• Hydrogen explosion at Unit 3 of Fukushima Daiichi plant • Reports of 2,000 bodies found in Miyagi prefecture • Tsunami warning appears to have been false alarm • Read the Guardian’s latest news story on the explosion Click here for a summary of events so far 10.37am: Below the line Hoxtoner, who is in Japan, writes : Just went to the local supermarket here in Sendai. NOTHING !! You have to see it to believe it. The only things I saw that were in bulk was alcohol, fags, coffee and tea and there wasn’t much of that. Other nationalities have been instructed to leave the Tohoku area. I have checked the British FCO and I don’t see any such statement. The Electric came on here in the early hours on Sat. We have water,but no gas. It’s also a bad hayfever day to add on to all the tragedies and anxieties. I don’t usually drink during the day yet I’ve decided to pour myself out a beer. Slight aftershocks and helicopters flying around as I type. 10.27am: Water levels have fallen far enough to partly expose fuel rods at the No 2 reactor at Fukushima Daiichi, according to the Jiji news agency. 10.18am: The Australian broadcaster ABC has posted a series of before and after satellite images from around north east Japan which give a clear sense of how much devastation the tsunami caused. The viewer can slide back and forth between the before and after shots, seeing how entire towns have been swept away. See the gallery here . 10.02am: The No 2 reactor at the Fukushima Dai-Ichi plant has lost all its cooling capacity, according to Japan’s Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency . NHK World is reporting that Tokyo Electric Power Company, which owns the plant, has notified the agency of an emergency at the No 2 reactor. This is the second emergency notice for the reactor. The utility firm told the agency shortly after the quake on Friday that the reactor’s emergency cooling power system had failed. Since then, the company tried to cool the reactor by circulating water by steam power, instead of electricity. But an attempt to lower the temperature inside the vessel that houses the reactor did not work well. Fears of a hydrogen explosion at the vessel housing building are growing as the water level of the reactor is falling. A reaction with the steam and exposed fuel rods generates a large amount of hydrogen. 9.36am: A quick note from my colleague James Randerson on the “Richter Scale” – the logarithmic magnitude scale that was defined in 1935 to measure earthquakes in California. It was developed by Charles Richter (who also happened to be a nudist) and Beno Gutenberg of the California Institute of Technology (CIT) and was originally referred to as “Local Magnitude” or ML, James writes: Even though it was superseded in 1979 by the more uniformly applicable moment magnitude (Mw) scale the Richter scale has an amazing staying power in the public, and it has to be said journalistic, mind. In the barrage of information about the Japan earthquake numerous articles have used to the old scale incorrectly (
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Foreign secretary says international community must consider rebels’ call for help after Arab League backs no-fly zone The international community is approaching the “point of decision” on military intervention in Libya to protect the population from Colonel Muammar Gaddafi’s warplanes, the foreign secretary, William Hague, has said. After the Arab League backed calls for a military no-fly zone, he said the international community must now consider the rebels’ request for help. Hague, who is meeting fellow G8 foreign ministers in Paris on Monday night, also indicated that the government could consider arming the rebels to help them combat the superior firepower of Gaddafi’s security forces. “We are now reaching a point of decision, very clearly, on what happens next,” Hague told BBC Radio 4′s Today programme. “Clearly a no-fly zone is one of the leading propositions. It isn’t the answer to everything but it has been called for by the Arab League and is something which the international community must now consider.” He indicated that while the “cleanest and simplest” way of securing a legal basis for a no-fly zone would be a resolution of the United Nations security council, it was not necessarily essential. “In cases of great, overwhelming humanitarian need, then nations are able to act under international law, even without a resolution of the security council,” he said. Hague also expressed sympathy for a call by the former foreign secretary Sir Malcolm Rifkind for an “open and urgent” supply of weapons to the rebels, to avoid repeating the “mistake” of the Bosnian war in the 1990s. Writing in the Times, Rifkind said: “Having been defence secretary at the time I have, in retrospect, felt that (the arms embargo) was the most serious mistake made by the UN.” Hague said all arms exports to Libya – including to the rebels – were subject to a UN embargo, although he suggested that this could change. “I wouldn’t exclude various possibilities on this score,” he said. “I think Malcolm Rifkind makes a very good case. Again, this is the kind of subject which has to be discussed with our international partners.” He said that if Gaddafi was able to push back the rebels and re-establish control, the future for the country would be bleak. “If Gaddafi went on to be able to dominate much of the country, this would be a long nightmare for the Libyan people and this would be a pariah state for some time to come,” he said. Libya William Hague Middle East guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …The state never backed cultural difference at the expense of cohesion. What is emerging is people’s lived experience On 12 March 1983 A
