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2011-03-18
      
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Some of America's brightest students came to Washington for the 2011 Intel Science Talent Search, the nation’s oldest and most prestigious science competition.

The awards ceremony was the culmination of an intense week during which the 40 finalists were queried by judges and the public. They met with scientists, politicians and even President Barack Obama, who welcomed them to the White House.

These high achievers were whittled down from nearly 2,000 contestants nationwide, representing excellence across many disciplines.

"These students bring work that is ready for publication and in many cases has already been published in pretty much any branch of science that you can think of: physics, electrical engineering," says Wendy Hawkins, executive director of the Intel Foundation, which sponsored of the event. "And the projects are deep and rich and insightful."

Those projects contribute serious new scientific data and analysis.  Selena Li, a 17-year old first-generation Chinese-American from Sacramento, California, is working on a more effective treatment for liver cancer.

"It is a huge problem in Asia and Africa. The problems with liver cancer is the five year survival rate is 10 percent, whereas for other cancers it’s 80 percent or more," says Li. "There is a major lack of viable treatments for liver cancer so I really wanted to look into that field."

Li began that quest four years ago.  She found a mentor at the University of California who taught her how to design and execute experimental work in the laboratory.

"I researched a new approach to targeting liver cancer by basically starving the cancer cells to death, while leaving the normal cells unaffected," she says. "And to go one step further, I blocked a survival pathway to make the treatment more effective."

Li placed fifth in the Intel Science Talent Search, with a $30,000 award. She says the work was time-consuming, but she has no regrets.

"Despite the multiple times I’ve had to stay in the lab until twelve or come in before school to do my experiments, it was an incredibly rewarding experience. Despite all of the frustrations, I think that I’ve gotten a lot out of my research experience and I encourage other people to do this."

Scott Boisvert agrees. He’s from a suburb of Phoenix, Arizona.  At 14, he approached the University of Arizona to request time in their laboratory.  Over the course of four years he refined a project studying a fungus linked to the decline of amphibians across the globe.  

"It is actually the largest mass extinction since the dinosaurs," says Boisvert. "I was trying to see if different chemistry in the environment, different chemicals and substances in the water across Arizona, could potentially kill the fungus and stop its spread and infection of the amphibians."

Boisvert collected and tested the water samples.  "My results were able to identify a list of the chemicals that were significant in the growth and in the movement of the fungus."

According to Boisvert, his research has been accepted for publication in a professional science journal. He hopes his findings help guide habitat conservation managers around the world.  At the Intel Science Talent Search, the work earned him a 10th place finish and a $20,000 award.

"It’s been an incredible opportunity for me and really the capstone of all that I’ve been able to do in high school," Boisvert says.

He and Li both plan to be physicians and medical researchers. Their achievements are a reminder of what high school students can achieve.

"All of these students are scientists," says Hawkins, the talent search executive director. "They have those abilities, that knowledge and that approach to look at the world. These students go on and do wonderful things in ways both expected and unexpected."

Hawkins says the gifted students also serve as examples for others to follow, and represent the next generation of innovators who will shape America’s future.

2011-03-18
      
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Yemen’s president declared a state of emergency across the country today.  President Ali Abdullah Saleh made the announcement just hours after security forces fired on protesters in the capital city Sana'a.  At least 30 are dead and hundreds more injured.  Tom Finn is an editor at the Yemen Times newspaper in Sana'a. He was outside Sana'a University this morning when the violence began.

Hilleary: I understand you were in University Square in Sana'a this morning when the violence took place. Can you tell us what you saw?

Finn: I was at Sana'a university this morning where a huge prayer was being held. Thousands and thousands of protesters gathered at the gates to the university to mourn the deaths of seven protesters who were killed in violence last weekend. The protest started peacefully, but as soon as the prayers had finished, some anti-government protesters set fire to a car at the end of this mile-long stretch of road. The sight of this billowing smoke attracted the attention of all these protesters, who then began surging towards it.  

Now, eyewitnesses told me that Yemeni soldiers started opening fire on these protesters, who were trying to march out of the University area. They were then later joined by plain-clothes government supporters who also fired upon these protesters from the roofs of nearby houses.

