Month: January 2023

After treatment the levels of most radioactive particles meet the national standard, the operator said.

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) says the proposal is safe, but neighbouring countries have voiced concern.

The 2011 Fukushima disaster was the worst nuclear accident since Chernobyl.

Decommissioning has already started but could take four decades.

“We expect the timing of the release would be sometime during this spring or summer,” said chief cabinet secretary Hirokazu Matsuno on Friday, adding that the government will wait for a “comprehensive report” from IAEA before the release.

Every day, the plant produces 100 cubic metres of contaminated water, which is a mixture of groundwater, seawater and water used to keep the reactors cool. It is then filtered and stored in tanks.

With more than 1.3 million cubic metres on site, space is running out.

The water is filtered for most radioactive isotopes, but the level of tritium is above the national standard, operator Tepco said. Experts say tritium is very difficult to remove from water and is only harmful to humans in large doses.

However, neighbouring countries and local fishermen oppose the proposal, which was approved by the Japanese government in 2021.

The Pacific Islands Forum has criticised Japan for the lack of transparency.

“Pacific peoples are coastal peoples, and the ocean continues to be an integral part of their subsistence living,” Forum Secretary General Henry Puna told news website Stuff.

“Japan is breaking the commitment that their leaders have arrived at when we held our high level summit in 2021.

“It was agreed that we would have access to all independent scientific and verifiable scientific evidence before this discharge takes place. Unfortunately, Japan has not been co-operating.”

North-eastern Japan was rocked by a magnitude 9.0 earthquake on 11 March 2011, which then triggered a giant tsunami.

The waves hit the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant, flooding three reactors and sparking a major disaster.

Authorities set up an exclusion zone which grew larger and larger as radiation leaked from the plant, forcing more than 150,000 people to evacuate from the area. The zone remains in place.

Images broadcast by local media showed flames illuminating the night sky, but officials say there have been no injuries caused by the explosion.

Latvia’s Defence Minster Artis Pabriks wrote on Twitter that the cause of the incident would be investigated and said sabotage could not be ruled out.

But the pipeline’s operator said it did not believe the blast was suspicious.

“According to the initial assessment, we do not see any malign cause, but the investigation will cover all possible options,” Amber Grid chief executive Nemunas Biknius told reporters. “We do not see the signs of any potential impact from outside.”

Mr Biknius said the pipeline – which was built in 1978 – had undergone some recent maintenance work, and that officials would try to establish whether that had contributed to the blast.

“All reasons will be investigated and clarified in the coming days,” Mr Biknius said.

He added that the gas supply to the pipeline had been cut off and that the fire had subsided after four hours and that authorities and specialists investigating the incident have had no information about any intentional damage to the pipeline.

The pipeline consists of two parallel systems, and Amber Grid said the explosion occurred in one of them. The other was undamaged. Amber Grid added that the blast had taken place “away from any residential buildings”.

The mayor of Pasvalys district, Gintautas Geguzinskas, told LRT that he didn’t have any concrete information on the cause of the blast, but said that local residents had told him “they saw some work being done near the pipeline where the explosion happened”.

In footage obtained by the LRT news outlet, flames could be seen rising some 50 metres (160 feet) into the air. The blast was also reportedly visible from up to 17 km (11 miles) away.

Meanwhile, the BNS news agency reported that officials had decided to evacuate the nearby village of Valakelie. The town has a population of around 700 people.

Firefighters extinguished the flames around 21:00 local time (19:00 GMT).

The pipeline is used by Amber Grid – Lithuania’s national gas company – to transfer gas into the north of the country and to supply neighbouring Latvia.

Consumers in the area are being supplied by an alternate pipeline.

Turkey still needs to approve Sweden’s application – and has made that conditional on Stockholm cracking down on groups that Turkey describes as terrorists, including those it blamed for the effigy.

A Swedish minister branded the stunt as “deplorable”, but Turkey said the condemnation was not enough.

Images of the hanged effigy of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan near Stockholm City Hall were published on Wednesday by a pro-Kurdish group called the Swedish Solidarity Committee for Rojava.

