized Thursday to begin their first major search operation inside the evacuation zone. (AP Photo/David Guttenfelder)
In the days just after the March 11 disaster, searchers gingerly picked through mountains of tangled debris, hoping to find survivors. Heavier machinery has since been called in, but unpredictable tides of radiation from the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear complex have slowed progress and often forced authorities to abandon the search, especially within a 12-mile (20-kilometer) evacuation zone around the plant.
Officials now say there's not much time left to find and identify the dead, and are ramping up those efforts.
"We have to find bodies now as they are decomposing," said Ryoichi Tsunoda, a police spokesman in Fukushima prefecture, where the plant is located. "This is a race against time and against the threat of nuclear radiation."
More than 25,000 people are believed to have been killed, and 12,600 are confirmed dead. There is expected to be some overlap in the dead and missing tolls because not all the bodies have been identified.
Recent progress at the plant — which the tsunami flooded — appears to have slowed the release of radiation into the ocean. Early Wednesday, technicians there plugged a crack that had been gushing contaminated water into the Pacific. Radiation levels in waters off the coast have fallen dramatically since then, though contaminated water continues to pool throughout the complex, often thwarting work there. A floating island storage facility — which officials hope will hold the radioactive water — arrived at the port near Tokyo on Thursday and will soon head to Fukushima.
After notching a rare victory, technicians began pumping nitrogen into the chamber of reactor Thursday to reduce the risk of a hydrogen explosion.
Three hydrogen blasts rocked the complex in the days immediately following the tsunami, which knocked out vital cooling systems. An internal report from March 26 by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission warned such explosions could occur again and recommended adding nitrogen. The gas will be injected into all three of the troubled reactors over the next six days.
Plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Co. has been under intense pressure to get the crisis under control, and the company's president was hospitalized last week amid reports he'd had a breakdown. Masataka Shimizu spent eight days in the hospital with dizziness and high blood pressure, but was back at work Thursday, according to spokesman Takashi Kurita.
Radiation in the air, soil and water in Fukushima prefecture has also been declining since Saturday, and Tsunoda said a small team resumed the search there a day later. But the operation dramatically increased on Thursday, when 330 police and 650 soldiers fanned out, wearing white protective gear from head to toe. They are concentrating on areas between six and 12 miles (10 and 20 kilometers) from the plant — all of which are within the zone evacuated because of radiation fears.
Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano said the government is studying ways to allow residents in the evacuation zones to return briefly to check on their homes and retrieve any possession that may be left, but they would have to be escorted and wear protective gear.
"I understand that many residents have eagerly waiting for a chance to go back, but this is not something we can approve just to mark one month from the disaster," Edano said. "If we provide an opportunity, we cannot allow anyone to go anytime."
The government has said it may expand the evacuation zone due to concerns about longer-term radiation exposure as the crisis wears on.
Iitate village, about 25 miles (40 kilometers) from Fukushima Dai-ichi, said Thursday it is advising pregnant women and children under 3 to go to hotels farther from the plant. The International Atomic Energy Agency last month reported high levels of contamination in Iitate's soil. Village officials did not say why they are just now telling some people to leave.
On the fringes of Minami Soma, a city that straddles the no-go zone and was flattened in the crush of water, teams patrolled deserted streets Thursday. Packs of dogs caked with mud and the searchers were the only beings roaming the emptied streets.
One area inside the evacuation area seemed frozen in time: Doors swung open, bicycles lined the streets, a lone taxi sat outside the local train station.
One body was pulled out of the rubble Thursday morning.
"We just got started here this morning, so we expect there will be many more," said one officer, who requested anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media.
More than 1,000 people are missing in the city alone.
"I believe the search will continue until they find as many of the missing as they can, but we fear many of the missing were washed out to sea or are buried under rubble," said Takamitsu Hoshi, a city official. "We haven't been able to do much searching at all because of the radiation concerns. It was simply too dangerous."
Last weekend, U.S. and Japanese troops conducted a massive, all-out search of coastal waters, finding about 70 bodies over three days. While such operations haven't stopped completely, they'll be severely limited going forward. The death toll for the 2004 Asian tsunami includes tens of thousands of bodies that were never found, likely sucked out to sea.