So I then went to the nearby hospital, which is actually a mosque that has been turned into a hospital. And there were hundreds and hundreds of people being brought in. It was a chaotic scene. People had been shot in the chest, in the legs. I saw at least 20 people who had been shot dead, shot in the back of the head. They were lined out on the floor in the main prayer room of the mosque. People were being ferried off to the hospital in ambulances - generally, just a chaotic scene. The doctors were underequipped. They ran out of bandages at one point.

So, this is what would be seen as a seriously violent crackdown on these protesters, who’ve been gathering outside the University for a month now.

Hilleary: What does the nature of the wounds say about those who did it and their intentions?

Finn: An Indian doctor told me that whoever had been firing on these protesters was shooting to kill. They weren’t shooting to try and injure them or to disperse them. They were shooting in order to kill them. As I said, I saw three people who had gaping wounds in the back of their heads and who’d been shot in the back of their heads, which suggests that they may have been running away as they were fired upon.

Hilleary: Has the government issued any statement?

Finn: They are yet to issue any statement on what has happened. Whilst these anti-government protests were going on, there were also big pro-government rallies in the main square in Sana'a, so most of the estate media has until now been focused on these pro-government rallies, which also had huge numbers, maybe up to 100,000 people gathering to support the president.

      
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Ronnie Malley began his musical journey in a family band, and now is composing, performing and collaborating on world music full time. The Palestinian-American musician recently composed music for a performance of The Arabian Nights at Washington's Arena Stage.

Ronnie first started playing music as a child.  His father and brother were both musicians, and he says once he saw players in his native Chicago, he knew that was what he wanted to do. Ronnie started playing rock n’ roll, but then his father introduced him to Middle Eastern music.

“Then one day, he just said, he popped in this CD of Abdel Halim Hafez, a famous Egyptian guy, and it had guitar in it and whatnot,” said Malley.  “And he said ‘see this has guitar in it, maybe you should start playing some of this music.’ And so, it began.” 

Ronnie was disappointed to find that there was nowhere to learn the music he heard.  The family band played weddings, parties, festivals, and in clubs until he was in his early twenties.  During this time his father switched Ronnie from guitar to keyboards, but the young musician felt something was missing.

“But it was about the age of 16 that I felt that ‘there’s so much electronic stuff, I need something that’s very kindred to my soul, something that’s more authentic,’” he said.  “So I happened to see the oud and it was the most sensible choice. And that’s when I discovered Simon Shaheen from New York, and I thought ‘wow, this is the music I have been looking for, the real classical element of Middle Eastern music’ as opposed to the pop classical.”

Ronnie taught himself the oud, the 11-string fretless instrument from which the lute, the guitar and other instruments descended.  But he also had to get what his parents called “a real job” so he worked in business, in banking, and as a real estate appraiser.  But his love for music did not diminish and he played on weekends. 

Ronnie came to a crisis point shortly after the Gulf War started in 2003.  The musician said that even though he was born in the United States, he couldn’t support the war in Iraq, and so he moved to Paris.

“And I think it was the war in Iraq, funny enough, that kind of jolted me for a moment and made me think ‘why am I paying taxes, this much in taxes, right now to this country to be sending my money to war,” he said.  “I needed a change of perspective.  So I went over to France.  I decided to move to France for two years and just see what I could do with the arts.”

Ronnie put up a sign in a Paris music store and soon had 15 oud students.  He was also composing music for theater and films in France. He realized that if he could make a living as an artist in the French capital, he could do the same in the United States, so he moved back to Chicago.  Soon after his return, Ronnie got a call from the music director of play called Mirror of the Invisible World.

“And what he was looking for was on-stage musicians to play incidental music but with authenticity,” said the musician.  “So that particular show we experimented with all kinds of things, I brought a harmonium, there was a tabor daoul, oud of course, sitar, it was just an array of different instruments,” he added.  “And that was … I had been doing theater for a little bit but that was like the first really professional gig like that that I had gotten.”

The play’s director was Mary Zimmerman, a Tony Award winner who has also directed at the Metropolitan Opera and the Berkeley Repertory Theater.  Zimmerman brought her version of Arabian Nights to Washington’s Arena Stage recently in which Ronnie Malley played a poor man and a musician.

When he is not on stage, Ronnie teaches at the Old Town School of Folk Music in Chicago and performs with the Duzan Ensemble, his fusion band Lamajamal - a name derived from the Arabic word for ‘beauty’ - and with the punk circus marching band called Mucca Pazza.

