October 11 (VOA News) – United Nations officials say the capitals of Thailand and Cambodia are at risk as the worst flooding in modern times sweeps through the Mekong Basin. Kirsten Mildren, spokeswoman for the U.N.’s humanitarian affairs agency, told VOA Tuesday that officials in Bangkok are taking urgent measures as the floodwaters bear down […]
IITATE, October 8 (The Economist) – CREST the hill into the village of Iitate, and the reading on a radiation dosimeter surges eightfold—even with the car windows shut. “Don’t worry, I’ve been coming here for months and I’m still alive,” chuckles Chohei Sato, chief of the village council, as he rolls down the window and […]
By Khettiya Jittapong, Kochakorn Boonlai, and Wilawan Pongpitak; Editing by Alan Raybould and Ed Lane (Reuters) – Nearly 200 factories, including one run by Japanese car maker Honda Motor Co Ltd, closed in the central Thai province of Ayutthaya because of flooding, which could threaten Bangkok this week, officials said on Sunday. About 261 people […]
By Zoe Daniel8 October 2011 EMILY BOURKE: Record flooding in Thailand is set to worsen as massive volumes of water move from the north to the sea. More than 2.5 million people have now been affected and almost 250 killed by the flooding which is said to be the worst in the country’s modern history. […]
By Wang Xiaocong30 September 2011 (Beijing) – Acute power shortages will continue in parts of China in the upcoming winter and spring seasons, particularly in the southern and central regions where most of the country’s hydropower power stations are located, an energy official told a press conference on September 29. According to the State Electricity […]
October 3 (Mainichi Japan) – Three months after the start of full-scale water circulation system operations at the crippled Fukushima No. 1 Nuclear Power Plant, high-level radioactive waste has kept piling up amid no clear indications of its final disposal destination. As of Sept. 27, plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO) had accumulated about […]
By arevamirpal::laprimavera 5 October 2011 A mere formality probably at this point, but it is upsetting some people in Japan right now. From Yomiuri Shinbun (10/6/2011): 国内の被曝(ひばく)線量の基準などを検討する文部科学省の放射線審議会の基本部会は６日、東京電力福島第一原子力発電所事故で放射性物質が拡散した状況下の一般住民の被曝線量について、「年間１～２０ミリ・シーベルトの範囲で可能な限り低い値を段階的に設定する」とする見解案をまとめた。 The Radiation Council at the Ministry of Education and Science submitted its opinion on the domestic standard on radiation exposure on October 6. Considering the current situation of […]
By Hayley Baker 6 October 2011 We’ve been investigating overfishing in West African waters for a long time and our new report, Empty Nets, Empty Future shows, in a stark light, how the local fishing industry in West Africa is under threat. The report focuses on how millions of Senegalese people depend on the fish […]
By Yuriy Humber, Yuji Okada, and Stuart Biggs27 September 2011 Beyond the police roadblocks that mark the no-go zone around Japan’s wrecked Fukushima nuclear plant, six-foot tall weeds invade rice paddies and vines gone wild strangle road signs along empty streets. Takako Harada, 80, returned to an evacuated area of Iitate village to retrieve her […]
October 6 (Al Jazeera) – Nearly 400 people have died in Cambodia and Thailand as a result of what officials in the Southeast Asian region are describing as the worst monsoon flooding in decades. By Wednesday, after several weeks of heavy rain, at least 224 people had been confirmed killed in Thailand and another […]
