ANALYSIS-Japan nuclear crisis stirs worries about leadership vacuum

Mon Mar 28, 2011 10:02am GMT

By Linda Sieg

March 28 (Reuters) - Who's running the show as Japan grapples with its worst crisis since the end of World War Two?

Concerns are growing over an apparent leadership vacuum as Japan fights to prevent catastrophe at a crippled nuclear plant and recover from the deadly earthquake and tsunami that has devastated the country's northeast.

Engineers have been battling to stabilise the Fukushima nuclear complex since it was damaged by the massive March 11 quake and tsunami, but operator Tokyo Electric Power Co (TEPCO) has conceded it faces a prolonged and risky operation to avert a disastrous meltdown at the plant, 240 km (150 miles) from Tokyo.

"This nuclear accident needs to be dealt with as a national security issue, not just a problem for TEPCO, and solved as soon as possible," said Toshiro Muto, a former Bank of Japan deputy governor who is now chairman of the Daiwa Institute of Research.

Underscoring public angst, a Kyodo news agency poll released on Sunday showed nearly 60 percent of respondents disapproved of the government's handling of the nuclear crisis and almost two-thirds felt Prime Minister Naoto Kan was not exercising leadership.

"It is quite clear that the vested interests are too entrenched and the characters involved are too weak to take decisive actions and responsibility in the sense of forward-looking, pragmatic action," said Jesper Koll, director of equity research at JP Morgan Securities.

He said Japan should turn to nuclear experts from around the world to help them stabilise a situation that, if anything, appears to be getting worse.

Frustration is also growing among those who have fled their homes near the plant. The government has ordered those within a 20 km (12.4 mile) radius to leave and is encouraging those living in a 20-30 km ring to do the same.

"The scary thing is the radiation," said Mitsuharu Watanobe, a retired high school teacher who had to leave his home about 25 km from the damaged complex. "There is a gap between what the newspapers write and what the government is saying. I want the government to tell the truth more."

Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano has received praise for his performance as top government spokesman, keeping the public up to date on the crisis in twice-daily news conferences.

But few think the 46-year-old lawmaker is running the show.

And the information he can share is only as reliable as what he is told by TEPCO and regulators, whose comments are often conflicting and confusing.

On Monday, Edano berated TEPCO for announcing what turned out to be mistaken radiation readings, calling the error "absolutely unforgiveable".

Asked later if the pressure vessel at one of the reactors was damaged, he referred the query to the nuclear safety agency.

Analysts said the government seemed to be leaving TEPCO, which has had a rocky past of suspected false reports, too much in control and that coordination among the government, regulators and the firm was messy.

Kan, for his part, has given three news conference since the disaster struck but has otherwise mostly stayed out of public view. He has not yet visited the tsunami-hit northeast, although media said he now plans to do so on April 2.

The prime minister has come under fire for flying over the nuclear complex a day after the tsunami, although Edano denied reports that the flight delayed steps to cope with the accident.

In a sign the government was feeling overwhelmed, Kan on Saturday appointed Sumio Mabuchi, an ex-transport minister as a special advisor on the nuclear crisis.

That followed the appointment of his former No.2 minister, Yoshito Sengoku, as a deputy to Edano to beef up relief and reconstruction efforts. The quake and tsunami have left more than 27,000 dead or missing and one quarter of a million people living in shelters in a stricken swath of northeastern Japan.

Mabuchi and Sengoku lost their cabinet posts in January after being censured by the opposition-controlled upper house of parliament for their handling of a territorial row with China.

"There is no one looking at things overall," said Hirotaka Futatsuki, an independent political analyst. "Things are proceeding piecemeal and Kan is not exercising general control." (Reuters)

Japan's radioactive water crisis spreads, panic-buying depletes bottled water supplies

Thu Mar 24, 2011 16:33:13

TOKYO, March 24 (Xinhua) -- Japanese authorities on Thursday detected rising levels of radioactive iodine at water purification facilities near Tokyo and officials have advised that tap water should not be given to infants to drink in the affected areas, sparking panic-buying of already scarce bottled water.