Ronnie says that being born of a Palestinian family in the United States made maintaining his entire musical heritage difficult.  But he said the music

was what helped him to learn about his heritage, to learn Arabic and to retain his culture.

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Japan raised the severity of the Fukushima nuclear crisis from four to five on a
seven-point scale of international nuclear events.

Fears of radiation exposure has caused a run on salt products all across the region, including in China, where shoppers are buying sodium-rich soy sauce in the false-belief that it could protect them.

To understand the effects of radiation, and the protections against it, VOA's Kate Woodsome spoke with James Smith, of an adjunct professor of environmental health at Emory University's School of Public Health in Atlanta, Georgia.

How do potassium iodide tablets help protect against radiation exposure?

“The whole idea with potassium iodide is to provide non-radioactive, cold, stable iodine to the thyroid in the body. If the thyroid gland has been saturated with this cold, stable, harmless iodine, then if the body happens to take in by breathing or by eating or drinking any radioactive iodine, it won’t be taken up in the thyroid. It will be excreted. We know from past experiences like Chernobyl, the radiation exposure to the thyroid gland can lead to thyroid cancer. So we want to prevent exposure at all costs, first by making sure we are monitoring for radioactivity, particularly radioactive iodine in the food and the milk. That’s where most of the radioactive iodine intake is going to come from as opposed to breathing it in the air.”

The situation in Japan is causing anxiety throughout Asia and the world. It has caused a “run” on soy sauce in China, where some think the salt in soy sauce could protect them from exposure to radiation.

“It’s not something I would recommend that they do. Presumably, what people are looking for is the iodine that happens to be in the soy sauce because it contains high levels of salt. And salt in most countries has iodine. But, you know, you might have to consume an awful lot of that to get the amount of iodide that you need.”

What are the health consequences of a high exposure to radiation?

“When we start getting in to the acute levels of radiation exposure, perhaps 1,000 millisierverts is where that begins. These acute effects can lead to death. Actually, about 4,000 millisierverts would be about a 50 percent risk of death.”

Are the Japanese workers trying to put out the fires at the nuclear plants exposed to that high level of dose?

“There is no reason for them to be exposed to that high of a level. However, they could have hundreds of millisierverts that they are exposed to. For volunteer doses, that means in order to save the life of a comrade or colleague at a power plant in case of some accident, it would not be untoward to have that volunteer to be exposed to as much as 250 or 500 millisierverts.”

What are some of the symptoms of radiation poisoning?

“The acute radiation syndrome phase would begin with nausea, vomiting, diarrhea. And that could occur within hours, perhaps it might take days before that begins to occur. The greater the dose that the person is exposed to, the more likely those kinds of symptoms are going to appear earlier.”  

There are a lot of fears about radioactive plumes of smoke.  How far could that spread?

“It can spread very far. Normally here in the U.S., the Nuclear Regulatory Commission uses a 10 mile [16 km] protection zone to keep people out of that because of the concern that the plume can be so concentrated within 10 miles of a plant that the fallout from that could be harmful. The 50 mile [80 km] zone that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission recommends in some cases, like they are doing in Japan right now, is to make sure that people are not exposed to any high levels of radioactivity in a plume as well as not exposed to anything in the soil or  the food, the water, that could be contaminated. So the idea is outside that 50 mile protection zone, then you are safe to eat, and drink and be outdoors.”

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Widespread tsunami warnings were issued Friday, after an earthquake off the coast of Japan unleashed waves that posed threats throughout the Pacific.   One tsunami researcher said that while the tsunami warning system worked well, it remains difficult to make predictions about how damaging those waves might be.

A tsunami warning siren pierced the night in Hawaii and elsewhere in the Pacific Ocean Friday, after an 8.9 earthquake near the east coast of Honshu, Japan, generated tsunami waves, which move as fast as a jetliner.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Pacific Tsunami Warning Center issued a widespread warning from Japan to Peru.  

Laura Furgione is the deputy assistant administrator at NOAA National Weather Service. She said warnings can remain in effect well after tsunami waves first hit a coastline because surges, currents and waves can pose problems for up to 12 hours. Furgione said NOAA updates its warnings using information gathered by 32 deep-ocean buoys that gauge sea levels in the Pacific.    

