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LA TIMES– How did Japanese workers at the crippled Fukushima nuclear plant jury-rig fire hoses to cool damaged reactors? Is contaminated water from waste pools overflowing into the Pacific Ocean? Exactly who is the national incident commander?

The answers to these and many other questions are unclear to U.S. nuclear scientists and policy experts, who say the quality and quantity of information coming out of Japan has left gaping holes in their understanding of the disaster nearly two weeks after it began.

At the same time, they say, the depth of the crisis has clearly been growing, judging by releases of radioactivity that by some measures have reached half the level of those released in the Chernobyl accident of 1986, according to new analysis by European and American scientists.

Read full article about Gaping Holes Surrounding Japan’s Nuclear Crisis.

© 2011 LA Times

REUTERS– Japanese engineers struggled on Sunday to pump radioactive water from a crippled nuclear power station after radiation levels soared in seawater near the plant more than two weeks after it was battered by a huge earthquake and a tsunami.

Tests on Friday showed iodine 131 levels in seawater 30 km (19 miles) from the coastal nuclear complex had spiked 1,250 times higher than normal but it was not considered a threat to marine life or food safety, the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency said.

“Ocean currents will disperse radiation particles and so it will be very diluted by the time it gets consumed by fish and seaweed,” said Hidehiko Nishiyama, a senior agency official.

Read full article about Japan’s Radiation Spikes.

© 2011 Reuters

 Photo by flickr user OiMax

Fresh radiation fears have emerged in reactor 2 of the Fukushima nuclear plant, as the radioactivity levels are reported to be 100,000 times the normal level.

DEMOCRACY NOW! – 7 Years After Ouster in U.S.-Backed Coup, Former Haitian President Aristide Prepares to Return Home

Former Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide is preparing to return to Haiti after seven years in exile. Aristide has lived in South Africa since his ouster in a 2004 U.S.-backed coup. Reporting from Johannesburg, Democracy Now!’s Amy Goodman speaks with Aristide’s attorney Ira Kurzban and actor Danny Glover as they prepare to accompany Aristide back to his country.

Rush transcript here.

© Copyright DemocracyNow!, 2011

Photograph by cliff1066™

DAILY MAIL– Colonel Gaddafi’s forces today blasted an oil terminal to smithereens as Libya’s bloody civil war entered its blackest day.

Rebels retaliated by firing back with rockets as a fireball exploded from one of the oil tanks and the sky above the Es Sider terminal, in the east of the country, filled with hideous smoke.

A witness said one of the smoke plumes was the biggest he had seen in the conflict so far.

The fresh onslaught came as Gaddafi deployed tanks and snipers to ‘shoot anything that moves’.

Forces loyal to the Libyan dictator poured into the city of Zawiyah in a desperate bid to oust the hardcore band of protesters and army defectors who have taken control.

Witnesses said dead bodies were lying in the ruins of many buildings destroyed in air raids earlier in the week and there was no one in the streets of the centre of the city of 290,000.

‘We can see the tanks. The tanks are everywhere,’ one rebel fighter said by telephone.

Eye witnesses said that the city had been almost flattened after a 13-and-a-half hour barrage from rockets, tanks and war planes

The hellish scenes unfolded as senior officials in the U.S. spoke of their fears that the country had reached a painful stalemate.

Senior officials believe that Gaddafi has solidified his control over some cities but ant-government protesters have a strong enough hold on other regions to remain locked in the stand off.

Read more about Gaddafi Scorching the Earth.

© Copyright DAILY MAIL 2011

Photo by AFP

SALON.COM– Violence escalates in Libya. Unconfirmed reports say Gadhafi has fled as protesters march on compound.

UPDATE (2:10 P.M. EST)
Libyan fighter pilots who defected to Malta earlier this morning told Maltese that they’d been ordered to drop bombs on protesters, the Guardian reports.

UPDATE (1:10 P.M. EST)
A number of sources are reporting that Libyan President Moammar Gadhafi may have fled the country as protesters take hold in the capital city of Tripoli. Reuters reported that a British foreign minister had seen information suggesting that Gadhafi was headed to Venuzuela. The government of Hugo Chavez has denied those reports. 

Meanwhile, as violence mounts, Ibrahim Dabbashi, the Libyan deputy ambassador to the United Nations, has reportedly said that the Libyan dictator “has declared war on the Libyan people and is committing genocide.”

EARLIER
Al Jazeera reports that security forces using fighter jets have opened fire on protesters maching on Libyan President Muammar Gadhafi’s compound in Tripoli. As phone lines have been cut throughout the country, incoming reports are largely unconfirmed, and foreign embassies are evacuating their personnel.

Al Jazeera summed up the events in Libya with an inside report about the regime’s efforts to crush the uprising:

DISTURBING FOOTAGE- Peaceful, unarmed protesters get gunned down by the Libyan army in broad daylight.

Adam Clark Estes blogs the news for Salon. Email him at [email protected] and follow him on Twitter @adamclarkestes More: Adam Clark Estes

© Copyright SALON.COM, 2011

Photo by flickr user mshamma

RAW STORY– China’s history with food safety is a rocky one, but even in the annals of robbery and abuse, this will go down in infamy.

Various reports in Singapore media have said that Chinese companies are mass producing fake rice made, in part, out of plastic, according to one online publication Very Vietnam.

The “rice” is made by mixing potatoes, sweet potatoes and plastic. The potatoes are first formed into the shape of rice grains. Industrial synthetic resins are then added to the mix. The rice reportedly stays hard even after being cooked.

The Korean-language Weekly Hong Kong reported that the fake rice is being sold in the Chinese town of Taiyuan, in Shaanxi province.

“A Chinese Restaurant Association official said that eating three bowls of this fake rice would be like eating one plastic bag. Due to the seriousness of the matter, he added that there would be an investigation of factories alleged to be producing the rice,” Very Vietnam noted.

Unfortunately, it’s not the first time fake rice has been sold in China, according to China’s Global Times.

Read more about China’s Poor Treated to Fake Rice Made From Plastic.

© COPYRIGHT RAW STORY, 2011

Photo by flickr user IRRI Images