K ➛
THE TIMES LEADER www.timesleader.com
I N
N
JA PA N D I S A ST E R
B R I E F
A
T
I
O
N
&
W
O
R
L
D
WEDNESDAY, APRIL 6, 2011 PAGE 5A
Water’s radiation hits 7.5 million times legal limit near stricken nuke plant
Ocean radiation level soars By KENJI HALL and JULIE MAKINEN Los Angeles Times
AP PHOTO
Duty of citizenship gets her vote
Magnolia Lee, 7 months, sports an "I Voted" sticker on her hat Tuesday at Westminster Presbyterian Church in Peoria, Ill. Lee waited patiently while her grandparents, Jane and Richard Lee, cast their ballots in the consolidated election. PHOENIX, ARIZ.
Jet cracks surprise Boeing
oeing’s chief 737 engineer said the company was surprised when the B roof of a Southwest Airlines jetliner
ripped open over Arizona. Paul Richter says in a conference call Tuesday that the company didn’t expect to see wear in the middle section of the fuselage until the plane involved was much older. Southwest pulled nearly 80 planes for inspections and found five with similar cracks. Richter says that it had given repair instructions on three of those planes.
TOKYO — The operator of Japan’s stricken Fukushima nuclear plant said Tuesday that it had found radioactive iodine at 7.5 million times the legal limit in a seawater sample taken near the facility, and government officials imposed a new health limit for radioactivity in fish. The reading of iodine-131 was recorded Saturday, Tokyo Electric Power Co. said. Another sample taken Monday found the level to be 5 million times the legal limit. The Monday samples also were found to contain radioactive cesium at 1.1 million times the legal limit. The exact source of the radiation was not immediately clear, though Tepco has said that highly contaminated water has been leaking from a pit near the No. 2 reactor. The utility initially believed that the leak was coming from a crack, but several attempts to seal the crack failed. On Tuesday the company said the leak instead might be coming from a faulty joint where the pit meets a duct, allowing radioactive water to
AP PHOTO
A Buddhist monk who is on a pilgrimage to devastated areas after the March 11 earthquake and tsunami, offers prayer Tuesday in front of the debris in Otsuchi, northern Japan.
seep into a layer of gravel underneath. The utility said it would inject “liquid glass” into gravel in an effort to stop further leakage. Meanwhile, Tepco continued releasing what it described as water contaminated with low levels of radiation into the sea to make room in on-site storage tanks for more highly contaminated water. In all, the company said it planned to release 11,500 tons of the water, but by Tuesday morning it had released less
than 25 percent of that amount. Although the government authorized the release of the 11,500 tons and has said that any radiation would be quickly diluted and dispersed in the ocean, fish with high readings of iodine are being found. On Monday, officials detected more than 4,000 bequerels of iodine-131 per kilogram in a type of fish called a sand lance caught less than three miles offshore of the town of Kita-Ibaraki. The
young fish also contained 447 bequerels of cesium-137, which is considered more problematic than iodine-131 because it has a much longer half-life. On Tuesday chief cabinet secretary Yukio Edano said the government was imposing a standard of 2,000 bequerels of iodine per kilogram of fish, the same level it allows in vegetables. Previously, the government did not have a specific level for fish. Another haul of sand lance with 526 bequerels of cesium was detected Tuesday, in excess of the standard of 500 bequerels per kilogram. Fishing of sand lances has been suspended. Local fishermen called on Tepco to halt the release of radioactive water into the sea and demanded that the company compensate them for their losses. Fishing has been banned near the plant, and the vast majority of fishing activity in the region has been halted because of damage to boats and ports by the March 11 tsunami and earthquake. Still, some fishermen are out making catches, only to find few buyers because of fears about radiation.
Trees fall and homes are crushed; 8 people are reported dead
SANAA, YEMEN
Sides clash in suburb
Tribesmen loyal to Yemen’s embattled president on Tuesday clashed with a group of soldiers whose commander has sided with the opposition, and the fighting in a suburb of the capital Sanaa left three tribesmen dead, according to tribal elders and military officials. It was the latest violence in weeks of turmoil in Yemen, where President Ali Abdullah Saleh’s military and police forces have cracked down on protesters demanding he step down after 32 years in power. The clash erupted as a convoy of about 30 cars with armed tribesmen from Saleh’s Sanhan tribe arrived at the headquarters of the 1st Armored Division in western Sanaa to meet with its commander, Maj. Gen. Ali Mohsen al-Ahmar, who had earlier joined the opposition. CAPE CANAVERAL, FLA.
Junk no danger to station
After monitoring a small piece of space junk for 11 hours, NASA determined it posed no danger Tuesday to the International Space Station and its three residents. Commander Dmitry Kondratyev and his crew were prepared to climb into their attached Russian Soyuz capsule for shelter. But an hour before the closest approach, Mission Control radioed the good news. Additional tracking showed the 6-inch piece of debris would remain a safe distance from the orbiting complex. The debris is from a Chinese satellite that was deliberately destroyed in 2007 as part of a weapons test. Initial estimates put it passing within three miles of the space station late Thursday afternoon. LOS ANGELES
New smoke woes for kids
Children and teens exposed to secondhand smoke are more likely to develop symptoms for a variety of mental health problems, including major depressive disorder, attentiondeficit/hyperactivity disorder and others, according to a study published in Tuesday’s edition of the journal Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine. At this point, it should come as no surprise to anyone that exposure to tobacco smoke is unhealthy. Plenty of studies have linked secondhand smoke to respiratory problems, asthma, sudden infant death syndrome, middle ear infections and other physical health problems. But the link between secondhand smoke and mental health has not been examined as closely. The new study is believed to be the first that looks at how secondhand smoke exposure — as measured by the presence of a nicotine metabolite in the blood — is associated with mental health in a nationally representative sample of American kids and teens.