Meanwhile, the U.S. State Department confirmed the death of Montgomery Dickson — the second American confirmed killed in the disaster. It gave no other details.
While some progress has been made at the nuclear complex in recent days, radiation spewed over the past few weeks continues to travel — in trace amounts — farther afield. On Thursday, one South Korean province allowed schools to cancel classes after rain containing small amounts of radiation fell in the area. The contamination posed no health threat, according to the prime minister's office.
Copyright 2011 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
ABIDJAN, Ivory Coast (AP) — French forces wearing night vision goggles rappelled from a helicopter to rescue the Japanese ambassador and seven others, France's foreign minister said Thursday, as Ivory Coast's strongman leader remained in an underground bunker amid the fighting.
This image taken from a video provided by the French military Thursday April 7, 2011 shows Yoshifumi Okamura, right, the Japanese ambassador to Ivory Coast thanking an unidentified French officer of the Licorne operation, left, following a rescue mission to airlift the ambassador to safety in Abidjan, Ivory Coast. French forces wearing night vision goggles rappelled from a helicopter to rescue the Japanese ambassador and seven others, France's foreign minister said Thursday, as Ivory Coast's strongman leader remained in an underground bunker amid the fighting. (AP Photo/French military via APTN) EDITORIAL USE ONLY
Forces allied with Ivory Coast's internationally recognized president Alassane Ouattara have stormed the gates of Laurent Gbagbo's home but are fearful of killing the entrenched leader and stoking the rage of his supporters. Some 46 percent of Ivorians voted for Gbagbo in the November election that unleashed political chaos.
Gbagbo has made an art of staying in power years past the end of his legal mandate, and is now pushing the envelope, fighting for each day, even each hour.
"He will not surrender," said Meite Sindou, a defense spokesman for Ouattara, the man recognized worldwide as the democratically elected president of Ivory Coast. "We will have to take him."
Wednesday began with the boldest attempt yet to penetrate Gbagbo's inner sanctum as fighters loyal to Ouattara made it as far as the gate of the presidential mansion he has occupied for the last decade. They attacked it with a barrage of fire, and residents reported hearing concussive blasts.
They breached the property's perimeter only to be forced to retreat in the face of the heavy artillery unleashed by the ruler's inner circle of guards.
Amid the fighting late Wednesday, French troops rescued the Japanese ambassador and seven others after fighters attacked them. In a video provided by the French military, the forces are seen rappelling from a helicopter at night with night vision goggles, before the aircraft lands in a field to pick up a man, who appears to be the Japanese ambassador to Ivory Coast.
"Mercenaries took over my residence, but in the end I was saved by French troops," said Yoshifumi Okamura, Japan's ambassador to the Ivory Coast.
Heavy arms fire was heard across Abidjan overnight, but on Thursday hundreds of people ventured out despite the dangers in search of water as U.N. helicopters circled in the air.
Ouattara has pleaded with the international community for months to intervene and remove Gbagbo by force, arguing he wouldn't leave any other way.
Despite losing the election, Gbagbo still controls the Ivorian army and has repeatedly used its arsenal of heavy artillery to attack areas of Abidjan where people voted for his opponent. Security forces are accused of opening fire with a mounted machine gun on a group of unarmed women and lobbing mortars into a market.
Finally on Monday, United Nations attack helicopters acting on a U.N. Security Council resolution bombarded six arms depots in Abidjan — including a cache inside the presidential compound.
"Obviously they didn't get all of it," said a senior diplomat who requested anonymity because he is not authorized to speak to the media. "When they came after him, he pulled out more stuff. Remember, he had a long time to prepare for this."
Among the preparations was the choice of where Gbagbo would make his last stand. He is believed to be holed up in a tunnel originally built to connect the president's home and the adjacent residence of the French ambassador, Sindou said.
Ivory Coast's first president, Felix Houphouet-Boigny, built the tunnel so he could take refuge inside the ambassador's residence in the event of a coup, said Ivory Coast expert Christian Bouquet, a professor of political geography at the University of Bordeaux III.
