"The number is not credible," Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) spokesman Takashi Kurita told reporters on Monday in Japan, apologizing for the error. "We are very sorry."

Kurita was referring to their alarming report on Sunday night (local time) that radiation from iodine-134 in water of the basement of the turbine building at Fukushima Daiichi's Unit 2 reactor was 10 million times higher than the normal level, leading workers to another hasty evacuation of the plant. That number, Kurita explained, turned out to have been an incorrect reading.

But just when you thought it was safe to go back into the water...Turns out the radiation levels in the flooded water at Unit 2 were actually "only" 100,000 times safe levels.

Mark McKinnon, the East Asia correspondent for Canada's The Globe and Mail may have said it best when he tweeted: "Congrats to TEPCO for finding a way to make radiation '100,000 times normal' sound almost like good news."

And with that, TEPCO confirmed the radioactive water has been detected in all four of the plant's six troubled reactors. It's "only" 10,000 times higher than normal at the those other reactor buildings...

Just one sign of hope among many more of sheer despair from The Atlantic's amazing photo essay, two weeks after Japan's great earthquake...

At left, a road in Naka, running between Tokyo and the Ibaraki prefecture, as photographed on March 11. At right, the same 150-meter section of road fully restored just six days later on March 17.

A few new developments over the weekend at Fukushima. Thankfully, none of them explosive. Will try to do a quickie update with those new items later tonight if possible. For now, our last update on the Fukushima nuclear crisis is still largely up-to-date and remains operative, in general. Have been covering new developments all weekend, as they happen, via Twitter, however, if you'd like to check that in the short term.

The GOP voter fraud epidemic continues unabated. The latest alleged felon? Outgoing U.S. Ambassador to China, former Utah Governor --- and potential 2012 GOP Presidential candidate --- Jon Huntsman Jr.

Teddy Partridge at FireDogLake charges (accurately) that Huntsman "Pulls a Coulter," as The Salt Lake Tribune reports:

Of course, Huntsman is a Republican, so different "voter fraud" laws apply to them, in general, than to other Americans.

"It is generally illegal for voters to cast ballots using a residential address where they no longer reside," the Tribune notes before giving Huntsman a pass. "But state and federal law seem to back Huntsman’s ability to still vote using the governor’s mansion as his home because that was his last address before he left for Beijing to serve as an employee of the U.S. government."

Despite that, as the very same article notes, "Last June, Huntsman purchased a $3.6 million home in a tony D.C. neighborhood." So while he may have had cause to specify his last U.S. address as Utah prior to last June, one wonders why officials are overlooking the fact that he owned a D.C. home well prior to last November's general election, when he voted using a registration at a residence where he hadn't lived for more than a year and a half.

One doesn't have to "wonder" for long, however...

As we noted was likely to happen just after posting last night's update on the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster, the "calm" over the last day or two that we reported was somewhat broken shortly thereafter. Japan's Prime Minister Naoto Kan took to the air for a rare press conference to discuss the situation at the crippled nuclear plant, and to mark the two weeks which have passed since an unprecedented, three-prong earthquake/tsunami/nuclear disaster rocked the country.

Kan described the situation at Fukushima as "very grave and serious", adding, "we are not in a position where we can be optimistic. We must treat every development with the utmost care."

He did not, however, offer much in the way of new information. In the meantime, other government officials have now recommended (but not ordered) that those living between 20 and 30 kilometers from the plant voluntarily leave the area. They stress that the new recommendations are due to the difficulty in supplying food and other resources to the area, not because of an increase in radiation levels.

Last week, those living within 20 kilometers of the plant were forced to evacuate from that "exclusion zone", and those within 20 to 30km of the plant were instructed to stay indoors to avoid radioactive fallout. The U.S. government has recommended a larger exclusion zone of 80 kilometers (50 miles) around the plant, though Japan has not felt it necessary to widen their own mandatory exclusion zone.

