Tsunami Warning Lifted in Japan After Quake

A tsunami warning has been lifted for the northeastern region of Japan following a strong 7.3-magnitiude earthquake that struck off the coast of Miyagi prefecture.

The earthquake rattled the coast of Japan just after 5 p.m. local time. Tsunami waves were recorded in at least five different locations – the largest in Ishinomaki was measured at 3 feet, according to the Japan Meteorological Agency.

There was never a risk of widespread tsunami warnings, according to the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center.

All flights still grounded at the Sendai airport, and travelers have been evacuated to the higher grounds in the terminal, according to an official.

No damage has been reported at monitoring posts and water treatment facilities at all reactors at the Fukushima Dai-ichi plant, according to the Tokyo Electric Power Company. There are more than 3,000 people who work at the plant daily and they have been told to move to stay inside and move to higher ground on the site.

Buildings in Tokyo swayed for at least several minutes.

The northeast region of Japan was hit with a magnitude-9.0 earthquake and ensuing tsunami March 11, 2011 that killed or left missing some 19,000 people.

All but two of Japan's nuclear plants were shut down for checks after the earthquake and tsunami caused meltdowns at the Fukushima Dai-Ichi nuclear plant.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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Tanks outside Mursi's palace, streets calmer

CAIRO (Reuters) - Egyptian army tanks deployed outside the presidential palace on Thursday in streets where supporters and opponents of President Mohamed Mursi had clashed into the early hours of the morning in violence that killed five people.

Armored troop carriers also moved into the roads around the palace, in what Egypt's state news agency said was a measure to secure the palace. The area had become a chaotic battleground between Mursi's Islamist backers and their opponents.

The soldiers' badges identified them as members of the Presidential Guard and Republican Guard, whose duties include guarding the presidency. At least five tanks and nine armored personnel carriers were seen near or around the palace.

The health ministry said five people had been killed and 350 wounded in bloodshed that has exacerbated the worst crisis since Mursi took office as Egypt's first president since a popular uprising overthrew Hosni Mubarak in February, 2011.

The military played a crucial role in ending Mubarak's 30-year rule by taking over from him to manage a transitional period, but it has stayed out of the latest crisis.

Mursi's opponents accuse him of seeking to create a new autocracy by awarding himself extraordinary powers in a decree on November 22 and were further angered when an Islamist-dominated assembly pushed through a draft constitution that opponents said did not properly represent the aspirations of the whole nation.

The president has defended his decree as necessary to prevent courts still full of judges appointed by Mubarak from derailing a constitution vital for Egypt's political transition.

Around the palace, traffic was moving through streets strewn with rocks thrown during violence in which petrol bombs and guns were also used. Hundreds of Mursi supporters were still in the area, many wrapped in blankets and some reading the Koran.

"We came here to support President Mursi and his decisions. He is the elected president of Egypt," said demonstrator Emad Abou Salem, 40. "He has legitimacy and nobody else does."

MUTUAL ACCUSATIONS

An opposition group called for more protests at the palace later on Thursday, setting the stage for further confrontation.

Mursi's opponents say the Muslim Brotherhood, the group that propelled the president to power in a June election, is behind the violence. The Brotherhood says the opposition is to blame and that the five dead were all Mursi supporters. The United States, worried about the stability of an Arab state which has a peace deal with Israel and which receives $1.3 billion in U.S. military aid, urged dialogue. Britain also called for restraint and an "inclusive" political process.

A presidential source said Mursi, silent in the last few days, was expected to make a statement later on Thursday.

Vice President Mahmoud Mekky proposed "personal ideas" for a negotiated way out on Wednesday, saying amendments to disputed articles in the constitution could be agreed with the opposition. A written agreement could then go to parliament, to be elected after a referendum on the constitution on December 15.

"There must be consensus," he told a news conference in the presidential palace as fighting raged outside on Wednesday. But the opposition stuck by its demand for Mursi to cancel the November 22 decree and postpone the referendum before any dialogue.