In an irony of history, Gbagbo is said to have severed the link between the residences shortly after coming to power in 2000. He had accused France of backing a rebel group that attempted to overthrow him in 2002, and fighters from this same group are now backing Ouattara and carried out Wednesday's attack on the residence.
The pro-Ouattara forces began their lighting advance just over a week ago attacking from the east, west and center of the country. At least 80 percent of the countryside was under their control by the time they entered Abidjan.
On Tuesday, Gbagbo's soldiers were seen abandoning their posts, some rushing inside a church to tear off their uniforms before re-emerging in civilian clothes. His generals issued orders to stop fighting.
Yet Gbagbo — a former history professor — appears to have calculated his rival's weakness: Ouattara knows that he needs to take Gbagbo alive to maintain international support, and to avoid further alienating voters who supported Gbagbo in last year's election.
From inside his bunker, Gbagbo blasted the world in back-to-back interviews on French TV station LCI and French radio RFI. He said he would never step down, that there was nothing to negotiate and called the operation to oust him an international "game of poker."
Ouattara's spokeswoman Affoussy Bamba said that she was nonetheless optimistic that the end was near.
"He has nothing left. His arsenal is gone. His army has evaporated," she said by telephone from Abidjan. "How much longer can he last?"
Copyright 2011 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
TOKYO (AP) — Workers used a milky bathwater dye Monday as they frantically tried to trace the path of radioactive water seeping into the ocean from Japan's tsunami-damaged nuclear plant.
An employee of an auto maker watches vehicles damaged by tsunami in Sendai, northeastern Japan, Monday, April 4, 2011. The March 11 earthquake off Japan's northeast coast triggered a tsunami that barreled onshore and disabled the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant. (AP Photo/Kyodo News) JAPAN OUT, MANDATORY CREDIT, NO LICENSING IN CHINA, HONG KONG, JAPAN, SOUTH KOREA AND FRANCE
The crack in a maintenance pit discovered over the weekend was the latest confirmation that radioactivity continues to spill into the environment. The leak is a symptom of the primary difficulty at the Fukushima Dai-ichi complex: Radioactive water is pooling around the plant and preventing workers from powering up cooling systems needed to stabilize dangerously vulnerable fuel rods.
The plant operators also deliberately dumped 10,000 tons of tainted water — measuring about 500 times above the legal limit for radiactivity — into the ocean Monday to make space at a storage site for water that is even more highly radiactive.
Engineers have turned to a host of improvised and sometimes bizarre methods to tame the nuclear plant after it was crippled in Japan's magnitude 9.0 quake and tsunami on March 11.
Efforts over the weekend to clog the leak with a special polymer, sawdust and even shredded newspapers failed to halt the flow at a cracked concrete maintenance pit near the shoreline. The water in that leak contains radioactive iodine at rates 10,000 times the legal limit.
Suspecting they might be targeting the wrong channel to the pit, workers tried to confirm the leak's pathway by dumping several pounds (kilograms) of salts used to give bathwater a milky hue into the system, plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Co. said Monday.
"There could be other possible passages that the water may be traveling. We must watch carefully and contain it as quickly as possible," said Hidehiko Nishiyama, a spokesman for the Nuclear Safety and Industrial Agency.
Radioactive water has pooled throughout the plant because the operator has been forced to rely on makeshift ways of pumping water into the reactors — and allowing it to gush out wherever it can — to bring down temperatures and pressure in the cores.
Government officials conceded Sunday that it will likely be several months before the cooling systems are completely restored. And even after that happens, there will be years of work ahead to clean up the area around the complex and figure out what to do with it.
The makeshift system makes it difficult to contain the radiation leaks, but it is aimed a preventing fuel rods from going into a full meltdown that would release even more radiactivity into the environment.
"We must keep putting water into the reactors to cool to prevent further fuel damage, even though we know that there is a side effect, which is the leakage," Nishiyama said. "We want to get rid of the stagnant water and decontaminate the place so that we can return to our primary task to restore the sustainable cooling capacity as quickly as possible."