The most noteworthy hard news development since our report yesterday is the speculation --- and yes, we'll still call it speculation until there is hard confirmation --- that the containment vessel at Unit 3 has ruptured in some fashion, and that a meltdown may be occurring in the core of the reactor. Those details seem to be largely speculative still at this hour, based on the investigation into what caused the water at the reactor building to be as radioactive as it was to lead to "beta burns" on the feet and ankles of three workers yesterday who stepped in water while trying to restore electricity to the unit. Two of them were hospitalized. (See dispiriting photo at top of this article.)

Whether the extraordinarily high levels of radiation in the water is coming from a crack in the steel containment vessel housing the reactor core there, or from water leaking out of the spent fuel pool at Unit 3 --- or even from something else --- doesn't seem to be conclusively known at this point. But the radiation in the water was reportedly 10,000 times the "normal" limit, with some reports pegging the radiation at 100,000 times higher.

That's not the only disturbing news, however, as we now have more scientists ringing in on the data we discussed in detail yesterday from Austrian researchers suggesting that some 50% of the radioactive cesium-137 that spewed from Chernobyl in 1986 has already been emitted to surrounding areas in Japan from one or more of the crippled reactors at Fukushima...

I just got off the air after doing two segments on the nationally syndicated Randi Rhodes Show, guest-hosted today by my pal Nicole Sandler of RadioOrNot.com. We discussed, as you may have guessed, the latest news (and politics) out of the continuing Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster in Japan, and the effect it may (or may not) have on the supposed "nuclear renaissance" previously scheduled here in the U.S.

In addition to summarizing some of the information from our latest detailed report on Fukushima last night, including the news we detailed about several independent scientists asserting that some 50% of the dangerous, radioactive cesium-137 emitted at Chernobyl twenty-five years ago has already leaked out of Fukushima, there are several new details breaking today. Some of them I mentioned quickly on the show. I will try to round up those, and several other new details, of course, in a new article here in a bit.

Until then, here's the audio of me and Nicole on Randi's show just now...

MP3 Download, or listen online below [appx 18 mins]...

We're just a day or so from the two week mark since disaster struck Japan on March 11th. Estimates now are that the death toll is likely to top more than 27,000 people killed in the great Tohoku Earthquake and its subsequent tsunami (with a peak wave now estimated to have 77 feet at its highest.)

Some quick math comparing the relative populations of Japan to the U.S. suggest that, had such a disaster struck this country, some 68,000 lives would have been lost in a single day. To further appreciate the size of Japan's disaster, the cost of damage is estimated to be around $300 billion. In the U.S., the cost of the damage wrought by Hurricane Katrina, one of our greatest disasters, is estimated to be "only" around $81 billion, according to Reuters.

Friday is already well under way at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, and reports last night and today suggest a calm, of sorts, at least in regard to the chain of continuing disasters we've seen there over much of the last two weeks. Though, like the photo that opens this article above, that calm may mask other problems, or be shattered in an instant, as has frequently been the case just after we post one of these "things seem to be stabilizing" articles.

Nonetheless, there does seem to be some stabilization at Fukushima's Daiichi power plant and its six troubled reactors at this moment, even as three plant workers were contaminated after stepping into 30 centimeters of radioactive water yesterday (two were sent to the hospital with burns on their skin as the radiation they came into contact with is said by TEPCO to have been 10,000 times normal levels); irradiated tap water worries ease somewhat in Tokyo, but spread to neighboring prefectures; and as scientists grapple with attempting to determine the full extent of the damage at the nuclear plant and the radiation dangers to the rest of the country, and across the globe, as data now suggests releases of dangerous radioactive cesium-137 have so far reached approximately 50% of that released at Chernobyl twenty-five years ago next month.

But first, before some of that gloomier news below, a (happily) very quick update on the latest status of each of the six crippled nuclear reactors...

