Japanese officials have released figures of relief supplies from other countries.
The supplies include 25,000 blankets from Canada, 30,000 packets of boil-in-the-bag fried rice and 230,000 water bottles from South Korea, and 500 power generators from Taiwan.
When you realize that some of the cities that got hit with he quake/tsunami had a million residents, you can see that foreign supplies are not much. In fact, Japan’s public news station, NHK, is constantly asking for donations.
Kyodo News reporting that in Miyagi Prefecture alone there could be 15,000 dead. That’s according to local police.
National police say the number of dead and missing is around 20,000. That doesn’t add up when compared to what local officials are reporting, especially when Miyagi Prefecture is reporting 15,000 dead.
The mayor of Otsuchi in Iwate Prefecture, Koki Kato was found dead. He had been missing after the tsunami hit on March 11.
Japanese officials say they support the U.S. & European attacks on Libya, and it shows in Japanese media reports.
National Japanese media has been toning down their coverage of the quake/tsunami/nuclear power plant disasters, and are shifting to reporting the attacks on Libyan government forces.
Earlier TEPCO officials were worried about pressure building in reactor 3 containment chamber.
There were concerns that they would have release radioactive air from the chamber.
Now they say simpler attempts to relieve pressure is working, and pressure has dropped.
Russia has fired its ambassador to Libya. No official reason given so far.
A Russian newspaper speculates the ambassador was fired for failing to understand Russia’s interests in Libya.
Russia is against the UNSCR 1973.
A Libyan government official said they will discuss oil contracts with China, India, Russia and Brazil.
This is to gain support against “neo-crusaders”, taking military action against Libya, through the UN resolution.
China has already condemned the military operation against Libya. 20,000+ Chinese were evacuated from Libya at the end of February.
Indian prime minister Manmohan Singh said he wanted to see Libyans make their own decisions “free of outside interference.” India evacuated 18,000 workers from Libya.
Will Russia resume weapons sales to Libya? Russia stopped weapons sales, but only on the condition that military action would not be taken against Libya. “In Moscow, we regret this armed action within the hastily passed UNSCR Resolution 1973,” said Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman Alexander Lukashevich.
Brazil’s newly elected president, Dilma Rousseff, said Brazil expects more of the United States, criticizing American protectionism. Brazil opposes military action against Libya. Brazil has also evacuated citizens from Libya.
Brazil, Russia, China and India are now the world’s strongest economies.
WikiLeaks reveal documents that showed U.S. Ambassador to Mexico, Carlos Pascual, had criticized Mexico’s handling of the Drug War.
Mexico’s President, Felipe Calderon, retaliated by pointing out that the various U.S. security forces, in Mexico, repeatedly fail to coordinate with each other and actually view each other as competitors. This makes them useless to Mexican security forces fighting the drug gangs.
President Calderon also said, in a newspaper interview, that U.S. Ambassador Pascual is ignorant and continually distorts the facts. Calderon says weapons being used by Mexican drug gangs are still coming from the United States. He has repeatedly asked the Obama administration to remove Pascual.
Hillary Clinton admitted that Pascual’s resignation is meant to keep attention away from Calderon’s accusations; “…to avert issues raised by President Calderon that could distract from the important business of advancing our bilateral interests”.
Japanese officials are now saying the height of the tsunami was at least 13 meters (43 feet).
Originally officials put the waves between 4 & 10 meters high. It became clear the tsunami was higher than 10 meters when sea walls, all along the coast line at ground zero, had been crested and destroyed. The sea walls, some of them ‘double walls’, were 10 meters high.
Many people in ground zero areas of Japan’s state of Honshu, who have not been able to evacuate, are using cars as shelter. There are no shelters available for them.
One woman said the cars do not have enough fuel to drive, so they are running the engines periodically to use the vehicle’s heaters to keep warm. Even if a vehicle has enough fuel to drive, all roads in and out of the area have been destroyed.
When Japan got hit by the massive quake/tsunami, and then the nuclear power plant disaster, world oil prices dropped. By a lot.
Prior to the Japan event, on March 10th, Brent crude oil closed at $115.60 per barrel. U.S. light sweet crude closed at $104.25. Oil prices had been going up, and the “Libyan crisis” was blamed. “…mainly fueled by regime-toppling instability in the Middle East and North Africa.” -CNN/Money
March 11th, the Japan event and immediately oil prices began falling. Brent crude fell to $113.67, U.S. crude $101.16. By March 15th Brent crude had fallen to $108.52, U.S. crude $97.18.
From March 10th to March 15th Brent crude prices dropped by $7.10, U.S. crude dropped by $7.07.
Then, suddenly, the United Nations announced it had passed a resolution authorizing any military action necessary to get rid of Gaddafi (an historic resolution by the way, it’s NOT a no fly zone). This seemed to come out of no where. What happened to oil prices? Immediately oil price shot up: March 16th Brent crude closed at $110.62, U.S. crude $97.98. March 17th: Brent crude $114.90, U.S. crude $101.42. “The Middle East unrest outweighed concerns about radiation from a Japanese nuclear plant…” -Bloomberg
Another evidence of war mongering by speculators is that oil prices fell when Gaddafi announced a ceasefire. March 18th (ceasefire announced) Brent crude closed $113.90, U.S. crude $101.07.
I speculate that British Brent crude prices are more sensitive because the British, along with the French, have a big stake in gaining control of Libya’s eastern oil fields. After all, who got the biggest oil contract in Iraq? BP (British Petroleum).