Hassan Rowhani atasi pendirian pelampau

SOKONGAN PADU: Para penyokong Presiden baru Iran, Encik Hasan Rowhani, berhimpun di Teheran bagi meraihkan kemenangannya dalam Pilihan Raya Presiden kelmarin. - Foto AP

TEHRAN: Ulama berhaluan sederhana, Encik Hassan Rowhani, yang diumumkan sebagai Presiden baru Iran menyifatkan pencapaiannya satu kemenangan mengatasi pendirian pelampau.

Japan on full alert over N. Korea: Defence minister

TOKYO (AFP) - Japan is on full alert ahead of an expected mid-range missile launch by North Korea, its defence minister said on Wednesday as South Korea raised its military watch alert to "vital threat".

"We have been on full alert since we deployed military units, and so we will maintain this sense of vigilance," Defence Minister Itsunori Onodera told reporters.

Jepun peringati ulang tahun kedua bencana gempa dan tsunami

TOKYO: Jepun semalam memperingati ulang tahun kedua bencana berganda - gempa bumi dan tsunami - yang melanda negara itu dan menyebabkan hampir 19,000 mati atau hilang.

Dalam upacara di Tokyo dan di bandar-bandar gersang sepanjang kawasan pantai timur laut negara itu, mereka yang berkumpul tunduk dan bertafakur seketika bagi menandakan detik 2.46 petang pada 11 Mac 2011 apabila gempa sekuat 9.0 pada Skala Richter - yang terkuat dalam sejarah Jepun - melanda negara itu.

North Korea may see few buyers despite rocket success

In this Dec 12, 2012 file photo released by Korean Central News Agency, North Korea's Unha-3 rocket lifts off from the Sohae launch pad in Tongchang-ri, North Korea. By successfully firing a rocket that put a satellite in space, North Korea let the far-flung buyers of its missiles know that it is still open for business. But Pyongyang will find that customers are hard to come by as old friends drift away and international sanctions lock down its sales. -- PHOTO: AP

SEOUL (AP) - By successfully firing a rocket that put a satellite in space, North Korea let the far-flung buyers of its missiles know that it is still open for business. But Pyongyang will find that customers are hard to come by as old friends drift away and international sanctions lock down its sales.

China, Japan, S. Korea warn N. Korea over nuclear test

South Korea's President Lee Myung Bak (left), China's Premier Wen Jiabao (centre) and Japan's Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda stand in front of their national flags during a joint news conference of the fifth trilateral summit among the three nations at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, May 13, 2012. -- PHOTO: REUTERS

BEIJING (AFP) - China, Japan and South Korea said a fresh nuclear test by North Korea would be unacceptable, according to South Korean President Lee Myung Bak on Sunday.

India tests new long-range missile

India test launched a new nuclear-capable missile on Thursday that would give it, for the first time, the capability of striking the major Chinese cities of Beijing and Shanghai, according to television news channels. 

BHUBANESWAR, India (AFP) - India successfully test-fired a new long-range missile on Thursday capable of delivering a one-tonne nuclear warhead anywhere in regional rival China and countries outside Asia.

Nuclear plant workers unsure of internal exposure levels

Nearly two months after the start of the crisis at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant, only 10 per cent of workers there had been tested for internal radiation exposure caused by inhalation or ingestion of radioactive substances, due to a shortage of testing equipment available for them. -- PHOTO: AP

NEARLY two months after the start of the crisis at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant, only 10 per cent of workers there had been tested for internal radiation exposure caused by inhalation or ingestion of radioactive substances, due to a shortage of testing equipment available for them.

Japan Fukushima nuclear plant worker dead

In this March 20, 2011 file photo, the crippled Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant are seen in Okuma town, Fukushima prefecture, northern Japan. -- PHOTO: AP

TOKYO - A WORKER died at Japan's disaster-stricken Fukushima nuclear power plant as emergency crews worked to prevent a major meltdown, a report said on Saturday.

The male worker in his 60s was confirmed dead after he was rushed to hospital after falling unconscious at the plant, Jiji Press news agency said.

Japan plans new tsunami wall at nuclear plant

This video image, taken by a remote controled drone T-Hawk on April 21, 2011 shows the north side area of the first reactor building of TEPCO's Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. -- PHOTO: AFP / HO / TEPCO

TOKYO - THE operator of Japan's Fukushima nuclear plant will build a wall to defend it against future tsunamis, reports said on Monday, as public confidence slipped in the government's handling of the disaster.

World marks Chernobyl under shadow of Japan

The interior of a kindergarten is seen in the abandoned city of Prypiat near the Chernobyl nuclear power plant.

 -- PHOTO: REUTERS

KIEV - THE world on Tuesday marks a quarter century since the world's worst nuclear disaster at Chernobyl in Ukraine, haunted by fears over the safety of atomic energy after the Japan earthquake.

Chernobyl conferences end inconclusively

Ukraine's President Viktor Yanukovich (left) and French Prime Minister Francois Fillon shake hands during their meeting prior to the Chernobyl Shelter Fund Nuclear Safety Account Pledging Conference in Kiev April 19, 2011. -- PHOTO: REUTERS

KIEV - A QUARTER-CENTURY after the Chernobyl nuclear reactor explosion, a week of meetings assessing the effects of the world's worst nuclear accident has concluded without formal conclusions.