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Labour leader and shadow chancellor to call for windfall tax on bankers’ bonuses to be repeated and for VAT rise on petrol to be reversed in order to help boost growth Ed Miliband, the Labour leader, will today urge the government to repeat last year’s bank bonus tax to fund help for the young unemployed and support for the faltering construction industry. Ahead of next week’s budget, he and Ed Balls, the shadow chancellor, will appeal to George Osborne to do more to bolster growth. At a press conference in Westminster, they will say that a repeat of the £3.5bn windfall tax on bankers’ bonuses would raise cash to promote growth and help hard-pressed families. They will detail specific proposals for tackling the “crisis” of youth unemployment and boost the construction industry, which has lost 27,000 jobs in the past year. Labour is also calling for the VAT rise to be reversed on petrol as prices soar over 130p per litre. It intends to force a Commons vote on the issue on Wednesday. Miliband is expected to say this morning: “We are under no illusions that at this stage the government will abandon their deficit reduction plan – they are too dug in for that. “But at least they should take some steps to deal with faltering growth in our economy – to start to establish a plan to create jobs in the private sector … to deal with the crisis of youth unemployment in our country and build the skills we need for the future. “The tests for next week’s budget are clear – growth and living standards. But the signs aren’t good that they will be met. The government should think again.” Yesterday, Balls urged the chancellor to provide “immediate relief” for motorists by reversing, on petrol purchases only, January’s rise in VAT from 17.5% to 20%. Speaking to Sky News, he called on Osborne to “act now”. “I think he should act immediately on VAT. This was an own goal and he didn’t have to do it,” Balls said. “In parliament on Wednesday we will be urging Conservative and Liberal Democrat MPs to join with us in voting in parliament to urge the chancellor to cut VAT on fuel now and give immediate relief to hauliers and motorists across the country.” Ed Miliband Ed Balls Executive pay and bonuses Petrol prices Motoring George Osborne Construction industry Unemployment guardian.co.uk
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At least eight people die in attack in volatile Diyala province, security sources say A car bomb attack on an Iraqi army unit in the volatile Diyala province has killed at least eight soldiers, security sources said, as the Iraqi government continues to battle a stubborn insurgency. The blast took place near an army headquarters in Kanaan, 45 miles north-east of Baghdad, killing eight soldiers and wounding 12, according to a source in Diyala’s operations command. Another source said 10 soldiers had been killed and 13 wounded, while Muthana al-Timimi, head of the security committee of the Diyala provincial council, gave the casualty figures as five dead and 10 wounded. He said the blast was caused by a large quantity of explosives placed near government buildings, including the army HQ. Rescue workers were searching for survivors in the rubble, a witness at the scene told Reuters. The explosion damaged the army headquarters and nearby buildings, he said. “I can see a big hole in the ground and three damaged buildings.” Samira al-Shibli, a spokeswoman for the Diyala provincial governor, said three soldiers had been killed and six wounded. “It was a parked car bomb attack on an Iraqi army intelligence unit … The sound of the blast was heard in all of the city of Baquba,” she said, adding that another car bomb was discovered at the scene but was defused. Iraqi security sources and officials sometimes give conflicting figures of casualties. Al-Qaida and other Sunni insurgents are still battling Iraqi security forces in Diyala. A volatile mix of minority Kurds, majority Shias and Sunnis has made it difficult to bring peace there. Suspected Sunni insurgents and Shia militias have stepped up assaults in recent months on Iraqi police officers and soldiers, seeking to undermine faith in the security forces before a full US military withdrawal by the end of this year. Iraq Global terrorism Middle East guardian.co.uk
