wow~`Libya's innocents still being attacked, says US forces chief

The head of US forces in Libya said on Tuesday that Col Muammar Gaddafi was continuing to attack civilians despite the allied military intervention.(episode:orange tungsten ring for girls)

Adml Samuel Locklear, who has joint responsibility for enforcing the no-fly zone, said that, according to US intelligence, Gaddafi had launched attacks on the rebel-held western city of Misurata, where four children were reportedly killed by shelling yesterday.

“It’s my judgment that, despite our success, Gaddafi and his forces are not yet complying with the UN resolution due to the continued aggressive actions his forces have taken against the civilian population of Libya,” he said.

His comments followed reports that Misurata was under siege by Gaddafi’s forces. Tanks and snipers have been deployed to the city centre, killing more than 40 people and injuring 300.(episode:

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Doctors described desperate scenes as hospitals struggled to cope with the number of injured. Surgeons were forced to operate on bullet and shrapnel wounds in hospital corridors because of a lack of space.(tungsten carbide ring for men)

One doctor, speaking on condition of anonymity, said: “They are talking about a ceasefire, they are talking about a no-fly zone, for me that does not mean anything. My people here are under attack.

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Widening Outbreak Of Cholera in Haiti-US Researchers prophecy

U.S. researchers predict cholera will hit almost twice as many Haitians this year as the U.N. has estimated. The new analysis suggests there will be more than three quarters of a million cases of the disease.

Haiti had been free of cholera for about a century until last October, when the first cases were reported. The outbreak came nine months after the devastating earthquake, though it's not exactly clear how the two are related.

Jason Andrews of Harvard Medical School and colleagues have just published a new study projecting the course of the epidemic over the next year.(episode:mens white ceramic rings)

Andrews says the United Nations originally projected there would be 200,000 cases of cholera. "They then revised that estimate to project that 400,000 cases would occur over the next year. In our model, we projected 779,000 cases of cholera and 11,000 deaths."

The new study uses a more sophisticated mathematical model of the likely course of the outbreak than the U.N. used for its estimates.

Andrews' projection includes assumptions about improving water supplies, vaccination, and the use of antibiotics. He says his model indicates that those interventions can make a real difference in the ultimate impact of the epidemic.

"Certainly, if more aggressive interventions were done, such as vaccinating a larger proportion of the population or a faster rollout of clean water, the impact of interventions could be greater," he says. "But what we found was by doing all three of these interventions, you could avert a substantial burden of cholera and a substantial burden of deaths over the coming year, and that's one of the main messages of my analysis." (eppisode:black and orange tungsten ring)

Public health experts continue to debate the best way to control cholera - vaccination versus antibiotics versus sanitation. But Andrews says his model shows that even modest use of all three can have a significant impact in reducing cholera illness and death.

The model in Andrews' study projects the course of the epidemic for the next year, but it doesn't indicate when Haiti will again be free of cholera.

"This is not something we looked at in the model, and it would be extraordinarily difficult to predict right now. Our prediction right now is that it will be endemic in Haiti at least over the next year and for some time to come, which means that a significant number of people will continue to be infected with cholera."

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Chinese panic buying salt amid Japan nuclear scare

Chinese retailers on Thursday reported panic buying of salt, partly because shoppers believe it could help ward off the effects of potential radioactivity from Japan's crippled nuclear power plant.

"Salt sold out early this morning," an employee with a branch of French supermarket chain Carrefour in Shanghai told AFP, declining to give her name.(episode:tungsten carbide wedding band )

 

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She said all the salt was snapped up within 30 minutes of the store's opening on Thursday by anxious shoppers, adding that many customers reported salt prices at other shops in the city had risen as much as six-fold.

A staff member at a supermarket in the southern city of Guangzhou said salt demand had spiked so sharply that the store had imposed temporary limits on what each customer can buy.

"There are many people queueing to buy iodised salt in our store. We have to control it. One client can only buy two bags of salt," she said.

