The Pakistan government announced that they are picking up trace amounts of iodine-131, form Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant.
Iran, a neighbor of Pakistan, says it has started to inspect aircraft coming from Japan, for radiation contamination.
Iran isn’t relying on their nuclear plant for providing lots of power. They’ve been developing other forms of power generation.
It includes hydroelectric, steam power and natural gas fired plants. At the end of 2009 they finished a solar powered plant. Now they are going to build more steam powered plants and even wind farms.
The goal is to add another 5,000 mega watts to their system. Officials claim that all the non-nuclear energy programs use 100% domestically produced materials. Gee, isn’t that kinda what President Obama talked about for the United States?
“We should not only be able to use all our capacities and potentials in the (civilian) nuclear technology, but also export nuclear know-how.”-Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad
During a speech for ‘National Day of Nuclear Technology’, President Ahmadinejad stated that Iran should master all nuclear technologies. He also said Iran should join other countries, like the U.S., in exporting its nuclear know how.
“The Russians have taken the existence of tectonic plates into consideration in designing the Bushehr nuclear plant.”-Nasser Rastkhah, Atomic Energy Organization of Iran
Recently Russia helped Iran with loading of nuclear fuel rods into their plant. The Bushehr nuke plant is scheduled to power up by May. ‘Sensitive phases of operation’ would be conducted between May 5 through May 10.
Some Chinese farmers have decided to stop fighting Mother Earth’s climate change, and have rented out their farm land to movie studios.
In one area, the farmers gave up farming and now use their land as huge film studios. The former farmers also double as movie extras. They have made enough money to replace their old farm homes with big modern homes.
It’s not only crops that are suffering in China, because of drought. Bee keepers say they’re losing their bees as well.
Honey production is down due to a decrease in flower pollen production, thanks to climate change. Bee keepers say it will also mean a decrease in bees, because pollen is their food.
China has the largest rapeseed field in the world. Rapeseed is used to make canola oil. Farmers there say drought keeps seed production too low for use in canola oil production. It also keeps rapeseed flower growth too low for the bees.
Sharp has announced that production of their Liquid Crystal Display TVs will be halted, due to parts shortages in Japan, due to the ongoing disasters.
Sharp is not too worried as they say they still have a one months supply of parts on hand.
The recent huge aftershock, in Japan, has resulted in one thousand ATMs being shut down.
Japan Post Bank blames it on the power outage caused by a big aftershock on April 7. The power outage caused a computer glitch that shut down the Automated Teller Machines.
On 09 April 2011, fish samples off Japan were found still contaminated with cesium.
On 07 April 2011, one in four fish samples had levels of contamination above set limits.
The fish tested were lance fish, and two kinds of flat fish.
More than 14,000 people are still missing, even after a massive three day search by military and police forces. Local governments are begging for another large scale search.
The search will be conducted on April 10. It will involve 22,000 personnel, 50 vessels and 90 aircraft. It will not cover the radiation danger zones.