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Andrew Lansley stands by strategy to beat alcohol misuse despite being told responsibility deal will not work Six health organisations have walked away from the government’s “responsibility deal” on alcohol, saying that health secretary Andrew Lansley has allowed the industry to drive through a series of insignificant pledges that will do nothing to reduce drink-related illness and deaths. The deal, due to be announced on Tuesday, will see supermarkets, pubs and drinks manufacturers pledge to do their bit to reduce harmful drinking, such as labelling bottles and cans with the number of alcohol units. Other pledges will be made by the food and fitness industries. Health representatives on the alcohol panel, which has been meeting for several months, say the government listened to industry and refused to allow issues that could make a difference, such as price and promotion to children, to be discussed. The Royal College of Physicians, the British Liver Trust, the British Association for the Study of the Liver, the Institute of Alcohol Studies, the British Medical Association and Alcohol Concern have written to Lansley rejecting a deal that they say: • Prioritises the views of industry. Health groups’ proposals for bans on price-based advertising and cinema advertising during under-18 films, and health warnings on bottles and cans, were all turned down. • Aims to “foster a culture of responsible drinking” – not tackle illness and death. • Does not provide any way of measuring the success of the pledges. Professor Sir Ian Gilmore, special adviser on alcohol to the royal college, said it was perfectly appropriate for government to take the economic impact of any policy into account, but “it is not acceptable for the drinks industry to drive the pace and direction that such public health policy takes.” The pledges would not give doctors, “who see the rising tide of health harm from drink in their daily practice, any confidence that they will get to the core of how we reverse this entirely preventable cause of illness and death”. Lansley has said there will be a government alcohol strategy later in the year. But the six organisations say they have seen no evidence that the government is working towards “a comprehensive, cross-departmental strategy to reduce alcohol harm, based on evidence of what works, with rigorous evaluation”. They also complain that government has not committed to any alternative actions – such as legislation – if the pledges fail to cut alcohol-related harm. Lansley said: “We have made clear from the start that the responsibility deal is just one strand of the government’s wide public health policy. It explicitly excludes cost and price competition to avoid conflicts of interest. “The Treasury have already announced a new tax on super-strength beers; the Home Office have made their announcement on a ban in sales of alcohol below cost and plans to tighten licensing laws; and our public health strategy sets out how local areas will be given a ring-fenced public health budget to ensure alcohol misuse gets the priority it deserves. In tandem to this action, the responsibility deal is working with the industry on voluntary agreements to get speedier results. For example, to improve unit labelling. The Responsibility Deal has achieved more in the last six months than the previous Government’s Coalition for Better Health did in a year and a half. What is more, this is only the first step” Alison Rogers, chief executive of the British Liver Trust, said there was “a fundamental conflict of interest” for industry, whose objective is to sell more alcohol, sitting on a panel with the aim of reducing alcohol harm. “We know that the most effective measure we could be taking is to cut total population consumption and the drinks industry are never going to do that. Our fundamental concern is that they are sitting at a policy-making table here.” In her letter to Lansley: she points to 20 years’ experience of industry’s voluntary measures, “which by the DH’s [Department of Health's] own evaluation (of labelling, for instance) have been independently assessed as ineffective.” Among the pledges, industry will undertake to continue to fund the Drinkaware Trust. The letter goes on: “We have witnessed a long history of procrastination by the alcohol industry as successive governments have been seduced by the siren calls of voluntary self-regulation We continue to regard this initiative with great scepticism and understand that the DH’s own initial evaluation of the campaign has not been favourable.” Don Shenker, chief executive of Alcohol Concern said it was “the worst possible deal for everyone who wants to see alcohol harm reduced. There are no firm targets or any sanctions if the drinks industry fails to fulfil its pledges. It’s all carrot and no stick for the drinks industry and supermarkets. “The deal on alcohol is clearly the result of determined drinks industry lobbying coupled with a coalition government in thrall to business.”Vivienne Nathanson, director of professional activities at the BMA, said the pledges would do nothing to tackle the crucial issues – affordability, availability and promotion. They were particularly concerned about the low cost of really powerful drinks and promotion to under-18s. “Young people don’t know alcohol is a poison – that people die of acute toxicity,” she said. Young people were targeted by the sponsorship by industry of pop festivals, for instance. “You can’t buy alcohol under-18 yet young people have favourite alcopops – they have tried them all.” Alcohol Health policy Health Andrew Lansley Food & drink industry Sarah Boseley guardian.co.uk
