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Radiation injuries slow work at Japan's nuclear plant

(Reuters) - Radiation injuries to three workers complicated the battle to control Japan's crippled nuclear plant on Friday and heightened global anxiety over the worst atomic crisis in 25 years.

Hailed by Japanese as anonymous heroes braving unknown dangers, about 300 engineers have been working around the clock to stabilize the six-reactor Fukushima complex since an earthquake and tsunami struck two weeks ago.
But they had to pull out of some parts of the complex, 240 km (150 miles) north of Tokyo, when three workers replacing a cable near reactor No. 3 were exposed to high contamination by standing in radioactive water on Thursday, officials said.
Two were taken to hospital with possible radiation burns after the water seeped over their boots.
"We should try to avoid delays as much as possible, but we also need to ensure that the people working there are safe," said Japanese nuclear agency official Hidehiko Nishiyama.
Safety fears at the plant and beyond -- radiation particles have been found as far away as Iceland -- are compounding Japan's worst crisis since World War Two.
As well as causing the most serious nuclear accident since Chernobyl in 1986, the March 11 quake and ensuing tsunami left about 27,400 people dead or missing across the northeast.
Despite increased radiation reports, fears of a catastrophic meltdown at the Fukushima plant are receding.
Two of the reactors are now regarded as safe in what is called a cold shutdown. Four remain volatile, emitting steam and smoke periodically, but work is advancing to restart water pumps needed to cool fuel rods inside those reactors.
"It's much more hopeful," said Tony Roulstone, a nuclear energy expert at Cambridge University. "The most difficult thing is keeping the (spent-fuel) ponds cool, where they are using fire hoses."
Tokyo Electric Power Co (TEPCO) said the three injured workers were carrying radiation meters but ignored an alarm when it rang. Engineers would be briefed again on safety.
"They are working in a harsh environment," TEPCO official Akira Suzui said during an overnight briefing.
The crisis has raised apprehension about nuclear power both in Japan and beyond, and the government of the world's third-largest economy plans to review the industry.
"Public confidence in nuclear power plants has greatly changed," Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano, who has been the government's public face during the crisis, told Reuters.
"In light of that, we must first end this situation and then study (it) from a zero base."

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Ukraine Ex-President Charged

KIEV, Ukraine—Prosecutors charged former President Leonid Kuchma on Thursday in the murder of an investigative journalist 10-½ years ago, but he could avoid jail time even if convicted of involvement in post-Soviet Ukraine's most notorious crime.

Mr. Kuchma, who led the country from 1994 to 2005, was accused of "exceeding his authority, which led to the murder of journalist Georgy Gongadze." Yuri Boichenko, a spokesman for the general prosecutor's office, said further charges could be brought as the pre-trial investigation continues.

The headless body of Mr. Gongadze, a fierce critic of Mr. Kuchma's presidency, was found in woods near Kiev shortly after he disappeared in September 2000.

Critics of Mr. Kuchma had been calling for him to be investigated since the end of 2000, when an opposition politician made public tapes in which a voice that sounds like Mr. Kuchma's gave orders to "deal with" Mr. Gongadze. The tapes have never been conclusively authenticated, but prosecutors said this week they would be considered as evidence.

The charge against Mr. Kuchma is subject to a 10-year statute of limitations. Under Ukrainian law, he can be tried. But if he's convicted, it would be up to the court whether to apply the statute or send him to prison for up to 12 years.

Three police officers are serving prison sentences for the murder. The deputy general prosecutor said Tuesday that Mr. Kuchma was being investigated on suspicion of having given orders to senior Interior Ministry officials that led to the slaying. Mr. Kuchma denies the charges against him.

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Kenyan forces 'cross Somali border to fight al-Shabab'

Kenyan forces have crossed into Somali territory to fight al-Shabab militants, an official source has told the BBC.

However, the reports were denied by a police spokesman.

Twelve militants were killed in the raid near the border town of Liboi, Kenya's Standard newspaper reports.

Kenya supports the Somali government and has helped trained its forces but if confirmed, this would be the first time Kenyan officers have crossed the border.

The raid was carried out by the police General Service Unit in the wake of recent militant attacks on the Kenyan side of the border, the Standard says.

Al-Shabab has previously threatened to stage attacks in Kenya but none have been carried out.

Last year, al-Shabab said it was behind a double attack on the Ugandan capital, Kampala, which killed at least 76 people, in revenge for Uganda sending troops to help the Somali government.

Al-Shabab, which has links to al-Qaeda, controls much of southern and central Somalia.

The government, backed by some 9,000 African Union troops from Uganda and Burundi, has this year gained some ground in the capital, Mogadishu.

Somalia has been wracked by constant war for more than 20 years - its last functioning national government was toppled in 1991.

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Nontraditional goodbyes in Japan

HIGASHI-MATSUSHIMA, Japan -- It was neither the place nor the time for a proper goodbye: not here, on a homely hilltop that used to house the city garbage incinerator. And not now, fully 12 days after a tsunami erased this town's seacoast and forever sundered hundreds of families and friendships.

Yet on this raw, wind-whipped Wednesday afternoon, Fujimi and Ekuko Kimura watched as a procession of soldiers unloaded the coffin of Taishi Kimura, husband and son, from the back of an army transport truck, and laid it with 35 others in a narrow trench, partitioned into graves with pieces of plywood.

It was the rudest of funerals for a family already shouldering unbearable grief. It fell to the Kimuras - later, after the soldiers left - to turn a mass burial into a poignant and graceful farewell.

In Japan, it is not normal to bury the dead, much less to lay dozens side by side in a backhoe-dug furrow. Cremation is both universal and an important purification rite in an elaborate tradition deeply rooted in Buddhism.
But across coastal northeast Japan, tradition has collided this month with mathematical reality. The number of dead and missing from the March 11 tsunami has climbed past 22,000, and in the small towns and rural villages where most people died, there are by far too many bodies to burn.
Higashimatsushima, a seaport of 43,000 people, has recovered 680 bodies since the tsunami hit, and nearly 500 more are missing and presumed dead. The town's single aging crematorium can accommodate but four bodies a day.
"If we burned all the bodies, it would take a very long time," said the city spokesman, Takashi Takayama. "The bodies are being kept now in two places, and we're concerned that they might decompose."
So reluctantly, Higashi-Matsushima has resorted to burial. At least 10 other municipalities in the coastal disaster zone have either followed suit or are about to.
Heartbreak and loss
The town buried its first 24 corpses on Tuesday after securing permission from survivors. On Wednesday, a crowd of perhaps 100 mourners gathered at the incinerator property, a piece of vacant city land on high ground, for the second day of interments.
The mourners were a diverse group. Many were refugees, clad in donated clothes or the same jeans and sneakers they wore when they fled the tsunami. A luckier few were in formal shoes and black mourning dress.
They all worked from a common template: a wrenching tale of heartbreak and loss that varied only by names, relationships and a few degrees of bad luck.
Yasumasa Kyomo's wife of seven years had heard the tsunami warning and was rushing their 5-year-old son from kindergarten to take shelter on the second floor of their home. Her body was found on March 15. "The front window of the car was smashed," said Kyomo, 52. "My son was swept away, and is still missing. If they had fled a hundred yards more, they could have escaped. It was a matter of a few minutes."
Sachiko Saito's 61-year-old husband, Fujio, was disabled. Her daughter Hiromi, 29, heard the tsunami warning and went to rescue him, but never reached his seafront home and is still missing. Her husband was later identified by the wallet found on his body.
"He tried to run away," said Saito, 53. "But he couldn't."
And then there was Fujimi Kimura, 31, who was working across a river from her home, husband and two sons when the tsunami hit. The wave washed out all communications and the only bridge, leaving her stranded and unable to reach her family.
For four days, she contained the dread of her family's fate by immersing herself in volunteer work at a refugee center. On the fifth, a boat ferried her across the river to Yamoto town hall, where she found her husband, Taishi, also 31, on a list of the dead.
"The boys' grandparents had gone to get the kids from school," she said. "They took them to the second floor of our house, but my husband couldn't make it. He was swept away in front of their eyes."

A dignified burial
A portable trailer at one end of the incinerator grounds housed a small shrine with candles and two vases of daffodils, where friends and relatives of the dead could light incense and shield themselves from the wintry wind.
Each coffin was unloaded by a crew of 12 soldiers in camouflage and white gloves. Six soldiers carried the coffin with military precision to its resting place; six marched in silent escort. Seven more waited at the grave. A silent salute followed the lowering of each body into the trench.
It was the bureaucracy's best effort to imbue Wednesday's interments with the dignity of genuine funerals rather than what they were: an unavoidable response to a potential public health problem. Later in the day, Buddhist monks would come to the site to pray over the graves.
But for now, the soldiers boarded the truck and drove off, leaving the mourners alone. As if on cue, the wind died, and the sun briefly appeared. A city official with a bullhorn shepherded them to the trench for a final goodbye.
Gifts for the afterlife
Every surviving family had something to leave its loved one. Sometimes it was little more than a can of coffee or a ball of compressed rice, following a local tradition that regards food and money as essential gear for the long trip to the afterlife. Those who had lost everything had nothing more than a few flowers wrapped in newspaper, placed upright in a plastic sleeve at the head of each grave.
Fujimi Kimura wrestled with how to say goodbye to a husband whose presence only seemed to grow in death.
"In the beginning, I thought we were lucky to be alive. But as the days went on, I began to face reality," she said. "Now it's been 12 days, and I still can't accept it - I can't accept the fact that my husband is gone. He was a very kind man. He loved his kids, and he took care of them, and the kids really loved him."
During the final private moments at Kimura's grave, Ekuko, his mother, bent down and left a bouquet of flowers and two fresh-cut branches of a plum tree, on the cusp of blooming. Fujimi lifted the coffin's wooden lid. Atop her husband's body, she placed rice balls, a can of coffee, a banana and a few yen. Then she left items from the home they shared, the trappings of a life now gone: some of his favorite clothes and the bamboo sword he used in kendo, a Japanese martial art that he loved.
"I cannot meet you now," she said before closing the lid for the last time. "But I will definitely come to see you in the future."