To that end, the plant's operator, Tokyo Electric Power Co., said it jettisoned the 10,000 tons of water Monday, clearing space in a waste-storage facility. The government decided to allow the step as "an unavoidable emergency measure," Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano said.
An additional 1,500 tons will be dumped from a trench under the plant's units 5 and 6. That water is threatening to interfere with the workings at those units, whose reactors are under control.
Radioactivity is quickly diluted in the ocean, and Edano said the dump should not affect the safety of seafood in the area.
The crisis has unfolded as Japan deals with the aftermath of twin natural disasters that decimated large swaths of its northeastern coast. Up to 25,000 people are believed to have died in the disaster, and tens of thousands lost their homes. Thousands more were forced to flee a 12-mile (20-kilometer) radius around the plant because of the radiation.
The 8-inch-long (20-centimeter-long) crack was discovered in the maintenance pit over the weekend. It is sending radioactive water into area that is normally blocked off by a seawall, but a crack was also discovered in that outer barrier Monday.
Though it later authorized the dumping of slightly radioactive water, the government said Monday it was growing concerned about the sheer volume of contaminated materials spilling into the Pacific. It is not clear how much water has leaked from the pit so far.
"Even if they say the contamination will be diluted in the ocean, the longer this continues, the more radioactive particles will be released and the greater the impact on the ocean," Edano said. "We are strongly urging TEPCO that they have to take immediate action to deal with this."
The crisis has sparked protests in Japan and raised questions around the world about the safety of nuclear power. The head of the International Atomic Energy Agency told delegates at a nuclear safety conference Monday that the industry cannot afford to ignore these concerns.
"We cannot take a 'business as usual' approach," Yukiya Amano said.
The operator said Monday it is ordering fencing that is typically used to contain oil spills. The screens are not designed to trap radioactivity but might curtail the flow of water and thus reduce the spread of contamination, said TEPCO manager Teruaki Kobayashi. It was not clear when they would arrive.
All of the plant's reactors were designed by General Electric, and the company's CEO met Sunday with TEPCO's chairman. Jeffrey Immelt told reporters Monday that more than 1,000 engineers from GE and its partner Hitachi are helping to analyze the problems at the plant.
Immelt also offered assistance in dealing with the electricity shortage brought on by damage to Dai-ichi and other power plants. Japan is expecting a shortfall of at least 10 million kilowatts come summer.
Gas turbines are on their way from the U.S. with both long- and short-term capabilities, Immelt said.
Copyright 2011 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
TOKYO (AP) — Setbacks mounted Wednesday in the crisis over Japan's tsunami-damaged nuclear facility, with nearby seawater testing at its highest radiation levels yet and the president of the plant operator checking into a hospital with hypertension.
Nearly three weeks after a March 11 earthquake and tsunami slammed and engulfed the Fukushima Dai-ichi plant, knocking out cooling systems that keeps nuclear fuel rods from overheating, Tokyo Electric Power Co. is still struggling to bring the facility in northeastern Japan under control.
The country's revered Emperor Akihito and Empress Michiko reached out to some of the thousands displaced by the twin disasters — which have killed more than 11,000 people — spending about an hour consoling a group of evacuees at a Tokyo center.
ALTERNATE CROP OF TOK103 - This March 24, 2011 aerial photo taken by a small unmanned drone and released by AIR PHOTO SERVICE shows damaged Unit 4 of the crippled Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant in Okumamachi, Fukushima prefecture, northern Japan. (AP Photo/AIR PHOTO SERVICE) MANDATORY CREDIT
"I couldn't talk with them very well because I was nervous, but I felt that they were really concerned about us," said Kenji Ukito, an evacuee from a region near the plant. "I was very grateful."
At the crippled plant, leaking radiation has seeped into the soil and seawater nearby and made its way into produce, raw milk and even tap water as far as Tokyo, 140 miles (220 kilometers) to the south.
The stress of reining in Japan's worst crisis since World War II has taken its toll on TEPCO President Masataka Shimizu, who went to a hospital late Tuesday.
Shimizu, 66, has not been seen in public since a March 13 news conference in Tokyo, raising speculation that he had suffered a breakdown. For days, officials deflected questions about Shimizu's whereabouts, saying he was "resting" at company headquarters.