Local officials in Tokyo's neighboring Chiba Prefecture said they detected around 220 becquerels of radioactive iodine-131 per liter in the city of Matsudo's water supply on Wednesday.

The recommended maximum limit is 100 becquerels per liter for children under 1 year of age, and 300 becquerels for adults.

Radioactive iodine levels found at another purification plants in the region were also nearly double the recommended safe limit for infants at 180 becquerels per liter, the officials said.

Also bordering the Tokyo metropolitan area, local officials at the city of Kawaguchi in Saitama Prefecture said radioactive iodine rose to 120 becquerels per liter of water at its purification plant on Tuesday.

Following levels of iodine spiking to 210 becquerels on Tuesday at a purification plant serving the greater Tokyo area located in the Kanamachi district of the city, the Tokyo metropolitan government urged that tap water not be given to infants in the city's 23 wards and five surrounding cities.

But on Thursday levels of radioactivity dropped to 79 becquerels at the purification facility and the advisory against drinking tap water was dropped.

As authorities have also detected radioactive iodine in water supplies at levels between 103 and 245 becquerels, spanning from Ichikawa and Funabashi, to Ibaraki and Fukushima prefectures, panic-buying of bottled water has become rampant and threatened to deplete supplies.

The Tokyo metropolitan government on Thursday began dishing out some 240,000, half-liter bottles of water to families with infants, with a three-bottle limit per-infant being applied by the government.

Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano told a news conference that the government will ask makers to increase their output of bottled water, whilst hinting that the government may call for emergency imports of bottled water to deal with the rise in demand and people hoarding large supplies.

Edano, Japan's top government spokesperson, on Thursday said that the levels of radioactive iodine found in Tokyo's water supply on Thursday were not harmful to the health of humans if ingested and called for the public, particularly those without infants, to stop panic-buying and draining the nation's dwindling supplies.

As fear of radioactive contamination has spread following the March 11 earthquake and tsunami crippling a nuclear power plant in Fukushima Prefecture, 240 km northeast of Tokyo, the government has also started monitoring soil, seawater and air around the plant to evaluate the pollution and its impact on agricultural and fishery products.

A number of countries including South Korea, Singapore and the U.S. have imposed tough restrictions on food imports from Japan, with some countries opting for wholesale bans on vegetables, fruit, milk and milk products having found levels of radiation in the produce that far exceed legal limits.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has banned imports of dairy products and vegetables from the vicinity of the troubled Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant and Japan's National Federation of Agricultural Cooperative Associations halted shipments of potentially contaminated produce in the region earlier in the week.

Tags : imports of bottled water, demand and supply, U.S.halts Japan's food imports,

Radiation scare sparks run on bottled water in Tokyo

Thu Mar 24, 2011 6:09am GMT
* Contamination fears spread in Japan and beyond
* Disaster damage estimated at $300 billion
* U.S., Hong Kong, Australia, Singapore restrict food imports
* Engineers battle to stabilise Fukushima reactors

By Chizu Nomiyama and Kazunori Takada

TOKYO, March 24 (Reuters) - Stores in Tokyo were running out of bottled water on Thursday after radiation from a damaged nuclear complex briefly made tap water unsafe for babies, while
more nations curbed imports of Japanese food.

Engineers are trying to stabilise a six-reactor nuclear plant in Fukushima, 250 km (150 miles) north of the capital, nearly two weeks after an earthquake and tsunami battered the plant and devastated northeast Japan, leaving nearly 26,000 people dead or missing.

Tokyo's 13 million residents were told not to give tap water to babies under 1 year old after contamination hit twice the safety level this week. But it dropped back to allowable amounts
on Thursday.

Despite government appeals against panic, supermarkets and stores sold out of bottled water.

"Customers ask us for water. But there's nothing we can do," said Masayoshi Kasahara, a store clerk at a supermarket in a residential area of eastern Tokyo. "We are asking for more
deliveries but we don't know when the next shipment will come." Radiation above safety levels has also been found in milk and vegetables from Fukushima, where the stricken nuclear plant is located on the Pacific coast.

Singapore and Australia joined the United States and Hong Kong in restricting food and milk imports from the zone, while Canada became the latest of many nations to tighten screening
after the world's worst atomic crisis since Chernobyl.

