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New North Korean Space Launch Site Appears Completed
Steve Herman
Photo: GeoEye and Globalsecurity.org
Image taken from the Ikonos satellite, January 10, 2011
New satellite imagery seen by VOA News shows North Korea has completed a launch tower at its second missile launch facility, in the country’s northwest. Intelligence analysts in the United States and South Korea are keeping a close eye on the facility, near Tongchang-dong.
The site is seen as a critical element in Pyongyang’s quest to build a missile capable of delivering a nuclear weapon across the Pacific.
The satellite pictures were taken during the past month. Most significantly, the photographs reveal Read more…
Japan confirms China surpassed its economy in 2010
By TOMOKO A. HOSAKA
TOKYO — Japan confirmed Monday that China’s economy surpassed its own as the world’s second largest in 2010 and said a late-year downturn was Japan’s first quarterly contraction in more than a year.
Japan’s real GDP expanded 3.9 percent in the calendar year in the first annual growth in three years, but it wasn’t enough to hold off a surging China. Japan’s nominal GDP last year came to $5.4742 trillion, less than China’s total of $5.8786 trillion, the Cabinet Office said.
Gross domestic product shrunk at an annualized rate of 1.1 percent in the October-December quarter, a sharp reversal from a revised 3.3 percent expansion in the third quarter, the government said.
A slowdown in exports and weaker consumer demand at home led to the unsurprising downturn, which is expected to be temporary. The result was better than Kyodo news agency’s average market forecast of an annualized 2.2 percent decline.
China was acknowledged last year as having grown to the world’s second-largest economy, but the Japanese data confirming it were not available until Monday. The switch underscores the nations’ stark contrasts: China is growing rapidly and driving the global economy, while Japan is struggling with persistent deflation, an aging population and ballooning public debt.
Prime Minister Naoto Kan has pledged to revive the economy and make major reforms in the country’s tax and social welfare systems. His approval ratings are eroding quickly, however, as voters question his government’s ability to lead the country through its pressing problems.
The fourth-quarter figure translates to a 0.3 percent fall from the previous three-month period, according to the Cabinet Office’s preliminary data. Consumer spending, which accounts for some 60 percent of GDP, fell 0.7 percent. Auto sales slumped during the quarter after government subsidies for “green” vehicles expired in September.
Exports fell 0.7 percent from the previous quarter amid a strong yen and waning global demand. A rise in the Japanese currency reduces the value of exporters’ profits overseas and makes Japanese goods pricier in foreign markets.
The road ahead looks brighter, with economists saying GDP will expand this quarter in tandem with global growth. The head of Japan’s central bank, Masaaki Shirakawa, said last week that that recent signs indicate Japan is emerging from the “pause” and performing at par with other advanced economies.
Ryutaro Kono, chief economist at BNP Paribas ( BNPQY.PK – news – people ) in Tokyo, says exports and production have escaped their “soft patches.”
“The economy seems to be recovering again from December, so the negative growth in (the fourth quarter) need not become the basis for pessimism about Japan’s cyclical outlook,” he said in a report this month.
The What? And Why? Of Rare Earth Metals
Over the past few months, there’s been a buzz surrounding rare earth metals. These are metals such as europium, lanthanum, neodymium and 14 others found in small concentrations attached to other metals and resource deposits. They’re actually not that rare, just expensive and difficult to pull out of the ground.
These naturally occurring elements are essential in everything from wind turbines to lasers to iPads.
Rare earths are a conundrum for the environmentally conscious—they hold the key to green energies but create toxic waste when being separated away from other elements. “Just one wind turbine generating 3 megawatts of electricity requires 600 kilograms of rare earths for its magnets,” a source told the United Kingdom’s Guardian newspaper.
Electric and hybrid cars can contain more than twice as much rare earth metals as a standard car. This image from the NY Times breaks down how these metals make up critical elements of a Prius.
Currently, China controls 97 percent of the world’s production of rare earth metals. In October 2010, the country cut exports of the metals by 70 percent, disrupting manufacturing in Japan, Europe and the U.S., and sending the prices of these metals up 40 percent.
China currently controls production but the country only has 37 percent of Read more…
Japan volcano erupts again with massive blast of gas, ash and rocks
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| Dome of lava is seen at a eruptive crater at Shinmoedake peak between Miyazaki and Kagoshima prefectures January 31, 2011. More than 1,000 people in southern Japan have been urged to evacuate as a volcano picked up its activities, spewing ashes and small rocks into air and disrupting airline operations, a municipal official said on Monday. (Xinhua/Reuters Photo) |
TOKYO, Feb. 1 (Xinhua) — A volcano located on a mountain range on the island of Kyushu, southwest Japan, erupted for the second time Tuesday in an explosion local officials said was five times bigger than the one last Wednesday.
The eruption sent an enormous plume of gas, ash and rocks shooting as high as 2,000 meters into the air and the blast smashed windows in hotels and offices as far away as eight kilometers, local reports said.
As yet no deaths have been reported as a result of the eruption, although one women was cut by shattered glass and felled trees caused by the blast have been hindering traffic in the region, local officials said.
Following the latest blast, the Japan Meteorological Agency raised the alert level from Read more…
40,000 birds culled in Japan at farm which tested positive for bird flu
Nearly 40,000 chickens were killed Monday at a poultry farm located in Japan after tests confirmed dead chickens found on Sunday tested positive for bird-flu.
The farm located in the southern region of the country in Miyazaki prefecture on the island of Kyushu was the site of where 90 chickens were found dead.
The incident marked the sixth outbreak of the deadly virus in the region and ninth in the country.
Further tests will be conducted to ascertain whether the virus is the H5N1 strain which has caused the most disease and death in humans or if it was a less virulent strain of the avian flu, such as H5N2.
