TEPCO: Fukushima meltdown announcement made months late
Updated 0839 GMT (1639 HKT) February 25, 2016
The reactor meltdown at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant hit by a devastating tsunami in 2011 should have been announced much sooner, the operator admitted this week.
In a statement, the Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) said that a public declaration of the meltdown should have been done within days of the disaster.
It did not reveal that a meltdown was taking place for almost two months.
More than 160,000 people were evacuated from the area near the Fukushima meltdown, the worst nuclear accident since the 1986 Chernobyl disaster.
Regulations ignored
The company said internal regulations that a meltdown should be declared if damage to the reactor core exceeded 5% were not followed.
How the changing media is changing terrorism
Just like news organisations, terrorists need an audience – and both have adapted their tactics to keep your attention
by Jason Burke
Thursday 25 February 2016 06.00 GMT
Mohamed Merah, a 23-year-old petty criminal, spent much of the last 36 hours of his life crouched over a laptop in his small apartment in the south‑western French city of Toulouse. It was March 2012. Outside, armed police and journalists gathered. Merah reheated frozen food in a microwave and checked his weapons. He spoke with negotiators and described how he had travelled to Pakistan a few months earlier to receive some desultory training from a faction linked to al-Qaida. He also explained, incoherently, why he had killed seven people over the previous two weeks in a series of shootings. But most of the time, Merah worked on his computer.
Just a few hours before he was killed by armed police after a sustained firefight, Merah finished editing a 24-minute video clip. It was a compilation of images from the GoPro camera that he had attached to his body armour before each of his killings. GoPro primarily caters to practitioners of extreme sports who wish to obtain point-of-view footage of their adrenalin-charged exploits.
South Korea's struggle with cultural diversity
Many in South Korea have complained about what they perceive as growing intolerance against foreigners, pointing to Korean-only bars. DW takes a look at the reasons behind this development.
"When I asked in Korean, not in English, whether I could get in if I spoke the language, I was told I still wasn't allowed." These are the words of 24-year-old Megan Stuckey talking to The Korea Herald about her recent experience of being denied entry into a bar in Hongdae, a popular multicultural area in the country's capital Seoul.
Stuckey told the English language newspaper that she wasn't allowed in because she was a foreigner. In fact, a sign at the entrance read: "Only Koreans are allowed in because our employees cannot communicate in English."
Cases like these are, however, not uncommon in South Korea.
In 2014, African expatriates in South Korea were denied entry into a pub in Itaewon, an area in Seoul popular amongst young people. A sign outside the establishment at the time read: "We apologize but due to the Ebola virus, we are not accepting Africans at the moment."
Indian armed forces to open all combat roles to women
Indian President says women will be allowed to occupy combat roles in all sections of the army, navy and air force.
India has announced that women will be allowed to occupy combat roles in all sections of its army, navy and air force, indicating a radical move to gender parity in one of the world's most-male dominated professions.
Indian President Pranab Mukherjee announced the move on Tuesday while addressing both houses of the parliament before the budget session, saying that the government would in the future recruit women for fighting roles in India's armed forces.
India, which has one of the largest armies in the world, has previously resisted such a move, citing concerns over women's vulnerability if captured and over their physical and mental ability to cope with the stress of frontline deployments.
Why did the arbitration court reject transparent booths in FIFA election?
Prince Ali of Jordan had asked for transparent booths to be used in the Friday election, in a bid to ensure that the elections were free and fair.
The International Federation of Association Football (FIFA) presidential election is expected to proceed as scheduled on Friday – and without transparent voting booths.
The Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) rejected the request of Prince Ali of Jordan asking the court to ensure that FIFA used transparent voting booths, his campaign team says.
Prince Ali, one of five candidates bidding to succeed outgoing FIFA President Sepp Blatter, is seeking reassurances over the voting procedure for the election and had called for a postponement if his concerns were not answered. He had asked for the use of transparent booths to ensure delegates don’t photograph their ballot papers when they choose the next president, claiming that the delegates could be put under pressure to produce evidence of their vote to interested parties.
South China Sea face off: The mystery of Woody Island
A single report that the PRC had deployed surface-to-air missiles in the South China Sea created quite the media firestorm. What if I told you, as the Internet meme goes, it was just a case of Same Old Same Old?
Fox News got the ball rolling with an Exclusive! on February 16, declaring on the basis of commercial satellite imagery provided to Fox China sends surface-to-air missiles to contested island in provocative move.
What you see from the commercial imagery is fuzzy boxes. The official confirmation:
A US official confirmed the accuracy of the photos. The official said the imagery viewed appears to show the HQ-9 air defense system, which closely resembles Russia’s S-300 missile system.
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