Vietnam to continue nuclear project amid crisis

Amid fears over Japan’s Fukushima nuclear power plant crisis, a top Vietnamese official has confirmed Vietnam will continue with its nuclear project to build a nuclear power plant in a central province in 2014.

Artist’s impression of Vietnam’s future nuclear power plant in Ninh Thuan province (Photo: VietNamNet)

This is a confirmation from chairman of the National Assembly (NA)’s office, Tran Dinh Dan, at a press conference held in Hanoi yesterday to announce the agenda of the ninth NA meeting.
The policy to build the Ninh Thuan nuclear power plant has been passed by the NA - the Vietnamese top lawmaking body, so it will be not discussed again the next NA meeting expected to start on March 21.
It is certain that there will be no change to the project and all preparations for it are underway, he added.
As planned, works on the plant will be started in 2014 and the plant will supply electricity to the whole nation in 2020.
Russia has been selected as the supplier of technologies for the future nuclear power plant in Ninh Thuan province.
Meanwhile, after the Fukushima nuclear incidents, China has conducted security checks at its nuclear power plants and temporarily suspended nuclear power projects that do not meet safety standards.
Vietnam’s nuclear plant safer than Fukushima
At a press conference of the Ministry of Science and Technology two days ago, Hoang Anh Tuan, deputy head of the Atomic Energy Department, said the nuclear incidents in Japan has given Vietnam a new lesson, which is the need to re-consider the selection of construction site for the future nuclear power plant.
In addition, peripheral equipment, such as electric conducting devices, should be taken more into account, he said.
Dr. Ngo Dang Nhan, head of the Vietnam Agency for Radiation and Nuclear Safety, also said the selection of a construction site is of critical importance to the safety of Vietnam.
He emphasized that a construction site should be selected only when it is able to ensure the safety for nature, people and communities.
Vietnam’s future nuclear power plant is expected to be built in Phuong Dinh commune, Thuan Nam district, Ninh Thuan province.
This area has been determined to lie in a zone that is prone to 5-6 Richter scale earthquakes. Therefore, the plant must be designed to be able to survive quakes measuring at least at 6 or 7 on the Richter scale, he warned.
Unlike the Fukushima plant, where the active safety basis is applied, the future nuclear plant in Ninh Thuan has the passive (automatic) safety features, said Prof. Vuong Huu Tan, head of the Vietnam Nuclear Energy Institute.
That means when the future Vietnam plant faces an incident similar to that in Fukushima, the Vietnamese plant will automatically be made cool by an automatic cooling system within 72 hours without any interference from the operator or any additional eclectic source, Prof. Tan said.
The Fukushima I’s reactor from which the accident occurred is kind of an older generation whose anti-earthquake ability is not strong enough to survive the quake on March 11, he added.

Japan helicopters dump water on nuclear plant

Japanese military helicopters dumped water Thursday from huge buckets onto the stricken Fukushima nuclear power plant in a bid to douse fuel rods, television images showed.

A member of the US Fairfax County search and rescue team from Virginia helps a colleague slide into a crawl space in a destroyed house to look for survivors in Kamaishi.

A total of three twin-rotor CH-47 Chinooks of the Self-Defence Forces each emptied more than seven tonnes of water onto reactors three and four, according to public broadcaster NHK.
Engineers were focusing their efforts on restoring the power supply to a quake-damaged nuclear plant in an attempt to reactivate its cooling system and avert a meltdown.
Last Friday's massive earthquake and tsunami knocked out the power supply and back-up generators at the Fukushima No. 1 plant on the Pacific coast, some 250 kilometres (155 miles) northeast of Tokyo.
The lack of power has sent temperatures soaring in reactors with fuel rods being exposed as the cooling water evaporated and emitting hydrogen gas and possibly radioactive material, triggering fears of a meltdown.
Plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO) said it was preparing to restore outside power lines and connect its damaged transmission system to unaffected lines.
"At the moment, we are concentrating our efforts on this work," spokesman Naohiro Omura told AFP.
"If the restoration work is completed, we will be able to activate various electric pumps and pour water into reactors and pools for spent nuclear fuel."
The Japanese crews grappling with the world's worst nuclear incident since Chernobyl in 1986 were briefly evacuated Wednesday after a spike in radiation levels at the plant.