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Worried Syrian regime offers promise of change

DARAA, Syria – The Syrian government pledged Thursday to consider lifting some of the Mideast's most repressive laws in an attempt to stop a week-long uprising in a southern city from spreading and threatening its nearly 50-year rule.
The promises were immediately rejected by many activists who called for demonstrations around the country on Friday in response to a crackdown that protesters say killed dozens of anti-government marchers in the city of Daraa.
"We will not forget the martyrs of Daraa," a resident told The Associated Press by telephone. "If they think this will silence us they are wrong."
The coming days will be a crucial test of the surge of popular discontent that has unseated autocrats in Tunisia and Egypt and threatens to push several others from power.
On one side in Syria stands a regime unafraid of using extreme violence to quash internal unrest. In one infamous example, it leveled entire sections of the city of Hama with artillery and bulldozers to put down an uprising by the Sunni Islamist Muslim Brotherhood in 1982.
Facing the regime is a loosely organized protest movement in the main city of southern Syria's drought-parched agricultural heartland.
Sheltering in Daraa's Roman-era old city, the protesters have persisted through seven days of increasing violence by security forces, but have not inspired significant unrest in other parts of the country.
"Even if the government can contain violence to Daraa for the time-being, protests will spread," Joshua Landis, a Syria expert at the University of Oklahoma, wrote in a recent blog posting. "The wall of fear has broken."
President Bashar Assad, a close ally of Iran and its regional proxies, Hezbollah and Hamas, appears worried enough to promise increased freedoms for discontented citizens and increased pay and benefits for state workers — a familiar package of incentives offered by other nervous Arab regimes in recent weeks.
"To those who claim they want freedom and dignity for the (Syrian) people, I say to them we have seen the example of Iraq, the million martyrs there and the loss of security there," presidential adviser Buthaina Shaaban told reporters in the capital, Damascus, as she announced the promises of reform.
Shaaban told reporters that the all-powerful Baath party would study ending a state of emergency that it put in place after taking power in 1963.
The emergency laws, which have been a feature of many Arab countries, allow people to be arrested without warrants and imprisoned without trial. Human rights groups say violations of other basic liberties are rife in Syria, with torture and abuse common in police stations, detention centers and prisons, and dissenters regularly imprisoned for years without due process.
Syria's state TV said later Thursday that Assad ordered the release of all detainees in connection with the unrest of the past few days.
Shortly afterward, Abdul-Karim Rihawi, who heads the Syrian Human Rights League, said authorities released several activists, writers and bloggers who were detained in different parts of Syria in an apparent response to events in Daraa.
Rihawi said those released included Mazen Darwish, a journalist and activist, and writer Loay Hussein.
Shaaban said the Baath Party Regional Command, the country's top decision-making body, would draft a law to allow political parties besides the Baath, and loosen restrictions on media. It was also raising salaries for public servants by up to 30 percent, giving them health insurance, and looking at better ways to fight corruption, she said.
Shaaban said Assad had given orders for security forces not to open fire in Daraa but acknowledged "there were, maybe, some mistakes."
There were no reports of new deaths in Daraa, but unrest there continued, with massive crowds shouting "Syria, freedom!" as they marched toward one of the agricultural hub's main cemeteries to bury the dead, according to an activist in touch with people in the city.
In Washington, the White House condemned what it called the Syrian government's brutal repression of demonstrations and the killing of civilians by security forces. White House press secretary Jay Carney said those responsible for the violence must be held accountable.
Looking to become more self-sufficient, Syria's socialist government launched a massive state-run wheat growing project in the 1990s and began pumping massive amounts of water from the aquifers around Daraa, leaving private pasture and farmland increasingly parched.
Small farmers and herders increasingly moved into the province's main city and surrounding villages, looking for work and in many cases growing angry at the lack of opportunity.
As a result, tensions have been rising around Daraa in marked contrast to the prosperous cities of Damascus and Aleppo. There, wealthy Sunni merchant classes have loaned their political support to the minority government of Alawis — members of a branch of Shiite Islam — in exchange for relatively generous amounts of personal and economic freedom.
Media access to the marches in Daraa was restricted, but an Associated Press reporter heard sporadic bursts of gunfire echoing through the city in the afternoon. Almost all shops were shuttered, the streets were virtually empty and soldiers and anti-terrorism police stopped people at checkpoints and manned many intersections — the heaviest security presence since the unrest began.
A resident of Daraa who was reached by phone from Damascus said witnesses there reported seeing at least 34 people slain when police launched a relentless assault Wednesday in Daraa's old city, fatally shooting many in an operation that lasted nearly 24 hours.
Videos posted by activists on YouTube and Twitter showed dead and wounded people lying on a street in Daraa, as heavy gunfire crackled nearby and people shouted in panic.
Ahed Al Hendi, a Syrian dissident and Arabic program coordinator for the U.S.-based human rights organization cyberdissidents.org, said at least 45 people were killed on Wednesday.
Shabaan blamed media "exaggeration" for inflated figures and said 34 people had been killed in the weeklong conflict in the city.
Troops were in total control Thursday of the area around al-Omari mosque, where protesters had sought shelter and most of Wednesday's fighting occurred. Elsewhere, the only evidence of fighting were rocks that littered the streets and the remains of tires that had been set on fire by protesters the day before.

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6.8-magnitude quake strikes NE Myanmar; 1 dead

YANGON, Myanmar – A powerful earthquake struck northeastern Myanmar on Thursday night, killing one woman and shaking buildings as far away as Bangkok. No tsunami was generated.

Homes and at least one bridge were damaged in several villages along Myanmar's borders with Thailand and Laos, according to residents who spoke to an aid agency.

There were also reports of minor damage in northern Thailand, where a woman died when a brick wall collapsed on her, police Capt. Weerapon Samranjai said. Cracks spread in the foundations of some buildings in the province surrounding the city of Chiang Rai, about 55 miles (90 kilometers) from the epicenter. The spires fell off two pagodas.

"The tremor was so strong, and things fell down from the shelves. It was very scary, and we all ran out to the streets," said a 25-year old woman who runs a mini-mart in Tachileik, a Myanmar town near the border. As is common in the country, she spoke on condition of anonymity because authorities discourage talking to the media.

It was difficult to get a comprehensive picture of damage in the country's remote northeast, where communications, even at the best of time, are sketchy. The military-run government also tightly controls information.

The hilly region could see landslides of rock and mud shaken loose in the quake, said Jenny MacIntyre, a communications manager with World Vision, who spoke with representatives from the aid agency who were near the epicenter in Myanmar.

The 6.8-magnitude quake was just six miles (10 kilometers) deep, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. At that strength and depth, it said 600,000 people could feel shaking anywhere from strong to violent. It added that since buildings in the area are considered vulnerable, damage could be widespread.

Buildings swayed hundreds of miles (kilometers) away, including in the Thai capital, Hanoi, Vietnam, and the Myanmar city of Mandalay.

"People living in high-rise buildings felt the tremor, and we are still on the streets. We are afraid to go back into the house," said a 34-year-old woman from Mandalay, who also spoke on condition of anonymity.

Max Jones, an Australian resident of Bangkok, was in his 27th-floor apartment when his building started shaking so hard he had to grab the walls to keep from falling.

"It was bloody scary, I can tell you," he said. Jones said he could see people running in the streets.

The quake was followed by two smaller aftershocks, 4.8 and 5.4 in magnitude.

The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center said the quake was located too far inland to create a destructive wave.

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Libya: Nato to control no-fly zone after France gives way to Turkey

Western allies and Turkey have secured a deal to put the entire military campaign against Muammar Gaddafi under Nato command by next week, UK and French sources have told the Guardian.

The US, Britain, France and Turkey agreed to put the three-pronged offensive – a no-fly zone, an arms embargo, and air strikes – under a Nato command umbrella, in a climbdown by France that accommodates strong Turkish complaints about the scope and control of the campaign.

The deal appeared to end days of infighting among western allies, but needed to be blessed by all 28 Nato member states. At the end of a four-day meeting of Nato ambassadors in Brussels, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, the secretary general, said Nato had agreed to take command of the no-fly zone from the Americans. Disputes have raged at Nato HQ every day this week. Rasmussen contradicted leading western officials by announcing that Nato's authority was limited to commanding the no-fly zone, but he signalled there was more negotiation to come.

"At this moment, there will still be a coalition operation and a Nato operation," he said. This meant Nato would command the no-fly zone and police the arms embargo. But on the most contentious part, air strikes and ground attacks against Gaddafi, consensus remained elusive.

The agreement emerged from phone calls between William Hague, the foreign secretary, Alain Juppé, the French foreign minister, Hillary Clinton, the US secretary of state, and Ahmet Davutoglu, the Turkish foreign minister, following rancorous attacks from the Turkish leadership on French ambitions to lead the anti-Gaddafi war effort.