"That information is put into our models, and we update the models and the advisories and warnings appropriately. So we were expecting some of the first waves into the Hawaiian islands around 8 a.m. and that's exactly what happened."  

Phil Liu, a professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Cornell University in New York, said the early warning system worked well because the predicted arrival times were accurate. Liu helped to develop the tsunami coastal warning system for countries surrounding the Pacific Ocean.

"I firmly believe that the most important thing in the early warning system is to estimate the arrival time accurately so you can warn people to get away from the coast."

Liu noted that while scientists were able to accurately predict the waves' arrival, it is difficult to predict the potential size or destructiveness of tsunami waves.

"Usually when a tsunami propagates into the ocean, the wave amplitude or the size of the wave is not all that big - a meter or two at most. However, when these waves propagate into shallow water, they tend to become bigger. Exactly how big these waves will become really depends on the local bathymetry, how water depths vary, and also the configuration or orientation of the shoreline also plays an important role in determining exactly how big the wave might end up," said Liu.

Researchers explain that that earthquake off the coast of Japan resulted from a thrust event between the Pacific tectonic plate and an extension of the North American tectonic plate.  
Senior science advisor for earthquakes and geologic hazards at the U.S. Geological Survey, Dave Applegate, said, "In the case of an undersea earthquake like this, you're transmitting energy not only through the crust, which is the strong shaking that is damaging to people and buildings, but you're also transmitting a lot of that energy into the water, and of course that represents the other part of this disaster which is the tsunami."

Applegate said aftershocks can continue for days, months and even years. Liu said while aftershocks usually do not spawn tsunamis, there are no guarantees.

And while Japan is one of the most seismically active places on Earth, Applegate said an earthquake of this magnitude is rare, even for the so-called "Ring of Fire."

"The only evidence we have is from monastic records going back to A.D. 869 - 1,200 years ago - of an earthquake of this magnitude rupturing along the plate boundary."

While experts have to delve into history to find an earthquake of this scope near Japan, lessons learned in recent history may have helped reduce the scale of this disaster. Tsunami researcher Liu said the public is more informed about the dangers of tsunamis, and warning systems were improved, after the devastating tsunami in the Indian Ocean in 2004.

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The killing of five Jewish settlers in the occupied West Bank is further complicating efforts to restart the Israeli-Palestinian peace process.

Prospects for restarting peace efforts were not good before the incident Friday, in which assailants broke into a Jewish family's home in the West Bank settlement of Itamar, killing the two parents and three children, including an infant.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas spoke on Israeli radio Monday, condemning the attack. He called the act inhuman, immoral, despicable, and uncivilized.

A day after the killings, the government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reacted by approving the construction of hundreds of new homes in major West Bank settlements.

Netanyahu visited the grieving family on Sunday, offering condolences - and a message of defiance. The Israeli leader's words were "they murder, we build."

Israeli and Palestinian authorities are searching for the attackers.  Members of the al-Aqsa Brigades, the largely defunct militant wing of Abbas' Fatah movement, were reported to have claimed responsibility, but officials did not take the claim seriously.

Shlomo Brom at the Institute for National Security Studies in Tel Aviv has participated in past negotiations. He says both Israelis and Palestinians are using the latest violence to push their agendas.

"If it is only an isolated case and it doesn't indicate that a new wave of terrorism is starting, and the impression now is that it is still an isolated case, I don’t think it has much to do with the peace process," said Brom. "It is used tactically by Netanyahu to justify his previous policies."  

Brom said Abbas' condemnation on Monday of the attack was aimed at convincing the Israelis that he and Palestinian Prime Minister Salaam Fayyad remain serious partners for peace.

"It suits perfectly Abbas and Fayyad's policies. They reached the conclusion that violence is not serving their goal of establishing a viable Palestinian state,"  said Brom.

Israel's construction of Jewish settlements in the West Bank is at the heart of the impasse that caused U.S.-brokered talks to stall last September.

Palestinian leaders have been urging the international community to put pressure on Israel to stop settlement building.

Expressions with the Word "Cold"       
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Now, the VOA Special English program WORDS AND THEIR STORIES.

Cold weather has a great effect on how our minds and our bodies work. Maybe that is why there are so many expressions that use the word cold.