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Nick Clegg will meet David Cameron this week to discuss unpopular bill after Lib Dems demand changes The government’s plans for a health service shakeup face a radical overhaul after the Liberal Democrat leadership was forced to bow to the strength of a grassroots rebellion fuelled by fear of privatisation and an undue emphasis on competition. The Lib Dems voted almost unanimously at the party’s spring conference in Sheffield to give councillors a central role in GP commissioning and in scrutinising foundation trusts. They called for a ban on all cherry-picking by private companies offering treatment services. David Cameron will hold talks this week with his deputy, Nick Clegg, to decide whether the rebellion provides an opportunity to make changes to a health and social care bill that has become increasingly unpopular. Cameron acknowledges the government has not got his message across on health. The bill hands £80bn to new GP commissioning boards and will allow any willing provider to compete to provide services. The health secretary, Andrew Lansley told BBC1′s Politics Show: “We’ve already made changes. We are not sitting there thinking we must know the answers and nothing can change. If we can clarify and amend in order to reassure people, then we will do so.” He claimed the bill already prevented cherry-picking by the private sector and extended accountability. Coalition ministers are expected to avoid a rebellion at the bill’s report stage in the Commons or in the Lords, where the medical profession is a strong lobby and could rip the bill apart. The vote in Sheffield will free previously loyal Lib Dem MPs to voice opposition inside the parliamentary party. Key party members stressed they had no master plan in response to the vote, but said it could not be ignored and argued many Conservatives were uneasy about the reforms. Faced with certain defeat in Saturday’s vote, the leadership accepted two amendments, supported by Baroness Shirley Williams and the former MP Evan Harris, and promised to take the critical messages back to government. Clegg agreed to the amendments after a breakfast meeting with Williams. Some Lib Dem cabinet members want to use the revolt to rework the bill, which they admit is unpopular, little understood and seen as the sort of top-down reorganisation the coalition had vowed not to enforce. One said: “I thought we had committed ourselves to give the NHS more money and to leave it alone. I like Lansley, but I do not know why we are doing this.” Clegg told his party: “All of us in government are listening and we take these concerns seriously.” He said he wanted reform and he was totally opposed to the privatisation of health. He said the amendments went with the grain of the bill. Harris responded to Clegg, saying: “The conference voted overwhelmingly for more accountability and openness in commissioning, for a rejection of the marketisation of the health service and for safeguards against cherry-picking by private sector providers… and against the undermining of local NHS services. Nick’s rejection of privatisation, while welcome, does not yet address all these issues.” The amended motion said: • No decision about spending of NHS funds should be made in private, which could have happened under the proposed GP consortiums. • NHS commissioning must be retained as a public function, rather than sub-contracted to private companies. • No new private providers should be allowed where there is risk of cherry-picking. • GP commissioning boards must construct annual plans in conjunction with new health and wellbeing boards. • There must be a continued separation of commissioning and provision of services to prevent conflicts of interest. • Half of the members of the new commissioning consortiums must be local councillors appointed as non-executive directors. Downing Street said: “This is not about significant changes to the policy but about reassuring people with minor changes to the language of the bill as it goes through the House.” Health policy Health Liberal Democrats Nick Clegg Andrew Lansley Shirley Williams David Cameron NHS Patrick Wintour Allegra Stratton guardian.co.uk