The agreement also gives political oversight of the military action to a committee of the international coalition in the campaign. Since the no-fly zone and air attacks on Libya began last Saturday by France, Washington has been in charge of operations, but is eager to surrender the role.

Under the scheme agreed, the transfer to Nato will take place by the latest in London on Tuesday, when the parties to the coalition against Gaddafi gather in London for a special "contact group" conference. French sources said the Benghazi-based Libyan rebel leadership would be in London to attend. The conference will consist of two meetings: a war council made up of the main governments taking part in the military action, as well as a broader assembly including Arab and African countries devoted to Libya's future.

Hillary Clinton welcomed the Nato decision to take command of the Libyan operations and police the no-fly zone, and she expected that it would eventually take over responsibility for protecting civilians, enforcing an arms embargo and supporting the humanitarian mission. "We are taking the next step. We have agreed along with our Nato allies to transition command and control for the no-fly zone over Libya to Nato. All 28 allies have also now authorised military authorities to develop an operations plan for Nato to take on the broader civilian protection mission," she said.

She said the United Arab Emirates was to join Qatar in sending planes to enforce the no-fly zone.

Barack Obama, who returned to Washington on Wednesday, is reluctant to make a televised address to the nation about Libya because he is keen to try to keep it low-key. Administration officials, as part of this strategy, pointedly refuse to call it a war.

Republicans have been calling on him to explain the mission. The president has also faced criticism from his own Democratic party.

"I think he needs to face the nation and tell the nation, and tell Congress, what the end game is and how this going to play out," Senator Sherrod Brown, a Democrat, said on MSNBC.President Nicolas Sarkozy, who had tried to diminish the role of Nato, conceded, in the face of Turkish opposition, that a two-tier structure would run the operation: Nato "assets" will co-ordinate all aspects, including enforcement of the no-fly zone, protecting civilians through air strikes, and enforcing a UN arms embargo. Juppé agreed that Nato would be in control of the entire operation.

Political oversight will be in the hands of a committee of a smaller number of countries involved in the military campaign.

There had been bitter attacks from the Turkish government on Sarkozy's leadership of the campaign, accusing the French of lacking a conscience in their conduct of operations, with criticism from the prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, and the president, Abdullah Gül.

France had insisted on Tuesday that the operations would be "non-Nato". Turkey was emphatically behind sole Nato control of the operations. In Istanbul, Erdogan said: "I wish that those who only see oil, gold mines and underground treasures when they look in [Libya's] direction, would see the region through glasses of conscience from now on."

This week, Claude Guéant, the French interior minister who was previously Sarkozy's chief adviser, angered the Muslim world by stating that the French president was "leading a crusade" to stop Gaddafi massacring Libyans. Russian prime minister Vladimir Putin also used the word in reference to air strikes on Libya. And George Bush had notoriously used the word after the 11 September 2001 attacks on the US that led to the Iraq war.

Erdogan said: "Those who use such hair-raising, frightening terms that fuel clashes of civilisations, or those who even think of them, need to immediately evaluate their own conscience."

The Turks are incensed at repeated snubs by Sarkozy. The French failed to invite Turkey to last Saturday's summit in Paris, which preceded the air strikes. French fighters taking off from Corsica struck the first blows. The Turkish government accused Sarkozy of launching not only the no-fly zone, but his presidential re-election campaign.

The dispute over Libya appears highly personal. Sarkozy went to Turkey last month for the first time in four years as president, but the visit was repeatedly delayed and then downgraded from a state presidential event. He stayed in Turkey for five hours. "Relations between Turkey and France deserve more than this," complained Erdogan. "I will speak with frankness. We wish to host him as president of France. But he is coming as president of the G20, not as that of France."

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High BMI? What it means for your child, and what you can do about it

In an exclusive post published on Shine today, First Lady Michelle Obama offers some advice, drawn from her own experience, about the Affordable Care Act and how parents can get the most out of visits to the pediatrician. One of her suggestions: Learn about your child's BMI.
The First Lady was surprised to learn that her daughters' BMI numbers were "creeping upwards." "I didn’t really know what BMI was," she writes. "And I certainly didn’t know that even a small increase in BMI can have serious consequences for a child’s health. But as Dr. Susan J. Woolford explains, despite the medical jargon, BMI (Body Mass Index) is actually a very easy way to answer a very difficult question: Is my child overweight?
"We're concerned about obesity because of the complications of obesity," Woolford says. "Increased risk for developing problems such as high blood pressure, diabetes, liver disease—all the things that can happen as a result of having a high BMI."
The medical director of the Pediatric Comprehensive Weight Management Center at the University of Michigan, Woolford says that it's not practical to directly measure each and every child's body fat. "So the BMI is a good way of getting a sense of that, because we compare weight to height and it gives us a sense of whether a person's weight is too much for their height."

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the American Academy for Pediatrics recommend that pediatricians start screening children around age 2. Because boys and girls have different amounts of body fat, and because the amount of fat on a healthy kid changes as they age, there are different charts for evaluating BMI results based on age and gender. According to the CDC, if a child's BMI falls in the 85th to 94th percentile for his or her age and weight—meaning that the child's BMI is higher than 85 to 94 percent of other children in the same age and weight categories—the child is considered overweight. Anything in the 95th percentile or above is considered obese. A healthy BMI is one that's between the 5th and 84th percentiles; less than 5th percentile means that the child is underweight.
Some states have asked school districts to measure students' BMIs, causing an uproar among parents who are concerned that the focus on weight could lead to eating disorders or other problems for kids with body-image issues. (If you have recent height and weight measurements for your child or teenager, you can figure out his or her BMI using this calculator.)
Body Mass Index doesn't directly measure body fat—it's a screening tool, not a diagnostic tool, Woolford points out. And BMI isn't always accurate; since muscle weighs more than fat, most athletes, even as children, may be considered overweight or even obese when looking at their BMI numbers alone. "But for the majority of Americans, that's not what we find," Woolford points out. "For the vast majority of Americans, when weight is too high for height it's because we're dealing with adiposity," or an overabundance of fatty tissue.
If a parent learns, as the Obamas did, that their child's BMI is getting too high, the best thing to do is to speak with the child's primary care physician to determine how at-risk the child is for obesity and obesity-related complications. If the parent and pediatrician decide that there is something to be concerned about, there are plenty of simple ways parents can address the problem.
"One of the most important things that can be done is to model a healthy lifestyle for the chid," says Woolford. "I don't think it works terribly well to just identify that this child has a problem and identify changes we'll make in the child's diet alone or their exercise habits alone. It's much more successful if the entire family makes the changes, and if the parents model healthy lifestyle practices."
Those practices should include increasing exercise, decreasing sedentary activities like watching TV and playing video games, and changing eating habits.
P.K. Newby, a nutrition scientist who is an associate professor and research scientist in the Department of Pediatrics at the Boston University School of Medicine and the Department of Epidemiology at the Boston University School of Public Health says that cutting back on sugar-sweetened beverages like sodas and juice-like drinks is a good place to start. "It's really a source of empty calories and sugars," she points out. Water is a better alternative, she suggests.
Parents should also be careful about portion sizes, something that's easier to do at home than in a restaurant or cafeteria. "If you're eating a lot outside of the home where you're not as able to control the portion sizes, that's going to lead to excess caloric intake," she says.
Newby, who has done extensive research into dietary patterns, plant-based diets, and obesity, says, "The more plant-based the diet is, the better, for kids as well as the environment."
"Having plant foods and whole foods being the center of the plate, rather than the meat, is really the best way to go here," Newby says. "That means vegetables, whole grains, fruits, and minimally processed foods." Whole foods (think fruits and vegetables) have a greater nutritional benefit than foods that have been highly refined. "Whole foods are higher in fiber, higher in water, lower in total fat, and lower in calories," she explains. "Shifting your plate toward those types of foods will help kids and adults maintain healthy weight."
Snack time is an excellent time to offer fruits and vegetables as opposed to typical snack foods, which tend to be highly processed. "Another good piece of advice, I think, is to not keep your high-sugar, high-fat, processed snacks in the house," she says. "Keep them as treats, otherwise they may be too tempting."

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China to ban smoking in public places

China is set to introduce a smoking ban in most public places.

According to the Health Ministry, the new regulation will come into effect on 1 May in public places including buses, restaurants and bars.

But an allowance has been made - smoking will still be permitted in workplaces.

Almost a quarter of China's population smoke and more than one million people die every year from smoking-related illnesses.

That accounts for one fifth of people world-wide who die from smoking, according to the World Health Organisation.

With more than 300m smokers, China has long been a place where it is easy to light up.

The new regulations have been welcomed by health activists.

Some believe that the government here has not moved quickly enough to reduce smoking in the country.

Previously, the Ministry of Health had only banned it in hospitals.

The new regulations also include a ban on cigarette vending machines in public areas and a call for programmes to warn about the dangers of smoking.

But the authorities have yet to announce how they will enforce the measures and whether there will be penalties for businesses or individuals breaking the rules.

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Thousands chant "freedom" despite Assad reform offer

(Reuters) - President Bashar al-Assad made a rare public pledge to look into granting Syrians greater freedom on Thursday as anger mounted following attacks by security forces on protesters that left at least 37 dead.