Earlier they contended with a new fire and feared damage to the vessel containing one of the plant's six reactor cores.
There are also major fears about pools holding spent fuel rods at the plant, which need water to keep them cool. Unlike the reactors, they have no containment vessels.
Some 70 workers have been using low-capacity fire pumps to pour seawater to cool reactors at the plant, according to media reports. They are using electricity from borrowed power supply cars.
A Japanese army helicopter Wednesday aborted its mission to dump water onto the fuel rods due to the high level of radiation above the reactors.
UN atomic watchdog chief Yukiya Amano said the situation at the plant was "very serious" as he prepared to fly out to see the damage for himself.
Japan's Emperor Akihito gave a rare address to a jittery nation Wednesday as the nuclear emergency deepened and millions struggled in desperate conditions after the quake and tsunami disaster.
The television appearance by the emperor emphasised the gravity of the crisis gripping Japan after the 9.0-magnitude quake and the monster waves it unleashed.
Akihito said he was "deeply concerned" about the "unpredictable" situation at the stricken power plant.
"I sincerely hope that we can keep the situation from getting worse," Akihito said in a historic televised address that marked the first time he has intervened in a national crisis.
Gregory Jaczko, chair of the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission, warned there was no water left in the spent fuel pool of reactor 4, resulting in "extremely high" radiation levels.
The US military will send a spy drone to take a closer look at the reactors in the troubled plant, Kyodo News reported.
Engineers have been desperately battling a feared meltdown at the 40-year-old plant since the earthquake and tsunami knocked out cooling systems and fuel rods began overheating.
The workers at the plant, which has been hit by four explosions and two fires, have been hailed as heroes.
"Please don't forget that there are people who are working to protect everyone's lives in exchange for their own lives," said one post on Japanese social networking site Mixi.
The government has warned people living up to 10 kilometres (six miles) beyond the 20-kilometre exclusion zone around the plant to stay indoors. More than 200,000 people have already been evacuated from the zone.
The US embassy in Tokyo warned American citizens living within 50 miles (80 kilometres) of the plant to evacuate or seek shelter.
Other foreign governments also urged their citizens to steer clear of the quake-stricken northeast of Japan and the capital Tokyo amid fears of further aftershocks and a widening nuclear disaster.
Japan's chief government spokesman Yukio Edano however said radiation levels from the plant posed no immediate health threat outside the 20-kilometre exclusion zone.
But as crews battled to prevent a nuclear meltdown, the European Union's energy chief said the situation had spun out of control.
"The site is effectively out of control," energy commissioner Guenther Oettinger told a European Parliament committee, one day after he said Japan was facing "apocalypse."
France's Nuclear Safety Authority said the disaster now equated to a six on the seven-point international scale for nuclear accidents, ranking the crisis second only in gravity to the level-seven Chernobyl disaster in 1986.
Amano, the Japanese chief of the International Atomic Energy Agency, had insisted Tuesday there was no comparison to the Chernobyl crisis, when radiation spewed across Europe.
Aside from the nuclear threat, the full scale of the quake and tsunami disaster was becoming clear as more details emerged of the staggering death and devastation in the worst-hit northeast.
"The number of people killed is increasing day by day and we do not know how many people have fallen victim," said the emperor, who is held in deep respect by many Japanese. "I pray for the safety of as many people as possible."
"People are being forced to evacuate in such severe conditions of bitter cold, with shortages of water and fuel... I cannot help praying that rescue work is done swiftly and people's lives get better, even a little."
And already jangled nerves were frayed further by a series of aftershocks including a strong 6.0-magnitude earthquake that swayed buildings in Tokyo.
The official toll of the dead and missing after the quake and tsunami flattened Japan's northeast coast rose to nearly 13,000, police said, with the number of confirmed dead at 4,314.
But reports continued to come in which indicated that the final toll could be much higher, with the mayor of the coastal town of Ishinomaki saying the number of missing there was likely to hit 10,000, Kyodo News reported.
On Saturday, public broadcaster NHK reported that around 10,000 people were also unaccounted for in the port town of Minamisanriku, again in Miyagi prefecture.
Millions have been left without water, electricity, fuel or enough food and hundreds of thousands more are homeless, stoically coping with freezing cold and wet conditions in the northeast.
The governor of Fukushima prefecture, home to the crippled nuclear plant, said people were at breaking point.
"The worry and anger of the people of Fukushima has been pushed to the limit," Yuhei Sato told NHK.
With nerves on edge across the world's third-biggest economy and beyond, people across Asia have been stripping shelves of essentials for fear of a major emission of radiation from the power plant on the east coast.
The Japanese government has warned that panic buying in towns and cities that have not been directly affected by the twin disasters could hurt its ability to provide aid to the devastated areas.
Radiation levels in the capital's vast urban sprawl of 30 million people have see-sawed without ever reaching harmful levels, according to the government.
Beyond Japan, Asian nations vowed to crack down on hoax messages warning about radiation spreading beyond Japan, which have helped stoke growing unease over the unfolding crisis

