Tokyo Electric Power Co., operator of Japan’s stricken Fukushima nuclear plant said concrete injections have failed to stop a leak of highly radioactive water from reactor Number 2 directly into the ocean.
Moammar Qaddafi’s regime rejected a rebel ceasefire offer, as reports emerged that NATO mistakenly bombed a rebel convoy near Brega, killing 13 including four civilian medical personnel.
Militant factions in the Gaza Strip announced that their recently declared ceasefire is over following an overnight Israeli air-strike that killed three leaders of Hamas’ armed wing.
The US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit overturned a lower court’s decision granting release to Yemeni Guantánamo Bay detainee Uthman Abdul Rahim Mohammed Uthman.
Wacky extremoid Christian fundi Terry Jones of Gainesville, Florida, apparently followed through on his threat to burn a Koran on March 20. This prompted wacky extremoid Muslim fundis in Mazar-i-Sharif, Afghanistan, to storm a UN compound, killing as many as 20 employees and setting fire to several buildings.
Libya’s rebels, in retreat for a third consecutive day, appealed to Qaddafi for a ceasefire—as they announced the signing of a deal with Qatar to market oil from fields under their control in exchange for weapons.
Security forces again fired on protesters in Syria, as rival pro- and anti-government demonstrators filled the streets of Yemen, and Egyptians again filled Cairo’s Tahrir Square in a rally to “save the revolution.”
As pro-Alassane Ouattara forces move into Abidjan, residents who support rival Laurent Gbagbo fear reprisals. Reports of atrocities on both sides are mounting—including people being burned alive.
A US engineer who helped install reactors at Fukushima, speaking anonymously, said he believes the radioactive core in reactor Number 2 may have melted through the bottom of its containment vessel and on to a concrete floor.
Defected Libyan foreign minister Moussa Koussa may bear responsibility in the Lockerbie bombing—and in countless “disappearances” and rights abuses. Will he now be embraced as the technocratic face of a new regime?
The White House and Paris both publicly broached arming the Libyan rebels as Moammar Qaddafi’s forces pushed the insurgent army back in a sweep to the east—despite ongoing Allied air-strikes.
Israel’s Knesset passed a law enabling the courts to revoke the citizenship of anyone convicted of terrorism, espionage or treason. Tel Aviv also pressured Facebook to shut down a page calling for a Third Intifada.