Protests spread to other cities, and offices of the Muslim Brotherhood's political party in Ismailia and Suez were torched.

But Mursi has shown no sign of buckling under pressure from protesters, confident that the Islamists, who have dominated both elections since Mubarak was overthrown, can win the referendum and parliamentary election to follow.

As well as relying on his Brotherhood power base, Mursi may also draw on a popular yearning for stability and economic revival after almost two years of political turmoil.

Opposition coordinator Mohamed ElBaradei said on Wednesday the street action and the polarization of society were pushing Egypt into violence and "could draw us to something worse".

The Egyptian pound plunged 4 percent on Thursday to its lowest level in eight years, after previously firming on hopes that a $4.8 billion IMF loan would stabilize the economy. The Egyptian stock market fell 4.4 percent after it opened.

(Additional reporting by Reuters TV; Tamim Elyan, Yasmine Saleh and Tom Perry, Writing by Edmund Blair and Tom Perry; Editing by Alistair Lyon and Giles Elgood)

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North Korean rocket 'to commemorate' Kim Jong-Il: ex-chef

TOKYO: North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un does not want to fire a rocket, but feels he has to mark the anniversary of his father's death, the dead dictator's former sushi chef said Thursday.

The hermit state's long range rocket will be launched 12 months to the day that Kim Jong-Il died, his one-time personal chef, Kenji Fujimoto told journalists in Tokyo.

"I believe the launch will take place on December 17 to commemorate" the first anniversary of his death, said Fujimoto, who visited Pyongyang earlier this year and lived there for around 10 years until 2001.

"I think he is talking with the military, but I don't think he is aggressively pushing to launch a missile," Fujimoto said.

North Korea announced Saturday it will launch a rocket between December 10 and 22, a period that includes both South Korea's presidential election and Japan's general election.

Pyongyang insists it is a peaceful satellite launch, but the international community sees it as a poorly disguised test of ballistic missile technology, which is banned under UN resolutions.

"I think he is reluctant to launch because he wants to change his country's image as a hard-line state," said Fujimoto, who is promoting a book on his recent visit.

"But at the same time he must feel he needs to commemorate his father's death."

A rocket launch is necessary in the context of North Korean politics as "you have to demonstrate to your people" that you have authority, he said.

Fujimoto visited Pyongyang in July after an invitation from the country's young leader, 11 years after what he said was an escape during a provisions shopping trip to Japan.

After his visit, a picture of Fujimoto hugging Kim Jong-Un was widely distributed to media.

Fujimoto, who is among a small number of foreigners to have had personal contact with the North Korean leader, revealed Jong-Un was born on "January 8, 1983, so he will turn 30 next year."

No age has ever been confirmed for Kim, with most reports saying only that he is in his late 20s.

"When I saw him after 11 years, I had the impression that he has really grown up. My memories of him are from his childhood," he said.

Fujimoto said the messenger from Kim who invited him to Pyongyang in July arrived with a shibboleth.

"(The emissary said) 'Let's fulfil the promise we made in 2001'," said Fujimoto, explaining the promise dated from a 2001 encounter after the chef was injured in a horse-riding accident.

He said a worried Jong-Un telephoned him at midnight after the fall.

"I replied 'I'm okay' then headed to the building where Kim Jong-Un was waiting. Then I did a bit of performance, shouting 'Fujimoto is alive and well!'"

"At that moment we laughed together and he invited me to join to him and four of his favourite basketball players drinking Russian vodka," Fujimoto said.

"Then Kim Jong-Un said to me: 'You will come back after finishing your shopping in Japan, won't you? You must come back.'"

Fujimoto, who married a North Korean woman while in the service of the first family has made his living from media appearances, lectures and writings about his days in the isolated country since he returned to Japan in 2001.

Fujimoto only ever appears in public wearing aviator sunglasses and a bandana, precautions he insists are necessary to keep him safe from North Korean agents who would spirit him back to Pyongyang if they could find him.