The group implied it wanted to evoke the hanging of Italy’s wartime fascist dictator, Benito Mussolini. It urged Mr Erdogan to “take the chance to step down now, so you don’t end up upside-down in Taksim Square”.

Turkey’s Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu blamed the stunt on the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) and the Syrian Kurdish YPG militia – both of which Ankara calls terror groups.

Sweden has vowed to distance itself from both groups in order to gain Turkish support for its Nato bid, which has faced months of delays.

Turkey has said Sweden’s new centre-right coalition government, which is backed by a far-right party, has been “more determined” and easier to work with than the previous one, but the protest has triggered fury.

Mr Cavusoglu told state media that Sweden had a choice: either “turn a blind eye to this and bow down to it” or keep its promises to take action against “terror groups”.

Turkey has summoned the Swedish ambassador over the incident and cancelled a visit to Ankara by Sweden’s parliamentary Speaker.

And prosecutors in the Turkish capital have launched an investigation, according to Anadolu news agency.

Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson said the protest was an act of sabotage against his country’s Nato application, and dangerous for Sweden’s national security.

He told TV4 it was “extremely serious” to put up “a kind of mock execution of a foreign democratically elected leader” in a country like Sweden, which has a history of high-profile political murders.

But a member of the pro-Kurdish group behind the stunt told Swedish newspaper Dagens Nyheter that the activists were trying to stand up for Swedish democracy – which was being “sabotaged” by Mr Kristersson.

The member of the group added that Turkey had not reacted in a way a democratic country should.

It is the first time that Mr Bolsonaro has been named among those potentially responsible for the 8 January riots.

It comes days after Mr Bolsonaro posted a video questioning the legitimacy of October’s presidential election.

Prosecutors said Mr Bolsonaro may have incited a crime by making such claims.

They asked the Supreme Court on Friday to include the ex-president in the investigation.

The Bolsonaro video claimed that President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva was not voted into office but rather chosen by the Supreme Court and Brazil’s electoral authority.

By questioning the vote “Bolsonaro would have publicly incited the commission of a crime”, the office of the prosecutor general (PGR) said in a statement.

While the video was posted after Sunday’s riot and later deleted, the prosecutor general’s office argued its content was sufficient to justify investigating Mr Bolsonaro’s conduct beforehand.

Supreme Court Judge Alexandre de Moraes announced Mr Bolsonaro would be included in the probe into what the PGR said was the “instigation and intellectual authorship” of the rioting.

“Public figures who continue to cowardly conspire against democracy trying to establish a state of exception will be held accountable,” said Justice de Moraes.

Thousands of radical Bolsonaro supporters, who continue to claim that the election was rigged, stormed the country’s Supreme Court, Congress and presidential palace on Sunday.

They had been camping in and around the capital Brasilia for weeks calling for a military coup.

Meanwhile, Mr Bolsonaro has been admitted to a hospital in Florida with abdominal pain, his wife said.

He left Brazil for the United States in late December, after refusing to take part in the handover of power to Lula.

Many businessmen and officials are being investigated, including Brasilia’s former head of security, Anderson Torres, who flew to the US ahead of the riots.

On Thursday, police visited his home and found a document reportedly trying to reverse the election result.

Mr Torres argues the document has been taken out of context, but Justice Minister Flavio Dino has said he must turn himself in by Monday or face extradition.

Earlier, Lula accused Mr Bolsonaro’s allies of aiding an attack on the presidential palace on Sunday.

More than 1,200 people have been formally arrested and are being charged in relation to the riot at Brazil’s Congress.

Arrest warrants have already been issued for several top officials accused of being “responsible for acts and omissions” that led to the riots.

The Environment Agency has issued 80 flood warnings – mainly in west and southwest England – and 155 flood alerts.

An alert for severe cold weather has also been issued for England from Sunday evening as temperatures drop.

Yellow Met Office rain warnings are also already in place across most of western England and Wales.

