Post-tsunami rebuilding ,Japan plans budget

Japan drew up an extra budget worth over $50 billion on Friday to help finance post-tsunami reconstruction efforts.

The Cabinet of Prime Minister Naoto Kan approved the budget totaling 4.02 trillion yen ($50 billion), the finance ministry said. Japan's parliament is expected to pass the budget next week.
"This is the first step toward rebuilding Japan after the major disasters," Finance Minister Yoshihiko Noda told reporters.

The government will allocate around 1.2 trillion yen to fix roads and ports damaged by the March 11 earthquake and tsunami. The twin disasters decimated much of northeastern Japan and killed more than 25,000 people.

Under the budget, the government will spend over 362 billion yen to build temporary homes for disaster victims, with another 352 billion yen for clearing rubble. The government has said the cost of the tsunami disasters could reach $309 billion, making it the world's most expensive natural disaster on record.

WRAPUP 5-Japan uses bath salts to find leak, and release radioactive water into sea.

* Operators forced to release radioactive water into sea

* Bath salts, sea curtain sought to stop radiation leaks
* Government demands quick action to avoid fouling sea
* Business sentiment turns negative after disaster (Adds latest on radiation leaks, quotes, economy)
By Risa Maeda and Yoko Kubota


TOKYO, April 4 (Reuters) - Japanese engineers on Monday were forced to release radioactive water into the sea while resorting to desperate measures such as using bath salts to try to find the source of the leaks at a crippled nuclear power complex.

Engineers also planned to build a giant silt curtain in the ocean to stop the spread of more contamination from the Fukushima Daiichi plant.
The plant operator had to release low-level radioactive seawater that had been used to cool overheated fuel rods after it ran out of storage capacity for more highly contaminated water, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano said.

Operator Tokyo Electric Power (TEPCO) said it would release over 10,000 tonnes of contaminated water that was about 100 times more radioactive than legal limits.

Engineers are still struggling to regain control of damaged reactors at the plant in the worst nuclear crisis since Chernobyl in 1986, with the government urging TEPCO to act faster to stop radiation spreading.
But it could take months to stem the leaks, warned one official, and even longer to regain control of the power station, damaged by a March 11 earthquake and tsunami.

"We need to stop the spread of (contaminated water) into the ocean as soon as possible. With that strong determination, we are asking Tokyo Electric Power Co to act quickly," said Edano.
"If the current situation continues for a long time, accumulating more radioactive substances, it will have a huge impact on the ocean."


In the face of Japan's biggest crisis since World War Two, one newspaper poll said nearly two-thirds of voters wanted the government to form a coalition with the major opposition party and work together to recover from the natural disaster.

Underlining the concern over the impact on the world's third largest economy, a central bank survey showed big manufacturers expected business conditions to worsen significantly in the next three months, although they were not quite as pessimistic as some analysts had expected.

International Monitors Slam Kazakh Vote

International monitors sharply criticized Kazakhstan's presidential election Monday, citing numerous cases of ballot box-stuffing and bemoaning a lack of transparency.

  

A Kazakh woman leaves a voting booth during the Kazakh presidential election at a polling station in Almaty, Kazakhstan, Sunday, April 3, 2011. Voters in Kazakhstan cast their ballots Sunday in a election that is expected to overwhelmingly renew long-serving President Nursultan Nazarbayev's grip on power. (AP Photo/Nikita Bassov)

Condemnation of Sunday's election, which saw incumbent President Nursultan Nazarbayev winning an overwhelming 95 percent of the vote, will leave Kazakh authorities' claims of growing democratization in tatters.

Nazarbayev's crushing win was expected, but an astonishingly high 90 percent turnout figure surprised observers.

The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe's election monitoring arm said the Central Asian nation had failed to improve significantly on previous elections, which were deemed not "free and fair."
"This election has showed that the country still needs to make improvements to meet democratic commitments, particularly in the fields of freedom of assembly and media," said head OSCE mission observer Tonino Picula.
The 70-year-old Nazarbayev has led Kazakhstan virtually unchallenged since the 1980s, when it still formed part of the Soviet Union.

The OSCE said in a statement that violations included seemingly identical signatures on voter lists and numerous cases of ballot box-stuffing. The vote count also lacked transparency and correct procedures were often disregarded, the statement said.

Numerous reports have surfaced about authorities' efforts to ensure as high a turnout as possible, in an apparent effort to boost the legitimacy of Nazarbayev's mandate.
"Many local authorities intervened in the election process in order to increase turnout," the OSCE said in its report. 

Relentless state propaganda and rising income levels have assured Nazarbayev a genuinely high degree of popularity over the years. Western nations have had to balance their palpable distaste for the country's slow pace of democratization with their desire to benefit from its burgeoning energy boom.

A maintenance worker at Japan's Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant explains what happened when the earthquake and tsunami hit north-eastern Japan.