Salt sold in China is mostly iodised as part of a national policy to prevent iodine deficiency disorders.(episode:lowest priced tungsten carbide ring)

Chinese consumers are now hoping iodine in the salt can reduce the impact of possible radioactivity as the crisis at Japan's Fukushima nuclear plant deepened.

But state-run China National Radio said the iodine content of edible salt in the country averages between 20-30 microgrammes per kilogramme, quoting experts saying that is too low to have any effect.

 

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Some shoppers apparently also believe future salt shipments could be contaminated by the disaster and were buying now to stock up on supply, Xinhua news agency reported.

Radioactive iodine from a nuclear event can pollute the air and contaminate the food supply, while thyroid glands quickly absorb the radioactive substance, causing damage, according to the US Centers for Disease Control.

Iodide pills can block radioactive iodine from being taken into the thyroid, it explained.

The official China Daily said Thursday cydiodine tablets had sold out at many pharmacies in cities including Beijing and Shanghai after the earthquake and monster tsunami struck Japan.

Anxiety has been growing in China over the potential harmful effects of radiation emissions from its Asian neighbour, despite repeated Chinese government announcements that the country faces no imminent health threat.

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Chinese panic buying salt amid Japan nuclear scare

Chinese retailers on Thursday reported panic buying of salt, partly because shoppers believe it could help ward off the effects of potential radioactivity from Japan's crippled nuclear power plant.

"Salt sold out early this morning," an employee with a branch of French supermarket chain Carrefour in Shanghai told AFP, declining to give her name.(episode:tungsten carbide wedding band )

 

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She said all the salt was snapped up within 30 minutes of the store's opening on Thursday by anxious shoppers, adding that many customers reported salt prices at other shops in the city had risen as much as six-fold.

A staff member at a supermarket in the southern city of Guangzhou said salt demand had spiked so sharply that the store had imposed temporary limits on what each customer can buy.

"There are many people queueing to buy iodised salt in our store. We have to control it. One client can only buy two bags of salt," she said.

Salt sold in China is mostly iodised as part of a national policy to prevent iodine deficiency disorders.(episode:lowest priced tungsten carbide ring)

Chinese consumers are now hoping iodine in the salt can reduce the impact of possible radioactivity as the crisis at Japan's Fukushima nuclear plant deepened.

But state-run China National Radio said the iodine content of edible salt in the country averages between 20-30 microgrammes per kilogramme, quoting experts saying that is too low to have any effect.

 

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Some shoppers apparently also believe future salt shipments could be contaminated by the disaster and were buying now to stock up on supply, Xinhua news agency reported.

Radioactive iodine from a nuclear event can pollute the air and contaminate the food supply, while thyroid glands quickly absorb the radioactive substance, causing damage, according to the US Centers for Disease Control.

Iodide pills can block radioactive iodine from being taken into the thyroid, it explained.

The official China Daily said Thursday cydiodine tablets had sold out at many pharmacies in cities including Beijing and Shanghai after the earthquake and monster tsunami struck Japan.

Anxiety has been growing in China over the potential harmful effects of radiation emissions from its Asian neighbour, despite repeated Chinese government announcements that the country faces no imminent health threat.

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Expert:Iodized Salt Won't Prevent Radioactivity

An expert has refuted a rumor that iodized salt can help prevent people from suffering ailments that come from radiation exposure caused by Japan's recent nuclear crisis, chinanews.com reports.(episode:womens rings)

Xu Zhengqiang, director with the radioactivity monitoring center under the Ningbo environmental monitoring center, noted that the recent trend for many Chinese to buy salt in east China's Zhejiang Province is absolutely unnecessary.

He believes that average iodine content is between 20-30 mg per kg of edible salt, and the quantity is too low to prevent radioactivity.

Xu said the most effective way against radioactivity is to take an iodine pill every day, which gives the body about 100 mg of iodine.

Current monitoring results show that China's coastal provinces have not been affected by Japan's nuclear crisis, and it is unnecessary for local residents to take pills at the present time.(episode:polished tungsten rings)

Starting Tuesday, supermarkets in some cities saw a buying spree of salt as a rumor claimed that Japan's nuke crisis would cause sea water pollution in China and the salt produced with such water will not be suitable for cooking.