The latest warnings follow flooding across the UK earlier this week, which caused travel disruption and hundreds of homes losing power.

The Met Office has also issued a level two cold weather alert for much of England from Sunday evening until Thursday morning, ahead of colder conditions moving in across the UK.

“This weather could increase the health risks to vulnerable patients and disrupt the delivery of services,” it said, saying there was a 70% chance of severely cold weather, icy conditions and heavy snow.

The Met Office’s Helen Caughey said: “After a spell of wet and mild weather to start 2023, a brief cold spell will change the feel of our weather across the UK for a few days next week.”

She said it will “certainly feel cold in all regions too, with the northerly winds creating a notable wind chill” – although the colder spell is expected to be short-lived.

The flood warnings – meaning flooding is expected – include those for groundwater flooding, as well as for areas close to rivers such as the Avon, Severn and Wye. In the West Midlands, which has already been hit by flooding, people are braced for peak river levels at the weekend.

Some flood warnings and alerts are also in place further north, including in Keswick in the Lake District, Yorkshire, as well as in Wales.

Devon has been one of the areas already hit by flooding, including near Tiverton, where several roads were flooded after the River Exe burst its banks. Some properties were left cut off.

Darren Ninnis, manager of the Anchor Inn in Exebridge, was stuck as water rose inside and outside his pub on Thursday.

“[It’s] loss of business, as always, and just more work and hassle. With more rain forecast, we’re just worried next week we’ll do the same again,” Mr Ninnis told the BBC.

Flooding also caused a partial closure on the railway line between Totnes and Plymouth – although services were reportedly “returning to normal” on Friday afternoon – while near Withypool in Somerset a section of an ancient footbridge over the River Barle washed away after heavy rain.

The bad weather has also caused travel disruption across much of Wales, with people having to be rescued from cars trapped in water and homes damaged and left without power.

A golf driving range near Cowbridge, west of Cardiff, flooded after the River Ely burst its banks.

“If we had more rain yesterday lunchtime I think we’d have been underwater,” manager and pro golfer Aled Griffiths told BBC Radio Wales.

Natural Resources Wales has issued a flood warning near the River Wye at Monmouth, where a Met Office yellow rain warning is in place across much of Wales until Saturday.

There are also two flood warnings in place in Scotland for Callander to Stirling.

Meanwhile, the Met Office has issued a yellow rain and wind warning for Northern Ireland on Saturday and Sunday.

And a yellow weather warning for rain also covers part of the south-west of England and north-west England until 12:00 on Saturday.

The report instead held local municipal and emergency service officials responsible for weak planning and a poor emergency response.

Bereaved father Lee Jung-min told the BBC the report was “cutting off the lizard’s tail to spare the head”.

The deadly crush killed 159 mostly young people who were out partying.

They had flocked to Seoul’s Itaewon district, a popular nightlife district with narrow streets and alleys lined with bars and restaurants, to celebrate Halloween. Some accounts say more than 100,000 were in the area that evening.

Six people, including the former police chief of the local Yongsan district and the district’s mayor, have been arrested on negligence charges.

Investigating officers have also recommended 17 others be prosecuted, including Seoul’s chief of police.

Son Je-hwan, director of a special police division formed to investigate the tragedy, said it was “difficult” to say that city officials, the national police and the interior ministry, which oversees South Korea’s police, had violated their duties.

Families of victims and the South Korean public had wanted higher-level officials to be held accountable. In December, South Korea’s parliament passed a motion calling for the dismissal of interior minister Lee Sang-min.

Mr Lee, whose 28-year-old daughter Lee Joo-young died in the crush, told the BBC he wanted the “officials in command” to take responsibility.

“This means the interior minister, the national police chief, even the prime minister – they should all take responsibility,” he said.

His daughter was in Itaewon with her fiancé, who passed out but survived, and the couple had been due to marry this year.

“I am determined to get an apology from those in power, so my daughter can close her eyes in peace. I’ve told her, Dad will do his best,” Mr Lee said.