But the conference that ended Friday did send the clear message that Chernobyl will remain expensive and anxiety-provoking for decades to come.

Japan to check radiation risk to breast milk

Japan's health ministry is to check whether breast milk has been affected by radiation from the stricken Fukushima nuclear plant, the spokesman for Prime Minister Naoto Kan said on Thursday. -- PHOTO: AFP

TOKYO - JAPAN'S health ministry is to check whether breast milk has been affected by radiation from the stricken Fukushima nuclear plant, the spokesman for Prime Minister Naoto Kan said on Thursday.

The plant was hit by the March 11 quake and tsunami and a series of explosions. It has leaked radiation into the air, ground and sea in the world's worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl 25 years ago.

Tsunami auction gets $90 million bid for piano

Yahoo Japan says an online bidder has pledged a staggering US$73 million (S$90.3 million) for a crystal piano (above) put up for a tsunami charity auction by a heavy metal band musician. -- PHOTO: AP

TOKYO - YAHOO Japan says an online bidder has pledged a staggering US$73 million (S$90.3 million) for a crystal piano put up for a tsunami charity auction by a heavy metal band musician.

For Clinton, not a bow but a kiss for Japan royal

Mrs Clinton, on a brief visit to disaster-hit Japan to show US solidarity, took the unusual step of kissing Empress Michiko on the cheek. -- PHOTO: AFP

TOKYO - US SECRETARY of State Hillary Clinton offered her own take during a Tokyo visit on Sunday on how to treat Japan's imperial family - with a peck on the cheek.

Japan's seismologists 'blinded to March 11 quake'

An elderly woman walks amongst tsunami damage in the town of Yamada, Iwate prefecture. Japan's seismologists were so fixated by the risk of a big quake on the southern Pacific coast that they had become 'blinkered' to the risk of the March 11 magnitude 9.0 earthquake. -- PHOTO: AFP

PARIS - JAPAN'S seismologists were so entrenched in outdated beliefs about seismic hazard that they became blinkered to the risk of the March 11 mega-quake, a commentary in a top science journal charged on Wednesday.

Writing in the journal Nature, Robert Geller, an American who is professor of seismology at the University of Tokyo, said Japanese government scientists had become fixated by the risk of a big quake on Japan's southern Pacific coast.

Japan's nuclear evacuees shunned over health fears

Evacuees living in partitioned 'rooms' at a shelter in Kamaishi in Iwate prefecture. People fleeing Japan's crippled nuclear plant are being turned away from evacuation centres due to fears they might contaminate others with radiation. -- PHOTO: AFP

KITAKAMI - PEOPLE fleeing Japan's crippled nuclear plant are being turned away from evacuation centres because of unfounded fears they might contaminate others with radiation.

Those made homeless by the emergency at the stricken Fukushima Daiichi atomic plant need local government-issued certificates proving they are not contaminated before they are allowed to step foot inside the centres.

China state paper blasts Japan over nuclear crisis

Premier Wen Jiabao on Tuesday asked Mr Kan to 'promptly and accurately inform China' about developments in the crisis, state media said, after Tokyo upgraded its emergency to a maximum seven, on a par with the Chernobyl disaster. -- PHOTO: AFP

BEIJING - JAPAN owes its neighbours an apology for failing to tell them about the severity of its nuclear crisis, a Chinese state newspaper said on Wednesday, accusing the West of letting Tokyo off the hook.

Pakistan’s nuclear weapons, a deterrent against India, but also United States ?

Pakistan’s nuclear weapons have been conceived and developed as a deterrent against mighty neighbour India, more so now when its traditional rival has added economic heft to its military muscle. But Islamabad may also be holding onto its nuclear arsenal  to deter an even more powerful challenge, which to its mind, comes  from the United States, according to Bruce Riedel, a former CIA officer who led President Barack Obama’s 2009 policy review on Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Fukushima, Chernobyl 'not comparable': Watchdog

This April 1986 aerial photo shows the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, the site of the world's worst nuclear accident, as made two to three days after the explosion in Chernobyl, Ukraine. France's nuclear safety agency says the impact of Fukushima's nuclear woes weren't 'comparable' to that of Chernobyl. -- PHOTO: AP

PARIS - THE accident at Fukushima has released 'significant' amounts of radiation but at levels and with an impact that are 'not comparable' to Chernobyl, France's nuclear safety agency said on Tuesday.

'At present... Fukushima is not, nor will it be, Chernobyl, even though it is a very serious accident,' the head of the Institute for Radiological Protection and Nuclear Safety (IRSN), Patrick Gourmelon, said. 

Japan upgrades nuclear severity level to maximum

Japanese police officers wearing white suits to protect them from radiation stand by a victim being cleaned. Japan is to raise its assessment of the severity of its nuclear emergency to the maximum seven, reports said. -- PHOTO: AP

TOKYO - JAPAN upgraded its nuclear emergency to a maximum seven on an international scale of atomic crises on Tuesday, the first time the ranking has been invoked since the Chernobyl disaster in 1986.

The incident at the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant was sparked by last month's earthquake and tsunami, which killed more than 13,000 people, with around 14,500 people still missing.