Japan | featured news

Japan's Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant experienced a full meltdown at three reactors in the wake of an earthquake and tsunami in March, the country's Nuclear Emergency Response Headquarters said Monday.

Embattled Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan -- in danger of losing a no-confidence vote in parliament on Thursday -- will offer to resign later this year after dealing with a nuclear crisis and other urgent matters related to the massive March earthquake and tsunami, domestic media reported.

U.N. inspectors faulted Japan on Wednesday for underestimating the threat of a devastating tsunami on its crippled Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant but praised its overall response to the crisis as exemplary....

The United States has not seen a balanced budget since 2001. Although private banks in the U.S. hold the majority of the country’s debt, over 52% according to MSNBC, the Treasury Department and the Federal Reserve Board estimate that foreign governments hold 4.4 trillion of the country’s $14 trillion debt in Treasury securities.

Ratings agency Fitch on Friday cut its outlook on Japan's sovereign debt, warning that the vast cost of a March earthquake and tsunami and the still-unknown bill for the clean-up after the nuclear disaster would further strain the country's already shaky public finances.

Japanese Economics Minister Kaoru Yosano said on Sunday the government may need to spend 10 trillion yen to 15 trillion yen ($184 billion) for reconstruction from the devastating earthquake that hit the country's northeast in March.

A contraction in the first quarter at an annual rate of 3.7 percent was worse than economists had expected.

A worker at Japan's tsunami-crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant died on Saturday, plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Co said, bringing the death toll at the complex to three since a massive earthquake and tsunami in March.

Underscoring the virtue of focusing on US innovation, science, technology and entrepreneurship: in a stunning series of recent events, I have had a front-row seat to, US venture-backed company , Kurion, based in Irvine, CA with a team led by CEO and 30 year nuclear industry veteran John Raymont was revealed this week to have been selected by Japan to rapidly bring its technologies of isotope separation and modular vitrification to help treat, extract, contain and environmentally isolate radioactive materials.

Japan’s sovereign-rating outlook was cut to “negative” by Standard & Poor’s as the nation’s reconstruction needs following last month’s earthquake will likely add to what’s already the world’s biggest debt load.