Xu explained that monitoring data reveal that the air is at a normal level presently, and local people should not panic.(episode:faceted ceramic rings)

Some provinces affected by the rumor have acted to ensure a stable salt supply in the market, of which sea salt only takes a 20 percent market share, while most of the rest is mineral salt.

To ease the public unease about radioactivity, Zhejiang's health authorities have opened a hotline of 96301 that starts on Thursday to answer questions about how to avoid radiation exposure.

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Workers evacuate nuclear plant, Australian rescuers exposed to radiation in Japan

Japan has temporarily suspended operations to save its stricken nuclear power plant from meltdown after a sudden spike in radiation made it too dangerous for engineers to remain at the facility, the Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano says.

He told a press conference this afternoon that workers at the Fukushima Daiichi power plant - a skeleton crew of about 50 to 70 - had stopped filling the troubled reactors with water.(advert:tungsten carbide masonic rings)
A spokesman for the country's nuclear safety agency said the workers were evacuated after radiation readings at the plant rose above 3000 microsieverts.

Prime Minister Julia Gillard revealed today that Australian search and rescue workers had been forced to land at Fukushima airport, 20 kilometres outside the exclusion zone for the crisis-hit nuclear plant, and that two had since tested positive for "very low" levels of radiation.

Officials are urgently trying to find 145 Australians still unaccounted for in the area worst affected by the earthquake and tsunami, Ms Gillard told a media briefing.(advert:white ceramic ring)
She said a team of officials was in the devastated regions around Sendai visiting evacuation centres in the hope of making contact with Australians.

She also said an American helicopter carrying four Australians and New Zealand search and rescue experts had been forced to land at Fukushima Airport after a build-up of ice on the aircraft's rotors.

Engineers are desperately trying to contain a developing crisis caused by three explosions and a fire at four of the six reactors at Fukushima's nuclear plant.

Ms Gillard said two of the Australians on board the chopper had been tested for radiation since arriving at their search and rescue destination about 100 kilometres away and had been found to have "very low levels" on their boots.

"The clear advice to me is that these two personnel are safe and well," she said.

Ms Gillard said the International Atomic Energy Agency had advised her that health risks, from exposure to the radiation, was low to negligible.(episode:black tungsten rings)

''Our nuclear experts advise that there is a small chance of contamination at very low levels for Australians who were in the Fukushima area,'' she said.

But concerned Australians returning from Japan are advised to visit their doctor, Ms Gillard said.

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Big Fire reignites at Japan nuclear reactor

Reporting from Sendai and Tokyo, Japan
Fresh setbacks, including another blaze at a crippled reactor, bedeviled Japanese authorities Wednesday as they struggled to contain the world's worst nuclear crisis in a quarter of a century, and survivors of the devastating earthquake and tsunami suffered through shortages, bitter cold and overnight snowfall.(episode:laser engraved ceramic rings)

Troubling new estimates emerged of the extent of damage at the Fukushima No. 1 (Daiichi) nuclear plant about 150 miles north of Tokyo.

Elevated radiation levels detected a day earlier in the vicinity of the plant imposed a creeping sense of isolation, with greater numbers of foreigners leaving, rescue crews mindful of exit routes and international flights being diverted away from the capital.
Tens of thousands of residents within a 20-mile radius of the plant were essentially trapped indoors for a second day Wednesday, urged again by authorities to avoid going out unless it was an emergency. That posed a conundrum for those who have already been scrambling to obtain basic necessities; food, water and medicine have all been hard to come by in the area hit by Friday's magnitude 9 quake and the tsunami that followed.

"Yesterday we ate a bit of rice and one egg," said Yoshiko Tsuzuki, 55, a homemaker standing beside her husband and 16-year old daughter in a line outside a grocery store near the battered city of Sendai. "We're hungry. I want to buy water and anything to eat. We need everything."