Despite the promise and the offer of large public pay rises, thousands of Syrians turned out to chant "freedom, revolution" in the center of the southern city of Deraa, the focal point of protests against 48 years of Baath Party rule.
"The Syrian people do not bow," they also chanted around the main Omari mosque, shortly after security forces evacuated the building which they stormed on Wednesday.
Syrian opposition figures said the promises did not meet the aspirations of the people and were similar to those repeated at regular Baath Party conferences, where committees would be formed to study reforms that then never saw the light of day.
"The leadership is trying to absorb the rage of the streets. We want to see reform on the ground," said a Deraa protester.
A hospital official said at least 37 people had been killed in Deraa on Wednesday when security forces opened fire on demonstrators inspired by uprisings across the Arab world that have shaken authoritarian leaders.
While an aide said Assad would study a possible end to 48 years of emergency rule, a human rights group said a leading pro-democracy activist, Mazen Darwish, had been arrested.
Announcing promises for reform in a manner that would have seemed almost unimaginable three months ago in Syria, Assad adviser Bouthaina Shaaban told a news conference the president had not himself ordered his forces to fire on protesters:
"I was a witness to the instructions of His Excellency that live ammunition should not be fired, even if the police, security forces or officers of the state were being killed."
On Jan 31 Assad had said there was no chance political upheavals then shaking Tunisia and Egypt would spread to Syria.
After Thursday's announcement, Syrian television showed a large procession of cars in Deraa driving in support of Assad with pictures of the president plastered on the vehicles.
The Baath Party, which has ruled for half a century, will draft laws to provide for media freedoms, and will look at allowing other political movements. The party will also seek to lift living standards and consider ending the rule of emergency law.
Authorities released all those arrested in the Deraa region since the protests erupted, an official statement said but it did not give a figure. The statement also said Assad ordered a 20 to 30 percent salary rise for public employees across Syria.
DERAA KILLINGS
"When you first hear it you think they're making major concessions, but when you look at it you realize there's not a lot there besides the salary boost," said Joshua Landis, a Syria expert at Oklahoma University in the U.S.. "You understand the regime is in a very difficult spot and they're flustered."

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4 suspected Islamic militants set to go on trial in Spain

Madrid, Spain (CNN) -- Four suspected Islamic militants are due to go on trial Thursday afternoon in Madrid for allegedly aiding fugitives from the Madrid train bombings of 2004, a National Court spokesman told CNN.

Prosecutor Miguel Angel Carballo, at Spain's National Court, seeks sentences of eight to 13 years in prison against the four male suspects, who include a Moroccan, an Algerian, a Tunisian, and a fourth man whose nationality was not immediately disclosed, said the spokesman, who by custom is not identified.

The prosecutor alleges the suspects provided clandestine lodging in Madrid and in a Barcelona suburb, as well as other aid to various fugitives who "were directly implicated" in the Madrid train bombings that killed 191 people and wounded more than 1,800, the spokesman said.

Spanish courts already have convicted 14 Islamic militants for their roles in the train bombings, along with four Spaniards, the latter for trafficking in explosives used in the attacks.

Additionally, seven other prime Islamic suspects in the attacks blew themselves up three weeks after the train bombings as police closed in on their hideout in a Madrid suburb. That explosion also killed a police officer and wounded various others.

The seventh anniversary of the train bombings was two weeks ago on March 11.

Last February, Spain's Supreme Court overturned a lower court's conviction of five other men for Islamic terrorist activities that included aiding fugitives from the Madrid train bombings and planning other attacks, according to the court order made public March 2.

The National Court in January 2010 had convicted the five other men --- three Moroccans, an Algerian and a Turk --- for collaborating or belonging to an Islamic terrorist group and sentenced them to prison terms from five to nine years.

But the Supreme Court disagreed, ruling that telephone wiretaps used to gain crucial evidence against those five suspects lacked the proper protections under Spain's constitution, and there was "insufficient evidence, beyond all reasonable doubt," to prove the crimes that prosecutors alleged.

Those five men were in a group based in a Barcelona suburb, Santa Coloma de Gramenet, before police made arrests in June 2005. Some of the suspects to go on trial Thursday also allegedly operated their network to aid fugitives from the same Barcelona suburb.

The trial is expected to last several days.

--------------------------------------------------------

Suicide attack kills 5 and injures 36 in northwest Pakistan

(CNN) -- A suicide bomber killed five people and injured 36 in Pakistan's northwest on Thursday, police said.

Four civilians and a policeman died in the attack, Abdul Rasheed Khan, police chief of the Hangu district in restive Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, said. Among the injured were eleven policemen.

The explosion occurred when a suicide bomber in a car detonated explosives at a barrier next to a police station in the village of Doaba, according to Khan. Eight houses near the police station were damaged by the blast, he said.

Khyber Pakhtunkhwa borders Afghanistan and was formerly known as the North West Frontier Province. It has long been a hot-bed of activity by the Pakistani Taliban. The province was the site of several attacks on NATO supply convoys during 2010.

Hundreds of people have been killed and injured in bombings in the province in the past six months.

While police stations are a frequent target for violence, mosques have also been attacked. The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province is also home to a population of Ahmadis, who consider themselves Muslims but are seen as heretics by Sunnis and Shiites.

The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province was devastated last summer by monsoon rains, which triggered the worst flooding Pakistan had endured since its founding.

-----------------------------------

European Union under cyber attack as major summit begins

London (CNN) -- The European Union is under cyber attack, a spokesman said Thursday, as a major international summit begins.

The attack is targeting the EU Commission -- its executive arm -- and the external action service, said Antony Gravali, a spokesman for the EU administration in Brussels, Belgium.

"I was alerted to this on Tuesday and we are taking urgent measures to protect the institutions," he said.

"All users have had to change their passwords, and we have suspended access to e-mail and the internal intranet from home as a precaution, but at the institutions our systems continue to work as normal," he said.

The attack was launched only days before the start of the EU summit, but Gravali said he had not seen any evidence that the attack was connected to the gathering.

"We frequently come under cyber attack, but it is not like we normally see a surge in attacks ahead of the EU summits," he told CNN.

An inquiry has been launched into the attack, but Gravali said it is "extraordinarily difficult" to find out the origins of cyber attacks.

Gravali would not specify what parts of the Information Technology infrastructure that had been attacked or who they suspected was behind it.

The attack was still going on Thursday morning, but employees at the institutions were still able to work "as normal" Gravali said.

--------------------------------

UK, Germany withdraw embassy staff from Yemen over unrest

(CNN) -- Germany and the United Kingdom are pulling nonessential embassy staff out of Yemen, they said Thursday, with the British citing "the rapid deterioration in the security situation."

Both nations are keeping small core staffs in place in Sanaa, they said.

Yemen, a key U.S. ally and a central battleground against al Qaeda, has been wracked by protests since the beginning of the year. Support for President Ali Abdullah Saleh appears to be slipping away.

Saleh has accepted opposition demands for constitutional reforms and holding parliamentary elections by the end of the year, according to a statement issued by his office.

The statement said Saleh was "committed to undertaking all possible initiatives to reach a settlement" with the opposition JMP bloc and "prevent any future bloodshed of the Yemeni people."

According to the statement, Saleh "has accepted the five points submitted by the JMP, including formation of a government of national unity and a national committee to draft a new constitution, drafting a new electoral law, and holding a constitutional referendum, parliamentary elections and a presidential vote by the end of the year.

Saleh's aim would be to "end the current state of political turmoil facing the nation and paving the way for a smooth, peaceful and democratic transition," the statement said.

There was no immediate reaction from the opposition, which previously has demanded Saleh's immediate resignation.

On Tuesday, a JMP spokesman rejected a report that Saleh was offering to step down by early 2012.

"Any offer that does not include the president's immediate resignation is rejected," JMP spokesman Mohammed Qahtan said.

Saleh's statement came on the same day that Yemen's parliament approved a 30-day extension of emergency powers he declared last week in response to the protests. The emergency law expands the government's powers of arrest, detention, and censorship.

The president's standing has weakened after some government officials and military officers declared their support for the opposition Monday in the wake of a crackdown on protesters that left 52 people dead last week.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton called Wednesday for full political dialogue in Yemen involving all players to find a peaceful solution.

"The people of Yemen have the same rights as people anywhere, and we support dialogue as a path to a peaceful solution," Clinton said in Washington. Asked about putting any pressure on Saleh, Clinton said: "We are certainly making our views known on both a regular and consistent basis, both publicly and privately."

Yemen's army repelled an attack Tuesday on a military position by al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, killing 12 militants and wounding five, a Yemeni official told CNN, citing sources at the Interior Ministry in Sanaa.

The official, who spoke on condition of not being named because he is not authorized to talk to the media, said the attack occurred east of the city of Lawdar, in Abyan province in southwest Yemen.

The violence against opposition demonstrators last week drew international condemnation.

Rupert Colville of the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights said Tuesday that the agency deplored the reported killings of protesters, including allegations of snipers shooting from rooftops.

"All such violations of human rights must indeed be investigated by independent and impartial mechanisms," Colville said in Geneva, Switzerland.

U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Tuesday the United States was "obviously concerned about the instability in Yemen. We consider al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, which is largely located in Yemen, to be perhaps the most dangerous of all the franchises of al Qaeda right now."

Radical American-born cleric Anwar al-Awlaki is believed to be hiding in the country.

The cleric has been linked to terror plots including the attempt to bomb a Detroit-bound plane on Christmas Day 2009, and he corresponded separately with a British Airways employee about trying to smuggle explosives onto planes.

Top American officials, including U.S. President Barack Obama's counter-terrorism chief, have traveled to Yemen to meet with Saleh. Leaked diplomatic cables suggest Saleh's government helped disguise strikes by U.S. unmanned drones on terror targets in Yemen by calling them Yemeni actions.

