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Geography Archives: Asia

Countries in the continent of Asia

Japan: Squandering the Chance for Orderly Evacuation

Given the large amount of radioactivity that could be released from the damaged reactors and spent-fuel pools at the Fukushima Dai-Ichi facility, the Japanese government was wise to evacuate residents within a 12 mile (20 kilometer) radius of the reactor site. Unfortunately, the crisis in not over.  Given the uncertainty over future releases, we believe […]

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China Expresses Regret for Military Strike against Libya

  China’s Foreign Ministry on Sunday expressed regret over the multinational military strike against Libya, saying that it did not agree with resorting to force in international relations. “China has noticed the latest development in Libya and regrets the military strike against Libya,” Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu said. China, as it always, does not […]

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TEPCO: Profits of Death

Carlos Latuff is a Brazilian cartoonist.  Cf. “Citizens’ Nuclear Information Center, a Japanese environmental group, has documented previous safety problems and cover-ups by Tepco at the Fukushima reactor complex: cnic.jp/english/newsletter/nit92/nit92articles/nit92coverupdata.html” (Nuclear Information and Resource Service, “Fact Sheet on Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant,” 11 March 2011). | Print

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Turning Japan into the Land of the Burning Sun

“Economic and Financial Policy Minister Kaoru Yosano, at a post-cabinet-meeting press conference on the 15th of March, said this about Japan’s nuclear power policy: ‘There is no alternative energy source if we want to secure a lot of energy.  To support the Japanese economy, we have no choice but to use nuclear power.  The people […]

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Monday Update on Fukushima Reactors

  As of 11:30 pm EDT Monday 3/14/11 Three of the six reactors at the Fukushima Dai-Ichi nuclear facility were operating at the time of the earthquake — Units 1, 2, and 3.  The reactors shut down when the earthquake hit, but even after they stopped producing power, the reactor cores were very hot and […]

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Fukushima 1: Unit 2 Fuel Rods Again Fully Exposed

15 March 2011, 01:05 Tokyo Electric Power announced that, at around 11 PM on the 14th, it became impossible to inject cooling water into the Unit 2 reactor of the Fukushima 1 Nuclear Power Plant, resulting in a precipitous decline of the water level, so Unit 2’s fuel rods probably became fully exposed again.  Also, […]

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Nuclear Accident ABCs

In reporting on the nuclear situation in Japan, terms describing the possible state of the reactors have been used by Japanese officials and international experts.  Unfortunately, these terms are not always used consistently.  We discuss some of them below. The reactor core containing nuclear fuel is the “engine” of a nuclear power reactor.  The reactor […]

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Japan: Race against Time to Avert Complete Meltdown

“Pray for Japan.” — Carlos Latuff Carlos Latuff is a Brazilian cartoonist.  Cf. Nuclear Information and Resource Service, “Fact Sheet on Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant” (11 March 2011); Union of Concerned Scientists, “Nuclear Crisis in Japan: What We Know” (11 March 2011); Philip White, “On the Nuclear and Earthquake Disaster Unfolding in Japan” (12 March […]

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Sunday Update on Fukushima Reactors

As of 7 pm EDT Sunday 3/13/11 We reported earlier about the situation at Fukushima Dai-Ichi reactor Unit 1.  The nuclear crisis in Japan took a turn for the worse as serious problems developed in reactor Unit 3. Officials from Tokyo Electric reported that after multiple cooling system failures, the water level in the Unit […]

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