A third hydrogen explosion at the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant is reported early March 15, destroying the outer building of reactor Number 2. This means that all three of the reactors that technicians have lost control of at the six-reactor site have now experienced hydrogen explosions that have destroyed or seriously damaged the outer turbine buildings. Engineers had been struggling overnight to cool the nuclear core at Number 2, and stave off a catastrophic meltdown. As with the explosions at reactors 1 and 3, authorities say there was no damage to the containment vessel.

It is now clear that the second explosion at the Fukushima Dai-ichi plant was at reactor Number 3 on March 14, two days after the first explosion at reactor Number 1. Reactor Number 3 is of special concern because, unlike the other two which use standard uranium fuel, it contains "mixed oxide" or MOX fuel—a mixture of uranium and plutonium reprocessed from spent uranium, and significantly more toxic than standard uranium fuel. Safety concerns have long made MOX reactors controversial, and Number 3 may have already started to melt down.

A second explosion was reported at Japan's stricken Fukushima nuclear power plant early on March 14. The blast apparently came after technicians flooded the overheating reactor Number 1 with seawater in a desperate attempt to bring down dangerous temperatures. Authorities are again saying the steel containment structure was not breached. Like the first blast of March 12, the new incident is said to be a hydrogen explosion. Six people are reported missing in the wake of the blast. CTV reports that power company TEPCO said radiation levels at the plant are 10.65 micro-sieverts—significantly below the limit of 500 micro-sieverts at which a nuclear operator is legally required to file a report to the government. This appears to conflict with news reports yesterday that radiation levels were in excess of 1,015 micro-sieverts per hour. The Los Angeles Times reports that radiation levels had risen above the legal limit before the blast, which is what prompted the attempt to flood the reactor.

Protesters disrupted traffic in Jerusalem, Tel Aviv and elsewhere across Israel on March 13, in response to the attack in the West Bank settlement of Itamar two days earlier, in which a family of five, including an infant and a young child, were stabbed to death. Protesters, accusing the government of a too lenient security policy on the West Bank (!!!), began amassing immediately after thousands turned out for the funeral at Jerusalem's Givat Shaul cemetery in Jerusalem. (There were also scattered so-called "price tag" attacks on Palestinians by settlers on the West Bank, with five cars set on fire in Nablus, JP reports.) Speaking at the funeral, Minister of Strategic Affairs Moshe Yaalon, was clearly trying to head off protests by playing to the crowd, but that doesn't let him off the hook for his abomination of sanctimonious illogic:

It has now been determined that the explosion at the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant some 150 kilometers north of Tokyo was actually caused by efforts to avert a meltdown, technicians having taken a calculated risk with a decision to vent radioactive steam from the severely overheated reactor Number 1. The release set off a hydrogen explosion which partially destroyed the outer turbine building. This did relieve some of the pressure that has been building up in the reactor containment core since off-site power was lost due to the earthquake, halting the flow of coolant water. But the reactor has not yet been brought under control. Four workers were injured in the explosion, and three were later hospitalized for ­radiation exposure.

The Dalai Lama announced on March 10 that he will step down as political leader of the Tibetan government-in-exile based in Dharamsala, India. "As early as the 1960s, I have repeatedly stressed that Tibetans need a leader, elected freely by the Tibetan people, to whom I can devolve power," he said in a prepared speech. "Now, we have clearly reached the time to put this into effect." At present, the 14th Dalai Lama has a dual political and spiritual role. He will now retire as political leader, while retaining his function as the head of the Gelup School of Tibetan Buddhism and Tibet's spiritual leader. The announcement came on the 52nd anniversary of the Tibetan National Uprising.

We noted two days ago that Moammar Qaddafi is simultaneously playing the al-Qaeda card to rally US imperialism to his side and playing the US imperialism card to rally the Libyan people to his side. On March 9, he was so indiscreet as to do both in the same breath! "If al-Qaeda manages to seize Libya, then the entire region, up to Israel, will be at the prey of chaos," he told Turkey's TRT television. "The international community is now beginning to understand that we have to prevent Osama bin Laden from taking control of Libya and Africa." Instead of leaving it at that, he went on to say that he welcomes Western plans for a no-fly zone because it would allow "Libyans to see through the real intentions—to seize our oil—and then they would take up arms" to defend the country.

Moammar Qaddafi's forces gained ground against rebels in the battle over the oil port of Ras Lanuf on March 7, with his fighter jets targeting rebel defenses on the edge of town. Fierce fighting was also reported in the western city of Misrata, with the UN demanding urgent access to scores of "injured and dying." (Middle East Online, March 7)