Today on my show on KPFK (L.A.'s Pacifica Radio affiliate), we covered the latest news out of Japan's Fukushima Daiichi nuclear crisis, recent setbacks, and the reports of radioactive iodine at dangerous levels to infants now discovered in Tokyo.

We followed on The BRAD BLOG's earlier report today, updated with new details from Desi Doyen in studio, and then live from Tokyo in an interview with Voice of America's VOA News' Northeast Asia Bureau Chief, Steve Herman.

Herman, who has been reporting from the Fukushima prefecture and in Tokyo since the March 11 quake and tsunami, brings us up to date with the latest on Friday morning in Japan: including news on "panic" buying of water in Tokyo; reports of "neutron beams" --- yes, "neutron beams" --- seen near the crippled power plant, as indications that nuclear fission may be occurring within the damaged fuel rods at one or more of the reactors; the often slow, sometimes contradictory information being given by the Japanese government and Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO), and whether it is to be trusted; and the way Japanese citizens from Fukushima to Tokyo are handling all of the "fallout" in the wake of this extraordinary, and ongoing disaster.

MP3 Download, or listen online below... [appx 27 mins]...

NOTE: If you missed my KPFK interview last week with BBC journalist Greg Palast on TEPCO's plan to build two new nuclear reactors on the Gulf Coast of Texas, it's right here...

The first photos of the so-called "Fukushima Fift,y, the "anonymous band of lower and mid-level managers" (as described by the Daily Mail today in their photo essay) who stayed at the crippled Fukushima Daiichi plant last week, as the rest of the workers were evacuated when radiation had reached record levels there, have now been published by AP.

"Despite sweltering heat from the damaged reactors, they must work in protective bodysuits to protect their skin from the poisonous radioactive particles that fill the air around them," the Daily Mail writes, in its heartbreaking piece, "But as more radiation seeps into the atmosphere minute by minute, they know this job will be their last."

Workers were again evacuated from the Fukushima reactors 3 and 4 late on Thursday (late Wednesday US time), after black smoke once again began to emanate from Unit 3, where a dangerous mix of both uranium and plutonium fuel the reactor, as well as sit in largely unprotected spent fuel ponds in the same damaged building. The roof and walls were blown off of Unit 3 last week after venting of radioactive steam in the reactor led to a hydrogen explosion.

News reports today say that the black smoke, the cause of which is still unknown, has dissipated a bit at Unit 3, and this quick summary of the reactors' status at Fukushima (March 23, 20:00 UTC) from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) --- which has not always been as up to date as some of the actual news sources on the ground --- suggests workers have now returned to the plant.

"Crews continued today to use a concrete pump truck to deliver high volumes of water into the Unit 4 spent fuel pool, where there are concerns of inadequate water coverage over the fuel assemblies," according to the IAEA.

The biggest news last night was the announcement by the Tokyo Metropolitan Government that radioactive iodine levels in the city's municipal tap water has now increased to levels that are no longer safe for infants. That, according to VOA News' Steve Herman latest report (as well as other sources in Tokyo), has led to a "panic" and a run on bottled water at stores, many of which have now run out entirely.

As Herman reports:

Beyond that, despite those setbacks at this hour, the status at the Fukushima Daiichi plant seems to be largely in the same place as it was during our previous update yesterday, as lights are slowly coming back on at the various units now that power has been restored to all of them from the grid. But pumping and cooling equipment continues to be malfunctioning in all but the 5 and 6 units at the plant, so work continues to pump water in hopes of keeping down temperatures and radiation at Units 1 to 4.

NOTE: We will be interviewing, Voice of America's Northeast Asia Bureau Chief Steve Herman --- who has been in both the Fukushima prefecture and Tokyo over the past 13 days since Japan's 9.0 earthquake and ensuing tsunami --- on the latest news out of Fukushima and Tokyo, later today during our show on Los Angeles' Pacifica Radio affiliate, KPFK 90.7FM at 3:30pm PT (6:30pm ET). You can listen live online at KPFK.org, and we'll try to post the full show later on this evening at The BRAD BLOG.

