Japan's second nuclear generator turns to government for aid after Fukushima disaster

Kyushu Electric Power Co has become Japan's second nuclear generator after the Fukushima disaster to seek state support this week as reactors across the country remain idled and industry losses stack up three years after the Fukushima disaster. All of Japan's 48 nuclear reactors have been shut down, pending stringent safety checks, since an earthquake and tsunami knocked out the Fukushima nuclear complex in March 2011. Kyushu Electric, a regional monopoly that supplies power in southern Japan, said on Wednesday it was in talks with state-owned Development Bank of Japan Bank of Japan (DBJ) for financial backing. The country's nine publicly traded nuclear operators have together lost 3.2 trillion yen ($31 billion) in the two business years since then and five of them, including Kyushu Electric and Hokkaido Electric, also expect to be loss-making in the year just ended, Reuters reports. Japanese banking practices make it difficult for private lenders to extend credit, including refinancing existing loans, to companies that post three straight years of losses. That means the utilities...

Read More........ → April 02, 2014

Facebook: place for friend or foe?

 . Download audio file,  By Anna Mikhailova, Social networks granted us easy access to people and information but they also made us vulnerable. You would think online behavior differs from how we usually act in real life but the phenomenon of 'trolling' or cyber-bullying that has become widely recognized over the last years proves it wrong. Regardless of who you talk to - 'real' people or those only known to you by their online identities, you can get emotionally hurt. Surely bullying in itself is nothing but cyberbullying takes it to a whole new level - it does not require a face-to-face confrontation, so it's easier both psychologically and physically to harass someone through telecommunications. And as more and more young people are becoming the victims of cyberbullies, which even leads to suicides, the issue needs regulation on a legislative level, - says Mac Watson, a radio talkshow host in Arizona, where a bipartisan bill designed to fight cyber-bullying and cyber-stalking, was recently adopted. 'It’s interesting that if there is a parent that has a...

Read More........ → February 10, 2014

Switzerland: a suicide magnet

To describe Switzerland as a Mecca for suicide tourism is hyperbole, but suicide facilities would draw as many people as yodelling and cowbells. The Australian euthanasia activist, Dr Philip Nitschke, is even engaging a travel agent to buy one-way tickets to Zurich for members of his organisation, Exit International. The agency would also handle all the paperwork required by the assisted suicide clinic run by Dignitas. "They need medical records to explain how sick they are, proof of residence, passports and certified extracts of birth certificates," Dr Nitschke told News.com.au. "People who are that ill, if they are thinking of making this journey, it's a lot of work and almost impossible for them. They also need supportive letters from family members." The service will cost about A$1000. It also emerged this week that an unnamed 83-year-old man became the first Briton to end his life at Dignitas because he was in the early stage of dementia. A leading campaigner for assisted suicide in the UK, Michael Irwin, helped get a psychiatric evaluation earlier this year for him. He told...

Read More........ → November 16, 2013