Radiation particles have been found as far away as Iceland, although Japan insists levels are not dangerous to adults.

The contamination scare after the catastrophe of March 11 is adding to Japan's most testing time since World War Two.

The estimated $300 billion damage from the 9.0 magnitude earthquake and ensuing tsunami makes it the world's costliest natural disaster, dwarfing Japan's 1995 Kobe quake and Hurricane
Katrina, which swept through New Orleans in 2005.

In Japan's devastated north more than a quarter of a million people are in shelters. Some elderly refugees, among an ageing population, have died from cold and lack of medicines.

Exhausted and traumatised rescuers are still sifting through the mud and wreckage where towns and villages once stood.

The official death toll from the disaster has risen to 9,523, but is bound to rise as 16,094 people are still missing.

Amid the suffering, though, there was a sense that Japan was turning the corner in its humanitarian crisis. Aid flowed to refugees, and phone, electricity, postal and bank services began returning to the north, sometimes by makeshift means.

"Things are getting much better," said 57-year-old Tsutomu Hirayama, staying with his family at an evacuation centre in Ofunato. "For the first two or three days, we had only one rice ball and water for each meal. I thought, how long is this going to go on? Now we get lots of food, it's almost like luxury."

In other cheering news, a baby dolphin was rescued in a rice field after the tsunami dumped it there. Locals wrapped it in wet towels before taking it back to the sea.

Aftershocks are still coming, though, sending shudders through many Japanese. Several shook Tokyo on Thursday.

Admiration for Nuclear Workers

At the Fukushima plant, where the worst nuclear drama is playing out since Chernobyl in 1986, technicians have successfully attached power cables to all six reactors and started a pump at one to cool overheating fuel rods.

Nearly 300 engineers, fast becoming national heroes for braving danger inside an evacuation zone, are fighting to cool fuel rods at the plant's reactors.

They resumed work on Thursday at the No.3 reactor, considered the most critical, after a one-day suspension when black smoke was seen rising, Kyodo news agency said. Operator Tokyo Electric Power Co (TEPCO) is trying to re-start systems to keep the fuel cool and prevent further radiation leaks or a complete meltdown, the nightmare scenario.

Japan urged the world not to overreact to the radiation precautions, and plenty of experts appeared to back that up.

Jim Smith, of Britain's University of Portsmouth, said the finding of 210 becquerels of radioactive iodine, twice the safety limit, at a Tokyo water purification plant on Wednesday
should not be cause for panic. The safety level for adults is 300 becquerels.

"The recommendation that infants are not given tap water is a sensible precaution. But it should be emphasised that the limit is set at a low level to ensure that consumption at that level is safe over a fairly long period of time," he said.

"This means that consumption of small amounts of tap water -- a few litres, say -- at twice the recommended limit would not present a significant health risk."

Tokyo metropolitan government said it would access extra bottled water from stockpiles but could not say for how long.

Philippine Airlines said it was airlifting a donation of 27 tonnes, or 70,000 bottles, of water. The cargo is the first batch of a total 700,000 bottles of 350 ml each donated by sister company Asia Brewery Inc.

The crisis in the world's third-biggest economy -- and its key position in global supply chains, especially for the automobile and technology sectors -- has added to jitters in global financial markets, also worried by conflict in Libya and Middle East protests.

Toyota Motor Corp , which has suspended production at all of its 12 assembly plants in Japan, said it would slow some North American production because of supply problems although it would try to minimize disruptions.

Tags : TEPCO, bottled water stockpiles, damage, crisis, nuclear

Indonesian coal exports to Japan may be diverted to other countries - The Jakarta Post

Tuesday, 22 March 11

The Jakarta Post reported that, Indonesia’s coal exports to Japan will likely be diverted to other countries for several months after the recent earthquake and tsunami that damaged around four of Japan's coal-fired power plants, the Indonesian Coal Mining Association (APBI) says.

Earlier this month, a vessel containing 60,000 tons of coal from Indonesia was diverted to China because of conditions in Japan, APBI chairman Bob Kamandanu told The Jakarta Post.