It remained unclear why a country renowned for its efficiency has been unable to marshal convoys of supply trucks into the disaster area, as China did after its 2008 earthquake. Though military vehicles were evident, few emergency supplies were seen on the major arteries from Tokyo into the hard-hit Tohuku region and points south.(episode:grooved ceramic rings)

Even in cities that lie well outside the earthquake zone, daily life was increasingly becoming disrupted by rolling blackouts and the curtailment of Japan's much-vaunted transit network, both of which will be key to restarting the engine of the world's third-largest economy. Stock prices stabilized Wednesday after tumbling for two days, but there was deepening gloom over the long-term financial outlook in the wake of the worst earthquake in the country's recorded history — a concern even among survivors who have far more immediate and pressing fears.

"I'm worried in the long term about Japan's economy," said Yoshiko Konno, in her 60s, as she charged her cellphone at a community center in Sendai. "Just think of one example — oysters! Are Americans and Europeans going to want to import Japanese oysters if they think there is a danger of radioactive contamination?"

Five days later, the true scale of the disaster is still unknown. At least 10,000 people are feared dead, a tally that is expected to take weeks to finalize. About half a million others have been displaced by quake and tsunami damage or the evacuation triggered by the emergency at Fukushima, a once-obscure nuclear plant that is now the focus of worldwide scrutiny.

The cause of Wednesday's blaze at the Unit 4 reactor — also the scene of a fire the day before — was not immediately known. The plant's operator, Tokyo Electric Power Co., known as Tepco, said radiation levels were too high for firefighters to get close. Later, authorities said the blaze seemed to be subsiding on its own, as the one the previous day did. But hours later, public broadcaster NHK showed breaking aerial footage of a plume of white smoke rising from the reactor.

At the plant, where a small cadre of workers in protective gear remained doggedly on the job, desperate and improvisational measures have become the rule. Tepco said it was considering using a helicopter to douse a boiling storage pool filled with spent fuel rods. The spent rods are usually submerged in the pool next to the Unit 4 reactor, which was not operating when the earthquake and tsunami struck.

But government officials said the helicopter plan had been ruled out as too difficult. Yuichi Sato, a spokesman at Japan's Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency, said the company was weighing options, including using firetrucks to shoot water into the reactor building.

Tepco has been sharply criticized for its handling of the crisis at the plant, where three of the six reactors have been rocked by explosions caused by overheating in their core containment chambers. The quake and tsunami knocked out power to the cooling systems, triggering a series of breakdowns and missteps that exposed fuel rods to the air at one reactor and released dangerous levels of radiation outside the plant.(advert:polished ceramic rings)

The company said an estimated 70% of the fuel rods had been damaged at the Unit 1 reactor and 33% at the Unit 2 reactor. Nuclear safety agency spokesman Shigekatsu Omukai said the utility reported the figures to the agency Wednesday.

Spent fuel at the complex is an increasing focus of concern. Tepco had moved all of the rods from the Unit 4 reactor to the spent-fuel pool sometime after Dec. 1 as part of routine maintenance, meaning the pool contained not only all of the rods accumulated from many years of service but also all of those currently in use.

If the pool was jam-packed with rods, they would generate significant heat and, once the water stopped circulating after the tsunami, its temperature would begin rising, eventually reaching the boiling point. If the water boiled long enough without being replenished, it would expose the rods to the air.

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Number of missing, dead in Japan soars to 6,000

More than 6,000 people are confirmed dead or missing in Japan, four days after an earthquake triggered a tsunami that wiped out entire towns in the country's northeast.

Police said nearly 2,475 people were confirmed dead and 3,611 missing Tuesday. But with hundreds of bodies washing ashore, the death toll was expected to climb much higher -- possibly as high as 10,000.

Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan called it the greatest crisis the country has faced since the Second World War.

Friday's 9.0-magnitude earthquake has also left millions with little food or shelter, as temperatures drop to near-freezing levels overnight. Hospitals are overwhelmed with the injured and running out of medicine and supplies.

In Iwate prefecture, one of the most devastated areas of Japan, government official Hajime Sato said only 10 per cent of needed supplies had been delivered. Authorities were also running out of coffins to bury the dead.

