Een bericht van Reuters verschenen op internet enkele uren geleden geschreven door Taiga Uranaka and Ki Joon Kwon:
"FUKUSHIMA, Japan Japan scrambled to avert a meltdown at a
stricken nuclear reactor on Monday after a second hydrogen explosion
rocked the facility, just days after a devastating earthquake and
tsunami that killed at least 10,000 people.
Roads and rail, power and ports have been crippled across much of
Japan's northeast and estimates of the cost of the multiple disasters
have leapt to as much as $170 billion. Analysts said the economy could
even tip back into recession.
Japanese stocks closed down more than 6 percent, the biggest fall since the height of the global financial crisis in 2008.
Rescue workers combed the tsunami-battered region north of Tokyo for
survivors and struggled to care for millions of people without power and
water in what Prime Minister Naoto Kan has dubbed his country's worst
crisis since World War Two.
Officials say at least 10,000 people were likely killed in the
8.9-magnitude earthquake and tsunami that followed it. Kyodo news agency
reported that 2,000 bodies had been found on Monday in two coastal
towns alone.
"It's a scene from hell, absolutely nightmarish," said Patrick Fuller of
the International Red Cross Federation from the town of Otsuchi.
"The situation here is just beyond belief, almost everything has been
flattened. The government is saying that 9,500 people, more than half of
the population could have died and I do fear the worst."
Crucially, officials said the thick walls around the radioactive cores
of the damaged reactors at the nuclear power plant appeared to be intact
after the hydrogen blast, the second there since Saturday.
The big fear is of a major radiation leak from the complex in Fukushima,
240 km (150 miles) north of Tokyo, where engineers have been battling
since the weekend to prevent a meltdown in three reactors.
The core container of the No. 3 reactor was intact after the explosion,
the government said, but it warned those still in the 20-km (13-mile)
evacuation zone to stay indoors. The plant operator, Tokyo Electric
Power Co (TEPCO), said 11 people had been injured in the blast.
Kyodo said 80,000 people had been evacuated from the zone, joining more
than 450,000 other evacuees from quake and tsunami-hit areas in the
northeast.
"Everything I've seen says that the containment structure is operating
as it's designed to operate. It's keeping the radiation in and it's
holding everything in, which is the good news," said Murray Jennex, of
San Diego State University.
"This is nothing like a Chernobyl ... At Chernobyl (in Ukraine in 1986)
you had no containment structure -- when it blew, it blew everything
straight out into the atmosphere."
Officials said on Sunday that three nuclear reactors in Fukushima were
at risk of overheating, raising fears of an uncontrolled radiation leak.
Engineers worked desperately to cool the fuel rods. If they fail, the
containers that house the core could melt, or even explode, releasing
radioactive material into the atmosphere.
Nuclear experts said it was probably the first time in the industry's
57-year history that sea water has been used in this way, a sign of how
close Japan may be to a major accident.
"Injection of sea water into a core is an extreme measure," Mark Hibbs
of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. "This is not
according to the book."
The nuclear accident, the worst since Chernobyl, sparked criticism that
authorities were ill-prepared and the threat that could pose to the
country's nuclear power industry.
A Japanese official said before the blast that 22 people were confirmed
to have suffered radiation contamination and up to 190 may have been
exposed. Workers in protective clothing used hand-held scanners to check
people arriving at evacuation centers.
U.S. warships and planes helping with relief efforts moved away from the
coast temporarily because of low-level radiation. The U.S. Seventh
Fleet described the move as precautionary.
South Korea, Hong Kong, Singapore and the Philippines said they would test Japanese food imports for radiation.
NO POWER, NO WATER
Almost 2 million households were without power in the north, the
government said. There were about 1.4 million without running water.
Tens of thousands of people are missing.
The town of Otsuchi in Iwate prefecture was obliterated.
"After my long career in the Red Cross where I have seen many disasters
and catastrophes, this is the worst I have ever seen. Otsuchi reminds me
of Osaka and Tokyo after the Second World War when everything was
destroyed and flattened," Japan Red Cross President Tadateru Konoe told
Reuters during a visit to the coastal town.
Whole villages and towns have been wiped off the map by Friday's wall of
water, triggering an international humanitarian effort of epic
proportions.
"When the tsunami struck, I was trying to evacuate people. I looked
back, and then it was like the computer graphics scene I've seen from
the movie Armageddon. I thought it was a dream . it was really like the
end of the world," said Tsutomu Sato, 46, in Rikuzantakata, a town on
the northeast coast.
ENORMOUS ECONOMIC COSTS
Estimates of the economic impact are only now starting to emerge.
Hiromichi Shirakawa, chief economist for Japan at Credit Suisse, said in
a note to clients that the economic loss will likely be around 14-15
trillion yen ($171-183 billion) just to the region hit by the quake and
tsunami.