“We don’t know yet the future of Japan’s coal imports. We still have to wait for the Japanese government to complete its assessment of the damage to its coal-fired power plants, which is expected to be released by the end of this week,” Bob said in a telephone interview on Tuesday.

The Japanese government is also recalculating its coal imports for the next fiscal year, he said, adding that the disasters would likely cause its coal imports to decline significantly. The Japanese fiscal year ends March 31. (source:The Jakarta Post)

U.S. halts Japan food imports, Tokyo water contaminated

Wed Mar 23, 2011 6:41am GMT

* U.S. to block milk, fruit, vegetable imports
* Radiation dangerous for infants in Tokyo water
* Engineers battling to stabilise Fukushima reactors
* Earthquake, tsunami left nearly 23,000 dead or missing

By Mayumi Negishi and Kazunori Takada

TOKYO, March 23 (Reuters) - Radiation danger from Japan's tsunami-smashed nuclear plant loomed on Wednesday with water in Tokyo showing hazardous levels for infants and the United States becoming the first nation to block food imports.

Tokyo authorities said water at a purification plant for the capital of 13 million people had 210 becquerels of radioactive iodine -- more than twice the safety level for infants.

"This is without doubt, an effect of the Fukushima Daiichi plant," a Tokyo metropolitan government official said, in reference to the damaged nuclear plant 250 km (150 miles) north of the city.

Tokyo governor Shintaro Ishihara, however, said the radiation level posed no immediate health risk and water could still be used.

"But for infants under age one, I would like them to refrain from using tap water to dilute baby formula," he said.

Crystallising international concern, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration said it was stopping imports of milk, vegetable and fruit from four prefectures in Japan's crisis-hit northeast.

South Korea may be next to ban Japanese food after the world's worst atomic crisis since Chernobyl in 1986. France this week asked the European Commission to look into harmonising controls on radioactivity in imports from Japan.

At the six-reactor Fukushima plant, crippled by a March 11 earthquake and tsunami, engineers are battling to cool reactors to contain further contamination and avert a meltdown.

In a rapidly widening problem, Japan said on Wednesday above-safety radiation levels had been discovered in 11 types of vegetables from the area, in addition to milk and water.

Officials still insisted, however, that there was no major danger to humans and urged the world not to over react.

"We will explain to countries the facts and we hope they will take logical measures based on them," Japan's chief cabinet secretary Yukio Edano, who has been the government's public face during the disaster, told a news conference.

The Asian nation's worst crisis since World War Two may have caused $300 billion damage, sent shock waves through global financial markets, and left nearly 23,000 people dead or missing, mostly from flattened coastal towns.

More than a quarter of a million people are living in shelters, while rescuers and sniffer dogs comb debris and mud looking for corpses and personal mementoes.

Worsened by widespread ignorance of the technicalities of radiation, public concern is rising around the world and radioactive particles have been found as far away as Iceland.

Japan has already halted shipment of some food from the area and told people there to stop eating leafy vegetables.

Asian neighbours are inspecting imports for contamination, and Taiwan advised boats to stop fishing in Japanese waters.

Although there has been progress in restoring power to the Fukushima site 13 days after the accident, plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Co (TEPCO) said it needed more time before it could say the reactors were stabilised.

DRAMA AT FUKUSHIMA

Technicians working inside an evacuation zone around the plant have successfully attached power cables to all six reactors and started a pump at one to cool overheating nuclear fuel rods.

Concern is high over reactor No. 1 after its temperature rose to near 400 degrees Celsius, above a design limit of 302.

As well as having its workers on the front line in highly dangerous circumstances, TEPCO is also facing accusations of a slow disaster response and questions over why it originally stored more uranium at the plant than it was designed to hold.

Vienna-based U.N. watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), expressed concern about a lack of information from Japanese authorities. It cited missing data on temperatures of spent fuel pools at the facility's reactors 1, 3 and 4.

"We continue to see radiation coming from the site ... and the question is where exactly is that coming from?" said a senior IAEA official, James Lyons.