- AFP/lp

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BSP puts its weight behind govt on FDI issue in Rajya Sabha

NEW DELHI: BSP on promised to vote in favour of FDI in Rajya Sabha, giving much relief to the government which is bracing for a crucial vote on Friday, even as BJP and AIADMK attacked parties which sided with UPA despite having reservations over the measure.

A day after the opposition motion seeking rollback of the decision was rejected convincingly in Lok Sabha, the Upper House took up the debate with opposition attacking the decision saying it would hurt the poor.

"We have decided to vote in favour of government on FDI in multi-brand retail issue tomorrow," BSP chief Mayawati, whose party has 15 members in the Rajya Sabha, said participating in the debate. The party had yesterday staged a walkout in the Lok Sabha, helping bail out the government in the vote.

Mayawati said her party has decided to support the government because the FDI policy "has a plus point as it is not binding on states and they are free to implement it."

AIADMK member V Maitreyan initiated the discussion and made a strong demand for withdrawing the decision to allow 51 per cent FDI in multi-brand retail.

Maitreyan and leader of the opposition Arun Jaitley earlier attacked BSP as also SP, DMK and NCP for helping the government in voting despite reservations to the policy.

BSP was the main target of Jaitley who said, "You know that this policy is harmful is to the country. If you are willing to proclaim, you should be willing to strike."

Mayawati reacted sharply to the remarks that her party was helping the government under CBI pressure saying the main Opposition party is levelling such allegations after it found out that "grapes were sour" as its game plan did not succeed.

Her remarks led to noisy scenes in the House as BJP demanded the remarks to be expunged but Parliamentary Affairs Minister Kamal Nath said there was nothing in what the BSP supremo has said.

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Celebrations planned as Wash. legalizes marijuana

SEATTLE (AP) — Legal marijuana possession becomes a reality under Washington state law on Thursday, and some people planned to celebrate the new law by breaking it.

Voters in Washington and Colorado last month made those the first states to decriminalize and regulate the recreational use of marijuana. Washington's law takes effect Thursday and allows adults to have up to an ounce of pot — but it bans public use of marijuana, which is punishable by a fine, just like drinking in public.

Nevertheless, some people planned to gather at 12:01 a.m. PST Thursday to smoke in public beneath Seattle's Space Needle. Others planned a midnight party outside the Seattle headquarters of Hempfest, the 21-year-old festival that attracts tens of thousands of pot fans every summer.

"This is a big day because all our lives we've been living under the iron curtain of prohibition," said Hempfest director Vivian McPeak. "The whole world sees that prohibition just took a body blow."

In another sweeping change for Washington, Gov. Chris Gregoire on Wednesday signed into law a measure that legalizes same-sex marriage. The state joins several others that allow gay and lesbian couples to wed.

That law also takes effect Thursday, when gay and lesbian couples can start picking up their wedding certificates and licenses at county auditors' offices. Those offices in King County, the state's largest and home to Seattle, and Thurston County, home to the state capital of Olympia, planned to open the earliest, at 12:01 a.m. Thursday, to start issuing marriage licenses. Because the state has a three-day waiting period, the earliest that weddings can take place is Sunday.

The Seattle Police Department provided this public marijuana use enforcement guidance to its officers via email Wednesday night: "Until further notice, officers shall not take any enforcement action — other than to issue a verbal warning — for a violation of Initiative 502."

Thanks to a 2003 law, marijuana enforcement remains the department's lowest priority. Even before I-502 passed on Nov. 6, police rarely busted people at Hempfest, despite widespread pot use, and the city attorney here doesn't prosecute people for having small amounts of marijuana.

Officers will be advising people to take their weed inside, police spokesman Jonah Spangenthal-Lee wrote on the SPD Blotter. "The police department believes that, under state law, you may responsibly get baked, order some pizzas and enjoy a 'Lord of the Rings' marathon in the privacy of your own home, if you want to."

Washington's new law decriminalizes possession of up to an ounce for those over 21, but for now selling marijuana remains illegal. I-502 gives the state a year to come up with a system of state-licensed growers, processors and retail stores, with the marijuana taxed 25 percent at each stage. Analysts have estimated that a legal pot market could bring Washington hundreds of millions of dollars a year in new tax revenue for schools, health care and basic government functions.