UPDATE 6:39pm PT: My KPFK interview with Herman, live from Tokyo, including the latest news on: 'Neutron beams', water 'panic', black smoke and the responses from TEPCO, the government and the people of Japan, is now posted here...

"On March 10 they had a multibillion-dollar asset that generated a lot of electricity," David Lochbaum, director of nuclear safety at the Massachusetts-based Union of Concerned Scientists told reporters on a conference call today. "On March 11 they had a multibillion-dollar liability that’s going to cost a lot to clean up."

"They’ve made considerable progress bringing equipment to the plant and restoring power," he said. "But they’re not out of the woods yet. They are working with razor-thin margins."

Japanese officials remain appropriately cautious at this hour as well, but positive signs for stabilization at the stricken Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant continued on Tuesday...

It's probably too early to breathe a full sigh of relief [Update: Apparently it is. See our late UPDATES at bottom of article.], but encouraging signs continue to come from officials concerning the state of the six nuclear reactors (and their accompanying spent fuel pools) at the badly damaged Fukushima Daiichi power plant in Japan.

"We are getting closer to bringing the situation under control," Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretary Tetsuro Fukuyama told reporters at a presser on Sunday evening (local time).

Hiroko Tabuchi and Norimitsu Onishi at The New York Times offered a decent, up-to-date round-up of the state of the various units at the power plant on Sunday afternoon (US time), as heroic workers continue their tireless, around-the-clock efforts to stave off catastrophe following last week's 9.0 earthquake, ensuing tsunami and subsequent series of explosions at the crippled plant.

With largely just one exception at this hour (though it's an important one), the status of each unit, as reported earlier today, still seems to be holding tonight, as Monday is well under way in Japan. As well, officials have offered a few more noteworthy pieces of news in the past hour or so. We'll hit each of those points, as mercifully briefly as we can, to get you up to speed for U.S. Monday, below...

Choosing an interesting way to 'celebrate' the 8th anniversary of the launching of Tomahawk cruise missiles into Iraq kicking off our invasion there on March 19th, 2003, the U.S. Commander-in-Chief Barack Obama approved the launching of Tomahawk cruise missiles into Libya on the anniversary today, as a five-nation coalition began to carry out a U.N.-approved No Fly Zone mandate over yet another oil rich Middle Eastern nation.

In response, the Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO), General Electric, The Shaw Group, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and the rest of the nuclear energy lobby sent a thank you note to Libyan dictator Col. Muammar Gaddafi, as the world media quickly turned their attention en masse to the new military action in the Middle East and away from the still-pending nuclear disaster at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant in Japan.

In related sarcastic and fake news, Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker (R-Koch) tore off all of his clothes and danced naked with glee in celebration, by himself, in the middle of the capital rotunda in Madison. No media were there to capture the moment.

Meanwhile, in news that is neither sarcastic nor fake, but seemingly impossible upon everything else, a giant 100-mile oil slick has been spotted in the Gulf of Mexico, off the coast of Louisiana near the site of last year's BP deepwater oil drilling disaster. And yet with all of that, CNN has still not announced plans to scale back the 150 staff contingent they are set to deploy to cover next month's Royal Wedding in the UK.

In still more, let's call it irony, over a 100 demonstrators, including "Pentagon Papers" whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg, were arrested at the White House Saturday, protesting all the wars we were in prior to today, as well as against the reportedly deplorable conditions of detainment for 23-year old Army Private Bradley Manning, accused of leaking classified war documents and diplomatic cables to WikiLeaks. Many of the same protesters were arrested in a similar protest at the White House in December, also for failing to obey orders as they handcuffed themselves to the White House fence, though few media bothered to cover that demonstration either. Another rally is set for tomorrow in support of Manning, also sure to be ignored, at the Quantico Marine Corps Base in Virginia where he has been held in solitary confinement, reportedly, 23 out of 24 hours of each day for the last nine months.

