TOKYO, Japan, Oct. 7 (UPI) -- A pump used to cool one of the damaged reactors at the crippled Fukushima nuclear power plant in Japan, has stopped, the plant's operator said Monday.
Tokyo Electric Power Co. (
TKECF,
Stock Forum) (Tepco) said it could not use a backup pump to restart cooling immediately after the pump that served the No. 1 unit, one of three reactors destroyed in the massive earthquake and tsunami in March 2011, stopped running, The New York Times reported.
The pump that stopped Monday was part of a provisional cooling system Tepco developed after the accident to dump hundreds of tons of water per day onto the three damaged reactor cores to prevent them from reheating. In 2011, the fuel cores in the overheating reactors melted down, causing explosions that destroyed the reactor buildings.
Tepco said the stoppage could have occurred because of a faulty electric switchboard, which has forced the plant's cooling system to shut down before.
Japan's Nuclear Regulation Authority, however, suggested a worker may have shut down the main pump accidentally by hitting the stop button during a routine checkup.
The plant has been plagued by mishaps. Last week, the company said workers spilled 114 gallons of radioactive water when they mistakenly tried to put water in an already-full tank.
Japan welcomes foreign expertise as it seeks to contain radioactive water leaks at the Fukushima-Daiichi nuclear power plant, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said.
Since its damage by the earthquake and tsunami, Japanese experts have been working to decommission the plant, which could take decades. The work, however, has been seriously hampered of late by frequent leaks of contaminated water.
"My country needs your knowledge and expertise" in coping with the issue, Abe said in a speech in English Sunday at an international science conference in Kyoto.
"We are wide open to receive the most advanced knowledge from overseas to contain the problem," Kyodo News quoted him as saying.
Last week, Katsuhiko Ikeda, president of Japan's nuclear regulator, ordered Tepco to bring the radioactive water problem under control at the No. 1 nuclear complex.
The leaking contaminated water is entering into the reactor complex and mixing with water being injected to keep the damaged reactors cool.
According to Wikipedia, in recent years Japan has faced several economic woes caused by the large budget deficits and government debt since the 2009 global recession and followed by the earthquake and tsunami in March 2011.
As a result, in August 2011, Moody's rating cut Japan's long-term sovereign debt rating one notch from Aa3 to Aa2 in line with the size of the country's deficit and borrowing level.
MOSCOW, Russia, Oct. 7 (UPI) -- Russians are closely divided on whether a new cold war between Russia and the United States will occur, a Russian Public Opinion Research Center poll indicated.
Forty-six percent of respondents said they believe a new cold war scenario is possible while 48% said it was unlikely or impossible, poll results released Monday indicated.
Nine percent said U.S. secrets-leaker Edward Snowden was the chief problem in Russia-U.S. relations while 6.0% cited the struggle for global domination and the situation in the Middle East as the main reasons. Five percent cited policy issue differences and only 3.0% said nuclear weapons were a problem.
In the poll, respondents also cited collaborative efforts between the two countries, including international terrorism, efforts to prevent armed conflicts, economic collaboration, cultural and scientific exchanges, and space.
Results are based on interviews with 1,600 residents in 130 communities across Russia conducted Aug. 24-25. The margin of error is 3.4%.
According to Wikipedia, the Cold War, often dated from 1947 to 1991, was a sustained state of political and military tension between powers in the Western Bloc, dominated by the United States with NATO among its allies, and powers in the Eastern Bloc, dominated by the Soviet Union along with the Warsaw Pact. This began after the success of their temporary wartime alliance against Nazi Germany, leaving the USSR and the US as two superpowers with profound economic and political differences.
During this time, the Soviet Union supported revolutionary movements across the world, including the newly formed People's Republic of China, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea and, later on, the Republic of Cuba. Significant amounts of the Soviet resources were allocated in aid to the other socialist states.
BEIJING, China, Oct. 7 (UPI) -- Typhoon Fitow killed at least five people in China's Zhejiang province and made landfall in neighboring Fujian province Monday, officials said.
At least four people in Zhejiang province were reported missing.
Damages were severe and at least 360,000 homes in Zhejiang and 130,000 in Fujian province were without power, the Xinhua News Agency reported.
