Sharply elevated radiation at the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear complex forced an emergency evacuation of the Number 2 unit, as highly radioactive seawater has been detected a mile off coast from the plant.
Israeli warplanes carried out a series of airstrikes on targets in Gaza City late March 24, injuring one person, witnesses and medical personnel said. Drones fired four missiles at the Palestinian Authority intelligence headquarters and an Al-Qassam Brigades site. Warplanes… Read moreIsraeli air-strikes across Gaza
NATO agreed to take control of enforcing the no-fly zone in Libya, as Qaddafi charged a civilian death toll of over 100 from the bombardment and rebels charged growing civilian casualties in Qaddafi’s siege of Misrata.
Clashes are reported from Yemen between the Republican Guard and army units that have declared for the revolution, as security forces again fired on protesters in Syria. Street clashes are also reported in Jordan.
As Libyan rebels advanced on Ajdabiya and Qaddafi forces advanced on Misrata, the last rebel-held city in the west, the transitional council in Benghazi appointed a prime minister and Allied air-strikes continued.
In violence-torn Ciudad Juárez, the mayor has appointed a new security czar—Lt. Col. Julian Leyzaola Perez, a veteran of counterinsurgency operations in Mexico’s south, who is viewed ominously by human rights groups.
Hours after the government concluded the restitution of some 63,000 acres of usurped lands to Afro-Colombian communities in Chocó department, illegal armed groups raided and burned several acres of crops.
The UK-based indigenous rights group Survival International noted the 100th anniversary of an historic report by Irish investigator Roger Casement finding that 30,000 Amazon Indians were enslaved by British rubber interests.
With global eyes on the Fukushima nuclear disaster, the White House signed an accord with Chile to help the South American country develop a nuclear energy program. The accord was protested by indigenous activists.
Despite the Fukushima nuclear disaster, Obama’s 2012 budget calls for an additional $36 billion in loan guarantees for new nuclear power plants. Obama last week called nuclear power an “important part” of his energy agenda.
Even as the world is gripped by the Fukushima nuclear disaster in Japan, Russia announced it will build a reactor in neighboring Belarus—where large areas still remain closed off due to the 1986 Chernobyl meltdown.
Despite a temporary construction moratorium in the wake of the Fukushima disaster, China is still planning to move ahead with an ambitious thrust of nuclear development—with a new generation of supposedly “safe” reactors.
