Japan orders blackouts; 10,000 missing
TOKYO, March 13 (UPI) -- Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan Sunday ordered blackouts in Tokyo to conserve energy as earthquake-shattered nuclear plants risked meltdown.
Saying Japan faced its greatest crisis since World War II, Kan took the extraordinary step to avert a nationwide blackout, Kyodo News reported.
Sunday night, officials raised the official death toll from Friday's earthquake and tsunami to 1,353, with at least 1,085 people missing and 1,743 injured.
But a police chief in the Miyagi prefecture, or province, said at least 10,000 people were unaccounted for after the double disaster. Kan said 12,000 have been rescued.
As authorities struggled to avert a total meltdown at the Fukushima nuclear power plant, a state of emergency was declared at another nuclear complex plant in Onagawa, where excessive radiation levels were recorded, the United Nations' atomic watchdog agency told CNN.
Around Fukushima, at least 200,000 people have now been evacuated, The Los Angeles Times reported.
The Asahi Shimbun newspaper said at least 70 atomic workers were exposed to heavy radiation levels as a result of an explosion at one reactor site. Two other reactors were in danger of overheating as a result of the earthquake and the loss of cooling abilities, officials said.
Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano told reporters there were concerns of an atomic core meltdown, as happened in Chernobyl in 1986 in Ukraine.
"We can't rule out the possibility of a blast," Edano said.
The Japan Meteorological Agency announced it had upgraded the magnitude of Friday's quake to 9.0, a doubling of the power in the original 8.9 estimate. While the country has been experiencing numerous aftershocks, the JMA warned there was a 70 percent probability of a magnitude-7 quake in the next three days.
Meanwhile, the government mobilized its largest post-war deployment of national guard and military members into service, with some 100,000 troops fanning out to devastated regions, The New York Times reported.
The U.S. aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan has started delivering aid on the coast. Crew members, working with the Japanese navy, have carried out 20 sorties delivering aid pallets by helicopter, the U.S. military said Sunday.
Libyan rebels lose another town
TRIPOLI, Libya, March 13 (UPI) -- The Libyan government Sunday claimed it had regained control of the port city of Brega from rebels after a heavy artillery bombardment.
State television in Tripoli announced the oil port had "been cleansed from the criminal gangs and mercenaries, the area is now safe, and all citizens should go back to their work and their normal life," CNN reported.
The rebellion against Moammar Gadhafi's rule began last month and rebels made significant gains in taking control of cities and towns, but their progress has eroded in the past few days in the face of air and tank attacks, technology they don't have.
Gadhafi, who has singularly run the oil-rich country for 41 years, has defied international calls for him to step down and stop using the military against citizens.
Meanwhile, Libya's fellow members of the Arab League met in Cairo Saturday and said they would request the United Nations to impose a no-fly zone to ground Gadhafi's military aircraft, the BBC said.
After the meeting, Youssef bin Alawi bin Abdullah, Oman's foreign minister, told reporters there was consensus for the no-fly imposition, but with restrictions that it be a U.N. effort.
"Be assured the Arab countries will not accept the intervention of the NATO coalition," he said.
Iran trial of U.S. hikers resumes May 11
TEHRAN, March 13 (UPI) -- Iranian prosecutors said the trial of three American hikers accused of espionage will resume in May.
Alireza Avaei, head of the Tehran prosecutor's office, said Sunday the trial of Joshua Fattal, Shane Bauer and Sarah Shourd would reconvene May 11 in Revolution Court.
The three were arrested in 2009 after they crossed into Iran from Iraq on foot. The Americans contend they strayed across the border accidentally while on a hiking trip, but Iran said they crossed into the country intentionally and had ties to U.S. intelligence.
Shourd was released on bail in 2010 and returned to the United States and is being tried in absentia. Fattal and Bauer faced their first court session in February.
Iran's Press TV said the prosecutor's office did not state directly that the trial would resume behind closed doors; however, that is standard practice in such cases.
Family slaying moves Israel to build
JERUSALEM, March 13 (UPI) -- The stabbing deaths of five Israelis in the West Bank led to Israel's announcement it would build 500 new homes in the disputed district, a minister said.
Saturday night in Jerusalem -- less than 24 hours after the grisly deaths of a man, his wife and three children were discovered -- Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak told reporters the decision to resume building was in direct response to what they consider a terror attack by Palestinians, Haaretz reported.
The slayings of three children and their parents in the town of Itamar drew immediate anger from the Israeli government and an appeal to the United Nations Security Council to chastise the Palestinian Authority.
However, there were no known suspects in the case as of Sunday morning.
After the Saturday night Cabinet meeting, Barak told reporters the attack on the family was clearly political.
"Israel's security, its future and its borders will be designed and shaped by our decisions and not by murderous terrorism," he said.
Israel had halted construction in the West Bank for months amid peace negotiations, but will resume building in five towns, leaders said.
