Contaminated water has been pouring into the Pacific Ocean from the disabled Fukushima nuclear plant for the past two years, an Industry Ministry official told reporters on Wednesday as PM Shinzo Abe pledged to step up efforts to halt the crisis.

Abe put the Minister of Economy, Trade and Industry in charge of the situation, while demanding that the plant’s operator, Tokyo Electric Power Co (TEPCO) take the necessary steps to deal with the cleanup, which …

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A lily-white Ohio suburb is doing everything it can, including risking millions in federal highway funding, to keep mostly minority bus-riders from a nearby city from entering their community.

The showdown began in 2010 when the Greater Dayton Regional Transit Authority proposed adding three new bus stops in Beavercreek, a largely white suburb 15 minutes east of Dayton. These new stops would give Dayton bus-riders access to Beavercreek’s major shopping mall and nearby businesses, as well …

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Uganda’s parliament on Tuesday passed a contentious bill that critics say will make it impossible to stage street protests against the country’s long-serving president, following months of confrontation between the authorities and activists who had mounted a campaign to have the legislation jettisoned.

The “Public Order Management Bill” was passed five days after opposition lawmakers staged a fierce attempt to filibuster its passage amid concerns it gives Ugandan police dictatorial powers to decide who can …

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Members of Congress have been repeatedly thwarted when attempting to learn basic information about the National Security Agency (NSA) and the secret FISA court which authorizes its activities, documents provided by two House members demonstrate.

From the beginning of the NSA controversy, the agency’s defenders have insisted that Congress is aware of the disclosed programs and exercises robust supervision over them. “These programs are subject to congressional oversight and congressional reauthorization and congressional debate,” President Obama …

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Florida Gov. Rick Scott will resume the state’s purge of suspected non-U.S. citizens from the voter rolls, now that a Supreme Court decision striking down a key part of the Voting Rights Act has cleared the way.

“We were recently informed that the State plans to continue their efforts to remove non-citizens from Florida’s voter rolls,” Penelope Townsley, the Miami-Dade Elections Supervisor, said in a statement. Last week, Florida’s director of elections Maria Matthews also announced …

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A hunger strike that started over a routine cell search and escalated into a worldwide debate on the future of Guantanamo continues. For some, it may have expedited a release, but to others, it has brought only humiliation.

RT’s GITMO hunger strike timeline

At its peak more than two-thirds of Guantanamo’s 166 prisoners refused food. More than 60 continue the strike at this time.

It began in February when several prisoners accused guards at Camp Delta of confiscating …

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A pair of videos posted online show police probing the genitals and anal regions of three women they claim to suspect of possessing marijuana. In one video, a woman is seen bent over and grimacing as an off camera police officer conducts the search. Shortly before this search, a male officer explains to the woman that he is calling a female officer over “because I ain’t about to get up close and personal with your …

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The big media story this week is not the purchase of The Washington Post by Amazon’s Jeff Bezos.

For as long as there have been newspapers, rich people have bought them as toys and tools.

So, while it is significant that Bezos bought the Post for $250 million, this is not exactly a definitional development on the media landscape.

Bezos is not even the only rich guy to buy a major metropolitan daily paper in the past week. …

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A barrier built to contain the water has already been breached, the Nuclear Regulatory Authority warned.

This means the amount of contaminated water seeping into the Pacific Ocean could accelerate rapidly, it said.

There has been spate of water leaks and power failures at the plant, devastated by the 2011 earthquake and tsunami.

Its operator, Tokyo Electric Power Company (Tepco), has been criticised heavily for its lack of transparency over the leaks.
‘Weak sense of crisis’

Tepco admitted for the …

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By John Shiffman and Kristina Cooke

WASHINGTON, Aug 5 (Reuters) – A secretive U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration unit is funneling information from intelligence intercepts, wiretaps, informants and a massive database of telephone records to authorities across the nation to help them launch criminal investigations of Americans.

Although these cases rarely involve national security issues, documents reviewed by Reuters show that law enforcement agents have been directed to conceal how such investigations truly begin – not only from …

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