In November, avian flu was found in the western prefecture of Shimane and also has been confirmed in wild birds across the country.
Over the last few days nearly 600,000 chickens were killed in Miyazaki in government efforts to control the disease.
“It’s spreading quickly,” said Koji Saito a spokesman for the Japanese Agriculture Ministry in charge of sanitation of livestock farming in Miyazaki Prefecture.
Japanese Agriculture Ministry officials are reporting the virus won’t affect humans if meat and eggs consumed from infected birds is fully cooked.
This flu season there haven’t been any human infections according to authorities. Typically bird to human infections is spread largely by direct contact with infected birds.
U.S., Japan told time running out to deal with debt
IMF warns Japan and United States on need to tackle debt
* Politics make reining in U.S., Japan deficits difficult
* S&P downgrades Japan, sees no strategy to handle debt
* Bond markets calm on Friday, Japan vows fiscal discipline (Adds bullet points)
By Tetsushi Kajimoto and Lesley Wroughton
TOKYO/WASHINGTON, Jan 28 (Reuters) – Japan and the United States faced new pressure to confront their swollen budget deficits as the IMF and rating agencies demanded more evidence they can bring their public debts under control.
The International Monetary Fund said the G7’s two biggest economies needed to spell out credible deficit-cutting plans before the markets lose patience and dump their bonds.
On Friday, Japan’s Prime Minister Naoto Kan vowed to push ahead with tax reforms aimed at curbing the country’s debt, but an uncooperative opposition and divisions within his own party on policy make the chances of success slim.
“The important thing is to maintain fiscal discipline and ensure market confidence in Japan’s public finances,” Kan, who took over in June as Japan’s fifth premier since 2006, told parliament’s upper house.
Ratings agency Standard & Poor’s cut Japan’s long-term debt rating on Thursday for the first time since 2002, and hours later Moody’s Investors Service warned the risk of the United States losing its top AAA rating, although small, was rising. Read more…
Seismic fault beneath us is ‘fully loaded’ after 311 years
Julie Muhlstein, Herald Columnist
As if you didn’t have enough worries, here is one more to add to that massive list:
“It’s been 300 years,” Bill Steele said Tuesday. “We have a fully loaded subduction zone.”
Actually, it’s been 311 years since the .
Steele, a University of Washington seismologist and spokesman for the Pacific Northwest Seismic Network, said scientists have determined the monster quake occurred Jan. 26, 1700 — 311 years ago tonight.
It happened off the Northwest coast, and created huge tsunamis that devastated shorelines here and in Japan.
What’s amazing is how much is known, considering that in 1700 there were no Europeans in the Northwest. British Capt. George Vancouver wouldn’t find his way here until 1792. The Lewis and Clark Expedition to the West didn’t start until 1804. Historians have no original account of the 1700 quake written from a Western perspective.
“There’s quite a detective story of how we know all that. It’s fantastic,” Steele said.
First, a quick explanation of what happened from the online encyclopedia HistoryLink: Read more…
Birds vanishing in the Philippines
By Cecil Morella (AFP)
CANDABA, Philippines — The number of birds flying south to important wintering grounds in the Philippines has fallen sharply this year, with experts saying the dramatic demise of wetlands and hunting are to blame.
Despite some harsh, cold weather across the Eurasian landmass, some waterbirds that usually migrate in huge flocks to the tropical islands have been completely absent, said Philippine-based Danish ornithologist Arne Jensen.
“The flyway populations of several waterbird species are in constant and dramatic decline,” Jensen, who advises the Philippine government on species conservation, told AFP.
“Hence the urgent need to establish real and well-managed, hunting-free waterbird sanctuaries along the migratory flyways.”
Candaba, a swamp two hours’ drive north of Manila that has long been used as a pit stop by hundreds of species as they fly staggering distances between the Arctic Circle and Australia, appears emblematic of the downfall.
Jensen said that bird watchers routinely counted 100,000 ducks at Candaba in the 1980s as they stopped there for a rest while traversing the East Asian-Australasian flyway.
But volunteers recorded just Read more…
Mount Kirishima volcano in Japan explodes violently
By Brett Israel
A spectacular volcanic eruption is currently under way in Japan. The mountain Kirishima is firing red-hot magma and volcanic bombs into the air.
Mount Kirishima, a volcano on the southern island of Kyushu, began erupting on Jan. 26. A giant ash cloud poured from the volcano, prompting the Tokyo VAAC to issue an ash warning for places above 25,000 feet (7.6 kilometers).
Volcanic material shot from the crater, triggering pyroclastic flows, according to the blog Big Think.
Kirishima ejected volcanic bombs — lava fragments that are rounded as they fly through the air — more than a mile (2 kilometers) high from its vent, according to news reports. Images of the eruption show plumes of glowing material shooting a few hundred feet in the air. A volcanic vent is a gap in the Earth’s crust through which lava and volcanic gases can escape.
Kirishima technically refers to a larger group of volcanic vents on the island. These vents are quite active but mostly have small explosive eruptions. The latest eruption may be the largest since 1959.
See the ongoing eruption on the Kirishima webcam. To view live volcano webcams from around the world click here.
Japan facing avian flu pandemic, 4th farm tests positive for virus
TOKYO, Jan. 26 (Xinhua) — Chickens at a poultry farm in Japan’ s southwestern prefecture of Kagoshima have tested positive for the highly pathogenic H5N1 bird flu, local government officials said Wednesday.
The prefectural government said that of the 10 birds tested for the virus, eight of them tested positive. The culling of around 8,600 chickens has already started at the poultry farm in Izumi, Kagoshima Prefecture, according to the officials.
This is the third case this year and the fourth since December that mass poultry culling has occurred in Japan following the detection of the avian flu virus, which officials say in some cases was a particularly infective strain. Read more…
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