A second explosion was reported at Japan's stricken Fukushima nuclear power plant early on March 14. The blast apparently came after technicians flooded the overheating reactor Number 1 with seawater in a desperate attempt to bring down dangerous temperatures. Authorities are again saying the steel containment structure was not breached. Like the first blast of March 12, the new incident is said to be a hydrogen explosion. Six people are reported missing in the wake of the blast. CTV reports that power company TEPCO said radiation levels at the plant are 10.65 micro-sieverts—significantly below the limit of 500 micro-sieverts at which a nuclear operator is legally required to file a report to the government. This appears to conflict with news reports yesterday that radiation levels were in excess of 1,015 micro-sieverts per hour. The Los Angeles Times reports that radiation levels had risen above the legal limit before the blast, which is what prompted the attempt to flood the reactor.

Qaddafi-loyalist forces pushed deeper into rebel-held eastern Libya on March 13, overrunning the oil hub of Port Brega and sending its defenders fleeing toward the opposition stronghold of Benghazi. Ajdabiya, just some 150 miles down the coast from Benghazi, is the next town where rebels are preparing to block the advance. Air-strikes have already hit the western outskirts of Ajdabiya. State-run TV claimed that Port Brega had been "cleansed of armed gangs." In Benghazi, opposition spokesman Mustafa Gheriani issued an urgent call for a no-fly zone. Meeting in Cairo, the Arab League also resolved to petition the UN Security Council for a no-fly zone. Syria and Algeria cast the only dissenting votes. (LAT, VOA, WP, Ya-Libnan, March 13)

Two protesters died in Yemen on March 13, a day after being shot by police in the southern city of Aden, raising the death toll to seven in demonstrations against President Ali Abdullah Saleh. There were also disturbing reports from the capital, Sanaa, of protesters passing out and going into convulsions after inhaling gas fired by police. "This isn't tear gas," said Iraqi doctor Hussein al-Joshaai, a nerve specialist who was at the scene. "This is poison gas that disables the nervous and respiratory systems." Another doctor, Abdulwahab al-Inssi, said: "Those wounded today couldn't have been hit by tear gas grenades. They are suffering spasms." The interior ministry denied the allegations as "baseless slander." (Middle East Online, March 13)

Saudi Arabia is preparing to intervene in neighboring Bahrain, after a day of clashes between police and protesters. Bahrain's crown prince Salman bin Hamad al-Khalifa is expected to formally invite Saudi forces into his country, as part of a request now being considered by the six-member Gulf Co-operation Council. Hundreds were injured after police fired tear gas and charged protesters who had occupied Manama’s financial center on March 13.

Protesters disrupted traffic in Jerusalem, Tel Aviv and elsewhere across Israel on March 13, in response to the attack in the West Bank settlement of Itamar two days earlier, in which a family of five, including an infant and a young child, were stabbed to death. Protesters, accusing the government of a too lenient security policy on the West Bank (!!!), began amassing immediately after thousands turned out for the funeral at Jerusalem's Givat Shaul cemetery in Jerusalem. (There were also scattered so-called "price tag" attacks on Palestinians by settlers on the West Bank, with five cars set on fire in Nablus, JP reports.) Speaking at the funeral, Minister of Strategic Affairs Moshe Yaalon, was clearly trying to head off protests by playing to the crowd, but that doesn't let him off the hook for his abomination of sanctimonious illogic:

Some 60,000 Germans marched against nuclear power on March 12, forming a 45-kilometer human chain from Neckarwestheim power plant to the city of Stuttgart in Baden-Württemberg state. The demonstration had been planned for some time, but was given new urgency after the Japanese nuclear disaster. Chancellor Angela Merkel, who has extended the lifespan of Germany's 17 nuclear power plants for another 12 years beyond their original shutdown date, summoned senior cabinet ministers to an emergency meeting on nuclear safety. (The Local, Germany, March 13; AP, The Guardian, March 12)

It has now been determined that the explosion at the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant some 150 kilometers north of Tokyo was actually caused by efforts to avert a meltdown, technicians having taken a calculated risk with a decision to vent radioactive steam from the severely overheated reactor Number 1. The release set off a hydrogen explosion which partially destroyed the outer turbine building. This did relieve some of the pressure that has been building up in the reactor containment core since off-site power was lost due to the earthquake, halting the flow of coolant water. But the reactor has not yet been brought under control. Four workers were injured in the explosion, and three were later hospitalized for ­radiation exposure.

Four were killed in fighting between anti-government protesters and security forces in Yemen March 12, even as President Ali Abdullah Saleh promised the White House that he would not use violence against the demonstrators. At least three people were killed in the capital, where some 100,000 staged a sit-in at Sanaa University to demand Saleh's ouster. As police used tear gas to break up the sit-in, pro-government snipers opened fire from rooftops. The fourth casualty, a 14-year-old boy, was killed in a protest the southern port city of Mukalla. In a bid to counter what he called "sedition," Saleh went on TV to pledge a referendum on a new constitution later this year, which would devolve further powers to parliament. But the move was dismissed by the opposition. "The president's initiative is too late and constitutes the last breath of the political regime which protesters demand and end to," parliamentary opposition spokesman Mohammad al-Sabri said. (NYT, Middle East Online, March 11)