But marijuana remains illegal under federal law. That means federal agents can still arrest people for it, and it's banned from federal properties, including military bases and national parks.

The Justice Department has not said whether it will sue to try to block the regulatory schemes in Washington and Colorado from taking effect.

"The department's responsibility to enforce the Controlled Substances Act remains unchanged," said a statement issued Wednesday by the Seattle U.S. attorney's office. "Neither states nor the executive branch can nullify a statute passed by Congress" — a non-issue, since the measures passed in Washington and Colorado don't "nullify" federal law, which federal agents remain free to enforce.

The legal question is whether the establishment of a regulated marijuana market would "frustrate the purpose" of the federal pot prohibition, and many constitutional law scholars say it very likely would.

That leaves the political question of whether the administration wants to try to block the regulatory system, even though it would remain legal to possess up to an ounce of marijuana.

Colorado's measure, as far as decriminalizing possession goes, is set to take effect by Jan. 5. That state's regulatory scheme is due to be up and running by October 2013.

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Johnson can be reached at https://twitter.com/GeneAPseattle

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Guatemala Could Deport McAfee to Belize

Software anti virus pioneer John McAfee is in the process of being deported to Belize after he was arrested in Guatemala for entering the country illegally, his attorney told ABC News early Thursday.

ABC News has learned that John McAfee is scheduled to be deported to Belize later this morning. But a judge could stay the ruling if it is determined McAfee's life is threatened by being in Belizean custody, as McAfee has claimed over the past several weeks.

Just hours before McAfee's arrest, he told ABC News in an exclusive interview Wednesday he would be seeking asylum in Guatemala. McAfee was arrested by the Central American country's immigration police and not the national police, said his attorney, who was confident his client would be released within hours.

"Thank God I am in a place where there is some sanity," said McAfee, 67, before his arrest. "I chose Guatemala carefully."

McAfee said that in Guatemala, the locals aren't surprised when he says the Belizean government is out to kill him.
"Instead of going, 'You're crazy,' they go, 'Yeah, of course they are,'" he said. "It's like, finally, I understand people who understand the system here."

But McAfee added he has not ruled out moving back to the United States, where he made his fortune as the inventor of anti-virus software, and that despite losing much of his fortune he still has more money than he could ever spend.
In his interview with ABC News, a jittery, animated but candid McAfee called the media's representation of him a "nightmare that is about to explode," and said he's prepared to prove his sanity.

Johan Ordonez/AFP/Getty Images

Software Founder Breaks Silence: McAfee Speaks on Murder Allegations Watch Video

John McAfee Interview: Software Mogul Leaves Belize Watch Video

John McAfee Interview: Software Millionaire on the Run Watch Video

McAfee has been on the run from police in Belize since the Nov. 10 murder of his neighbor, fellow American expatriate Greg Faull.

During his three-week journey, said McAfee, he disguised himself as handicapped, dyed his hair seven times and hid in many different places during his three-week journey.

He dismissed accounts of erratic behavior and reports that he had been using the synthetic drug bath salts. He said he had never used the drug, and said statements that he had were part of an elaborate prank.

Investigators said that McAfee was not a suspect in the death of the former developer, who was found shot in the head in his house on the resort island of San Pedro, but that they wanted to question him.

McAfee told ABC News that the poisoning death of his dogs and the murder just hours later of Faull, who had complained about his dogs, was a coincidence.

McAfee has been hiding from police ever since Faull's death -- but Telesforo Guerra, McAfee's lawyer in Guatemala, said the tactic was born out of necessity, not guilt.

"You don't have to believe what the police say," Guerra told ABC News. "Even though they say he is not a suspect they were trying to capture him."

Guerra, who is a former attorney general of Guatemala, said it would take two to three weeks to secure asylum for his client.

According to McAfee, Guerra is also the uncle of McAfee's 20-year-old girlfriend, Samantha. McAfee said the government raided his beachfront home and threatened Samantha's family.