But Mr Son said local government, police, fire department and metro officials were among those who had a “legal responsibility to prevent and respond to disasters”.

No preventive measures were taken in advance, and appropriate measures were not taken after emergency calls for help were received, the inspector said.

Incorrect assessments of the situation led to a delay in relaying information and lack of cooperation among organisations, he added.

“These multiple overlapping failures lead to vast number of human casualties,” he said.

The special investigation unit investigated 548 people and analysed 180 videos from CCTV footage, social media and press materials.

The first call to the police came at 18:34 local time – hours before the deadly crush took place – and there were at least 10 more emergency calls from the area over the next three-and-a-half hours.

Records show that the police only mobilised officers for four of of these 11 calls alerting them to dangerous levels of overcrowding.

Mr Biden acknowledged on Thursday that sensitive material was found in the garage of his house in Delaware.

The White House deflected when asked if the visitor logs would be provided.

The justice department has appointed an investigator to look into the files.

News that sensitive documents dating from Mr Biden’s time as vice-president had been found in a private office at the Penn Biden Center, a think tank in Washington, emerged earlier this week, followed by a disclosure that a second cache was discovered at Mr Biden’s home.

The first batch was found on 2 November, just before the US midterm elections, but only became public on Monday.

Mr Biden kept an office at the think tank after he left the White House in 2017 until he launched his presidential campaign in 2019.

On Thursday, US Attorney General Merrick Garland revealed in a news conference that the second cache had been found on 20 December at Mr Biden’s private home in Wilmington, Delaware.

He added that Mr Biden’s lawyers had called investigators on Thursday morning to notify them of an additional document, also found at the same residence.

Citing the “extraordinary circumstances”, the attorney general appointed Robert Hur, a former senior justice department official during the Trump presidency, to lead an investigation in the Biden files.

Kevin McCarthy, the newly elected Republican Speaker of the House, questioned the timing of the first disclosure and accused Mr Biden of knowingly mishandling the sensitive papers.

“He knowingly knew [sic] this happened going into [the] election, going into interviews. This is what makes America not trust their government,” Mr McCarthy said on Thursday.

Other Republicans on Thursday demanded the president release a log of all the people who had visited Mr Biden’s Delaware home.

James Comer, a Kentucky congressman and chairman of the House Oversight Committee, told Fox News: “We need to know who all has had access to the president.”

Colorado Republican Ken Buck wrote a letter to the White House calling on Mr Biden to “release all visitor logs”.

Elise Stefanik, the number three House Republican and a New York congresswoman, said that the visitor logs were “a clear matter of national security”.

Mr Biden’s predecessor, Donald Trump, is also under investigation by the justice department after more than 300 classified files – including some marked with Secret and Top Secret designations – were discovered by FBI agents executing a search warrant last year at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida.

Speaking to reporters on Thursday, Mr Biden again said that his lawyers had notified officials of the discovery and that he took the matter seriously.

The president – who previously described Mr Trump’s alleged mishandling of classified material as “totally irresponsible” – added that the documents were found locked in a garage next to his 1960s Chevrolet Corvette sports car, “not sitting out in the street”.

Lawyers also searched Mr Biden’s home in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, but said they found no additional files.

An attorney for the president, Richard Sauber, said they were co-operating closely with the justice department.

He predicted the investigation would show “these documents were inadvertently misplaced, and the president and his lawyers acted promptly upon discovery of this mistake”.

Asked whether the Delaware visitor logs would ever be released, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre countered that the Biden administration had restored public disclosure on White House visitor logs that had been restricted under Mr Trump.

In 2017, the Trump administration also refused to reveal the names of most of the visitors to Mr Trump’s Mar-a-Lago golf club in Palm Beach during his presidency.

On Thursday, Mr Trump posted on his Truth Social platform that the attorney general should “immediately” end the investigation he faces over the Mar-a-Lago cache, claiming the special counsel “hates” him.

According to a CNN analysis in October, Mr Biden had spent more than a quarter of his presidency working from his houses in Wilmington or Rehoboth Beach.