N-fuel leak in Japan
50 families evacuated
From Elaine Lies

TOKYO, Sept 30 — An accident at a Japanese nuclear fuel facility today exposed three workers to radiation and prompted the authorities to evacuate the area while advising other residents to stay inside, officials and media said.
Government officials said there may have been a ‘’criticality incident’’ at a uranium processing plant in Tokaimura village of Ibaraki prefecture, about 160 km north-east of Tokyo.
Criticality is the point at which a nuclear chain reaction becomes self-sustaining, similar to what occurs inside a nuclear reactor.
Mr Toshio Okazaki, Vice Minister at the Science and Technology Agency, told a news conference that the cause of the accident was being investigated. But he said a “criticality incident’’ might have caused the accident, which temporarily boosted radiation levels to 4,000 times higher than normal.
The government agency was unable to confirm media reports that radiation levels later returned to near-normal levels after the incident, which took place at around 10.35 a.m. local time (7.05 IST).
Officials advised some 50 households living within 350 metres of the processing plant to evacuate while others were advised in radio broadcasts to stay home.
Kyodo news agency said one person was heavily exposed to radiation in what would be Japan’s worst injury from a nuclear accident.
All three workers were taken to hospital and later transferred by helicopter to a specialised hospital in Chiba prefecture north-east of Tokyo, officials said.
“It’s still too early to know exactly what their condition is,’’ a hospital official said shortly after the victims had arrived.
Mr Makoto Ujihara, an executive at JCO Ltd, the private company which operates the plant, told a news conference that the workers had seen a blue flash — said by experts to be a sign of a “criticality incident’’ — and then began to feel ill.
Japan’s worst nuclear plant incident, in which 35 workers suffered radiation contamination, took place at Tokaimura in 1997. In that accident at a nuclear reprocessing plant, a fire that caused radiation to escape was not extinguished properly and caused an explosion hours later.
Radiation leaked out from the plant but at levels far below that which would pose a hazard to the public, officials said at the time.
More recently, cooling water with a radiation level of 11,500 times the maximum permissible limit leaked from a commercial nuclear reactor on the Sea of Japan coast in July this year. Nobody was injured in that incident.
Japan has 51 commercial nuclear power reactors that provide one-third of the country’s electricity. — Reuters

Health-scam unearthed in J&K

SRINAGAR, Sept 30 (PTI) — A top Jammu and Kashmir government official, Dr Muzaffar Ahmad, has been put under suspension following the unearthing of a major health-scam involving the supply of spurious and substandard medicines to state-run hospitals here by vigilance authority.
Ahmad, the Director of health services of Kashmir division, was placed under suspension following his alleged involvement in the scam running into crores of rupees. The government is also ascertaining the role of other senior officials of the Health Department, official sources said.
The action against these officials came in the wake of a large number of raids conducted by the state vigilance organisations on numerous stores of the Health Department, specially those located in major hospitals.

MUMBAI, Sept 30 (PTI) — The London Bowstreet Magistrate would commit music director Nadeem Akhtar Saifee on October 6 to the British Home Secretary for his extradition to India to stand trial in the sensational Gulshan Kumar murder case, special public prosecutor Ujjwal Nikam said here today.
The prosecutor told reporters that Magistrate Christopher Pratt, in his ruling on September 22, noted that there was sufficient evidence to justify the committal of Nadeem for his alleged complicity in the crime committed in India.
The Magistrate would, however, pass formal orders in this regard on October 6 when Nadeem has been summoned to appear along with sureties, Mr Nikam, who coordinated with the Crown Prosecution on behalf of Indian government, said.
Under the English laws, he said, only the British Home Secretary had the powers to issue orders pertaining to extradition of any person to his country of origin. However, his order could be challenged before a Division Bench in the London High Court, he said.

Terrorism may rise if SAD stays in power: Amarinder

LUCKNOW, Sept 30 (PTI) — The Congress said today escalation in terrorist activities in Punjab could not be ruled out if the BJP-Akali Dal combine government was allowed to survive for more time in the state.
Referring to the about 12 cases of recovery of "new types of explosive dumps" in the state during the past few years, the Punjab Pradesh Congress Committee (PPCC) President Capt Amrender Singh, told newsmen here that "terrorism is very much in the fore once again."
"The movement of all these explosives is from across the border (Pakistan)", he said adding the BJP-Akali combine had "totally failed" to curb this.
On the increasing activities of different types of crimes and the alleged involvement of those who are in power, all one can say about "Punjab is that the government has collapsed there", he said.
The PPCC President, who is here to campaign for his party candidates, claimed that the Cogress was all set to sweep the polls in Punjab and would win all 11 Lok Sabha seats it has contested there.
The party would give surprise results throughout the counntry, he said and added "we do not not go by what the exit poll says."