"Fifteen armed soldiers come in and personally kidnap my housekeeper, threaten Sam's father with torture and haul away half a million dollars of my s***," claimed McAfee. "If they're not after me, then why all these raids? There've been eight raids!"

Before his arrest, McAfee said he would hold a press conference on Thursday in Guatemala City to announce his asylum bid. He has offered to answer questions from Belizean law enforcement over the phone, and denied any involvement in Faull's death.

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Egypt's Mursi back at palace after night of protests

CAIRO (Reuters) - Egyptian President Mohamed Mursi returned to work on Wednesday a day after slipping out of his palace when it came under siege from protesters furious at his drive to push through a new constitution after temporarily expanding his own powers.

The Health Ministry said 35 protesters were wounded and the Interior Ministry said 40 policemen were hurt in clashes around the presidential palace on Tuesday. While they fired tear gas when protesters breached barricades to reach the palace walls, riot police appeared to handle the disturbance with restraint.

A presidential source said Mursi was back in his office even though up to 200 demonstrators had camped out near one entrance to the palace in the northern Cairo district of Heliopolis overnight. Traffic was flowing normally in the area where thousands of people had protested the night before, and riot police had been withdrawn, a Reuters witness said.

The rest of the Egyptian capital Cairo was calm, despite the political furore over Mursi's November 22 decree handing himself wide powers and shielding his decisions from judicial oversight.

The Islamist leader says he acted to prevent courts from derailing a newly drafted constitution that will go to a referendum on December 15, after which Mursi's decree will lapse.

"Our demands from the president: retract the presidential decree and cancel the referendum on the constitution," read a placard hung by demonstrators on a palace gate.

The crowds had gathered in what organizers had dubbed a "last warning" to Mursi. "The people want the downfall of the regime!" they chanted, roaring the signature slogan of last year's uprising that ousted President Hosni Mubarak.

But the "last warning" may turn out to be one of the last gasps for a disparate opposition which has little chance of stopping next week's vote on a constitution drafted over six months and swiftly approved by an Islamist-dominated assembly.

Facing the gravest crisis of his six-month-old tenure, the Islamist president has shown no sign of buckling under pressure, confident that the Muslim Brotherhood and its Islamist allies can win the referendum and a parliamentary election to follow.

Many Egyptians yearn for an end to political upheaval that has scared off investors and tourists, worsening an economic crisis.

COURT PROTEST

Dozens of pro-Mursi demonstrators, watched by equal numbers of police, waved flags outside the Supreme Constitutional Court, whose rulings have complicated the Islamists' rise to power.

"You are not a political agency," read one banner held by the demonstrators, addressing a court that in June ordered the dissolution of the Islamist-led lower house of parliament.

Mursi issued his November 22 decree temporarily putting his actions above the law to forestall any court ruling to dissolve the upper house or the assembly that wrote the constitution.

Now that the document has been approved and preparations for the referendum are under way, it is not clear whether the president might roll back his decree as a sop to the opposition.

State institutions, with the partial exception of the judiciary, have mostly fallen in behind Mursi, who emerged from the Muslim Brotherhood to win a free election in June.

The army, which backed all Egypt's previous presidents in the republic's six-decade history, has gone back to barracks, having apparently lost its appetite to intervene in politics.

In a bold move, Mursi sacked Mohamed Hussein Tantawi, the Mubarak-era army commander and defense minister, in August and removed the sweeping powers that the military council which took over after Mubarak's fall had grabbed two months earlier.

The liberals, leftists, Christians, ex-Mubarak followers and others opposed to the president who was narrowly elected in June against a secular rival have yet to generate a mass movement or a grassroots political base to challenge the Brotherhood.

Protesters have scrawled "leave" over Mursi's palace walls, but the president has made clear he is not going anywhere.

"The crisis we have suffered for two weeks is on its way to an end, and very soon, God willing," Saad al-Katatni, head of the Brotherhood's Freedom and Justice Party, told Reuters on Tuesday, saying approval of the constitution in the forthcoming referendum would end the turmoil set off by Mursi's decree.