At Fukushima today, only a bit more noticed, McClatchy reports that the spent fuel rod pool at reactor No. 3 is said to be "stabilized," with radiation levels dropping there after 13 hours of sea water was sprayed onto it with water cannon trucks [* See UPDATES below for more on Unit 3 issues.]; the Unit 4 fuel pool --- where, as we reported last night a "renewed nuclear chain reaction [was] feared" --- may in fact be cracked and leaking water, but with Unit 3 "stabilized" for now, fire fighters have turned the water cannon trucks onto that unit in hopes of cooling it down as well; and late last night, power was restored to Units 5 & 6, with pumps said to be working and the cooling ponds in both reactors cooling from their previously reported temperatures around 65C, back towards the desired temp of 25C. The readings there today were 37C and 41C respectively, in what can certainly be considered a bit of good news in a story desperate for some...

It was precisely one week ago last night at 9:46pm PT (2:46pm in Japan) that the worst earthquake and tsunami on record in that country hit. It was just a few hours later when Tohoku Electric Power Co. officials said that cooling at one of three reactors at their Onagawa nuclear power plant was "not going as planned

That disturbing, yet quietly reported statement certainly caught the attention of The BRAD BLOG, even as it took another 24 to 48 hours before much of the rest of the media began offering appropriate focus on what could still become the most catastrophic nuclear power disaster the world has ever seen. (Though note: CNN still has plenty of resources to spare to deploy 150 staffers --- 150 --- to cover the royal wedding next month in England, so don't worry! Luckily it's likely to be yet another slow news month in April.)

While the Onagawa plant, where a fire had broken out during the quake, was ultimately brought under control and said to be cooling properly, the alarm caused by a rise in radiation levels at that plant turned out to be due to problems at the Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO) six-reactor nuclear power plant at Daiichi in the neighboring Fukushima prefecture. Now, one week later, TEPCO officials, in a joint effort with the Japanese Govt. --- and finally a number of other international agencies --- are working around the clock to keep all six of the facility's nuclear reactors and/or the associated spent fuel storage pools at each, under control, to avoid complete meltdowns at any or all of them. The work is exceedingly dangerous, and the progress at this hour remains precarious at best.

Some progress is being made in restoring the power plant to the power grid, allowing for the potential restoration of cooling systems at the reactors, if the cooling systems still work at any of them, following earthquake, tsunami flood, multiple explosions, and fires.

So here is where each of those six reactors stands, at this moment (even as a trace amount of radiation is said to have now reached Southern California, where we are located), what the greatest fears still are, how the worst case-scenario still looms, and how Japan's completely undamaged wind farms are currently "saving Japan's ass," even as their nuclear power plants struggle to get back online and/or avoid epic catastrophe...

I'm now doing a weekly thirty-minute show on Wednesday's at 3:30pm PT on KPFK, Los Angeles' Pacifica Radio affiliate. (Right! Public radio! No commercials! On our public airwaves! Come and get me, O'Keefe!) My first show yesterday was, by necessity, largely coverage of the breaking Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant crisis, but also included a brief interview with Greg Palast, the BBC journalist, my fellow muckraking pal and author of the New York Times best-sellers Armed Madhouse and The Best Democracy Money Can Buy, Greg Palast.

Earlier this week, Palast wrote about the Obama-endorsed $4 billion plan to build two new nuclear reactors on the Gulf Coast of Texas by... wait for it ... TEPCO! That's right, the Tokyo Electric Power Co. responsible for the failing systems now at Fukushima Daiichi, as well as a number of local partners.

Palast offers insight from his pre-journalist days "as lead investigator in several government nuclear plant fraud and racketeering investigations" during the 1980's, and explains how the same "bankrupt, corrupt and criminal companies" who were busted during his work investigating the Shoreham nuclear plant in New York are still in business, and ready to get to work again on nukes in Texas and elsewhere in the U.S.

MP3 Download, or listen online below. [Appx. 27 mins]...