Hong Kong (AFP) June 14, 2011 – Chinese officials in provinces with heavy industrial pollution are restricting access to lead testing or even falsifying test results, and denying children treatment, a US rights group said Wednesday. Human Rights Watch accused officials in four provinces — Henan, Yunnan, Shaanxi and Hunan — of trying to cover […]
By NORIMITSU ONISHI and MARTIN FACKLER12 June 2011 TOKYO — On the evening of March 12, the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant’s oldest reactor had suffered a hydrogen explosion and risked a complete meltdown. Prime Minister Naoto Kan asked aides to weigh the risks of injecting seawater into the reactor to cool it down. At this […]
Shizuoka, June 10 (KYODO) – Shizuoka Prefecture told a Tokyo-based mail order company not to say anything on its website about excessive radioactive material being found in tea from the prefecture, the retailer said Friday. After Radishbo-ya Co. made an inquiry to the Shizuoka Prefectural Government about the matter Monday, a prefectural official told the […]
By Gerard Wynn; Editing by Jonathan Lynn8 Jun 2011 BONN, Germany (Reuters) – Canada confirmed on Wednesday that it would not support an extended Kyoto Protocol after 2012, joining Japan and Russia in rejecting a new round of the climate emissions pact. The current Kyoto Protocol binds only the emissions of industrialized countries from 2008-2012. […]
By Hidenori Tsuboya and Jin Nishikawa9 June 2011 The Japanese government’s report to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) about the crisis at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant catalogues multiple failures at all levels of Japan’s nuclear industry, bureaucracy and government. The report, submitted June 7, lists 28 challenges thrown up by the […]
By IAN JOHNSON3 June 2011 BEIJING — China’s three decades of rapid economic growth have left it with a “very grave” environmental situation even as it tries to move away from a development-at-all-costs strategy, senior government officials said on Friday. In a blunt assessment of the problems facing the world’s most populous country, officials from […]
By Robin Emmott, with additional reporting by Tim Gaynor in Phoenix; Editing by Kieran Murray and Claudia Parsons1 Jun 2011 MONTERREY, Mexico (Reuters) – Mario Ramos thought it was a bad joke when he received an anonymous email at the start of this year demanding $15,000 a month to keep his industrial tubing business operating […]
By JOHN COLLINS RUDOLF28 May 2011 Early last Tuesday, José Cláudio Ribeiro da Silva, a forest activist and tree nut harvester, and his wife, Maria do Espirito Santo, drove a motorcycle through Brazil’s northern Para State, in the Amazon rain forest. As they crossed a river bridge, gunmen lying in wait opened fire with a […]
By Stuart Biggs and Yuriy Humber27 May 2011 As a team from the International Atomic Energy Agency visits Tokyo Electric Power Co.’s crippled nuclear plant today, academics warn the company has failed to disclose the scale of radiation leaks and faces a “massive problem” with contaminated water. The utility known as Tepco has been pumping […]
By Raymond Colitt; Editing by Stuart Grudgings24 May 2011 BRASILIA (Reuters) – An Amazon rainforest activist and his wife were shot dead in northern Brazil on Tuesday as the country’s Congress debated a divisive land bill that threatens to fuel deforestation. Joao Claudio Ribeiro da Silva, a rubber tapper and leading forest conservationist, and his […]