In neighbouring Fukushima prefecture, officials say the town of Soma is at least one-third flooded and thousands of residents are missing. The local crematorium was unable to handle the large number of bodies.

"We have already begun cremations, but we can only handle 18 bodies a day. We are overwhelmed and are asking other cites to help us deal with bodies. We only have one crematorium in town," Katsuhiko Abe, an official in Soma, told The Associated Press.

CTV's Lisa LaFlamme said due to the rising death toll, the Japanese government has waived a rule that requires citizens to get approval from their local officials before they cremate or bury a body.

"The current situation is so extraordinary, and it is very likely that crematoriums are running beyond capacity," said Health Ministry official Yukio Okuda. "This is an emergency measure. We want to help quake-hit people as much as we can."

Rescue workers were trying to recover up to 300 bodies in Sendai, the capital of Miyagi.

Another 8,000 people in Otsuchi, in Iwate prefecture, are said to be unaccounted for.

Indonesian geologist Hery Harjono said Japan's death-toll projection was too conservative. He told The Associated Press it would be "a miracle really if it turns out to be less than 10,000."

Harjono noted that many victims may have been pulled out to sea, as happened when the 2004 tsunami struck Indonesia's Aceh province. About 230,000 people died in Indonesia, but only 184,000 bodies were ever found.

Meanwhile, aid organizations are trying to assist people in Japan's hardest-hit areas.

"Some of the greatest needs are food and water, temporary shelter, and World Vision will also be focusing on children and the psychological toll that this earthquake has had by setting up child-friendly spaces for them," Casey Calamusa, of World Vision, told CTV News Channel from Tokyo.

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Japan earthquake and tsunami: NZ rescue team 'well aware' of nuke issues

New Zealand's Urban Search and Rescue (USAR) team in Japan are about to start work in the northeastern town of Minamisanriku, which bore the brunt of Friday's tsunami, in an effort to find any survivors.

The situation in the country has deteriorated today, with explosions at the Fukushima nuclear facility resulting in a fire that is producing a cloud of life-threatening radiation.

Since the magnitude 9.0 quake three explosions have rocked the power plant.

Radiation levels four times a person's recommended annual exposure have been detected at the plant following the explosions.

Fire Service national manager of special operations and team leader Jim Stuart-Black said the team was "well aware" of the nuclear power plant issues emerging 130km south of their base.

"We have good information on the situation and are being kept well informed of all developments. We also have our own equipment and are constantly monitoring the atmosphere. The radiation levels here are the normal background levels."

The team was bracing to begin a search of the devastated area, which would include identifying sites where survivors were most likely to be, undertaking rescue operations and helping to move survivors to safety.

Mr Stuart-Black said he, the Australian USAR taskforce leader and Japanese emergency officials were discussing their planned operations in the tsunami-affected areas and were about to carry out an aerial reconnaissance of the Minamisanriku area, a coastal town about 90km northeast of Sendai.

Minamisanriku was one of the hardest hit areas by the tsunami, despite being several kilometres from the ocean. Officials have suggested that more than half of its 17,000 residents are missing.

Of all its buildings, only three have been left standing - a hospital, a wedding store and a school.

Police believe a train filled with commuters has been buried by debris from the tsunami.

Meanwhile, 1721 New Zealanders have registered with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade (MFAT) to report they are safe and well in Japan.

However, the ministry had specific concerns around the safety of two unnamed New Zealanders who were believed to be in the quake-affected areas.

Embassy staff are providing a range of consular assistance by those badly affected by the disaster, including visiting hospitals and evaluation centres.

Consular staff were also based at Narita International Airport in Tokyo and Sendai in the northeast to help.
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After WWII,Japan's darkest hour

FUKUSHIMA: Japan struggled to avert a nuclear disaster and care for millions of people without power or water, three days after an earthquake and tsunami killed an estimated 10,000 people or more in the nation's darkest hour since World War II.

Hours before the world's thirdlargest economy opens for business on Monday, Prime Minister Naoto Kan described the crisis as Japan's worst since 1945 as officials confirmed that three nuclear reactors were at risk of overheating, raising fears of an uncontrolled radiation leak.

