By Phillip Inman and Terry Macalister 15 September 2013 (The Guardian) – Japan will switch off its last nuclear reactor on Monday, amid fears that a growing dependence on gas imports there could push up electricity bills in the UK. Kansai Electric Power’s only functioning reactor was scheduled to be disconnected from the power grid […]
By LIZETTE ALVAREZ8 September 2013 CLEWISTON, Florida (The New York Times) – On wind-whipped days when rain pounds this part of South Florida, people are quickly reminded that Lake Okeechobee, with its vulnerable dike and polluted waters, has become a giant environmental problem far beyond its banks. Beginning in May, huge downpours ushered in the […]
By Marina Obrazkova12 September 2013 (RBTH) – Russia’s Far East has entered a second month of flooding, leaving flooded cities and villages in the waters’ wake. People have been forced to live on rooftops and even in the vacant cars of passenger trains. The area’s climate is northern and temperatures should drop below freezing within […]
3 September 2013 (BBC News) – Japan is to invest hundreds of millions of dollars into building a frozen wall around the Fukushima nuclear plant to stop leaks of radioactive water. Government spokesman Yoshihide Suga said an estimated 47bn yen ($473m, £304m) would be allocated. The leaks were getting worse and the government “felt it […]
By ISMA’IL KUSHKUSH29 August 2013 KHARTOUM, Sudan (The New York Times) – Their temporary headquarters are a beehive of young volunteers buzzing in and out of rooms, up and down stairs, carrying bags of donated food, medicine, and large packets of plastic sheets. “What happened to your house?” one volunteer asks on the phone, as […]
By Jeremy Hsu31 August 2013 (LiveScience) – A radioactive plume of water in the Pacific Ocean from Japan’s Fukushima nuclear plant, which was crippled in the 2011 earthquake and tsunami, will likely reach U.S. coastal waters starting in 2014, according to a new study published in Science. The long journey of the radioactive particles could […]
By Candace Calloway Whiting28 August 2013 (Seattle PI) – From NOAA: This image was created by NOAA’s Center for Tsunami Research and graphically shows maximum wave heights (in centimeters or cm) of the tsunami generated by the Japan earthquake on March 11, 2011. It does NOT represent levels of radiation from the damaged Fukushima nuclear […]
By Margaret Cronin Fisk28 August 2013 (Bloomberg) – BP Plc lost a renewed bid to suspend payments from the court-supervised program administering its settlement of claims tied to the 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill. An investigation of alleged wrongdoing at the Mobile, Alabama, claims assistance center didn’t find “any credible evidence of fraud,” U.S. […]
29 August 2013 (RFE/RL) – The level of the Amur River near the city of Khabarovsk in Russia’s Far East has reached a record high of 750 centimeters as devastating floods caused by heavy rains continue. Dams have been quickly built near Khabarovsk to protect two major power stations from water levels as high as […]
By Jeff Barnard, with additional writing by Matthew Daly in Washington21 August 2013 GRANTS PASS, Oregon (AP) – Running out of money to fight wildfires at the peak of the season, the U.S. Forest Service is diverting $600 million from timber, recreation, and other areas to fill the gap. The nation’s top wildfire-fighting agency was […]