About 100,000 visitors to Zhejiang were evacuated as of Monday and some tourist attractions were closed, officials said.
About 176,000 people were evacuated in Fujian province.
Fitow, with winds up to 94 mph, made landfall in Fujian early in the day, the National Meteorological Center said.
Many bullet-train runs and flights were canceled.
Zhejiang province had more than five inches of rain from Saturday to Monday.
LONDON, England, Oct. 7 (UPI) -- Britain has launched a new body to tackle serious crimes, the National Crime Agency, dubbed the British FBI, officials said.
Home Secretary Theresa May told the BBC the NCA would be responsible for investigating organized, economic and cybercrime, border policing, and child protection.
The NCA is the third such policing body to be created in Britain, replacing the National Crime Squad set up 15 years ago and the Serious Organized Crime Agency, set up seven years ago, the BBC.
"Crime is falling in this country, but we can't be complacent. And particularly on organized crime, I don't think the last government put enough emphasis on this," May said.
Shadow Policing Minister David Hanson criticized the "government's hype" of the NCA.
"Most of the NCA is just the rebranding of existing organizations such as the Serious Organized Crime Agency, but with a substantial 20% cut imposed by the Home Office on their overall budget," he said.
"It is right to have stronger national action on organized crime with the NCA, on child exploitation and on intelligence -- but the government has to support this effort and not simply use this as a rebranding exercise to hide substantial policing cuts," he added.
LAMPEDUSA, Italy, Oct. 7 (UPI) -- Divers recovered dozens of bodies from the wreckage of a boat carrying African immigrants that sank last week, bringing the death toll to 194, ANSA reported.
About 169 people are still missing in the waters off the island of Lampedusa after the recovery Sunday of 83 bodies, the news service reported Monday.
The boat was one of many that regularly smuggle immigrants from North Africa onto Sicily and other Italian islands. The vessel's motor died off Lampedusa and then caught fire when the skipper lit a signal fire on the deck to attract attention.
The boat was carrying about 518 migrants, mostly Eritreans and Somalis.
The BBC said 155 survivors were picked up, mainly by fishing boats in the area. The Italian coast guard has denied it was slow to respond to the report of the sinking.
Italian Integration Minister Cecile Kyenge visited Lampedusa Sunday and called for the reform of Italy's tough immigration law, which makes being an undocumented migrant a criminal offense, ANSA said.
TEL AVIV, Israel, Oct. 7 (UPI) -- Palestinians must recognize Israel as a Jewish homeland if peace is to be achieved, Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu said.
"For the [peace] process in which we find ourselves to be significant, ... for it to have a real chance of success, it is necessary to hear the Palestinian leadership finally say that it recognizes the right of the Jewish people to a state of its own, which is the state of Israel," Netanyahu told Bar Ilan University's Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies Sunday. "I hope that it shall be so, so that we can advance a real solution to the conflict."
Netanyahu said Palestinians must give up their demand for the return of refugees to areas inside Israel and Israel's security needs must be addressed, Ynetnews.com reported.
"After generations of incitement we have no confidence that recognition [of Israel] will trickle down to the Palestinian people. Therefore, we need very strong security arrangements, and to go forward without blindness," the prime minister said.
"The root of the conflict is the deep resistance among a hard core of Palestinians to the right of the Jewish people to its own state in Israel."
CAIRO, Egypt, Oct. 7 (UPI) -- At least seven soldiers were killed and 50 injured in incidents Monday in Cairo, the southern Sinai and north of Ismailia, Egyptian officials said.
At least two Egyptian soldiers were killed in a massive explosion at Egyptian security headquarters in the southern Sinai town of al-Tor, al-Arabiya reported. More than 50 were injured in the blast, which officials suspect was caused by a car bomb, the pan-Arab network said.
Earlier, five Egyptian soldiers were killed by gunmen in Ismailia, al-Arabiya said. The BBC reported the soldiers were sitting in a car at a checkpoint north of Ismailia when they were killed. The British network also said a rocket hit a satellite station in a Cairo neighborhood. There were no details concerning casualties.
Al-Arabiya said the death toll from Sunday's violence rose to 53, describing it as one of the bloodiest days since former President Mohamed Morsi's July 3 ouster.