The Islamic Forces Coalition, which includes the Brotherhood, Salafis and other Islamic parties, condemned the "insulting" demonstrations outside the presidential palace.

"We remind (opposition figures) that the deciding factor in these differences is what the ballot boxes say, not what sabotage attempts create," it said in a statement.

Investors have seized on hopes that Egypt's turbulent transition, which has buffeted the economy for two years, may now be heading for calmer waters, sending stocks 1 per cent higher in early trading after a 3.5 percent rally on Tuesday.

The most populous Arab nation has turned to the IMF for a $4.8 billion loan to help it out of a crisis that has depleted its foreign currency reserves.

The government said on Wednesday the process was on track and Egypt's request would go to the IMF board as expected.

(Additional reporting by Tom Perry; Writing by Alistair Lyon; Editing by Mark Heinrich)

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SingHealth, Australian firm explore new technology to treat cancer cells

SINGAPORE: Under a research collaboration with an Australian company called Sirtex Medical, Singapore will be the first in the world to try out a new treatment for cancer cells.

Sirtex Medical and SingHealth signed a new Master Research Collaboration Agreement where Singapore General Hospital and National Cancer Centre Singapore will explore the potential of a new technology called Carbon Cage Nanoparticles, targeting cancer cells which may be left behind after an operation.

The research will focus on abdominal cancers, starting with advanced ovarian cancer.

Ovarian cancer is the fifth most common cancer in Singapore. Researchers will also try the treatment on stomach and colorectal cancers, which are also quite common in Singapore.

When removing abdominal tumours, researchers say there is always a post-surgery risk that tumour cell residues may remain in the abdominal lining.

If these tumour cells aren't eliminated, they can continue to grow to a point where it is life-threatening.

To target these cells, the new technology developed by the Australian National University carries a high dose of radiation enclosed in a carbon casing.

When injected into the abdominal cavity, the new technology can potentially kill specific cancer cells not visible to the naked eye.

Besides carrying a high dose of radiation within the carbon shell, the technology can also carry chemotherapy agents.

Previous methods of removing remaining cancer cells usually involve chemotherapy treatments after operation.

Professor Soo Khee Chee, Deputy Group CEO of SingHealth and Director of National Cancer Centre Singapore, said: "The problem with giving chemotherapy is that if you just give it orally or intravenously, they are fairly non-specific, they circulate through all the whole body and you don't achieve the concentration that is necessary to eliminate tumour cells very effectively."

In five years' time, researchers will introduce the new therapy in human trials. If successful, they say it could be used to treat diseases beyond cancer, such as with patients with immunological disorders.

- CNA/de

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Lok Sabha disrupted over Lalu Prasad's remarks

NEW DELHI: The Lok Sabha was on Wednesday adjourned briefly following verbal clashes between Rashtriya Janata Dal (RLD) chief Lalu Prasad and Bharatiya Janata Party members.

As soon as Lalu Prasad stood up to participate in the debate on FDI in multi-brand retail, BJP members created a ruckus.

An agitated Lalu Prasad addressed BJP members as "jamhoore" (side-kicks), which led to protests by BJP members.

Lok Sabha deputy speaker Karia Munda, after failing to restore order, then adjourned the house briefly.

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Study: Drug coverage to vary under health law

WASHINGTON (AP) — A new study says basic prescription drug coverage could vary dramatically from state to state under President Barack Obama's health care overhaul.

That's because states get to set benefits for private health plans that will be offered starting in 2014 through new insurance exchanges.

The study out Tuesday from the market analysis firm Avalere Health found that some states will require coverage of virtually all FDA-approved drugs, while others will only require coverage of about half of medications.

Consumers will still have access to essential medications, but some may not have as much choice.

Connecticut, Virginia and Arizona will be among the states with the most generous coverage, while California, Minnesota and North Carolina will be among states with the most limited.

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Online:

Avalere Health: http://tinyurl.com/d3b3hfv

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