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Yemeni opposition says No to Saleh's new offer

(Reuters) - Yemen's opposition stepped up efforts to remove President Ali Abdullah Saleh on Thursday, dismissing his offer to stand down after a presidential election at the end of the year.

Tensions ratcheted higher a day ahead of a planned rally that protesters have dubbed "Friday of Departure," and presidential guards loyal to Saleh clashed with army units backing opposition groups demanding his ouster.
But a top general who has thrown his weight behind the protesters said he had no desire to take power, as fears grew of a major confrontation between rival military units in the capital Sanaa or elsewhere.
Yassin Noman, head of Yemen's opposition coalition, dismissed Saleh's offer as "empty words" and a spokesman said the umbrella coalition would not respond.
"No dialogue and no initiatives for this dead regime," opposition spokesman Mohammed al-Sabry said.
General Ali Mohsen, who sent troops to protect pro-democracy protesters in Sanaa, said the options before Saleh were now few, and criticized what he described as his "stubbornness," but said the armed forces were committed to protecting protesters.
He said military rule in Arab countries was outdated and that the people would decide who would govern them in the framework of a modern, civilian state. "Ali Mohsen as an individual has served for 55 years and has no desire for any power or position," he told Reuters. "I have no more ambition left except to spend the remainder of my life in tranquility, peace and relaxation far from the problems of politics and the demands of the job."
POST-SALEH CONCERN
Mohsen, commander of the northwest military zone and Saleh's kinsman from the al-Ahmar clan, is the most senior military officer to back the protests, and his move on Monday triggered a stream of defections in the military and government.
Saleh offered amnesty to defecting troops in a meeting with senior commanders, calling their decisions foolish acts taken in reaction to violence in Sanaa last Friday, when 52 protesters were shot dead.
Yemen lies on key shipping routes and borders the world's leading oil exporter Saudi Arabia. Al Qaeda has used Yemen as a base to plot attacks in both Saudi Arabia and the United States, and both countries have bet on Saleh to contain the group.
Washington and Riyadh, Yemen's main financial backer, have long seen Saleh as a bulwark against a resurgent Yemen-based al Qaeda network, which has entrenched itself in the mountainous state. U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Washington had not planned for an era without Saleh.
Western countries and Saudi Arabia are worried about a power vacuum if Saleh goes that could embolden al Qaeda.
Mohsen, an Islamist seen as close to the Islamist opposition, said the army would work with the international community against terrorism.
With no clear successor and conflicts gripping northern and southern Yemen, the country of 23 million faces fears of a breakup, in addition to poverty, a water shortage, dwindling oil reserves and lack of central government control.

---------------------------------------

String of rocket attacks follows fatal Jerusalem bombing

Jerusalem (CNN) -- Eleven rockets were fired into Israel from Gaza on Thursday, a day after a fatal terrorist bombing in Jerusalem killed a woman and wounded more than 50 other people, the Israel Defense Forces said.

"The question is why," Brig. Gen. Yossi Kuperwasser said in a phone call Thursday, speaking about the increase in attacks, which the IDF said caused no injuries.

Israel's ambassador to the United States said Thursday the rocket attacks appear "unrelated" to Wednesday's bombing in Jerusalem.

Michael Oren said the rocket attacks probably have to do with infighting in the Hamas-controlled territory of Gaza. However, he said, there has also been an escalation in violence against his country.

"Israel has been under attack on several fronts," Oren said, also citing the recent murder of an Israeli family in the West Bank.

One of the rockets fired Thursday hit near the southern Israeli town of Ashdod, and another landed in the southern town of Sderot, causing damage to an industrial area of the town, according to Israeli Police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld.

In response to the rocket attacks, the Israeli military launched airstrikes in Gaza on Thursday night. Two were in the Beit Hanoun area of northern Gaza and two were in Gaza City, according to journalist Ibrahim Dahman.

A Hamas building and a Hamas training camp were hit, he reported.

Kuperwasser said Thursday night's strikes were aimed at trying to prevent more attacks on Israel.

"Right now there is no one in Gaza to stop this, so it's up to us to try to stop it," he said.

"It seems no one speaks for the Palestinians," he added. "Hamas is not in charge."

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the Jerusalem attack, which was caused by a medium-sized device in a bag that had been left near Jerusalem's central bus station as the evening rush hour began.

Israel's Ministry of Foreign Affairs named the woman who died as Mary Jane Gardner, a 59-year-old British national who was studying at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem.

Israeli officials were continuing their investigation into Wednesday's attack, Kuperwasser said, without giving details.

U.S. President Barack Obama called Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday to express his condolences over the Jerusalem bombing and his concern about the attacks against Israel from Gaza, the White House said in a statement.

Obama "reaffirmed the United States' unwavering commitment to Israel's security," it said.

U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates also paid a visit to Israel on Thursday. He met with his Israeli counterpart, Ehud Barak, who said Israel will not "tolerate" terrorist attacks.

British Foreign Secretary William Hague also spoke out against the attack, calling it "a callous and disgusting act of terrorism directed against innocent civilians which I condemn unreservedly."

The Palestinian Authority also condemned the attack, but Oren, the Israeli ambassador, criticized their comments.

They "say one thing" and "do another thing," he said.

He said prominent members of the Palestinian government recently attended a ceremony at a central square near Ramallah that was named after a "Palestinian terrorist who killed dozens of Israelis, including about 13 children."

"The message gets out that killing Israelis is a good thing," Oren said. "We need to see not just words, but deeds."

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11:11 AM |

Libyans gather for funerals of alleged victims of airstrike

Tripoli, Libya (CNN) -- After a fifth consecutive night of pounding by coalition jets, Libyans gathered at a seaside cemetery in Tripoli Thursday for the funerals of 33 people Moammar Gadhafi's government said were victims of an airstrike.

State television broadcast the funerals live, calling the dead victims of the "crusader colonial aggression." Earlier, a Libyan government official said coalition planes struck the suburb of Tajura and state TV showed images of fires, smoldering vehicles and the charred bodies of the dead.

CNN could not independently verify the circumstances of the deaths or who the victims were. Regardless, anger trumped grief at the cemetery and Gadhafi's message was loud and clear: innocent people were wrongly killed and the Libyan people will fight back.

Coalition leaders have reported no civilian casualties so far and said that Western jets have dropped precision bombs on military targets.

"It is not likely that civilians were a part of any airstrike today," said Joint Task Force Operation Odyssey Dawn Lt. Cmdr. Jim Hoeft.

Gadhafi tanks turned into wreckage

What does Libya's military have left?

Should coalition support Libyan rebels?

Haas on Libya: 'Extraordinarily messy'

But so far, the aerial war has been unable to stop Gadhafi's armor and the battle for two cities -- Misrata in the west and Ajdabiya in the east -- raged on Thursday.

A Misrata resident told CNN that he heard an explosion and that snipers loyal to Gadhafi were shooting from rooftops in the besieged city.

Earlier, Gadhafi's tanks attacked Misrata's main hospital filled with 400 people, half of whom were patients, a witness said. At one point, the shelling went on for 40 long minutes -- without respite.

"Now, fortunately, no more shelling, but the situation is so serious that all the teams here -- the doctors, the patients -- are paralyzed, scared," the witness said, imploring the international community to intervene in the name of civilians under attack.

The situation, he said, was too dangerous for ambulances to leave the hospital. The hospital had no electricity and was relying on a generator.

Witnesses in Misrata are not being identified by CNN because of security reasons. Journalists have no access to the city and cannot independently confirm reports of violence.

The battle for Misrata, Libya's third largest city, has been ongoing for more than a week.

British Foreign Secretary William Hague said Thursday that many residents remain trapped in their homes without electricity and communications and a dwindling supply of food and water.

In the east, Gadhafi's tanks were shelling Ajdabiya, where fierce fighting had occurred the day before. Loyalist forces still controlled the northern and western gates to the city.

"This underlines the appalling danger its inhabitants would be in without coalition action, as do continued threats by Gadhafi forces to 'massacre' residents in areas under bombardment," Hague said.

An opposition member told CNN that an isolated Gadhafi unit had raised a white flag but when the rebels approached, the unit began firing.

The coalition has been able to establish a no-fly zone that spans from east to west along Libya's coastline. French jets fired air-to-ground missiles on a Libyan combat aircraft Thursday that was in violation of the no-fly mandate, destroying it, the French Defense Ministry said. The plane was struck as it was landing in a Misrata airfield.

Preparing for battle in Libya

White House answers Libya questions

What could be the end game in Libya?

Military leaders talk U.S. role in Libya

RELATED TOPICS

Though the rebels may be in a better position now, a U.S. official said Gadhafi's forces still have the upper hand.

They remain capable of carrying out attacks on the opposition, are relatively well-organized and continue to fight effectively, the official said.

Aid agencies, restricted from accessing most parts of the country, expressed grave concern for Libyans living in battle zones.

"It's unclear how civilians are faring in the areas affected by hostilities," said Simon Brooks, head of the International Committee of the Red Cross mission in Libya.

"And that's a source of great concern to us," he said. "We're getting alarming reports from cities like Ajdabiya and Misrata, where the conflict has been raging for weeks now."

Brooks said doctors in both cities were working under extremely difficult conditions and "struggling to keep patients alive."

On the sixth day of the coalition's intervention in Libya, myriad questions hounded allied leaders, chief among them: who will eventually take command of the mission?

"These coalition operations are currently under U.S. command," Hague said. "But we want them to transition to NATO command and control as quickly as possible."

NATO already has ships in the Mediterranean Sea to enforce an arms embargo but is still debating who should take charge of the Libyan campaign.