An Egyptian group formed to protest the military regime that ousted Morsi called for fresh protests.
The Islamist Anti-Coup Alliance called on followers to take to the streets Tuesday and Friday after Sunday's bloody melee that the Interior Ministry said left at least 268 people injured and more than 460 arrested.
Egypt is under an extended nationwide state of emergency that includes the suspension of most rights afforded criminal suspects.
The state of emergency was imposed Aug. 14, the day police stormed two Islamist sit-ins against the country's military takeover and killed more than 600 protesters. It was extended Sept. 13 for two more months because of the country's continued strife, state-owned newspaper al-Ahram reported at the time.
Sunday's violence started when thousands of anti-coup protesters tried but failed to bring their protest into iconic Tahrir Square where thousands of pro-regime demonstrators were voicing support for the army during a 40th anniversary celebration of an Egyptian victory over Israel in the 1973 Arab-Israeli War.
The anti-coup protesters Sunday were repelled by swarms of police, tear gas and gunfire, The Washington Post, The New York Times and al-Ahram reported.
The death toll was the highest in a single day since mid-August, when military-led authorities began a crackdown on Morsi supporters.
"Closing roads, blocking entries to public squares and stopping trains and metro lines will never prevent the world from seeing the truth," the alliance said in a statement Sunday night.
The group said it would hold the state accountable for the deaths and vowed it would "pursue and prosecute" those responsible.
"God save the honorable people of Egypt," the statement said.
The possibility of Sunday's bloody confrontation started last week when the anti-coup protesters said they intended to go to Tahrir to salute "the soldiers who fought the October war -- so our brave army regains its commitment to the true Egyptian military doctrine and knows the difference between the enemy and its people, before it turns into militias that do not have any other mission but killing its own people."
That announcement prompted the military-led regime to respond with the Tahrir military commemoration.
A spokesman for Egypt's presidency said Saturday anyone protesting the military Sunday would be considered a foreign agent.
Pro- and anti-regime violence was also sparked in other cities, al-Ahram said, with deaths reported in Giza, Beni Suef, 70 miles south of Cairo, and in Minya, 160 miles south.
BALI, Indonesia, Oct. 7 (UPI) -- Heads of the 21-member Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation met Monday in the Indonesian resort of Bali but absent was U.S. President Barack Obama.
Obama canceled his planned Asia trip due to the U.S. government shutdown, giving the charge of leading the U.S. delegation to Secretary of State John Kerry to both the Bali meeting and later in the week the U.S.-Association of Southeast Asian Nations session in Brunei.
During the weekend, Kerry assured that whatever was happening in Washington would not diminish in any way the U.S. commitment to its partners in Asia, the BBC reported.
CNN reported that in the absence of Obama, President Xi Jinping of China and Vladimir Putin of Russia would be taking the ringside seats at the summit.
Normally, it is the United States, as the world's largest economy, which sets the tone.
CNN said under the original plan, Obama was to have spoken Monday at the APEC before the leaders' retreat on Tuesday. The subject of the speech was going to be: "America's leadership and priorities: What they mean for the world."
Asia-Pacific's importance also has grown in light of the Obama administration's pivot to the strategic and economically lucrative region. Among the Obama administration's objectives are to boost U.S. trade with the region's countries, which in turn would help create jobs at home.
The CNN report said with Obama staying back in Washington, it would be up to Kerry to carry the load in discussions with Xi, Putin and other key leaders such as Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and Indonesian host President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono.
Kerry will also be involved in the U.S.-led 12-nation Trans-Pacific Partnership trade negotiations on the sidelines. The ultimate aim of the TPP talks to create a free trade pact for Asia-Pacific nations. Currently the nations involved in the TPP effort are Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, the United States and Vietnam.
CNN said China is also hoping to be a TPP member in the next three to four years despite issues including China's restrictions on Internet access.
The report said for Xi, the Bali summit would have provided another opportunity to work with Obama for building his "new model of a major country relationship."
APEC was established in 1989 and its members include Australia, Canada, Chile, China, Hong Kong, Japan, South Korea, Mexico, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Peru, Russia, Taiwan, the United States along with seven members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations of Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.