IMF says weaker dollar would help global growth

The International Monetary Fund called for a weaker dollar to help the United States reduce its deficits with the rest of the world and rebalance the global economy, in a report released Wednesday.

The International Monetary Fund called for a weaker dollar to help the United States reduce its deficits with the rest of the world and rebalance the global economy.

In the report prepared for a Group of 20 finance chiefs meeting last week, the IMF said that its calculations showed the dollar remains "on the strong side" of medium-term fundamentals, while the euro and the Japanese yen were "broadly in line" and several Asian currencies, including China, were undervalued.
To address global imbalances, the G20 should allow the dollar to fall, the Washington-based institution said.
"Some further real effective depreciation of the US dollar would help ensure a sustained decline of the US current account deficit towards a level more consistent with medium-term fundamentals, helping to support more balanced growth," the IMF said.
The widening US current account deficit -- a broad measure of trade in goods, services, income and payment -- rose a fifth straight quarter in the third quarter last year, to $127.2 billion, according to the latest US official data.
The issue of a weak dollar is particularly sensitive in Brazil, where the government has said an international "currency war" is under way with the United States pumping cheap dollars into its post-crisis economy, while China's yuan sinks in tandem.
The IMF report was provided to finance ministers and central bank governors of the G20 major developed and emerging economies for their meeting Friday and Saturday in Paris.
The G20 countries reached agreement on a series of economic indicators to measure imbalances within and between countries, with the goal of helping nations avoid a repeat of the problems at the heart of the 2008 financial crisis.
The IMF urged stepped-up G20 efforts to sustain the global economic recovery, citing elevated downside risks for advanced economies and "overheating" in some emerging economies.
Among the threats to global growth, the IMF highlighted "insufficient progress in developing medium-term fiscal consolidation plans, especially in the United States and Japan" and "sovereign and banking sector risks in the euro area periphery."
In emerging economies, the key policy challenge is to keep overheating pressures in check and respond appropriately to capital inflows, the IMF said.
"In key surplus economies, overheating pressures can be alleviated by permitting currency appreciation, facilitating a healthy rebalancing from external to internal demand."
The 187-nation institution also said it "appears highly unlikely" the United States would be able to meet its commitment to halve its budget deficit between 2010 and 2013, pledged at a G20 Toronto summit in June 2010

Election sub-committee begins preparations

The steering sub-committee on popularisation for the elections of the 13 th National Assembly and people’s councils at all levels for the 2011-16 term convened its first session in Hanoi on February. 23.
The meeting, chaired by Vice NA Chairman Nguyen Duc Kien, member of the Election Council, discussed and gave opinions on the draft plan and contents on popularisation for the upcoming elections and tasks for the sub-committee’s members.
Last month, the election council convened its first session, discussing its activities and a plan to organise a national conference on the national polls.
The council is scheduled to set up three sub-committees: the Popularisation Sub-Committee, the Steering Sub-Committee for Complaint Settlement, and the Social Order, Safety and Security Sub-Committee.
The election of the 13th NA and for People's Councils at all levels for the 2011-16 term will take place on the same day, May 22.