U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said he was concerned about radioactive fallout affecting the U.S. 55,000 troops in and around Japan, many involved in a massive relief operation for Washington's close ally. "We're also deeply concerned about the wellbeing of our Japanese allies," he said.

Experts said tiny traces of radioactive particles, measured by a network of monitoring stations as they spread eastwards from Japan across the Pacific, North America, the Atlantic and to Europe, were far too low to cause any harm to humans.

"It's only a matter of days before it disperses in the entire northern hemisphere," said Andreas Stohl, a senior scientist at the Norwegian Institute for Air Research
GLOBAL IMPACT

The Japan crisis has dealt a blow to the nuclear power industry around the world. Italy became the latest nation to re-assess its programme, announcing a one-year moratorium on site selection and building of plants.

Crisis in the world's third-biggest economy -- and its key position in global supply chains, especially for the auto and technology sectors -- has added to global market jitters, also affected by conflict in Libya and unrest in the Middle East.

Asian shares fell on Wednesday, with Tokyo's Nikkei shedding more than 1 percent as investors took profits from a two-session bounce. Japanese stocks are about 8 percent below their close on the day the 9.0 magnitude earthquake struck.

Toyota said it would delay the launch in Japan of two additions to the Prius line-up, a wagon and a minivan, from the originally planned end-April due to production disruptions.

The tsunami and earthquake are the world's costliest ever natural disaster, with the government estimating damage at 15-25 trillion yen ($185 billion-$308 billion.

The upper end of that range would equate to about 6 percent of Japan's gross domestic product.

The official death toll has risen to 9,199, but with 13,786 people still reported missing, it is certain to rise.

There are reports dozens of survivors, mostly elderly, have died in hospitals and evacuation centres due to a lack of proper treatment, or simply because of the cold. It is winter in Japan.

At one sports arena in Minamisanriku where 1,500 evacuees are staying, old people crowded at a counter stacked with pills and bandages, while about 30 people slept on beds or on the floor in a makeshift clinic with doctors on standby.

"It's less a problem of medical supplies now, but a problem of finding out what medicine is lacking where and centralising that information," said Nobuyuki Maki, a doctor.

"Many places in this area haven't restored mobile phone connections yet so there are still problems with communication."

Interview - Japan quake to delay Titagarh steel bridge JV

Monday 21 March 2011, 1:26 PM

By Aniruddha Basu

MUMBAI (Reuters) - Indian wagonmaker Titagarh Wagons Ltd's plans to set up a joint venture with a Japanese firm will take longer than expected due to the massive earthquake that rocked Japan earlier this month, a senior official said.

Titagarh has signed a memorandum of understanding with Japan's Kawada Industries Inc to manufacture steel bridges in India. The two firms plan to make two-lane modular bridges with steel composite decking, according to Titagarh Wagons' website.

"The JV would be subject to a preliminary study getting completed. That is underway. And now with the current situation in Japan things will be deferred to an extent as they will have a lot of rebuilding work in Japan," Titagarh Wagons' Vice Chairman Umesh Chowdhary told Reuters on Monday.

He did not give a timeline for the venture to become operational.

"The joint venture agreement has not yet been signed. It will take a little time".

To take advantage of India's increasing demand for metro coaches, Titagarh has teamed up with another Japanese metro coach maker to bid for such orders.

"We are in a consortium with a Japan firm and we will bid for tenders as and when they come up," Chowdhary said. He declined to name the Japanese firm.

Indian Railways has earmarked an investment of $12.68 billion in 2011/12 for modernise its creaky infrastructure and expand capacity. It has proposed to set up two wagon units with private partners.

The Railways has estimated the total public-private partnership investment in India at 15.26 billion rupees in 2011/12.

Titagarh, which gets the bulk of its revenues from the Indian Railways, expects a tender for 18,000 wagons to be published within the next one or two months, he said.

The firm has a capacity to make about 5,000 wagons annually. Its unit Cimmco is expected to make another 2,000 wagons in 2011/12.

Orders from the private sector have not yet seen an uptick he said.

"Private sector demand has not yet picked up but railway demand looks healthy," he said.

Titagarh's JV with US-based FreightCar America to make aluminium rail cars -- lighter wagons with more pay load -- for the local market is yet to start operations due to limited enthusiasm from the Railways, he said.