Together, the APEC accounts for about 50% of the world's economic output.
ATHENS, Greece, Oct. 6 (UPI) -- Some Greek lawmakers say they want Germany, Greece's main banker, to pay reparations for Greeks killed during World War II.
Greek Prime Minister Antonis Samaras' government has created an 80-page report on reparations it believes it is owed by Germany, which includes a huge, never-repaid loan Greece was forced to give Germany under Nazi occupation from 1941 to 1945, The New York Times reported Saturday.
Although the government has not given an official total owed, the figure most often discussed is $220 billion, which is about half of Greece's total debt.
Samaras said he has given the report over to Greece's Legal Council of State, which will decide whether to put together a legal case or handle settlement negotiations.
"I can see a situation where it is politically difficult for the Germans to ease the terms for us," said a high-ranking Greek official, who wished to remain anonymous because he was not authorized to speak on the issue. "So instead, they agree to pay back the occupation loan. Maybe it is easier to sell that to the German public."
Germany, which has been the biggest contributor to Greece's bailout package, has given little indication as to whether or not it is willing to discuss reparations.
"We must examine exactly what happened in Greece," German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaubl said while in Athens in July, but added that Greece had waived its rights on the issue long ago.
Meanwhile, some Greeks say Germany still owes victims such as Giannis Syngelakis, whose father was killed by Nazis during a raid in 1943.
"Maybe some of us have not paid our taxes," Syngelakis said, standing at the site where his father was killed 70 years ago. "But that is nothing compared to what they did."
DAMASCUS, Syria, Oct. 6 (UPI) -- U.N. experts began field visits in Syria Sunday, starting the process of destroying the country's chemical arsenal, a source told Chinese news agency Xinhua.
The team, made up of experts from the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons and the United Nations, arrived in Syria Tuesday and had meetings with Syrian ministry officials before starting the ground work, the news agency said.
The U.N. Security Council tasked the team with helping Syria destroy its chemical weapons arsenal by mid-2014 in accordance with a new U.N. resolution.
Meanwhile, the Syrian Network for Human Rights announced the death toll of Syrian citizens from conflict in September 2013 was 2,811.
That number included 792 armed rebels, 1,584 civilians and 264 children. Of those, 159 were tortured to death, a release from the group said.
"SNHR holds the Syrian president commander in chief of the Syrian army, Bashar al-Assad, responsible for all acts of homicide, torture and massacres perpetrated in Syria as he holds the primary responsibility for giving the orders for these acts. SNHR considers all Syrian regime members and heads of the security and military bodies directly complicity in those acts. By the same token, SNHR considers the Iranian government and Hezbollah as direct partners in the acts of homicide who shall legally and judicially liable for those acts along with all those funding and supporting the Syrian regime which is systematically committing massacres on a daily basis," the release said.’
NAIROBI, Kenya, Oct. 5 (UPI) -- Kenyan authorities identified the suspected ringleaders of last month's al-Shabaab terrorist attack at a popular shopping mall in Nairobi, Kenya.
Maj. Emmanuel Chirchir, a Kenyan military spokesman, told reporters Friday the four suspects were "the terrorists" who led the shooting spree that took the lives of at least 67 people.
Chirchir said the four included one Kenyan of Arab origin as well as operatives from Sudan and Somalia, the home base of al-Shabaab.
The suspects were identified as Abu Baara al-Sudani, Omar Nabhan, Khattab al-Kene and Umayr. It was not known whether they were at large or had been killed in the mall attack.
The announcement was made at the same time police said they suspected four or five gunmen had carried out the raid rather than the 10-15 originally believed to be involved, the BBC said.
The United States has been considering its options in response to the attack. Voice of America said Saturday the most likely option was assisting Kenya in going after al-Shabaab in neighboring Somalia.
A defense analyst said at a congressional hearing a key would be convincing Kenya not to overreact and launch strikes into Somalia, VOA said.
A team of U.S. Navy SEALs carried out a predawn commando raid on one of al-Shabaab's hideouts on the Somali coast overnight, a U.S. official told The Washington Post Saturday. The source told the newspaper the SEALs were unable to capture the al-Shabaab leader they were targeting.