"We need agreement to unified command and control for it to be robust, and we expect to get that soon," Hague said.

A key NATO ally, Turkey, voted Thursday to participate in the alliance's naval operations but only in support of the arms embargo against Libya. It will not conduct military strikes.

Critics are also calling for a clearer explanation of U.S. policy in the North African nation.

U.S. President Barack Obama, who just wrapped up a five-day trip to Latin America, has insisted that the goal of the U.N.-sanctioned military mission is strictly to prevent a humanitarian crisis.

Specifically, the U.N. mandate calls for protecting Libyan rebels and other civilians from attacks by forces loyal to the strongman.

U.S. officials have indicated they hope Gadhafi will be removed quickly by forces currently loyal to him, though they haven't publicly called for a coup

The international airstrikes against Libyan military positions began over the weekend after Gadhafi defied a United Nations-mandated cease-fire to stop attacks against civilians.

The war was sparked in February by protests demanding an end to Gadhafi's nearly 42-year rule. The Libyan strongman responded with force against civilians, prompting the international community to take action.

France launched the air campaign, and Britain and the United States followed. Britain has announced an international meeting for next Tuesday to assess the situation in Libya.

-----------------------------------------------

French jet attacked Libya plane'

A French warplane has destroyed a Libyan plane which had been flying in breach of the UN no-fly zone, French officials say.

The plane, a smaller trainer aircraft, had just landed in the besieged city of Misrata when it was attacked, they say.

It is the first incident of its kind since enforcement of the zone began.

Dozens of coalition missiles have already hit military bases, with the aim of ending Col Muammar Gaddafi's ability to launch air attacks.

UK officials said on Wednesday that Libya's air force no longer existed as a fighting force.

Single engine

Coalition forces have pounded Libyan targets for a fifth consecutive night.

Initial reports of the French action said the Libyan plane, a G-2/Galeb with a single engine, was in the air when it was hit.

But French military spokesman Col Thierry Burkhard later said the plane had just landed when the attack took place.

The French jet, a Rafale, fired an air-to-ground missile, other reports said.

Earlier, the French military said their planes had hit an air base about 250km (155 miles) south of the Libyan coastline, but did not give any further information on the location of the target or the damage.

Western military planes were also said to have hit the town of Sebha in southern Libya, according to residents and media reports.

Fresh fighting has meanwhile been reported in Misrata, scene of a bitter battle for control which has lasted for many days.
Misrata resident Muhammad told the BBC many large explosions were heard overnight in the city.
"Even now, we continue to hear the aeroplanes circling the air above Misrata," he said.
"Gaddafi's forces have occupied the main street - there are snipers all along the rooftops of that street. They are firing indiscriminately into the main street and the back streets.
"But the heavy artillery and shelling has stopped since yesterday [Wednesday]. In that sense, we are in a much better position."
Further east in the strategically important city of Ajdabiya, residents described shelling, gunfire and houses on fire. One report said rebels were moving closer to the city but remained outgunned by pro-Gaddafi forces.
Nato debate Nato members have been holding talks about assuming responsibility for the no-fly zone over Libya, so far without agreement.
The US is keen to relinquish its current control, but there are disagreements about who should take on the role, and what the exact terms of engagement would be.
Turkey wants any Nato-led action to focus directly on enforcing the no-fly zone and arms embargo, rather than allowing any continuing strikes against ground forces.
The Turkish parliament has backed a government decision to join the blockade. Four frigates, a submarine and a support vessel are being provided by Turkey.

---------------------------------------------

Rebels close in on oil city as NATO set to take charge

TRIPOLI (AFP) - Rebels battled on to the strategic eastern city of Ajdabiya on Thursday as plans firmed for NATO to take over coalition operations after Tripoli came under attack for the sixth day.

France promised to continue air raids "for as long as necessary" and Italy offered to increase its participation in the coalition operation.

Military officials announced French warplanes had struck a Libyan military base overnight and blasts and anti-aircraft fire rattled the Libyan capital before down.

NATO was preparing for a fresh round of talks to resolve the squabble over transferring command of military operations from a US-led coalition to the 28-nation alliance.

But there were clear signs that Turkey would drop its opposition to the plan and reluctantly join the operation.

French fighter jets attacked an air base 250 kilometres (150 miles) inland from the Mediterranean coast overnight, military officials said Thursday at a press conference.

Italy could offer warships and more planes for operations in Libya on top of four Tornado bombers and four F-16 fighter jets it has already deployed, the defence minister said.

Rebels were fighting to retake Ajbadiya from troops loyal to Moamer Kadhafi, an AFP journalist witnessed.

Shelling and gunfire could be heard at a rebel outpost nine kilometres (five miles) from the oil city where hundreds of fighters amassed in the morning before marching forward.

"They are shooting at us with tanks, artillery and Grad missiles," said Mohamed, a rebel returning from the frontline. "We have nothing but light weapons whereas they have heavy ones."

The rebels, whose weapons range from Kalashnikovs to knives, are trying to enter the city from several fronts and managed to get within one kilometre of Ajdabiya's eastern entrance, said Mohamed.

Tanks guarded the northern and western entrances.

Focus: Libyan fighters, rebels without an officer

Heavy fighting Wednesday forced residents to flee en masse.

Operation Odyssey Dawn

There were also reports from the southern stronghold of Sebha that the coalition had carried out intensive air raids on the town, bastion of Kadhafi's Guededfa tribe and home to an important military base.

Fresh air raids on Thursday shook Tajura, a residential neighbourhood 32 kilometres (20 miles) east of the capital, with coalition forces targetting Libyan military bases, according to witnesses.

The official JANA news agency said "military and civilian sites from Tripoli to Tajura continue to be the target of raids by the aggressive and colonialist crusade".

Officials when questioned provided no death toll although Libyan television reported "a large number" of civilian casualties as a result of air raids Wednesday on Tajura and broadcast images of corpses at a Tripoli morgue.

A Libyan rebels prepare for battle against government forces a few kilometers from Ajdabiya

The claims could not be independently confirmed.

French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe said Thursday that coalition air strikes against Libya had been a "success" and would "continue for as long as necessary" adding that it was a question "of days and weeks ... but not months".

"We will continue with the airstrikes," Juppe told RTL radio. Tthe strikes were "only targeting military sites and nothing else."

Juppe insisted the operation was aimed at protecting civilian populations from attacks by Kadhafi loyalists, and denied reports that airstrikes had killed civilians. "It is the exact opposite," he said.

He added that France was in favour of handing over responsibility for implementing a UN-approved "no-fly" zone to NATO.

At the same time, however, the coalition led by the United States, France and Britain should maintain political control over the campaign, especially strikes against military installations, he said.

Canadians F-18 jet pilots from the 425 Tactical Fighter squadron arrive in Sicily after a mission

NATO ambassadors were to meet again in Brussels after the latest efforts to reach agreement on the transfer of authority ended in stalemate, partly because Turkey says the coalition bombings must stop first, a diplomat said.

Despite the row, NATO has drawn up the outlines of what its command structure would look like if and when it takes over the no-fly zone, another alliance diplomat said.

Several NATO nations want the alliance to take over the entire campaign, and US officials say they want to hand off responsibility to someone else within days.

France, however, is insisting on leaving political control of the mission in the hands of an international coalition while NATO would run day-to-day operations, arguing that flying the mission under the Western military organisation's flag would alienate Arab allies.

Italy's Defence Minister Ignazio La Russa explained that a naval flotilla composed of the aircraft carrier Garibaldi and three other warships as well as some Eurofighters and F-16s, two more Tornadoes and a C-130 military transport plane could bolster the force under NATO.

A pilot walks on the tarmac after getting off a French Rafale jet fighter in Corsica after a mission in Libya

Italy has threatened to take back control of the seven air bases it has offered for no-fly zone operations if NATO command is not agreed.

The F-16 warplanes sent by Norway to take part in operations over Libya carried out their first mission on Thursday, the country's armed forces said.

Under US command two of the six aircraft, which are based in Crete, took off around midday and headed for Libya as part of the "Odyssey Dawn" operation.

---------------------------------------------------

West strikes deep in Libya, Misrata, Ajdabiyah besieged

(Reuters) - Western warplanes hit military targets deep insideLibya
on Thursday but failed to prevent tanks reentering the western town of Misrata and besieging its main hospital.Air strikes destroyed government tanks on the outskirts of rebel-held Misrata, but other tanks inside the city were not hit, a resident said, underlining the difficulty of the U.N. backed military mission to protect Libyans from Muammar Gaddafi.
The continued violence has strained the international coalition set up to try to stop Gaddafi's assault on Libyans seeking an end to his rule, with a growing list of countries wary of attacks on ground troops that could kill civilians.
NATO members were still trying to resolve differences over the command and aims of the campaign while Western forces, having taken out Libyan air defenses, moved deeper into Libya and on to other strategic targets.
Gaddafi's tanks rolled back into Misrata under the cover of darkness and shelled the area near the hospital, which was also under fire from government snipers, residents and rebels said.
"The situation is very serious," a doctor in the western town said by telephone before the line was cut off.
A resident called Abdelbasset said around 6,000 workers and family members from Egypt and other African countries were stuck in the port, under the eye of two Libyan warships which moved in on Wednesday. "They haven't attacked but if they do, the thousands of workers will be the first victims," he said.
Clashes between rebels and besieging forces continued on Thursday in the eastern frontline town of Ajdabiyah, said Abu Musab, who left the town by car with his family of 10.
"There is no water, no power and the bombing is random. Everyone has left," he said, adding that Gaddafi's forces were positioned to the east, west and south of the town.
"There are revolutionaries in the town and there is fighting going on right now."
PLANE DESTROYED
France said it had hit an air base in central Libya early on Thursday, the fifth night of Western air strikes, and had also hit a government plane after it landed at Misrata airport.
Al Arabiya television said coalition planes struck Sabha, a Gaddafi stronghold in southern Libya.
A Libyan official said fuel storage tanks and a telecommunications tower in Tripoli were among places hit by what state television called "colonialist crusaders." A target in the Tajoura district which a resident said was a military area was also hit twice on Thursday.
Libyan Deputy Foreign Minister Khaled Kaim said strikes had hit military and civilian compounds in the central Jufrah region and other targets in Tripoli, Misrata and south of Benghazi in the east, home to a emerging alternative government.

