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| Obama says Gaddafi squeezed, Libyan rebels want more Posted: 11 Mar 2011 06:49 PM PST  Anti-Gaddafi rebels prepare their surface-to-air (SAM)-7 rocket launcher in case of air strikes as pro-Gaddafi forces took over the city of Ras Lanuf on March 11, 2011. — Reuters pic European Union leaders meeting in Brussels yesterday said they would consider all options to force leader Gaddafi to step down but stopped short of endorsing air strikes, a no-fly zone or other military-backed means. Obama, accused by critics of reacting too slowly, said he believed international sanctions, an arms embargo and other measures already in place were having an impact. "Across the board we are slowly tightening the noose on Gaddafi. He is more and more isolated internationally," Obama said. "I have not taken any options off the table." But Gaddafi's forces, with air supremacy and a big advantage in tanks, appeared to be maintaining the momentum on the ground. The sound of explosions and small arms fire came from the oil port town of Ras Lanuf yesterday as government troops landed from the sea, backed by tanks and air power. Rebels had advanced until the town of Bin Jawad about 60km west of Ras Lanuf a week ago, but have been driven back across the strip of desert and scrub. Though out-gunned, they have kept up stiff resistance. "Ras Lanuf is a ghost town. There are skirmishes between rebels and Gaddafi forces going back and forth," said rebel captain Mustafa al-Agoury, adding that rebels were positioned on the east and Gaddafi's forces on the west of the town. Neither side had full control, although Libyan state television said the town was cleared of "armed gangs" opposed to Gaddafi and a spokesman for the rebel movement, Hamid al-Hasi, told Al Arabiya that Ras Lanuf was back in rebel hands. "TIME FOR ACTION" Gaddafi's warplanes are carrying out air strikes seemingly unhindered by insurgent anti-aircraft guns mounted on the back of pick-up trucks. Many rebels were angry at international inaction. "Where is the West? How are they helping? What are they doing," shouted one angry fighter. Gaddafi's son Saif al-Islam told the rebels they faced a full-scale assault to crush their uprising which began after Hosni Mubarak was overthrown in neighbouring Egypt a month ago. "It's time for action. We are moving now," he told Reuters in an interview on Thursday. In Tripoli, Libyan security forces used tear gas and fired in the air to disperse worshippers near a mosque before they could even attempt any protest, a Libyan said, citing witnesses. The revolt in Zawiyah, 50km west of Tripoli and held by rebels for days against fierce attacks, appeared to have been definitively crushed. Foreign journalists brought to the city centre by government forces yesterday saw buildings scorched and pockmarked by bullets, patches of fresh paint and loyalists chanting "I love Gaddafi." The facade of a hotel on the square that had been the rebel command centre was scorched and in ruins. Facades not covered by large cloths were pockmarked by bullets from days of battles around the open space the rebels called Martyrs' Square. The only town now holding out in western Libya is Misrata, about 200km east of Tripoli. It was calm yesterday, but rebels said they were expecting an attack to come soon. "HELP US" Libya's insurgent leader warned that any delay in imposing a no-fly zone could let Gaddafi regain control. "We ask the international community to shoulder their responsibilities," Mustafa Abdel-Jalil, head of the rebels' National Libyan Council, told the BBC. "The Libyans are being cleansed by Gaddafi's air force. We asked for a no-fly zone to be imposed from day one, we also want a sea embargo," he said. Some 15,000 worshippers gathered outside the courthouse that has become the headquarters of the National Libyan Council in the rebel stronghold of Benghazi. "Help us to become a democratic country," said one banner strung between lampposts and written in English and Arabic. The 27 EU leaders meeting in Brussels sidestepped a British and French initiative for a UN Security Council resolution that would authorise a no-fly zone. They also did not back French President Nicolas Sarkozy's call to follow his lead and recognise the National Libyan Council as the country's legitimate authority, or his call for "defensive" air strikes against Gaddafi's forces if they used chemical weapons or warplanes against civilians. Libya yesterday suspended diplomatic relations with France. German Defense Minister Thomas de Maiziere said flatly that the situation in Libya was "not the basis for any kind of military intervention by Nato." "The issue needs to be resolved in Libya and the region ... Military actions need to be thought out. We cannot get ourselves into something which we later are not convinced about and which cannot be pushed through," he told reporters in Brussels. — Reuters Full Feed Generated by Get Full RSS, sponsored by USA Best Price. |
| Japan may have hours to prevent nuclear meltdown Posted: 11 Mar 2011 05:43 PM PST  Fukushima nuclear reactor. — Reuters pic Tokyo Electric Power Co (TEPCO) is racing to cool down the reactor core after a highly unusual "station blackout" — the total loss of power necessary to keep water circulating through the plant to prevent overheating. Daiichi Units 1, 2 and 3 reactors shut down automatically at 2:46 p.m. local time due to the earthquake. But about an hour later, the on-site diesel back-up generators also shut, leaving the reactors without alternating current (AC) power. That caused Tepco to declare an emergency and the government to evacuate thousands of people from near the plant. Such a blackout is "one of the most serious conditions that can affect a nuclear plant," according to experts at the Union of Concerned Scientists, a US based nuclear watchdog group. "If all AC power is lost, the options to cool the core are limited," the group warned. TEPCO also said it has lost ability to control pressure at some of the reactors at its Daini plant nearby. The reactors at Fukushima can operate without AC power because they are steam-driven and therefore do not require electric pumps, but the reactors do require direct current (DC) power from batteries for its valves and controls to function. If battery power is depleted before AC power is restored, the plant would stop supplying water to the core and the cooling water level in the reactor core could drop. RADIATION RELEASE Officials are now considering releasing some radiation to relieve pressure in the containment at the Daiichi plant and are also considering releasing pressure at Daini, signs that difficulties are mounting. Such a release has only occurred once in US history, at Three Mile Island. "(It's) a sign that the Japanese are pulling out all the stops they can to prevent this accident from developing into a core melt and also prevent it from causing a breach of the containment (system) from the pressure that is building up inside the core because of excess heat," said Mark Hibbs, a nuclear expert at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. While the restoration of power through additional generators should allow TEPCO to bring the situation back under control, left unchecked the coolant could boil off within hours. That would cause the core to overheat and damage the fuel, according to nuclear experts familiar with the Three Mile Island accident in Pennsylvania in 1979. It could take hours more for the metal surrounding the ceramic uranium fuel pellets in the fuel rods to melt, which is what happened at Three Mile Island. That accident essentially frozen the nuclear industry for three decades. Seven years later the industry suffered another blow after the Chernobyl plant in Ukraine exploded due to an uncontrolled power surge that damaged the reactor core, releasing a radioactive cloud that blanketed Europe. The metal on the fuel rods would not melt until temperatures far exceed 1,000 degrees F. The ceramic uranium pellets would not melt until temperatures reached about 2,000 degrees F, nuclear experts said. If it occurred, that would ultimately cause a meltdown, with the core becoming a molten mass that would melt through the steel reactor vessel, releasing a large amount of radioactivity into the containment building that surrounds the vessel, the Union of Concerned Scientists said. The main purpose of the building — an air tight steel or reinforced concrete structure with walls between four to eight feet thick — is to keep radioactivity from being released into the environment. While there has not been any indication of damage that would undermine the building's ability to contain the pressure and allow radioactivity to leak out, there is a danger that if pressure builds too much then the walls could be breached. — Reuters Full Feed Generated by Get Full RSS, sponsored by USA Best Price. |
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