"The earthquake, tsunami and nuclear incident have been the biggest crisis Japan has encountered in the 65 years since the end of World War II," Kan told a news conference. "We're under scrutiny on whether we, the Japanese people, can overcome this crisis."

As he spoke, officials worked desperately to stop fuel rods in the damaged reactors from overheating. If they fail, the containers that house the core could melt, or even explode, releasing radioactive material into the atmosphere.

The most urgent crisis centres on the Fukushima Daiichi power plant complex, where all three reactors are threatening to overheat, and where authorities say they have been forced to release radioactive steam into the air to relieve reactor pressure.

The complex was rocked by an explosion on Saturday which blew the roof off a reactor building. The government did not rule out further blasts there but said this would not necessarily damage the reactor vessels.

Authorities have poured sea water in all three of the complex's reactor to cool them down. The complex, run by Tokyo Electric Power Co, is the biggest nuclear concern but not the only one: on Monday, the UN nuclear watchdog said Japanese authorities had notified it of an emergency at another plant further north, at Onagawa.

But Japan's nuclear safety agency denied problems at the Onagawa plant, run by Tohoku Electric Power Co, noting that radioactive releases from the Fukushima Daiichi complex had been detected at Onagawa, but that these were within safe levels at a tiny fraction of the radiation received in an x-ray.

Shortly later, a cooling-system problem was reported at another nuclear plant closer to Tokyo, in Ibaraki prefecture.

Fukushima's No. 1 reactor, where the roof was ripped off, is 40 years old and was originally set to go out of commission in February but had its operating licence extended by 10 years.

Kan said the crisis was not another Chernobyl, referring to the 1986 disaster in Soviet Ukraine. "Radiation has been released in the air, but there are no reports that a large amount was released," Jiji news agency quoted him as saying. "This is fundamentally different from the Chernobyl accident."

Nevertheless, France recommended its citizens leave the Tokyo region, citing risk of further earthquakes and uncertainty about the nuclear plants.

Another threat emerged in southwestern Japan, when a volcano erupted on Sunday after nearly two weeks of relative silence, sending ash and rocks up to 4km into the air. It was not immediately clear if the eruption was a direct result of the earthquake. The 1,421-metre Shinmoedake volcano saw its first major eruption for 52 years in January. There had not been any major activity at the site since March 1.

Broadcaster NHK, quoting a police official, said more than 10,000 may have been killed after Friday's 8.9-magnitude quake triggered tsunami waves across the coastline, reducing whole towns to rubble. Almost 2 million households were without power in the freezing north, the government said. There were about 1.4 million without running water. Kyodo news agency said about 300,000 people were evacuated nationwide.

Authorities have set up a 20km exclusion zone around the Fukushima Daiichi plant and a 10km zone around another nuclear facility close by. The nuclear accident, the worst since Chernobyl, sparked criticism that authorities were ill-prepared for such a massive quake and the threat it could pose to the country's nuclear power industry.

Chief cabinet secretary Yukio Edano said there might have been a partial meltdown of the fuel rods at the No. 1 reactor at Fukushima. Engineers were pumping in seawater, trying to prevent the same happening at the No. 3 reactor, he said in apparent acknowledgement they had moved too slowly on Saturday.

A Japanese official said 22 people have been confirmed to have suffered radiation contamination and up to 190 may have been exposed.

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Japanese earthquake another blow for NZ economy

Japan's earthquake and tsunami will strike a blow to the New Zealand economy which is grappling with the consequences of the earthquakes in Christchurch, economists say.

New Zealand had understandably strong sympathies with Japan and the devastating natural disaster it was suffering from after the magnitude nine earthquake on Friday and tsunami, bank economists said today.

Bank of New Zealand said economic ties were strong between the two countries.

Japan was New Zealand's fourth biggest trading partner and was also a key source of tourists to New Zealand.

About 8 per cent of New Zealand's exports, by value, go to Japan.