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Arm the Libyan rebels to fight Gadhafi

Editor's note: Angel M. Rabasa, a member of the Bosnia Train and Equip Task Force in the early 1990s, is a senior political scientist at the RAND Corp., a nonprofit institution whose mission is to help improve policy and decision-making through research and analysis.

(CNN) -- The no-fly zone and air strikes on military targets of the Gadhafi regime bear close parallels to events in Bosnia in autumn, 1995, when NATO air strikes and the threat of further attacks halted the Bosnian Serb military onslaught against Bosnian Muslim targets.

If effective, the international action might prevent the Gadhafi forces from crushing the rebellion in Libya, but it will not end the conflict.

The Gadhafi regime retains overwhelming military superiority over the Benghazi-based Interim National Council. Unless the military imbalance is redressed, Gadhafi will retain the ability to threaten or renew his attacks on his opposition. As long as this situation persists, international military involvement in Libya -- to enforce the no-fly zone and prevent ground attacks by Gadhafi's forces -- will likely have to continue.

What the United States did in Bosnia might hold the key for an effective response to the crisis in Libya. In Bosnia, the United States sought to redress the military balance, which since the onset of the war in 1992 had heavily favored the Bosnian Serb army.

To restore balance and create conditions for lasting peace in Bosnia, it was necessary to establish a capable Bosnian Federation army. A "train and equip" program was implemented by a small interagency group based in the State Department.

Should coalition support Libyan rebels?

Battle for Ajdabiya

Gadhafi tanks turned into wreckage

What could be the end game in Libya?

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Despite the Europeans' skepticism and dislike for the program, it succeeded. The program raised donations of several hundred million dollars from Muslim countries, supervised the purchase of military equipment for the armed forces of the Federation and arranged for a U.S. contractor to train Federation troops. The program also helped promote other U.S. objectives in Bosnia by diminishing Iranian influence and ensuring the departure of the foreign fighters.

The situations in Bosnia then and Libya now grow more alike as the violence in Libya evolves into prolonged conflict. Despite establishment of a no-fly zone over Libya, there is little reason to expect that air or naval power alone will dislodge Gadhafi from areas he controls.

The U.N. Security Council resolution that authorized the no-fly zone and all necessary measures to protect civilians under attack in Libya did not call for Gadhafi's ouster. There are reports that some Arab countries are considering deploying ground troops to Libya. But if they do, their role would likely be protection of the civilian population in areas outside Gadhafi's control. That outcome would still leave Gadhafi in power in western Libya.

That leaves few effective options if the United States wants to prevent the crisis in Libya from leading to a prolonged armed conflict or de facto partition that leaves a ruthless, embittered dictator with a terrorist record in control of half the country. That situation could have long-term destabilizing consequences for Libya and the Middle East.

The way out of this conundrum would be for the United States to clarify its goals in Libya. Recognizing that lasting stability could only come about as the result of the removal of Gadhafi from power, the United States and like-minded countries could begin by recognizing the Benghazi government as the legitimate government of Libya. The Libyan National Council is, after all, a government set up by a popular uprising against tyranny and therefore inherently more legitimate than Gadhafi's government in Tripoli.

The United States also might consider launching an effort to provide the Benghazi government with arms and equipment to defend itself against Gadhafi's forces and to help it liberate western Libya. The U.S. need not become directly involved in the training and equipping of the Libyan opposition. As with the Bosnia train and equip program, a small U.S. team could help arrange for the purchase and delivery of arms, as well as supply training, possibly by third parties.

There are those who would caution that the United States does not know enough about the Libyan opposition to support it, but this is not entirely true. Some of the opposition leaders are former cabinet ministers and generals in the Libyan government, known to the United States and its allies.

As in all revolutions, a few of Libya's opposition leaders have emerged from the rank and file of protesters. Some may be Islamists, but this was also true in Bosnia during that war. If the U.S. were to simply stand aside, extremists could fill the gap, as occurred in the early days of the Bosnian war.

The U.S. decision to support victims of aggression paid off in Bosnia and advanced America's interests and values. Involvement on the side of the democracy movement in Libya would enable the United States to exercise a positive influence on Libya's evolution and prevent destabilizing outcomes.

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Except for Qatar, Arab nations that called for action against Gadhafi are missing in action

WASHINGTON - As America's NATO allies shoulder a greater share of the mission in Libya, the Arab countries that urged the U.N. Security Council to impose a no-fly zone are missing from the action.

Except for the small Persian Gulf nation of Qatar, which is expected to start flying air patrols over Libya by this weekend, no other members of the 22-member Arab League so far have publicly committed to taking an active role. The U.S. has sold many of these countries, including Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, billions of dollars in sophisticated military gear over the past decade to help counter Iran's power in the region.

In the latest round of attacks, the international coalition struck at leader Moammar Gadhafi's military sites with jet bombers and more than a dozen Tomahawk cruise missiles, a U.S. defense official said Thursday. Targets late Wednesday and early Thursday included Gadhafi's air defense missile sites in Tripoli and south of the capital as well as an ammunition bunker south of Misrata and forces south of Benghazi, the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak on the record.

Nearly a week into the campaign to prevent Libyan leader Gadhafi's forces from attacking civilians, the United States increased the pressure on its NATO allies to take command of the campaign, suggesting the U.S. might even step away from its leadership role in a few days, even with the conflict's outcome in doubt.

Officials said there was no absolute deadline to hand over front-line control to other countries, or for an end to all U.S. participation. Still, with the costs of the campaign growing by the day and members of Congress raising complaints over the goals in Libya, the Obama administration wants its allies to take the lead role soon.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates, an early skeptic of American military intervention in Libya, said President Barack Obama made clear from the start of the campaign last Saturday that the U.S. would run it for only about a week. In an exchange with reporters traveling with him in Cairo on Wednesday, Gates was asked if his comments meant the U.S. had set a firm deadline of this Saturday for turning over command.

"I don't want to be pinned down that closely," Gates replied. "But what we've been saying is that we would expect this transition to the coalition, to a different command and control arrangement, to take place within a few days and I would still stand by that."

An American Army general now oversees the campaign from Europe, and an American Navy admiral is the day-to-day commander from a floating command post off the Libyan coast.

While the question of overall command remains unsettled, the Defense Department on Wednesday released statistics showing U.S. aircraft are flying fewer missions than at the beginning of the week.

Between Tuesday and Wednesday, there were 175 air missions — including non-combat flights — in the Libya operation, according to the department's figures. Of that total, 65 percent were flown by U.S. planes and 35 percent were flown by allied aircraft. Three days earlier, the U.S. made 87 percent of the flights compared with 13 percent by allied aircraft.

But when, or if, any Arab League members besides Qatar will participate is unclear.

On March 12, the Arab League called for the no-fly zone over Libya, saying Gadhafi's government had lost its sovereignty. Yet since then, Arab League Secretary-General Amr Moussa has said the air war has caused civilian deaths and gone beyond what the league had backed.

On Tuesday, two Qatar Air Force fighter jets and a cargo jet flew to a Greek air base on the island of Crete, en route to helping enforce the no-fly zone. Navy Adm. Samuel J. Locklear, the day-to-day commander, said he expected Qatar's aircraft to "be up and flying in the coalition by the weekend."

Deputy national security adviser Ben Rhodes told reporters traveling with the president on Air Force One that the U.S. is continuing to talk to Arab states like Jordan and the United Arab Emirates. "Different countries are going to have different contributions to make here," he said.

In Congress, meanwhile, the Republican speaker of the House, Rep. John Boehner of Ohio, said Obama must quickly spell out the nation's precise goals in Libya. Congressional liberals and conservatives have criticized the president — some accusing him of acting too slowly, others saying he moved too quickly. Some have said he should have asked for Congress' approval before committing U.S. troops to combat.

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said order could be resolved quickly — if Libyan leader Gadhafi would just quit.

Obama returned Wednesday to Washington after a three-nation tour of Latin America, and several key Democrats lined up in support of his approach in Libya.

Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois, the No. 2 Senate Democrat, said that when Gadhafi started a violent crackdown on his people, Obama moved with "unprecedented speed," and when Gadhafi remained defiant, Obama worked with allies and the Arab nations. He called it a "prudent course of action for the president and for our nation."

But, Boehner, in a letter to the White House, said Obama still must provide a clear and robust assessment of the mission and how it will be achieved.

Administration officials conceded there is no clear end to the fighting, although the Pentagon contended that Gadhafi's air force is essentially defeated and coalition planes are targeting more of his ground forces.

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Portugal, Ireland woes dominate EU summit

BRUSSELS (AP) -- Just on the day EU leaders were hoping to present the final version of their plan to solve the region's debt crisis, their summit in Brussels was overwhelmed Thursday by debate over Portugal's political crisis and Ireland's banking woes.

