PTI – Amid maritime disputes with countries like the Philippines over the resource rich islands in the South China Sea, China has put them under active three-dimensional surveillance. China has adopted three-dimensional (3D) visual management over 4,000 islands, a report by the Ministry of Land and Resources said Thursday. Three-dimensional visual information of these islands is collected via ground vehicles, airplanes and satellites. Also 2,851 islands have been put under aviation monitoring and surveillance, and 45 islands along baseline points of China’s territorial waters are under ground watch, the report said. All the historical data of Chinese islands have been processed and put into a database to strengthen island management, the report said. The government last year also released its first list of uninhabited islands available for development in the country, the report said. Read Article
Guardian – The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has been warned by its internal research team that there could be a permanent doubling of oil prices in the coming decade with profound implications for global trade. “This is uncharted territory for the world economy, which has never experienced such prices for more than a few months,” the report warns. Read Article
The Australian – Most of the scientists advising the federal government on coal-seam gas pollution have financial links with the mining industry. Four of the six members of the interim independent expert scientific committee on coal-seam gas and coalmining have a financial connection with mining companies, the Environment Department has revealed. Read Article
CTV — An industry-funded program that offers high school teachers a six-day trip to Fort McMurray to “experience Alberta’s oilsands” is being expanded across the country. While the operators of Inside Education say they work hard to ensure their programming offers plenty of balance, others say informing educators about controversial developments shouldn’t be left to those with most to gain from them. Read article
Bloomberg – Mainland China’s gold imports from Hong Kong surged more than sixfold in the first quarter, adding to signs that the country may displace India as the world’s largest consumer of the precious metal on an annual basis. Imports from Hong Kong were 135,529 kilograms (135.53 metric tons) between January and March, from 19,729 kilograms in the year-earlier period, according to data from the Census and Statistics Department of the Hong Kong government. Shipments in March rose 59 percent from February, yesterday’s data showed. Read Article
Xinhua – China’s first deep-water drilling rig started operations in the South China Sea at 9:38 a.m. on Wednesday, marking “a substantial step” made by the country’s deep-sea oil industry. The sixth-generation semi-submersible CNOOC 981, owned by China National Offshore Oil Corp. (CNOOC), began drilling in a sea area 320 km southeast of Hong Kong at a water depth of 1,500 meters. Read Article
Spiegel – Germany has put the brakes on plans to use hydraulic fracturing, commonly known as fracking, to extract natural gas in places where it is difficult to access, such as shale or coal beds. Environment Minister Norbert Röttgen and Economy Minister Philipp Rösler have agreed to oppose the controversial process for the time being, SPIEGEL has learned. Sources in the German government said that the ministers were “very skeptical” about fracking, which injects chemicals as well as sand and water into the ground to release natural gas. “There are many open questions which we will first have to carefully examine,” Rösler told close associates. Read article
Bloomberg – Oil fell for a seventh day in New York, its longest run of declines since December 2009, as hopes for a solution to Europe’s debt crisis receded, U.S. supplies rose and Chinese imports fell. West Texas Intermediate oil fell as much as 0.5 percent. Crude inventories rose 3.7 million barrels last week to 379.5 million, the highest level since 1990, even as fuel supplies shrank, Department of Energy data showed. Read Article
AFP – Laos has postponed construction of a controversial dam on the Mekong, an official said Thursday, dismissing fears that the work was going ahead despite growing regional opposition. “There is no construction on the Mekong river,” Viraphonh Viravong, director general of the Ministry of Energy and Mines’ department of electricity, told AFP by telephone. Read article
NPR – In a remarkable shift, Iraq’s oil exports jumped by 20 percent since January, and the country exported more oil in April than in any month since Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait in 1990. Energy expert Daniel Yergin discusses how Iraq’s oil wealth is driving the Iraqi economy and reshaping the global oil market. Read Article
Financial Times – Iran is accepting renminbi for some of the crude oil it supplies to China, industry executives in Beijing and Kuwait and Dubai-based bankers said, partly as a consequence of US sanctions aimed at limiting Tehran’s nuclear programme. Tehran is spending the currency, which is not freely convertible, on goods and services imported from China. Read Article
New Scientist – Wherever there is coal, there will be fire. For centuries, we have dug up the combustible rock to power our industries, and we continue to rely on it to light our homes and keep the wired world humming. But each year millions of tonnes of coal are burned inadvertently, too – in underground fires that even now rage out of control all over the world. Nowhere is this on more dramatic display than here in Jharia, in India’s Jharkhand state, where underground fires have been burning for nearly a century. … As the seams smoulder away, the ground above them becomes prone to collapse – taking with them any houses, roads or other infrastructure built on the surface. Read article