Of this, nearly one-fifth is unwrought aluminium, no doubt from the Tiwai Point smelter, BNZ said.

Roughly half of New Zealand's imports from Japan are in the form of vehicles, with mechanical and electrical machinery and equipment making up the bulk of the rest.

The student tourist market would also suffer, as Japanese students were prominent in this market.

However, the student tourist market had already been hurt by the Christchurch earthquakes.

"Economic implications for the Chinese economy are worth thinking about, given its increased integration with the Japanese economy over recent decades," BNZ said.

ASB noted Japan's importance to New Zealand as a trading partner but said key economic sectors in Japan had escaped relatively unscathed so far. The current risks to Japan's economy largely stemmed from the risk of nuclear meltdown and disruption to the electricity supply.

"For now, we anticipate the disruption to New Zealand exports is likely to be limited. Looking ahead, forestry is New Zealand's second largest merchandise export to Japan, leaving New Zealand well placed when reconstruction efforts eventually begin," he said.

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Cables Obtained by WikiLeaks Shine Light Into Secret Diplomatic Channels

A cache of a quarter-million confidential American diplomatic cables, most of them from the past three years, provides an unprecedented look at back-room bargaining by embassies around the world, brutally candid views of foreign leaders and frank assessments of nuclear and terrorist threats.

Some of the cables, made available to The New York Times and several other news organizations, were written as recently as late February, revealing the Obama administration’s exchanges over crises and conflicts. The material was originally obtained by WikiLeaks, an organization devoted to revealing secret documents. WikiLeaks posted 220 cables, some redacted to protect diplomatic sources, in the first installment of the archive on its Web site on Sunday.

The disclosure of the cables is sending shudders through the diplomatic establishment, and could strain relations with some countries, influencing international affairs in ways that are impossible to predict.

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and American ambassadors around the world have been contacting foreign officials in recent days to alert them to the expected disclosures. A statement from the White House on Sunday said: “We condemn in the strongest terms the unauthorized disclosure of classified documents and sensitive national security information.”

The White House said the release of what it called “stolen cables” to several publications was a “reckless and dangerous action” and warned that some cables, if released in full, could disrupt American operations abroad and put the work and even lives of confidential sources of American diplomats at risk. The statement noted that reports often include “candid and often incomplete information” whose disclosure could “deeply impact not only U.S. foreign policy interests, but those of our allies and friends around the world.”

The cables, a huge sampling of the daily traffic between the State Department and some 270 embassies and consulates, amount to a secret chronicle of the United States’ relations with the world in an age of war and terrorism. Among their revelations, to be detailed in The Times in coming days:

¶ A dangerous standoff with Pakistan over nuclear fuel: Since 2007, the United States has mounted a highly secret effort, so far unsuccessful, to remove from a Pakistani research reactor highly enriched uranium that American officials fear could be diverted for use in an illicit nuclear device. In May 2009, Ambassador Anne W. Patterson reported that Pakistan was refusing to schedule a visit by American technical experts because, as a Pakistani official said, “if the local media got word of the fuel removal, ‘they certainly would portray it as the United States taking Pakistan’s nuclear weapons,’ he argued.”

¶ Thinking about an eventual collapse of North Korea: American and South Korean officials have discussed the prospects for a unified Korea, should the North’s economic troubles and political transition lead the state to implode. The South Koreans even considered commercial inducements to China, according to the American ambassador to Seoul. She told Washington in February that South Korean officials believe that the right business deals would “help salve” China’s “concerns about living with a reunified Korea” that is in a “benign alliance” with the United States.

¶ Bargaining to empty the Guantánamo Bay prison: When American diplomats pressed other countries to resettle detainees, they became reluctant players in a State Department version of “Let’s Make a Deal.” Slovenia was told to take a prisoner if it wanted to meet with President Obama, while the island nation of Kiribati was offered incentives worth millions of dollars to take in Chinese Muslim detainees, cables from diplomats recounted. The Americans, meanwhile, suggested that accepting more prisoners would be “a low-cost way for Belgium to attain prominence in Europe.”

¶ Suspicions of corruption in the Afghan government: When Afghanistan’s vice president visited the United Arab Emirates last year, local authorities working with the Drug Enforcement Administration discovered that he was carrying $52 million in cash. With wry understatement, a cable from the American Embassy in Kabul called the money “a significant amount” that the official, Ahmed Zia Massoud, “was ultimately allowed to keep without revealing the money’s origin or destination.” (Mr. Massoud denies taking any money out of Afghanistan.)

¶ A global computer hacking effort: China’s Politburo directed the intrusion into Google’s computer systems in that country, a Chinese contact told the American Embassy in Beijing in January, one cable reported. The Google hacking was part of a coordinated campaign of computer sabotage carried out by government operatives, private security experts and Internet outlaws recruited by the Chinese government. They have broken into American government computers and those of Western allies, the Dalai Lama and American businesses since 2002, cables said.

¶ Mixed records against terrorism: Saudi donors remain the chief financiers of Sunni militant groups like Al Qaeda, and the tiny Persian Gulf state of Qatar, a generous host to the American military for years, was the “worst in the region” in counterterrorism efforts, according to a State Department cable last December. Qatar’s security service was “hesitant to act against known terrorists out of concern for appearing to be aligned with the U.S. and provoking reprisals,” the cable said.

Irish Republic minister admits Dublin needs outside aid

The Irish Republic's finance minister has said he feels "no sense of shame" over his country's economic record - but it now needs outside help.

Brian Lenihan told broadcaster RTE the Republic had fought hard over the past two years for financial survival.

A team of international officials are in Dublin to discuss the country's debt crisis which has rocked the financial markets in recent days.

Mr Lenihan said no figures had been discussed yet.

The Republic's government has repeatedly stressed it has not asked for financial assistance from either the European Union (EU) or the International Monetary Fund (IMF) who are represented at the Dublin talks.

It says the government has enough money to see it through well into next year.

Mr Lenihan said the problem lies with Ireland's heavily indebted banks.

The European Central Bank (ECB), on whose loans Ireland's banks have become heavily dependent, is also part of the negotiations.

"I certainly don't feel a sense of shame about fighting hard for this country for the last two years to ensure its financial survival," said Mr Lenihan.

"The big difficulty of course is that the banks grew to such a size that they became too unmanageable for the state itself; that's the big difficulty here. And that's why we have to consider external assistance to stabilise our banking system."

'International rescue'

The government has given huge support to the banking system, but has a gaping budget deficit of 32% of its gross domestic product and it can give no more.

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Mr Honohan is refreshingly frank... But I suppose what is more striking is that with all Mr Honohan's openness, there remain big uncertainties about the nature of the financial rescue being put together”

Mr Lenihan said who would pay for any international rescue was unclear: "We have to decide as a government whether this package is in the best interest of the taxpayer, or whether it will burden the taxpayer further, that's a very important consideration for any government."

Earlier the Republic's Central Bank Governor, Patrick Honohan - also speaking to RTE - said he expected a loan in the region of "tens of billions" of euros.

The final decision will be up to the Irish government, which has said it has not agreed to a loan from Europe.

"It'll be a large loan because the purpose of the amount to be advanced or to be made available to be borrowed is to show that Ireland has sufficient firepower to deal with any concerns of the market. That's the purpose of it," he told RTE.

An EU handout could be seen as a big loss of face for the Republic - essentially meaning that its survival and solvency were reliant on Brussels.

Borrowing costs

But BBC business editor Robert Peston said that in terms of Irish resistance to a bail-out, this was "game over".

"The Irish government could not conceivably go against the advice of its [eurozone] partners and its central bank," he said.

Were it to do so, commercial customers of Irish banks would accelerate withdrawals which would be devastating, he said.

European stock markets closed higher on Thursday as investors' confidence grew that an Irish rescue package would emerge in the coming days.

Fears about the stability of Irish banks has led to a rise in the price the Irish government - which has pumped billions into its banks - pays to borrow money.

Other eurozone countries that are also perceived as weak are seeing their borrowing costs rise too.

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