"The designing has been done, but the issue is that this was a new concept and until the concept picks up, it does not make sense to go into manufacturing."

Kolkata-based Titagarh, which had acquired the assets of France's IGF Industries- Arbel Fauvet Rail last July, is open to more such overseas acquisitions, but no deal has been finalised yet, he said.

At 1:16 p.m., Titagarh Wagons shares were down 1.12 percent at 308.85 rupees in a choppy Mumbai market. (sourced:Reuters)

Japan battles nuclear crisis, power effort crucial

Fri Mar 18, 2011 4:20pm GM

By Shinichi Saoshiro and Yoko Nishikawa

TOKYO, March 19 (Reuters) - Exhausted Japanese engineers scrambled to fix a power cable to two reactors at a tsunami-crippled nuclear power station on Saturday as they fought to prevent a deadly radiation release in the world's worst nuclear accident since the Chernobyl disaster.

The dangerous and complex challenge for about 300 workers at the Fukushima plant in northeastern Japan, 240 km (150 miles) north of Tokyo, has unsettled the world's financial markets and prompted an international reassessment of nuclear safety.

At the plant, from where people within 20 km (12 miles) have been evacuated to avoid radiation, engineers were hoping to attach power lines to two of the six reactors in order to
restart water pumps and cool overheated nuclear fuel rods.

Workers also sprayed water on the No.3 reactor, considered the most critical after steam was seen blowing off, a sign the rods could be becoming exposed.

If those tactics fail, the option of last resort may be to bury the sprawling 40-year-old plant in sand and concrete to prevent a catastrophic radiation release, the method used to seal huge leakages from Chernobyl after a huge blast there.

Japan has raised the severity rating of the nuclear crisis from Level 4 to Level 5 on the seven-level INES international scale, putting it on a par with America's Three Mile Island
accident in 1979, although some experts say it is more serious.

Chernobyl was a 7 on that scale.

The operation to avert a large-scale radiation leak has overshadowed the humanitarian aspect of Japan's toughest moment since World War Two, after it was struck last Friday by a 9.0-magnitude earthquake and a 10-metre (33-foot) tsunami.

Around 6,500 have been confirmed killed in the double natural disaster, which turned whole towns into waterlogged wastelands, and 10,300 remain missing with many feared dead.

Some 390,000 people, including many among Japan's ageing population, are homeless and battling near-freezing temperatures in makeshift shelters in northeastern coastal areas.

Food, water, medicine and heating fuel are in short supply.

"Everything is gone, including money," said Tsukasa Sato, a 74-year-old barber with a heart condition, as he warmed his hands in front of a stove at a shelter for the homeless in Yamada, northern Japan.

Under enormous pressure over its handling of the combination of crises, Japan's government conceded it could have moved faster at the outset.

"An unprecedented huge earthquake and huge tsunami hit Japan. As a result, things that had not been anticipated in terms of the general disaster response took place," Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano told reporters late on Friday.

Health officials and the U.N. atomic watchdog have said radiation levels in the capital Tokyo were not harmful, but the city has seen an exodus of tourists, expatriates and many
Japanese, who fear a blast of radioactive material.

"I'm leaving because my parents are terrified. I personally think this will turn out to be the biggest paper tiger the world has ever seen," said Luke Ridley, 23, from London as he sat at
Narita international airport using his laptop.

"I'll probably come back in about a month."

Amid their distress, Japanese were proud of the 300 or so nuclear plant workers toiling in the wreckage, wearing masks, goggles and protective suits sealed by duct tape.

"My eyes well with tears at the thought of the work they are doing," Kazuya Aoki, a safety official at Japan's Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency, told Reuters.

Even if engineers restore power at the plant, the pumps may be too damaged to work.

The first step will be to restore power to pumps for reactors No. 1 and 2, and possibly 4, by Saturday, said Hidehiko Nishiyama, Japan's nuclear safety agency spokesman.

By Sunday, the government expects to connect electricity to pumps for its badly damaged reactor No.3 -- a focal point in the crisis because of its use of mixed oxides, or mox, containing
both uranium and highly toxic plutonium.

