Close to 30,000 dead or missing in Japana and disaster still brewing, Posted by Meosha Eaton

According to the latest reports, there are over 28,000 deaths and missing persons in lieu of the recent March 11 earthquake and tusanami. It appears that the situation continues to get worse for Japan with the recent nuclear and radiation crisis.  What is next? It's hard to say with the radiation leak still not under control.

Hundreds of engineers have been toiling for nearly three weeks to cool the plant's reactors and avert a meltdown of fuel rods. While that scenario has receded, highly tainted water has been found in some reactors and in concrete tunnels outside.

Readings have also showed radioactive iodine in the sea off the plant at record levels and radiation has been in tap water in Tokyo and in tiny traces abroad.

Experts say a lack of information and some inconsistent data have made it hard to understand what is happening at Fukushima, which appears to have moved from a core-meltdown phase to one in which the management of released radioactivity is paramount.

The situation has taken a new turn with contaminated water, causing officials to call on France nuclear experts for assistance.

The head of the French nuclear reactor maker -- one of France's most powerful female executives -- travelled to Tokyo with three French experts in radioactive water contamination.

The French experts will be based in the Tokyo area and not at the acual nuclear site.
Their participation could help facilitate the developments on the disaster.

Radiation found on Japan passengers to Taiwan, S.Korea, Posted by Meosha Eaton

TAIPEI/SEOUL, March 17 (Reuters) - About 25 passengers arriving in Taiwan from Japan were observed with levels of slightly higher exposure to radiation, a government official said on Thursday.

Authorities in South Korea had earlier reported unusually high radiation levels on three passengers arriving from Japan.

The Taiwan official, part of the government's atomic energy council, told Reuters by telephone that the 25 passengers had arrived from various Japanese cities and had "slightly higher" levels than normal.

The official provided no further details. He said the government had set up monitoring posts to subject arriving passengers to tests. No further measures were planned.

In Seoul, the Yonhap news agency quoted officials as saying that a Japanese man in his 50s arriving at Incheon airport had a reading exceeding 1 microsievert from his hat and coat, several times the normal reading.

He was believed to have lived in Fukushima prefecture, site of the nuclear power station damaged in last week's big earthquake and tsunami.

The level posed no public health risk and officials will release the three passengers, YTN television said.

South Korea's nuclear safety agency has said it considers 300 nanosieverts per hour as the ceiling of a normal level of radiation in atmosphere. One microsievert translates to 1,000 nanosieverts.

The checks at the airport were voluntary, a Reuters photographer at the airport said.

Vice Science Minister Kim Chang-kyung told lawmakers on Thursday that officials were preparing to set up monitoring devices at the southern port of Busan soon to measure radiation levels on ferry passengers arriving from Japan. (Reporting by Jack Kim in Seoul and Rachel Lee in Taipei; Editing by Ron Popeski and Jeremy Laurence

Oil up $2 to over $112 on Middle East unrest, Posted by Meosha Eaton

* Bahrain Petroleum partly shuts down production

* Japan battles to avert nuclear meltdown

* Coming Up: U.S. Feb inflation, weekly jobless claims


(Updates prices, quotes, BAPCO shutdown)

By Claire Milhench

LONDON, March 17 (Reuters) - Oil rose by more than $2 on Thursday as tensions in Saudi Arabia and Bahrain fuelled fears of further supply disruption while investors weighed the impact on energy demand from quake-hit Japan.

Brent crude for May, the front-month contract after April expired on Wednesday, was up $2.13 to $112.73 a barrel at 1120 GMT. Overnight it fell as much as 1 percent to $109.45 but then rebounded Thursday morning to an intraday high of $113.12.

U.S. crude rallied more than $1, reaching an intraday high of $99.86 before slipping back to $99.71 a barrel.

"The market is seeing risks from the supply side and the demand side, and has to decide which is weighing more," said Barbara Lambrecht, a commodity analyst at Commerzbank. "It is looking for orientation -- I think we can expect more volatility."

Prices had slid about 4 percent since Japan's earthquake and tsunami six days ago, touching a three-week low of $107.35 on Wednesday. But increased tensions in the Middle East have helped prices rebound.

"The focus is back on continuing unrest in the Middle East and what will be a lot of disruption in Libya for a long time," said Christopher Bellew, an oil trader at Bache Commodities.

"The risk is more to the upside -- there was a lot of long liquidation on that sharp sell off at the beginning of the week so we will work our way a bit higher probably."

In Bahrain at least six opposition leaders have been arrested, a day after a crackdown on protests by the Shi'ite Muslim majority. A United Nations human rights official urged Bahrain to rein in its forces.

State-owned Bahrain Petroleum Co (BAPCO) has partly shutdown production due to staff shortages caused by the protests, trade sources said..

Bahrain lies less than 100 kms from the hub of the Saudi oil industry at Dhahran, including the world's largest oilfields, oil terminal and processing plant.

"The demonstrations in Bahrain are a potential threat to Saudi Arabia," said Thorbjorn Bak Jensen, oil market analyst at Global Risk Management.

Saudi Shi'ites marched in the kingdom's oil-producing east on Wednesday, demanding the release of prisoners and voicing support for Shi'ites in nearby Bahrain, an activist and witnesses said.


JAPAN, LIBYA DISRUPTIONS

The market is also focused on the quake-crippled Fukushima nuclear plant in Japan where emergency crews are battling to cool an overheating nuclear plant in efforts to avert a meltdown.

Although the Japanese reconstruction effort will be energy-intensive, manufacturing shutdowns such as that of Toshiba's LCD assembly line may reduce the immediate demand for electricity.

Any lengthy disruptions to regional production networks could spill over into global supply chains and impact economic growth, investors fear.

"With the Japanese crisis we are starting to enter an area of systemic risk where assets can see extreme fluctuations without necessarily a fundamental justification," Olivier Jakob, oil analyst at Petromatrix, said in a note.

Bak Jensen said risk aversion had prompted the big sell-off earlier in the week, but when Japan regains control of its nuclear reactors, oil prices should pick up again.

"Refined products such as fuel oil and gasoil are trading at premiums to Brent and that should put upward pressure on Brent," he said.

In Libya, government soldiers battled rebels on the road to the insurgent stronghold of Benghazi. The United Nations Security Council meets later on Thursday to consider its response to the escalating violence in Libya, with a vote planned on the no-fly zone.

OPEC members including Saudi Arabia have increased output partly to compensate for the loss of as much as two-thirds of Libyan supplies, at the same time eroding spare capacity.

Commerzbank's Lambrecht noted even if the Gaddafi regime quickly regains control of oilfields and exporting facilities, the sites are partly destroyed and market sanctions expected.

(Additional reporting by Alejandro Barbajosa in Singapore; editing by James Jukwey)