For centuries, the body's blood has been linked closely with the emotions. People who show no human emotions or feelings, for example, are said to be cold-blooded.  Cold-blooded people act in cruel ways. They may do brutal things to others, and not by accident.

For example, a newspaper says the police are searching for a cold-blooded killer.  The killer murdered someone, not in self-defense, or because he was reacting to anger or fear.  He seemed to kill for no reason, and with no emotion, as if taking someone's life meant nothing.

Cold can affect other parts of the body.  The feet, for example.  Heavy socks can warm your feet, if your feet are really cold.  But there is an expression -- to get cold feet -- that has nothing to do with cold or your feet.

The expression means being afraid to do something you had decided to do. For example, you agree to be president of an organization.  But then you learn that all the other officers have resigned.  All the work of the organization will be your responsibility.  You are likely to get cold feet about being president when you understand the situation.

Cold can also affect your shoulder.

You give someone the cold shoulder when you refuse to speak to them. You treat them in a distant, cold way.  The expression probably comes from the physical act of turning your back toward someone, instead of speaking to him face-to-face.  You may give a cold shoulder to a friend who has not kept a promise he made to you.  Or, to someone who has lied about you to others.

A cold fish is not a fish.  It is a person.  But it is a person who is unfriendly, unemotional and shows no love or warmth.  A cold fish does not offer much of himself to anyone.

Someone who is a cold fish could be cold-hearted.  A cold-hearted person is someone who has no sympathy.  Several popular songs in recent years were about cold-hearted men or cold-hearted women who, without feeling, broke the hearts of their lovers.

Out in the cold is an expression often heard.  It means not getting something that everybody else got.  A person might say that everybody but him got a pay raise, that he was left out in the cold.  And it is not a pleasant place to be.

This VOA Special English program, WORDS AND THEIR STORIES, was written by  Marilyn Rice Christiano.  Maurice Joyce was the narrator.  I'm Shirley Griffith.

Sri Lankan Poet and Irish Violinist Marry Music, Lives

2011-03-16
      
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Colm O'Riain is an Irish violinist. Pireeni Sundaralingam is a Sri Lankan Tamil poet. They’re married and have created a unique music that sounds out their common experience of exile and immigration.

Perhaps the best way to introduce the marital and musical pairing of Colm O’Riain and Pireeni Sundaralingam is from the first time his Irish and her Sri Lankan parents met.

"We initially were rather concerned as how our parents would react, as we came from different religions, different backgrounds, two different parts of the planet," says Sundaralingam. "When they did meet, they found they had many stories in common, stories of colonialism, of resistance, also of poetry and literature and the music that springs out of that. My father said, 'I don’t know what you were so worried about. They’re just like our people.'"

The British declared the Island of Sri Lanka a Crown Colony in 1802, one year after they attached Ireland to the United Kingdom, and that Crown unity led to the suppression of the Gaelic language in Ireland.

"If caught speaking Irish, you could be sent to jail," says O'Riain. "If caught teaching it, you could be deported."

The Tamil language in Sri Lanka faced similar challenges.

"Tamil language could no longer be used in law courts and schools," says Sundaralingam.

From that common colonial experience grows a song and poem called "Celtic Raag," in Tamil, Gaelic and English.

"If I could choose the language in which I spoke to you,

I would chose the dark, red tongue of the Tamil Lands,

the yearning notes, the desert drone,

the heated hum of the monsoon rising.

If I could choose the language in which I spoke to you,

I would choose to speak in Gaelic,

the sliding scale, the sussuration of breath,

The sound of water beating between us."

"We both come from small islands surrounded by large oceans," says O'Riain.

"I’m sure that the sounds of both Gaelic and Tamil were influenced by the fact they evolved right there beside the ocean," says Sundaralingam.

The couple has performed at the English National Theatre in London and the UN Headquarters in New York as well as at arts and literary festivals around the world. They see a natural meshing of their two arts forms.

"Pireeni’s poetry is naturally lyrical, and the basis of all lyrical poetry is music," says O'Riain. "And I grew up in Ireland where there’s a very strong poetry movement."

"It was once said that every poet lives as an exile within his own language, and to write poetry that you have to look at the world sideways on, to feel slightly at odds with the world, to look at things with fresh eyes," says Sundaralingam.

The two have released a CD called “Bridge Across the Blue,” which brings together musicians and writers from different ethnic traditions to tell the immigrant stories of America.