Even that would put it above the commonly accepted cost of the 1995 Kobe quake which killed 6,000 people.
The earthquake has forced many firms to suspend production and shares in
some of Japan's biggest companies tumbled on Monday, with Toyota Corp
dropping almost 8 percent. Shares in Australian-listed uranium miners
also dived.
"When we talk about natural disasters, we tend to see an initial sharp
drop in production ... then you tend to have a V-shaped rebound. But
initially everyone underestimates the damage," said Michala Marcussen,
head of global economics at Societe Generale.
Risk modeling company AIR Worldwide said insured losses from the earthquake could reach nearly $35 billion.
Global companies from semiconductor makers to shipbuilders faced
disruptions to operations after the quake and tsunami destroyed vital
infrastructure, damaged ports and knocked out factories supplying
everything from high-tech components to steel.
The Bank of Japan offered a combined 15 trillion yen ($183 billion) to
the banking system earlier in the day to soothe market jitters.
Finance Minister Yoshihiko Noda said authorities were closely watching
the yen after the currency initially rallied on expectations of
repatriations by insurers and others. The currency later reversed course
in volatile trading.
The earthquake was the fifth most powerful to hit the world in the past
century. It surpassed the Great Kanto quake of September 1, 1923, which
had a magnitude of 7.9 and killed more than 140,000 people in the Tokyo
area.
(Additional reporting by Nathan Layne, Risa Maeda and Leika Kihara in
Tokyo, Chris Meyers and Kim Kyung-hoon in Sendai, Walter Brandimarte and
Scott DiSavino in New York, Natsuko Waki in London and Fredrik Dahl in
Vienna; Writing by Nick Macfie, Editing by Dean Yates)."
Het is duidelijk dat deze ramp onoverzichtelijke gevolgen heeft, zowel voor Japan zelf, als voor buurlanden die daar voedsel en andere produkten kopen, als voor de rest van de wereld. Niemand is voorbereid op iets zoals wat daar plaatsvond. In Belgie vinden de Groenen dit alweer een mooi excuus om het gebruik van kernenergie te veroordelen. Dat deden zij voordien ook al, maar boden nooit alternatieven behalve extra heffingen op het gebruik van allerlei schadelijke en wegwerpverpakkingen. Niemand heeft ooit beweerd dat kernenergie veilig is, voor zover ik weet. Een uitzonderlijke natuurramp aangrijpen om gelijk te halen is een typisch politiek opportunistische reflex. 'Zie je wel ? We hebben het altijd gezegd..."
Intussen gaat men door met het promoten van zonnepanelen om huizen te verwarmen (wat best realiseerbar is in California, USA, bijvoorbeeld) en met het promoten van windturbines. Als er hier in Belgie geen zon is, zullen die panelen weining energie opleveren; als er geen wind is zullen die turbines evenmin veel opleveren. Toch wel, hoor ik al zeggen: want als er geen wind is, dan werken die turbines met motoren... Hoe worden die motoren dan wel aangedreven ? Men hoort veel tegenwoordig over elektrisch aangedreven voertuigen... Propere energie, geen uitlaatgassen, de vehikels moeten alleen om de haverklap worden opgeladen. Hoe ? Door elektriciteit natuurlijk. Waar komt de elektriciteit vandaan ? Uit leidingen. Wie levert de energie in de leidingen ? Elektriciteitsmaatschappijen. Waar halen die de energie vandaan ? Uit kerncentrales en andere centrales die ook niet meteen proper zijn voor de natuur en de samenleving.
Als een aardbeving met de kracht die Japan trof ooit Belgie treft, zal er weinig van het land overblijven, met of zonder kerncentrales. In de Filipijnen werd ooit (vanaf 1976) een kerncentrale gebouwd in Bataan, op een kleine afstand van de vulkaan Pinatubo. Dat was een goed idee... Om allerlei redenen werd de bouw wel voleindigd, maar werd de kercentrale nooit in gebruik genomen. U kan daarover meer lezen in het artikel op wikipedia /en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bataan_Nuclear_Power_Plant.
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Enkele Filipijnse drugsmokkelaars die op heterdaad werden betrapt in China, zijn veroordeeld tot ophanging ingevolge de Chinese strafwetgeving. 
De Amerikanen en de andere geallieerde landen hebben eindelijk een reden gevonden om Libie aan te vallen: er was onrust in het land vanwege "ontevredenen" en de onrust werd door de militairen bedwongen door moord en doodslag. Genoeg voor de Amerikanen en bondgenoeten om in te grijpen en te beginnen met bombardementen als inleiding tot een algehele invasie. 
Vandaag, 07 maart 2011, zijn de brandstofpijzen aan de normale tankstations in de Filipijnen ongeveer als volgt:
