South Korean environmental activists staged an anti-nuclear rally on March 28, marking the 32nd anniversary of the Three Mile Island nuclear accident in Pennsylvania. Dozens of protesters wearing white masks gathered in downtown Seoul and denounced their government's nuclear development plans. Said protest leader Kim Hae-jung: "Today is the 32nd anniversary of the Three Mile Island nuclear plant accident, and it's been 17 days since the nuclear tragedy broke out in Japan. We're here to urge our government to change its plan to expand nuclear plants and to inform people of the danger of nuclear plants." South Korea has 21 nuclear power plants, with seven more under construction, and another 11 planned. (NTD-TV, March 28)

Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO), operator of Japan's stricken Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant, said April 2 that highly radioactive water is leaking directly into the ocean, which may help explain high levels of radioactivity in seawater off the coast. The water is coming from an 8-inch (20-centimeter) crack that was found in the concrete pit holding power cables near reactor Number 2, with the radiation level measured at 1,000 milli-sieverts an hour. The annual limit of radiation exposure allowed for Fukushima workers is 250 milli-sieverts. Efforts to seal the crack by pumping in concrete have failed to slow the flow of water into the ocean. TEPCO officials said they will next try using a polymer—a type of quick-setting plastic. The tainted water is pooled up some 10 to 20 centimeters high at the bottom of the pit. (LAT, Kyodo News, April 2)

Moammar Qaddafi's regime rejected a rebel offer of a ceasefire April 1, as fighting continued for the rebel-held city of Misrata in western Libya. In an exact reversal of the situation just ten days earlier, government spokesman Mussa Ibrahim called the ceasefire proposal a "trick," telling reporters: "The rebels never offered peace. They don't offer peace, they are making impossible demands. We will not leave our cities. We are the government, not them." NATO warplanes meanwhile strafed positions held by Qaddafi-loyalist forces in the al-Khums and al-Rojban regions east and southwest of the capital Tripoli. (AFP, April 2)

The National Resistance Brigades announced April 2 that the ceasefire was over in the Gaza Strip, following an overnight Israeli air-strike that killed three leaders of Hamas' armed wing. The brigades, military wing of the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine, said they would retaliate to the killings and that Israel "would have to bear the repercussions of this crime."

Libya's opposition is ready for a ceasefire provided Moammer Qaddafi's forces end their assaults on rebel-held cities and repression of protesters, Transitional National Council leader Mustafa Abdul Jalil said April 1. "We agree on a ceasefire on the condition that our brothers in the western cities have freedom of expression and also that the forces that are besieging the cities withdraw," Jalil told reporters after meeting Abdul Ilah Khatib, the UN special envoy to Libya. "Our main goal is to achieve a last ceasefire that will hold." The appeal came as Qaddafi-loyal forces drove rebels back for a third day after sandstorms and clouds hindered NATO air strikes. There was no immediate response to the offer from Qaddafi officials.

Security forces killed at least four people and wounded dozens when they opened fire on protesters in the town of Douma, Syria, just outside Damascus, April 1. Authorities said worshippers emerged from Friday prayers at the city's main mosque and began pelting security forces with stones. (Middle East Online, April 1) That same day, tens of thousands of rival demonstrators rallied in the streets of the Yemen's, Sana'a. Anti-government activists gathered outside Sana'a University to call for an immediate end to President Ali Abdullah Saleh's 32-year rule. Supporters of the president gathered in Sabyeen square, chanting and waving Yemeni flags. In a speech to his supporters there, Saleh promised to "sacrifice my blood and soul" for the people of Yemen. (VOA, April 1) Tens of thousands of Egyptians meanwhile gathered in Cairo's Tahrir Square, issuing a call to "save the revolution." The Youth Coalition Movement wants the country's institutions purged of members of the former ruling National Democratic Party as well as the restitution of "the millions stolen from the people." Protesters chanted "The people want to purify the country!" (Middle East Online, April 1)

Forces loyal to president-elect Alassane Ouattara took Ivory Coast's administrative capital Yamoussoukro and principal port San Pedro on March 31, and are currently moving on Abidjan, the country's principal city—where rumors are flying about the imminent fall of Laurent Gbagbo, who has refused to cede power. Ouattara, the internationally recognized president, said Gbagbo would not be harmed if he agreed to leave. Civilian residents throughout Abidjan, however, do not have such assurances.

Seawater near Japan's stricken Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant shows significantly higher levels of radioactive iodine than in recent days, Japan's nuclear safety agency reported March 30. Hidehiko Nishiyama, deputy director general of the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency, said that seawater collected about 300 yards from the Fukushima Dai-ichi plant was found to contain iodine 131 at 3,355 times the safety standard, the highest levels reported so far. Meanwhile, Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO), operator of the plant, acknowledged for the first time that at least reactors 1 through 4 of the six-reactor complex will have to be written off. (NYT, March 31) A US engineer who helped install reactors at Fukushima, speaking anonymously to the Scandinavian environmental NGO Bellona, said he believes the radioactive core in reactor Number 2 may have melted through the bottom of its containment vessel and on to a concrete floor—a development that would pose a grave risk to soil and groundwater. (Bellona, March 31)