Libyan Rebels Prepare to Defend Benghazi

2011-03-16
      
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Forces loyal to Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi are bombarding opposition-held areas in the west and east, as rebel forces regroup at the town of Ajdabiya on the road to their stronghold of Benghazi. Pro-Gadhafi forces have been bombarding the town and claimed to have seized it Tuesday after skirmishes with the mostly young and lightly-armed rebels.

Seif al Islam Gadhafi, son of the Libyan leader, declared that the battle will now move to the main rebel-held city of Benghazi, and that its fate will be decided in several days.

Libyan state TV told Benghazi residents that the army is coming to their defense, "to assure [their] security, to right injustices done to [them], to restore calm and to bring life back to normal."   

Opposition leaders in Benghazi say the city will be ready for an attack.

Gadhafi's message

In the Libyan capital Tripoli, pro-Gadhafi supporters chanted that the "people want Moammar the Colonel." Gadhafi addressed his supporters from a military base in Tripoli, claiming the rebels and foreign media are deforming reality in Libya.

Ghadhafi said he has faced a rebellion before, but that this time his opponents are using the media to give the world a false picture of what is happening. He claimed the media are announcing that there are demonstrations in Libya when there are none, and that his forces are firing on demonstrators, when they are not.

People in the opposition-held town of Misrata in western Libya say government tanks and artillery have been shelling the town, and there are casualties.

Criticism toward West

Meanwhile, Colonel Gadhafi also vowed to crush his opponents militarily, thumping his fists on the table. He blasted Western nations as well, warning that he would teach them the true meaning of freedom.

He said Western leaders are telling him to give up power, but that they are criminals and that they should resign. He said they should give freedom to their own peoples the way he has done in Libya.

Opposition leaders and pro-Gadhafi officials gave conflicting reports through the day of what was taking place. Former interior minister but now rebel leader Abdel Fattah Younes told Al Arabiya TV that his forces have "killed dozens of Gadhafi soldiers, taken dozens of others prisoner and watched as others fled."

On the other side, Seif al Islam Gadhafi told Euronews that it is the rebels who were "fleeing to the Egyptian border," but he said his forces would allow them to do so, and would not take revenge.

Diplomatic moves to deal with the Libyan situation remained stalled. A draft resolution calling for a no-fly zone along with new sanctions against the Gadhafi government continued to meet opposition in the U.N. Security Council from China and Russia.

World Leaders Offer Sympathy, Assistance to Quake-Ravaged Japan

2011-03-11
      
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Many world leaders are expressing shock and sympathy following the devastating earthquake and tsunami in Japan, and are offering to assist the country as it struggles to recover from the disaster.

U.S. President Barack Obama pledged assistance for what he called a potentially catastrophic disaster in Japan.

The president called Japan one of America’s strongest allies and said the U.S. is offering whatever assistance is needed. "We currently have an aircraft carrier in Japan and another is on its way. We also have a ship en route to the Marianas Islands to assist as needed. The Defense Department is working to account for all our military personnel in Japan."

U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said a preliminary assessment indicates that American troops, ships and military facilities were not seriously damaged by the quake or tsunami.  

Gates says the military, which has enormous assets in the Pacific, is ready to assist in rescue and recovery efforts. "It's obviously a very sophisticated country, but this is a huge disaster and we will do all, anything we are asked to do to help out."

The U.S. military newspaper Stars and Stripes  is reporting a carrier group led by the USS Ronald Reagan  was diverted to Japan as it sailed toward South Korea for military exercises.

British Prime Minister David Cameron, arriving in Brussels for a European summit, sent his sympathies and condolences to the Japanese people. "We have had a terrible reminder of the destructive power of nature and everyone should be thinking of that country and their people and I have asked immediately that our government should look at what we can do to help”"

Also in Brussels, Swedish Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt said his country stands ready to help the Japanese people. "I think it is the worst earthquake and tsunami that they have seen in Japan for 140 years and a lot of people are now killed, and there will be huge human effects to this. We should do anything in our power to listen in if we can support the Japanese people."

French President Nicolas Sarkozy also offered his country’s assistance, saying France is planning to send planes and other resources to assist in Japan.

Sarkozy told reporters the images of the disaster have stirred great emotions in France and said his government is prepared to send teams of aid workers to help in what he called a catastrophe that apparently is without precedent.