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A second reactor building at the Fukushima Daiichi atomic power plant has exploded but officials say there is a ‘low possibility’ of a dangerous radiation leak Read the latest information in the Guardian’s live blog Japan’s nuclear crisis has deepened after a second reactor building at the Fukushima Daiichi atomic power plant exploded on Monday morning. Officials said there was a low possibility that the blast had released radioactive material into the air. The wall of the building housing the No. 3 reactor collapsed in the explosion, which occurred at 11:01am local time. Tokyo Electric Power Company said three workers have been injured and seven are missing. Television footage showed a brief red flash followed by a large plume of white smoke. The blast came two days after a similar explosion at the No. 1 reactor, which occurred after hydrogen ignited when it mixed with oxygen. Officials had said that coolant levels were lower than usual in the reactor and pressure was higher than normal at the time of the explosion. The government’s top spokesman, Yukio Edano, said there was a “low possibility” of a dangerous radiation leak, adding that water was still being pumped into the reactor to cool it down. The Dainiichi plant and neighbouring Fukushima Daini plants have suffered multiple failures if cooling systems after Friday’s earthquake and tsunami on Japan’s north-east coast. There were no immediate reports of a rise in radiation levels around the plant, but Edano said the government was still collecting information. He told reporters that the head of the plant had told him the reactor and its container vessel were both still intact. About 600 people still living within a 20 km radius of the plant, 150 miles north of Tokyo, have been ordered to remain indoors. A spokesman for Japan’s nuclear and industrial safety agency spokesman said a worst-case scenario had been avoided. But he added that residents inside the 20km exclusion zone had been ordered to stay indoors and close all windows. The explosion coincided with tsunami warning for the coasts of Fukushima and Iwate prefectures. But the meteorological agency later said there was no indication that a tsunami was about to arrive. Japan earthquake and tsunami Japan Nuclear power Natural disasters and extreme weather Justin McCurry guardian.co.uk
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A second reactor building at the Fukushima Daiichi atomic power plant has exploded but officials say there is a ‘low possibility’ of a dangerous radiation leak Read the latest information in the Guardian’s live blog Japan’s nuclear crisis has deepened after a second reactor building at the Fukushima Daiichi atomic power plant exploded on Monday morning. Officials said there was a low possibility that the blast had released radioactive material into the air. The wall of the building housing the No. 3 reactor collapsed in the explosion, which occurred at 11:01am local time. Tokyo Electric Power Company said three workers have been injured and seven are missing. Television footage showed a brief red flash followed by a large plume of white smoke. The blast came two days after a similar explosion at the No. 1 reactor, which occurred after hydrogen ignited when it mixed with oxygen. Officials had said that coolant levels were lower than usual in the reactor and pressure was higher than normal at the time of the explosion. The government’s top spokesman, Yukio Edano, said there was a “low possibility” of a dangerous radiation leak, adding that water was still being pumped into the reactor to cool it down. The Dainiichi plant and neighbouring Fukushima Daini plants have suffered multiple failures if cooling systems after Friday’s earthquake and tsunami on Japan’s north-east coast. There were no immediate reports of a rise in radiation levels around the plant, but Edano said the government was still collecting information. He told reporters that the head of the plant had told him the reactor and its container vessel were both still intact. About 600 people still living within a 20 km radius of the plant, 150 miles north of Tokyo, have been ordered to remain indoors. A spokesman for Japan’s nuclear and industrial safety agency spokesman said a worst-case scenario had been avoided. But he added that residents inside the 20km exclusion zone had been ordered to stay indoors and close all windows. The explosion coincided with tsunami warning for the coasts of Fukushima and Iwate prefectures. But the meteorological agency later said there was no indication that a tsunami was about to arrive. Japan earthquake and tsunami Japan Nuclear power Natural disasters and extreme weather Justin McCurry guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …Mark Warner: Justifies Raising Age for Social Security Because Those Under 35 Don’t Think it Will Be There Anyway
March 13, 2011 No Comment