Spokesman Naoki Tsunoda said Wednesday that Shimizu had been admitted to a Tokyo hospital after suffering dizziness and high blood pressure.
The leadership vacuum at TEPCO — whose shares have plunged nearly 80 percent since the crisis began — comes amid growing criticism over its failure to halt the radiation leaks. Bowing deeply, arms at his side, Chairman Tsunehisa Katsumata announced at a news conference that he would step in and apologized for the delay.
"We must do everything we can to end this situation as soon as possible for the sake of everyone who has been affected," said Yuhei Sato, governor of Fukushima prefecture. "I am extremely disappointed and saddened by the suggestion that this might drag out longer."
On Wednesday, nuclear safety officials said seawater 300 yards (meters) outside the plant contained 3,355 times the legal limit for the amount of radioactive iodine — the highest rate yet and a sign that more contaminated water was making its way into the ocean.
The amount of iodine-131 found south of the plant does not pose an immediate threat to human health but was a "concern," said Hidehiko Nishiyama, a Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency official. He said there was no fishing in the area.
Radioactive iodine is short-lived, with a half-life of just eight days, and in any case was expected to dissipate quickly in the ocean. It does not tend to accumulate in shellfish.
"We will nail down the cause, and will do our utmost to prevent it from rising further," he said.
In another setback, white smoke was spotted coming from one of the reactor buildings Wednesday evening. Firefighters responded and electricity to the unit was cut since it appeared to come from an area that houses the electrical switchboard, nuclear safety official Kazuya Aoki said. The smoke stopped within 20 minutes and no radiation was released, he said.
Highly toxic plutonium also has been detected in the soil outside the plant, TEPCO said. Safety officials said the amounts did not pose a risk to humans, but the finding supports suspicions that dangerously radioactive water is leaking from damaged nuclear fuel rods. There have been no reports of plutonium being found in seawater.
The latest findings on radioactive iodine highlighted the urgent need to power up the power plant's cooling system. Workers succeeded last week in reconnecting some parts of the plant to the power grid.
But as they pumped in water to cool the reactors and nuclear fuel, they found pools of radioactive water in the basements of several buildings and in trenches outside.
The contaminated water has been emitting many times the amount of radiation that the government considers safe for workers, making it a priority to pump the water out before electricity can be restored.
Complicating matters, the tanks storing the contaminated water are beginning to fill up. Pumping at one unit has been suspended since Tuesday night while workers scramble to drain a new tank after the first one reached capacity. And the water just kept coming Wednesday, when a new pool was found.
In another effort to reduce the spread of radioactive particles, TEPCO plans to spray resin on the ground around the plant. The company will test the method Thursday in one section of the plant before using it elsewhere, Nishiyama said.
"The idea is to glue them to the ground," he said. But it would be too sticky to use inside buildings or on sensitive equipment.
The government also is considering covering some reactors with cloth tenting, TEPCO said. If successful, that could allow workers to spend longer periods of time in other areas of the plant.
The spread of radiation has raised concerns about the safety of Japan's seafood, even though experts say the low levels suggest radiation won't accumulate in fish at unsafe levels. Trace amounts of radioactive cesium-137 have been found in anchovies as far afield as Chiba, near Tokyo, but at less than 1 percent of acceptable levels.
Experts say the Pacific is so vast that any radiation will be quickly diluted before it becomes problematic. Citing dilution, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has played down the risks of seafood contamination.
As officials seek to bring an end to the nuclear crisis, hundreds of thousands in the northeast are trying to put their lives back together. The official death toll stood at 11,257 on Wednesday, with the final toll likely surpassing 18,000.
The government said damage is expected to cost $310 billion, making it the most costly natural disaster on record.
In the town of Rikuzentakata, one 24-year-old said she's been searching every day for a missing friend but will have to return to her job at a nursing home because she has run out of cash.
Life is far from back to normal, she said.
"Our family posted a sign in our house: Stay positive," Eri Ishikawa said. But she said it's a struggle.
Copyright 2011 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