That could be a turning point.

"If they can get those electric pumps on and they can start pushing that water successfully up the core, quite slowly so you don't cause any brittle failure, they should be able to get it
under control in the next couple of days," said Laurence Williams, of Britain's University of Central Lancashire.

The last-resort option of burying the reactors could leave part of Japan off-limits for decades.

FINANCIAL INTERVENTION

The Group of Seven rich nations, attempting to calm global financial markets after a tumultuous week, agreed on Friday to join in a rare concerted intervention to restrain a soaring yen.

The U.S. dollar surged more than two yen to 81.80 after the G7's pledge to intervene, leaving behind a record low of 76.25 hit on Thursday.

Japan's Nikkei share index ended up 2.7 percent, recouping some of the week's stinging losses. It has lost 10.2 percent this week, wiping $350 billion off market capitalisation.

Expectations that Japanese insurers and companies would repatriate billions of dollars in overseas funds to pay for a reconstruction bill that is expected to be much costlier than the one that followed the Kobe earthquake in 1995 also have helped boost the yen.

The plight of those left homeless by the earthquake and tsunami worsened following a cold snap that brought heavy snow to worst-affected areas.

Nearly 320,000 households in the north were still without electricity, officials said, and the government said at least 1.6 million households lacked running water.

Aid groups say most victims are receiving attention, but there are pockets of acute suffering.

"We've seen children suffering with the cold, and lacking really basic items like food and clean water," said Stephen McDonald of Save the Children, in a statement on Friday.

(Additional reporting by Linda Sieg, Nathan Layne, Elaine Lies, Leika Kihara, Joseph Radford and Chris Gallagher in Japan; Fiona Ortiz in Madrid; Writing by Jason Szep and Andrew Cawthorne; Editing by Daniel Magnowski, sourced :Reuters)


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China Urges Full Disclosure on Japan Radiation Leaks

By Peter Simpson | Beijing

The Chinese government on Thursday urged its crisis-hit neighbor Japan to issue prompt and accurate information about radiation leaks from a nuclear power plant ravaged by an earthquake and tsunami.

Concerned by rumors circulating in China about nuclear fallout and radiation exposure, China's Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu called on Tokyo to issue prompt and accurate details about stricken nuclear power plant ravaged by last week’s earthquake and tsunami.

She also issued a call to worried Chinese who are panic buying salt in a false belief it can guard against radiation sickness. Japan should release detailed and accurate information about the about radiation leaks as soon as it’s known, said Jiang. And she urged the public to stay calm, saying it was not necessary to panic.

The country's largest salt maker, China National Salt Industry Corporation, Thursday issued a statement warning panic-buying and hoarding is unnecessary.

The Ministry of Health is also telling the public that regular salt cannot prevent radiation.

But panic buying continues and price spikes are occurring.

Jiang also confirmed China will send 20,000 tons of gasoline and diesel fuel to Japan to aid it earthquake recovery.

Despite often prickly relations between China and Japan, the Japanese disasters have sparked an outpouring of sympathy in China.

Beijing earlier pledged $4.5 million worth of blankets, tents, emergency lighting and other humanitarian assistance, and has sent 15 rescuers to help search for survivors.(sourced:voanews)

France says Japan loses control of situation at nuclear power plant

2011-03-17 16:14:19

France's Energy and Industry Minister Eric Besson arrives to attend a hearing about Nuclear power at the National Assembly in Paris March 16, 2011.

France's government said on Wednesday that Japan was losing control of the situation at a tsunami-crippled nuclear power plant and urged its nationals in Tokyo to leave the country or
head to southern Japan.

(Xinhua/Reuters Photo)

Nippon Steel says resumes shipments at all but one steel plants

Sun Mar 13, 2011 7:54am GMT

TOKYO, March 13 (Reuters) - Nippon Steel said on Sunday that it has resumed shipments from all its steel plants except its Kaimishi facility in northern Japan.

It also said that it has started operations at two of three blast furnaces near Tokyo after an earthquake that hit the country on Friday. (Reporting by Yuko Inoue; Editing by Joseph Radford)