The meeting was supposed to be the event where governments signed off on closer economic cooperation and an overhaul of the size and powers of the region's bailout funds. Instead, all the focus turned to whether Portugal will take a bailout and how Ireland will cope with its banks' losses.

The defeat of Portugal's minority government over planned austerity measures puts one of Europe's most financially troubled countries into political limbo just as it faces huge debt repayment deadlines.

Pedro Passos Coelho, the leader of Portugal's main opposition party and the most likely candidate to become its next prime minister, said it was "impossible" to tell whether the country could avoid an international bailout like the ones taken by Greece and Ireland.

He said he didn't have complete information about public finances, but emphasized that the country needed "a stronger government, more committed to reducing the public deficit and controlling debt levels."

Passos Coelho's center-right Social Democratic Party and other opposition parties Wednesday night refused to endorse Prime Minister Jose Socrates' spending cuts and tax increases, triggering his resignation.

Passos Coelho was meeting other conservative EU politicians at a pre-summit meeting just outside Brussels, while Socrates represented his country at the actual summit. However, Passos Coelho said Socrates would not have a mandate to negotiate a bailout on behalf of his country.

Most analysts believe an international rescue is only a matter of time, as the EU's bailout fund is ready to be tapped.

Jean-Claude Juncker, the prime minister of Luxembourg, said EU leaders would hold talks with both Passos Coelho and Socrates to get a clear idea of the situation.

Some, like German Chancellor Angela Merkel, said they regretted Socrates' defeat over austerity measures.

"Portugal had presented a very courageous reform program for the years '11, '12 and '13," she said. "I think it will depend very much on everyone who speaks for Portugal feeling committed to the goals of that program. That is not only important for Portugal but also for the entire eurozone."

The political crisis in Portugal takes the shine off the EU's new crisis strategy, which was due to be signed off at the summit.

Over the past week eurozone policymakers reached deals on the size and powers of their provisional and future bailout funds, and committed to improve the competitiveness of their economies by targeting wage increases and unsustainable public pension systems.

But a growing unwillingness among taxpayers - and politicians - in some countries to bet solely on austerity measures to overcome the region's financial crisis was starting to put that strategy into doubt.

Those market jitters were nevertheless confined to the three most troubled countries - Portugal, Ireland and Greece. Elsewhere in Europe, markets were steady - even in Spain, which was considered the next weakest link in the eurozone after Portugal - suggesting investors believe the debt turmoil can be better contained now than in the past.

Still, the outlook for the three shakiest countries is grim.

Fitch Ratings promptly downgraded Portugal's credit rating, not even waiting for a new government or updates plans to cut spending, while few economists believe Greece will ever repay its mounting debts without some restructuring.

In Ireland, the new government is threatening to make senior bondholders take losses if stress tests next week reveal big capital holes in the country's banks. Irish Prime Minister Enda Kenny said he would not try to reach any new deals on his country's painful bailout with other eurozone leaders until he knows the result of the stress tests.

"From the Irish point of view I prefer to deal with substance rather than theory," he told reporters.

The stress tests will give a clearer picture of the state of the banks and the ability of the Irish government to continue shouldering their losses. But they will also show other eurozone governments, whose banks were prolific lenders to their Irish counterparts, how much they are involved in the problem.

If the Irish force losses on private bank bondholders that could cause huge trouble for banks in Germany, the U.K. and France.

The EU and the European Central Bank have so far ruled out letting big banks fail outright, fearing that it would cause panic on financial markets similar to what happened after the collapse of Lehman Brothers in 2008.

The unwillingness of citizens to continue paying for what many see as the excesses of financial institutions and politicians was visible in Brussels, where close to 20,000 workers protested against the economic measures envisaged by leaders in their drive for more competitiveness.

Police used water cannons and pepper spray to keep demonstrators away from the site of Thursday's summit and a dozen of police officers were injured in scuffles. The trade unions called the measures an unprecedented attack on Europe's welfare state, targeting workers with austerity measures while undermining cherished social benefits.

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Japan nuclear crisis drags on but experts hopeful

TOKYO (Reuters) - Workers battled to stanch radiation leaks at a Japanese nuclear plant on Thursday, almost two weeks after it was disabled by an earthquake and tsunami, but some experts saw signs of the crisis being brought under control.

Hundreds of workers have been desperately trying to cool down the six reactors and spent fuel ponds at the Fukushima Daiichi plant, 240 km (150 miles) north of Tokyo, since the March 11 disaster, including pumping in seawater or dropping water from the air.

Two of the reactors are now seen as safe in what is called a cold shutdown, but the other four remain volatile, emitting steam and smoke periodically and raising radiation levels in the vicinity.

But that does not mean the situation is out of control, the experts said.

"The reactors are more stable as time progresses," said Peter Hosemann, a nuclear expert at the University of California, Berkeley.

"By now, the decay heat is greatly reduced and it becomes easier to supply sufficient water for cooling. As far as we know, the containments are holding and the radiation levels have dropped."

But he added: "We might see some more release of radioactive material, mostly due to the water going through the systems."

Officials at Tokyo Electric Power Co, the plant's operator, said the delay in repairs was at least partly due to underestimates of the damage from the disaster.

Upturned roads, broken pipes and debris hindered transport of equipment and replacement parts, and one official said connecting cables to wet equipment in the dark interior of the reactor buildings had been "far more challenging than expected."

After more than a week, workers managed to connect power to the reactors, but since seawater has been used to cool the plant, checks are needed on all systems before electricity can be switched back on.

Once coolers are switched on, reactor temperatures should fall rapidly and the plant could be on its way to being declared safe, the experts said.

"The problem of testing all the systems has caused some delays," said Tony Irwin, a former nuclear plant manager who now lectures at Australia National University.

"Obviously there must have been quite a lot of building damage. It doesn't seem to be too much of a risk because it all seems to be stable. As soon as you can resume cooling, it should be OK."

A Japanese nuclear expert said the main risk was from continued radiation leaks, and the risk of criticality, or a self-sustaining nuclear reaction, was low.

"The possibility is not zero, since nobody can look inside the reactors to see what is happening," said Yoshiaki Oka, a professor at Tokyo's Waseda University.

"The nuclear fuel rods could cause the reactor core to melt, the core could heat up and melt equipment around it. But as long as we make sure heat is exiting from recirculation pumps and the spent nuclear fuel is covered in water, that risk is remote."

Hosemann, of the University of California, Berkeley, said the crisis should die down early next month.

"It's still a bit early to make an exact time prognosis, but my guess is in a couple of weeks the reactors will be cool enough to say the crisis is over," he said.

"It will still be important to supply sufficient cooling to the reactors and the spent fuel pools for a longer period of time. But as long as this is ensured and we don't see any additional large amount of radioactivity released, I am confident the situation is under control."

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Japan says must review nuclear power policy as crisis persists

(Reuters) -Japan will have to review its nuclear power policy, its top government spokesman said on Thursday as radiation from a damaged nuclear complex briefly made Tokyo's tap water unsafe for babies and led to people emptying supermarket shelves of bottled water.
Engineers are trying to stabilize the six-reactor nuclear plant in Fukushima, 250 km (150 miles) north of the capital, nearly two weeks after an earthquake and tsunami battered the plant and devastated northeastern Japan, leaving nearly 26,000 people dead or missing.
"It is certain that public confidence in nuclear power plants has greatly changed," Japanese Chief Cabinet Secretary Yuki Edano told Reuters.
"In light of that, we must first end this situation and then study from a zero base."
Before last week, Japan's 55 nuclear reactors had provided about 30 percent of the nation's electric power. The percentage had been expected to rise to 50 percent by 2030, among the highest in the world.
There were no fresh incidents of smoke or steam at the plant on Thursday, but four of the plant's reactors are still considered volatile, although on the way to stability.
"It's still a bit early to make an exact time prognosis, but my guess is in a couple of weeks the reactors will be cool enough to say the crisis is over," said Peter Hosemann, a nuclear expert at the University of California, Berkeley.
"It will still be important to supply sufficient cooling to the reactors and the spent fuel pools for a longer period of time. But as long as this is ensured and we don't see any additional large amount of radioactivity released, I am confident the situation is under control."
Tokyo's 13 million residents were told not to give tap water to babies under 1 year old after contamination hit twice the safety level this week. But it dropped back to allowable amounts on Thursday.
Despite government appeals against panic, many supermarkets and stores sold out of bottled water.
"Customers ask us for water. But there's nothing we can do," said Masayoshi Kasahara, a store clerk at a supermarket in a residential area of eastern Tokyo. "We are asking for more deliveries but we don't know when the next shipment will come."
Radiation above safety levels has also been found in milk and vegetables from Fukushima and the Kyodo news agency said radioactive cesium 1.8 times higher than the standard level was found in a leafy vegetable grown in a Tokyo research facility.
Singapore said it had found radioactive contaminants in four samples of vegetables from Japan.
Earlier, it and Australia joined the United States and Hong Kong in restricting food and milk imports from the zone, while Canada became the latest of many nations to tighten screening after the world's worst nuclear crisis since Chernobyl.
A shipping industry official, meanwhile, said some merchant vessels may be avoiding Tokyo port due to concern that crew members may be exposed to radiation.

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Except for Qatar, Arab nations that called for action against Gadhafi are missing in action

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Portugal, Ireland woes dominate EU summit

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Japan says must review nuclear power policy as crisis persists

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