Apple invite hints at March 2 debut of new iPad

Apple on Wednesday sent out emailed invitations to a March 2 San Francisco press event hinting at the debut of a new version of its hot-selling iPad tablet computer.

Customers checking out Apple's iPad at a store in 2010.

The cryptic invitations provided the date, time and location of the event and show an image of a March 2 calendar page peeling back to reveal a corner of an iPad. The message on the page reads "Come see what 2011 will be the year of."
Technology analysts have taken to referring to 2011 as the "year of the tablet" with iPad dominating the category and competitors racing to market.
Apple chief executive Steve Jobs introduced the iPad at a press event in San Francisco in January of last year.
Unconfirmed reports indicate that Apple has started production of a thinner, more powerful version of its popular tablet computer.
The second-generation iPad is expected to have more memory and a front-facing camera for capabilities such as a FaceTime video-conferencing feature on Apple iPhone 4 smartphones.
Cupertino, California-based Apple said in its latest earnings release that it sold nearly 15 million iPads in the eight months after the tablet computers became available in the market in April of last year.
US telecom titan Verizon on Thursday will begin selling Motorola Mobility's hotly awaited "Xoom" tablet computer at a price close to that of a top-of-the-line iPad.
Xoom will be the first tablet on the market powered by "Honeycomb" software crafted specifically for such devices by Internet powerhouse Google and has been heralded as a viable challenger for Apple's market-ruling iPad.
Xoom will be sold for $800, but the price will be trimmed to $600 for those who opt for two-year service contracts with Verizon.
The six iPad models range in price from $500 to $830 with the three higher-priced models having 3G mobile telecom connection capabilities while the three less costly tablets only link to the Internet using Wi-Fi at hot spots.
With a 10.1-inch (25.6-centimeter) screen, the Xoom is about the same size as Apple's iPad.
Xoom also features a front-facing 2-megapixel camera for video chats and a rear-facing 5-megapixel camera that captures video.
The Xoom tablet computer was crowned the best gadget at the giant Consumer Electronics Show (CES) last month.
"This is really the next generation of tablets," Motorola Mobility device team head Alain Mutricy said as he held a Xoom in one hand at the awards ceremony.
"Our partnership with Google has been very intense and has enabled some great technology."

UN suspends food handouts in Pakistan's Bajaur

The UN World Food Programme (WFP) said Monday it had suspended food distribution in a lawless Pakistani tribal district where a woman suicide bomber killed more than 40 people.

The Taliban claimed responsibility for Saturday's attack in Bajaur, one of Pakistan's seven semi-autonomous tribal districts bordering Afghanistan, in what was Pakistan's first known suicide attack carried out by a woman.

"WFP has temporarily suspended food distribution in Bajaur following the attack at a police checkpoint several hundred metres away from WFP's food distribution point," spokeswoman Jackie Dent told AFP.

"We are talking with the district authorities and hoping to resume the distribution as soon as possible."

"Our top priority is the safety and well-being of our beneficiaries and staff, and we are committed to continue assisting the people of the Federally Administered Tribal Areas as they work to rebuild their lives," Dent said.

WFP provides general food rations to approximately 294,000 internally displaced people in Bajaur, where the Pakistani military has been fighting against homegrown Taliban militants since August 2008.

So far this year, WFP has provided assistance to an estimated 2.6 million IDPs, returnees and local people in the northwest.

Zakir Hussain Afridi, the top administration official in Bajaur, said that hair, along with parts of hands and feet "leaves no doubt that the bomber was a woman".

Pakistan has claimed repeatedly to have eliminated the Islamist militant threat in Bajaur, part of the tribal belt that the United States considers the global headquarters of Al-Qaeda and among the most dangerous places on Earth.

Around 4,000 people have died in suicide and bomb attacks across Pakistan since government forces raided an extremist mosque in Islamabad in 2007. The attacks have been blamed on networks linked to the Taliban and Al-Qaeda.