The Guardian – Japan is shutting down its last working nuclear reactor as part of the safety drive imposed after the March 2011 tsunami triggered a meltdown at the Fukushima plant. The closure of the third reactor at the Tomari plant in Hokkaido prefecture, northern Japan, means all of the country’s 50 nuclear reactors have been taken offline, leaving the country with no nuclear-derived electricity for the first time since 1970. Read article
CN – Exposure to chemical dispersants BP used in the Gulf of Mexico oil spill left a commercial diver with seizures, unable to walk and going blind – and two members of his dive team committed suicide, the man claims in Harris County Court. David Hogan and his wife sued BP and NALCO Co. – which made the Corexit oil dispersants – and a host of other defendants, including Halliburton, Transocean, ConocoPhillips, Xplore Oil & Gas and Stuyvesant Dredging Co. Read article
BBC – [Bolivian President] Mr Morales ordered the military to take over the subsidiary of Spanish power company REE, which owns and runs around three-quarters of Bolivia’s power grid. Mr Morales said he had ordered the move in honour of the Bolivian people fighting to regain control of their natural resources. Read article
Daily Mail – Researchers including Associate Professor Liming Zhou from the State University of New York examined conditions around 2,358 turbines at four Texas wind farms. Writing in the journal Nature Climate Change, Professor Zhou and colleagues reported a temperature increase of up to 0.72 degrees Celsius per decade at wind farm locations, compared to nearby areas. Read article
BBC – The body of Libya’s former Oil Minister Shukri Ghanem has been found in the River Danube in Vienna, Austrian police say. A spokesman said there were no signs of violence to his body. The former prime minister, 69, worked as a consultant for a Vienna-based company. He apparently left his home early on Sunday, police said. Read article
ENE NewsPeace Philosophy Centre posted the results and Fukushima Diary has the summary translation:
In March, Fukushima government conducted thyroid test for under 18 in 13 cities and towns such as Minamisoma city, Namiemachi, Iidatemura, Tomiokamachi etc..
The result shows thyroid nodules ( 5.0mm) or cyst (20.0mm) were seen in 13,460 from 38,114 people (35.3%). Read article
From February 2012 : Gundersen: 1/3 of Fukushima kids tested positive for lumps on thyroid — Forebodes some real issues in future — We’re only 10 months into the accident here (AUDIO):
New Scientist – Japan will take its last operational nuclear reactor offline next weekend, but the country may not be nuclear-free for long. Since the earthquake and tsunami devastated the country’s Fukushima Daiichi nuclear facility on 11 March last year, all but one of Japan’s 54 reactors have been taken offline for routine maintenance or safety checks. With public opposition to nuclear power strong, none has yet restarted. Japan’s last operational reactor, on the northern island of Hokkaido – will go offline on 5 May. Read article
BBC – Officials in South Sudan say China has agreed to loan it $8bn (£4.9bn) for major development projects. A government spokesman said funds would be used to build roads, bridges and telecom networks, and to develop agriculture and hydro-electric power. However, there was no mention of plans to build a new pipeline to export oil from the newly independent state. Read article
AFP – Brazil will boost its military presence in the Amazon region to protect its huge natural resources from any external threat, Defense Minister Celso Amorim told the Senate Thursday. “The commitment to the defense of the Amazon is fundamental. Navy, Air Force, all services will boost their presence in the Amazon in the next few years,” he said without giving further details. Amorim said Brazil did not feel threatened by any neighboring country but added: “We cannot rule out that some power from outside the region” may covet the natural resources of the Amazon, the planet’s largest rainforest and its main source of fresh water. “We are working on a plan to deploy (security) forces and the Amazon plays a very important role. It’s the most vulnerable part of our country,” Amorim said. “We have a wealth of resources which can make us the target of adventures,” he added. Read Article
Gulf Daily News – Overfishing and pollution are among a raft of factors driving down the shark population around Bahrain, with some species on the verge of vanishing from the Arabian Gulf altogether as the sea reaches tipping point. Alicia de Haveling reports… Experts have sounded the alarm over a massive decline in the number of sharks populating the waters around Bahrain – saying the Gulf was in danger of becoming a “marine desert”. Read article
AP — The fight over hydraulic fracturing is coming to Michigan, along with a significant environmental test for the Great Lakes state’s Republican governor. House Democrats plan to discuss a bill Wednesday that would further regulate what is known as “fracking,” a method of extracting natural gas from underground. The House’s natural gas subcommittee released a report Tuesday encouraging more natural gas production, arguing it can provide energy independence and high-wage jobs. Read article
DefenseNews – Philippine President Benigno Aquino warned his country’s neighbors on April 23 that they should fear Beijing’s growing aggressiveness over its claims in the South China Sea. Aquino stressed China’s territorial claims spanned a huge area and were getting “closer and closer” to the Philippine archipelago. Read article
Japan Times — A decade from now, airborne radiation levels in some parts of Fukushima Prefecture are still expected to be dangerous at above 50 millisieverts a year, a government report says. The report, which contains projections through March 2032, was presented by trade minister Yukio Edano Sunday to leaders of Futaba, one of the towns that host the crippled Fukushima No. 1 power plant. Read article
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