AP PHOTO
Sam Megginson looks at the damage to his bedroom on Tuesday in Rome, Ga. A tree fell through the roof of his home on Monday night during a thunder storm.
Strong storms smite the South By GREG BLUESTEIN Associated Press
JACKSON, Ga. — An enormous tree limb that crashed through a Georgia family’s bedroom killed a father and the young son he was holding in his arms Tuesday as a fast-moving storm system pounded the South with tornadoes, hail and spectacular lightning. At least eight people were killed around the region, including several who died on roads made treacherous by downed trees and power lines. Paramedics found the 4-year-old boy, Alix Bonhomme III, wrapped in the arms of his father, Alix Bonhomme Jr., in a sight so wrenching that even grizzled rescuers wept. Miraculously, a younger son
in the bedroom wasn’t hurt, nor was Bonhomme’s fiancée, Marcie Moorer, who was sleeping in another room. The storms were part of a system that cut a wide swath from the Mississippi River across the Southeast to Georgia and the Carolinas on Monday and early Tuesday. Drivers dodged debris during the morning commute in Atlanta, where one person was killed when a tree fell on his car. The National Weather Service had confirmed at least six of the nearly two-dozen possible tornadoes it was investigating in several states, though the damage in Jackson was blamed on 60 mph winds that weren’t part of a twister. The system that also knocked out power to hundreds
of thousands had moved over the Atlantic Ocean by late morning. Elsewhere, emergency officials were thankful the storm didn’t do greater damage. Strong winds ripped off part of the roof of an Ashland City, Tenn. elementary school gymnasium, but officials said no children were injured. Seven people working at a plant in western Kentucky were injured Monday when a possible tornado hit, but dozens others were spared because they were on break at the time. “We’re fortunate not to have any serious injuries or death,” Christian County Emergency Management Director Randy Graham said.
77 percent say gas is top worry It seems that all the world’s problems are impacting the price paid at the pump.
By LIZ SIDOTI Associated Press
WASHINGTON — Quick: What do these things have in common? Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi. The Japanese earthquake and tsunami. Wall Street volatility. A cranky, even angry American populace. Answer: They all have something to do with gasoline. No matter what happens in the world today, just about everything points back to fuel and the tricky politics that emerge when prices spike. Is it any wonder, then, that a recent Associated Press-GfK poll shows a correlation between the country’s more pessimistic outlook and rising gas prices. The issue also has taken on greater importance to Americans. They rank it above subjects including Iraq, Afghanistan, immigration, terrorism and taxes. Last fall, 54 percent called gas prices a highly important issue to them personally, but 77 percent said that in the latest poll. Many don’t expect relief Three-fourths from soaring are cutting gas costs anytime soon: Two- back on other thirds say they expenses, expect the high- two-thirds are er prices will driving less, cause financial hardship for half plan to them or their vacation closfamilies in the er to home, next six and almost as months. That group includes many have more than a thought serithird who say ously about gas cost spikes will cause seri- buying a more ous financial fuel-efficient hardship. And vehicle. that is on top of a still-poor economy. Most are changing the way they live. Three-fourths are cutting back on other expenses, twothirds are driving less, half plan to vacation closer to home, and almost as many have thought seriously about buying a more fuel-efficient vehicle. Most also are bypassing the most convenient gas station to bargain shop for the lowest prices. GfK Roper Public Affairs and Corporate Communications conducted the poll from March 2428. It involved landline and cell phone interviews with 1,001 adults nationwide and had a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 4.2 percentage points. The underlying links between current events aren’t lost on President Barack Obama, and for good reason. Like death and taxes, this cycle is a certainty: Prices at the pump rise, the public’s mood falls and the president gets punished. In an era in which globalization is a given, gas prices are the most obvious, most closely felt connection between the daily lives of Americans and the larger world. “Whenever gasoline prices spike, there is enormous political consternation because it’s a highly invasive issue,” said Pietro Nivola, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution who studies energy policy and American politics.
Libyan rebel leader says NATO forces not doing enough to help The Associated Press
BENGHAZI, Libya — A rebel military leader lashed out at NATO Tuesday, saying it was falling short in its mission to protect Libyan civilians. The alliance said ruler Moammar Gadhafi’s forces position heavy weapons in populated areas, preventing some airstrikes. Abdel-Fattah Younis, chief of staff for the rebel military and Gadhafi’s former interior minister, said he was asking the opposition’s leadership council to take their grievances to the U.N. Security Council, which authorized the use of force in Libya to stop Gadhafi from wiping out the uprising that began on Feb. 15.
NATO last week took control over the international airstrikes that began March 19 as a U.S.-led mission. Gadhafi has been putting out feelers for a ceasefire, but refuses to step down as the opposition is demanding. The rebels have maintained control of much of the eastern half of Libya since early in the uprising, while Gadhafi has clung to much of the west. Misrata, which Gadhafi’s forces have besieged for weeks, is the only major rebel-controlled western city though the opposition also holds several smaller towns. Brig. Gen. Mark Van Uhm of NATO said Tuesday that airstrikes have so far destroyed 30 percent of Gadhafi’s military capacity.
A Libyan rebel salvages live ammunition from a vehicle belonging to proGadhafi forces that rebels claim were targeted by a NATO strike along the front line near Brega, Libya, Tuesday. Rebel forces are looking more effective on the front and even taking back some of the territory lost but still face hurdles. AP PHOTO