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said in televised remarks that high tsunami waves have reached his country’s territory and Moscow is ready to help Japan recover. He also said Russia is ready to help its neighbors cope with the aftermath of the earthquake and he has ordered the Russian emergencies minister to submit proposals for assistance.

The United Nations says it is ready to send expert teams to Japan to assist in search and rescue efforts.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon praised Japan as a nation known for helping other countries in need of emergency assistance. "Japan is one of the most generous and strongest benefactors, coming to the assistance of those in need the world over. In that spirit, the United Nations stands by the people of Japan and we will do anything and everything we can at this very difficult time."

Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jiabao also expressed deep sympathy for the Japanese people and officials from China’s Earthquake Administration told the Xinhua news agency that rescuers are prepared to travel to those areas affected by the quake.

New Fire in Japan's Troubled Nuclear Power Plant

2011-03-15
      
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A new fire has broken out in a troubled reactor of northeast Japan's quake-damaged Fukushima nuclear power plant.  

The plant's operator, Tokyo Electric Power Company, says the new fire started early Wednesday in the same reactor ((Number 4)) that had been on fire the day before.   Japanese television showed a huge cloud of white smoke rising from the stricken plant at mid-day Wednesday.

The government also reported damage to the protective container shielding another Fukushima reactor (Number 2). There have been explosions at two reactor locations inside the plant since the massive earthquake and tsunami damaged the facility on Friday.

Japan's government is trying to avert a major nuclear disaster from the crippled plant. About 200,000 of people have been evacuated from the area.

Authorities also are rushing doctors and emergency supplies to thousands of people left without food, water and shelter after the disaster.

Watch an explanation of the crisis at the Fukushima nuclear plant (via NHK)

Japan's NHK television on Tuesday quoted government officials as saying that 3,000 are confirmed dead, but more than 10,000 are missing and feared dead.

The scale of the triple disaster is enormous. U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs spokesperson Stephanie Bunker told VOA Tuesday she has not seen a disaster quite like this before.

Images from Japan

Television pictures from hard-hit Sendai show people lined up for water and canned food, and some stores rationing food sales to 10 items per person. In other areas, the 100,000 personnel deployed by the government are attempting to rescue survivors stranded by the flood waters and mountains of debris.

Rescue crews still are struggling through debris-blocked roads to get to hundreds of thousands of people whose towns and villages were leveled by Friday's magnitude 9.0 earthquake and subsequent tsunami.

The government says 15,000 people have been rescued and 450,000 have been evacuated nationwide.

Numerous Casualties After Yemeni Police Storm Anti-Government Sit-In

2011-03-12
      
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Government security forces stormed a protest camp in the Yemeni capital Sana'a early Saturday.  Protesters say at least one person was killed and at least 300 injured. At least two more people were reported killed during protests elsewhere in the capital and across Yemen on Saturday and dozens more were reported injured.

Anti-government protesters shouted, jeered and ran for cover after government security forces attacked their protest camp Saturday close to Sana'a University. The attack, which took place during dawn prayers, caught the mostly young protesters off-guard.

Eyewitnesses said that police used live ammunition to try and disperse the crowd, along with tear-gas and batons. The protesters threw rocks and bottles at police to try and stop their advance.

Arab satellite channels showed dozens of young anti-government protesters being carried away on stretchers, some with blood pouring from their faces. Others appear to have passed out and lay sprawled on the ground. Doctors also reported treating numerous victims of gas-inhalation.

Stephen Steinbeiser of the American Institute for Yemeni Studies in Sana'a says that the attack on the anti-government protesters is causing a backlash among the public and that activity appears to have ground to a halt in many places.

"Protests are growing and people are very angry about the raids on the anti-government protesters," he said. "People are very upset by that and it seems to have emboldened and galvanized a lot of the protesters themselves and there seems to be a gathering momentum on a more formal level."

"Public workers did not report to work today [Saturday], private sector workers a lot did not report to work either. The interruptions in Sana'a itself are getting a bit more intrusive. More roads are being blocked off and so it's actually getting a little bit difficult to get around in certain areas and no one is really quite sure what to expect," he added.

Steinbeiser adds that the government of long-time President Ali Abdullah Saleh appears to be in a difficult position now and that finding a quick solution to the crisis will not be ea