Click here to view this media With Democrats like these, who needs Republicans? Maybe someone can ask Warner if he bothered to read the letter Dean Baker sent him last month because it sure as hell doesn’t look like it after his appearance on Fox News Sunday this week. Here’s Baker’s letter from the Center for Economic and Policy Research (emphasis mine): February 17, 2011 The Honorable Mark Warner 459A Russell Senate Office Building Washington, DC 20510 Dear Senator Warner: During an interview on NPR’s Morning Edition today you stated that the retirement age for Social Security was set at 65 by President Roosevelt when the average life expectancy was 64 and that now we are living much longer. The implication of this comment was that the retirement age must be raised to better reflect life expectancy. As can be seen from the Social Security Trustees’ Report, the normal retirement age for Social Security has already been raised to 66 and is already scheduled to rise to 67. Raising the retirement age further would amount to a cut in benefits with each successive increase in the retirement age. If the normal age of retirement is phased in to reach 70 by 2036, it would result in a 4.0 percent reduction in benefits for workers between the ages of 50-54 in 2007 and a 10 percent reduction for workers between the ages of 40-44 in 2007. Another point worth considering is that if the normal retirement age rose further, many workers would find it increasingly difficult to work until they are eligible for Social Security benefits. Forty five percent of workers over the age of 58 work in jobs that are physically demanding or have difficult work conditions. It is hard to imagine construction workers, firefighters, or nurses working well into their late 60’s. Many would end up taking early retirement with a considerable reduction in benefits compared to currently scheduled levels. The Trustees’ Report projects that Social Security will remain fully solvent through 2037 and will be able to pay almost 80 percent of benefits for many decades past this date. It is also worth noting that the necessary increases in funding to maintain full solvency are relatively small compared to items like the rise in defense spending over the last decade, so there certainly are not major economic obstacles to maintaining full funding. I hope that you will have the time to review the program’s finances more carefully so that when you speak on it in the future you are better informed. I would be happy to assist you in providing additional background if it would be helpful. Regards, Dean Baker Co-Director, Center for Economic and Policy Research Cc: www.cepr.net Transcript below the fold. WALLACE: All right. Well, let me bring in Senator Warner. For you, as a Democrat — having a skin in the game means that you have to take the politically unpalatable choice of cutting entitlements. As a Democrat, are you willing to scale back on benefits for Social Security and Medicare and Medicaid? WARNER: Well, you see? We have to do this because otherwise, if we focus the discussion as we have so far on the back and forth in Congress, all you’re cutting is 12 percent of the federal budget, the domestic discretionary spending. And you are seeing actually good programs perhaps being eliminated because you focus the discussion only in that area. You got to put everything out. That means Saxby and I are probably going to take some arrows — he on the Republican side and he, because we’re taking, willing to take on reforming some of these entitlement issues. But every day that we punt, every day that we don’t act, we add $4 billion to our national debt. At some point, we’re going to have to pay that back. So, why not now go ahead and put a plan in place — we didn’t get in the situation overnight. We’re not going to dig out in a single year. But if we put a plan in place, I think the markets will respond and I actually think the economy will be better. But that’s going to require a little give from both sides. WALLACE: But the Democratic leader in the Senate, Harry Reid, said this recently: “Social Security has contributed not a single penny to the deficit. So, we can talk about entitlements as long as you eliminate social security from the discussion.” First of all, isn’t that wrong? Social Security is already paying out more than it takes in and that’s just going to get worse as the baby boomers retire. Isn’t that as a fact wrong that it doesn’t contribute the deficit? And secondly, can Social Security really be off the table? WARNER: Well, Chris, until recently, Social Security has actually been running major surpluses. In effect, we’ve been borrowing from Social Security to finance the government. Now that’s clicked over on an annual basis — as you said, we’re paying out more than we’re taking in. What the debt — what our proposal puts out is not taking Social Security proceeds any longer and paying off the deficit. It’s saying let’s make sure Social Security is solvent for the next 75 years. If we don’t do it – - WALLACE: But you’re also talking about, first, is raising retirement age. WARNER: Well, my sense is, you know, remember Social Security was put in place back in the ’30s. They set 65 as the period — the start, because life expectancy was 64. Now, Americans, thank goodness, are living towards closer to age 80. And the idea that we’re going to slowly raise the retirement age a couple of years over the next 40 years — nobody, you, me, Saxby, we’re not going to be effected at all. Folks under 35 might see a slight bump in their age increase, but frankly, a lot of folks under 35 don’t even think there’s even going to be Social Security if we don’t do something in this.
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