DUBAI (AFP) ― Gripped by fears of contagion and desperate to maintain the fragile status quo in the region, Arab regimes are choosing to remain silent as deaths mount in a Syrian crackdown on protesters. Analysts say Arab leaders, wary of the uprisings which toppled the veteran rulers of Tunisia and Egypt, are adopting a “better the devil you know” attitude and hope President Bashar al-Assad’s reg

 

 

KARACHI (AFP) ― At least 16 people were killed and more than 30 wounded in a blast at a gambling den in Pakistan’s southern port city of Karachi late Thursday, senior police and government officials said.The explosion ripped through the city’s biggest gambling complex, known as the Rummy Club, senior government official Sharfuddin Memon said.“It was a homemade bomb placed in a packet inside the cl

FUTABA, Japan (AP) ― Japan sealed off a wide area around a radiation-spewing nuclear power plant Friday to prevent tens of thousands of residents from sneaking back to the homes they quickly evacuated, some with little more than a credit card and the clothes on their backs.Fearing they might not see their homes again for months, evacuees raced into the deserted towns Thursday before the ban took e

 

KIEV (AP) ― The world must prepare for more nuclear accidents on the scale of Chernobyl and Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi plant, the U.N. chief warned, saying that grim reality will demand sharp improvements in international cooperation.U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and others portrayed the growth of nuclear power plants as inevitable in an energy-hungry world as they spoke at a Kiev conference W

BANGKOK (AP) ― Asian markets tumbled Tuesday, a day after Standard & Poor’s warned that it might lower its rating on U.S. government debt.The announcement raised concerns about the world’s No. 1 economy and expectations of cuts in government spending. Benchmark crude for May delivery dropped 42 cents to $106.70 a barrel. On Monday, the contract settled at $107.12 on the New York Mercantile Exchang

 

TEPCO to give money to residents unable to return to homes near nuclear plantTOKYO (AP) ― Japan’s government Friday ordered the operator of a tsunami-damaged nuclear plant leaking radiation to pay about $12,000 to each household forced to evacuate from the area.Tens of thousands of residents unable to return to their homes near the nuclear plant are bereft of their livelihoods and possessions, uns

 

 

TOKYO (AP) ― Japan’s nuclear regulators raised the severity level of the crisis at a stricken nuclear plant Tuesday to rank it on par with the 1986 Chernobyl disaster, citing the amount of radiation released in the accident.The regulators said the rating was being raised from 5 to 7 ― the highest level on an international scale overseen by the International Atomic Energy Agency. However, there was

KABUL (AFP) ― As a civil servant, Afghan Ahmad Mahfooz earns nearly 10 times the average annual salary in his impoverished homeland, but he still cannot afford to marry his fiancee.Already thousands of dollars in debt after hosting a lavish engagement party for 500 guests in December, Mahfooz says he doesn’t know how he will ever afford the kind of wedding his wife-to-be and her family expect.“I o

TOKYO (AP) ― Once Japan’s leaky nuclear complex stops spewing radiation and its reactors cool down, making the site safe and removing the ruined equipment is going to be a messy ordeal that could take decades and cost hundreds of millions of dollars.Radiation has covered the area around the Fukushima Daiichi plant and blanketed parts of the complex, making the job of “decommissioning” the plant ―

SENDAI, Japan (AFP) ― A powerful aftershock rocked Japan’s tsunami disaster zone, killing at least four and triggering new concerns over nuclear power plants in a region still grappling with an atomic emergency.Electricity was cut across a huge area of northern Japan, forcing cooling systems at three nuclear plants to switch to emergency power and plunging more than 3.3 million households into dar

TOKYO (AP) ― After notching a rare victory by stopping highly radioactive water from flowing into the Pacific, workers at Japan’s flooded nuclear power complex turned to their next task Thursday: injecting nitrogen to prevent more hydrogen explosions.Nuclear officials said Wednesday there was no immediate threat of explosions like the three that rocked the Fukushima Daiichi plant not long after a

TOKYO (AP) ― Workers stopped a highly radioactive leak into the Pacific from Japan’s flooded nuclear complex Wednesday, but with the plant far from stabilized, engineers prepared an injection of nitrogen to deter any new hydrogen explosions. Nitrogen can prevent highly combustible hydrogen from exploding ― as it did three times at the compound in the early days of the crisis, set in motion March 1