 

A maintenance worker at Japan's Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant tells the BBC what happened when the earthquake and tsunami hit north-eastern Japan on 11 March. He asked the BBC not to use his name.

When the massive earthquake occurred it was a little before three o'clock in the afternoon.
The 31-year-old, who runs a turbine maintenance company subcontracted to work at the plant, was doing a regular check-up of the turbine in the No 5 reactor when the quake hit.
"Heavy machinery, cranes were shaking above our heads. After about three minutes all the electricity went out," he told the BBC World Service.
"The shaking went on for about five minutes, and it was very strong.
"I shouted out my colleagues' names and used a torch to try and check that everyone was okay."

“It's nobody's fault, it's not Tepco's fault. They are doing their best to minimize the damage”

The earth started shaking again and they all ran outside.

When it was confirmed that everyone was safe, workers were given permission to go back home to their families.
He got in his car and drove away as quickly as he could.
"I knew there was a tsunami coming," he said. "I saw the warning on the TV in my car, about 20 minutes after the first quake."
However, he said, the scale of it was totally unexpected.
"Although the shaking was very strong, I did not predict the scale of the tsunami, I didn't imagine the power station would be damaged in the way it was."

Radiation
The man says workers were well aware that the plant, commissioned in the 1970s, was relatively old.
"But even knowing that I did not think the plant would fall into a situation like this.

 

There is currently a 20km mandatory evacuation zone around the plant.

 

"If it was only the quake, I think the situation would not so bad. But because of the tsunami, things like the emergency switches were destroyed."Once he realised that the nuclear plant had been damaged, the worker says his first priority was to warn his family and friends.

"I knew that radiation affected people's health badly, and as soon as I knew that the radiation was leaking, I told my family and friends to escape immediately, as far away as possible," he said.

But, he said, he would go back to work at the plant if he could."If it was possible, I would go back and work there. But we cannot do anything. The people working at the site now are expert workers from Tokyo Electric Power (Tepco)," he said.

"We want to go back and help the people working to manage the situation, to stop it getting worse. We cannot go back no matter how much we want to. It's frustrating, but we just cannot help them."

He says he is aware there are health risks for those working inside the plant.

 

Only Tepco workers have been allowed to work at the plant since the earthquake"The situation is changing day by day. If they asked me to go back now, I realise there is a degree of risk."The worker says although he is prepared to go back inside the plant, he would not let his employees work there. 

 

"I am a boss of a company, and I cannot send in my workers knowing that the site is highly polluted."
Despite the disaster unfolding at the plant, he says he doesn't blame Tepco, the company that runs it.
"Although the situation is not good, they are working really hard to minimise the damage. It's nobody's fault, it's not Tepco's fault. They are doing their best to minimise the damage."

Although he is currently staying with friends in Chiba prefecture, well beyond the current 20km exclusion zone, his house is only 3km from the reactor.

He says he wants to go back home.
"If possible I want to go back. There are a lot of memories there. I guess it's a common feeling for all people, to feel sad when you cannot go back to the home where you grew up.
"I think if this disaster happened in another country, people would feel the same as we do."

Into French military camp some Foreigners sought refuged in Ivory Coast .

SOME 500 foreigners sought refuge in a French military camp in Ivory Coast's main city Abidjan amid fighting between incumbent Laurent Gbagbo and his rival for the presidency, the French military said today.


Yesterday "some 150 French nationals and 350 other (non-Ivorian) foreigners were admitted to the camp in Port-Bouet" in the south of Abidjan, French military spokesman Thierry Burkhard told AFP in Paris.

"Some of them arrived by their own means and others were accompanied" by French forces who have been patrolling parts of the capital to protect French citizens since the forces of internationally-recognised president Alassane Ouattara advanced on Gbagbo's stronghold yesterday.

A French diplomatic source in Paris told AFP separately that many of those who flocked to the camp were Lebanese nationals.
In Abidjan, gunfire erupted around the home of Gbagbo and the presidential palace today.

"The shooting doesn't stop. Gbagbo's men are resisting in all their positions," a resident of the northern suburb of Cocody, where Gbagbo lives, said.

"We are hearing deafening artillery shots, RPG7 (rockets) and machine guns."

Intense fighting between soldiers loyal to the outgoing president and the army of Ouattara started last night within the perimeter of Gbagbo's residence.It was impossible to confirm if Gbagbo was still in his home.
Pro-Ouattara fighters entered Abidjan, the country's economic capital, yesterday after sweeping through towns across the country in an all-out offensive against Gbagbo's regime.

They seized the airport and the state television last night.Fighting continued today in the administrative district of Plateau, home to the presidential palace, where the roar of heavy artillery shelling pierced the air.
Incumbent Gbagbo, clinging onto the presidency despite losing elections in November to Ouattara, failed to respond to a deadline set by his rival to step down yesterday and now faces being ousted by force.

The bloody post-election dispute has plunged the world's top cocoa producer into political and economic crisis, with nearly 500 killed and up to a million having fled their homes as rival forces clash.