20/08/2009 Hoa hậu Thu Thủy: Từng bị bấn loạn vì tiền

Thứ năm, 20/08/2009 15:32

Tôi gặp Thu Thủy – kinh doanh từ cái đận chị mới chân ướt chân ráo mở salon Bellissima đầu tiên. Ngày ấy, cách đây 8 năm, Thủy vừa sinh con trai đầu, vẫn giống cựu Hoa hậu hơn là một bà chủ.
So với Thu Thủy bây giờ, bà mẹ của hai đứa con, những dấu vết hồn nhiên ngày cũ không còn nữa. Chị thay đổi thành một doanh nhân “trăm phần trăm”. Nhiều đối tác làm ăn với Thủy không biết chị là Hoa hậu, chỉ thắc mắc: Bà chủ quá xinh!

Từng bấn loạn vì tiền

Tám năm kinh doanh có làm cho chị thay đổi quan niệm về tiền bạc không?

Thay đổi nhiều chứ. Trước tôi có những nỗi lo rất “nhược tiểu”. Luôn lo thu không đủ chi. Lo phải trả lương quá cao. Lo nợ nhân viên, nợ ngân hàng. Nghe chuyện những công ty chở cả ô tô tiền đi trả nợ tôi rất run. Khi đó, gặp một người bạn là chủ một công ty lớn nhưng lúc nào tôi thấy anh cũng ung dung. Tôi hỏi: Anh không lo lắng gì à, doanh nghiệp của anh to thế mà không bao giờ rơi vào tình trạng túng quẫn à? Anh ấy trả lời: Sao lại không lo, thuyền to sóng cả, em có vấn đề của em, anh có vấn đề của anh. Có những lúc công ty của anh đứng bên bờ vực phá sản, nhưng anh không thể hiện ra. Tôi bảo: Em mà thế em chết mất. Anh ấy bảo: Thế thì em đừng kinh doanh làm gì. Chấp nhận kinh doanh là phải sống chung với lũ, phải coi mọi chuyện thiếu nợ, thiếu vốn… là bình thường.

Lời khuyên là vậy, nhưng bảo một người mới kinh doanh cũng học được ngay bài học đó không phải đơn giản?

Đúng vậy. Cũng phải mất một thời gian dài tôi mới thích nghi được. Thậm chí sau này còn biết nghĩ rằng: Người kinh doanh giỏi là người biết dùng tiền của người khác, chứ không phải đem tiền của mình ra kinh doanh. Nếu cứ ngồi một chỗ lo lắng thì mình sẽ chẳng làm gì được. Không có một hệ thống nào hoàn hảo, mình phải biết chấp nhận sự thiếu hụt để tìm cách khắc phục.

Những nỗi lo về nợ nần thì sao, chị vượt qua nó như thế nào?

Người Trung Quốc ví tiền như nước, tức là nó luôn luân chuyển. Doanh nghiệp giống như một cái bể chứa thôi. Nước vào đầu này sẽ ra ở đầu khác. Quan trọng nhất là mình phải điều tiết sao cho hai vòi nước ấy chảy đều.

Có nguyên lý để điều chỉnh “hai vòi nước” ấy không?

Tôi nghĩ là có một vài nguyên tắc chung về tài chính kế toán. Nếu nắm được thì sẽ không bị bấn loạn như hồi đầu. Thứ nhất là làm gì cũng phải có ngân sách, tức là sự chuẩn bị và tiên lượng trước về nguồn vốn. Thứ hai là không để tiền đọng. Và thứ ba là phải hiểu hệ thống của mình, có hiểu thì mới điều hành được nhân viên.

Mở rộng hệ thống không phải vì tham

Bellissima, XaXi, và bây giờ là nhà hàng, khu nghỉ dưỡng… có vẻ như tham vọng kinh doanh của chị không có điểm dừng?

Khi biết tôi mở rộng phạm vi kinh doanh, nhiều người hỏi những câu rất giống nhau. Hoặc là: Làm nhiều thế thì tiền để đâu cho hết? Hoặc là: Mở ra nhiều thì quản lý thế nào? Thực ra, việc tôi mở rộng kinh doanh không phải do “lòng tham không đáy”. Đấy là quá trình tất yếu, giống như nguyên lý tuyết lăn vậy. Nếu cái lõi của cục tuyết đủ chắc thì càng lăn nó càng to hơn, và không bị vỡ. Cơ hội đến mà mình không nắm bắt là bị người khác qua mặt ngay. Quá trình cạnh tranh mà mình không đủ mạnh thì sẽ thụt lùi, rồi diệt vong. Một lý do nữa để tôi không thể dừng lại là sức ép từ nhân viên. Trước đây, khi mình còn nhỏ, mời người giỏi rất khó, nhưng khi mình lớn mạnh hơn, mời người giỏi rất dễ. Mở rộng kinh doanh thì sẽ có đất cho nhân viên “dụng võ”, có điều kiện trả lương cao hơn.

Sự phát triển của việc kinh doanh có khi nào làm chị thấy mệt mỏi?

Nhiều chứ. Tôi cũng nghĩ rồi, sẽ cố gắng làm năm mười năm nữa, khi công ty đủ mạnh tôi sẽ chỉ giữ chức chủ tịch Hội đồng quản trị thôi, còn để hết cho nhân viên điều hành. Tôi sẽ ra Hội An mua mảnh đất nhỏ xây nhà, ở đó viết văn, làm thơ hay vẽ tranh gì đó.


Nhiều công ty lớn từng vấp phải những bài học cay đắng về nhân sự, chẳng hạn công sức gây dựng thương hiệu bao nhiêu năm, bỗng chốc có thể mất trắng về tay một người xa lạ nào đó?

Có thể lắm. Trước đây tôi rất cầu toàn. Luôn muốn mọi việc phải hoàn hảo, phải đúng ý mình. Nhưng sau nghiệm ra rằng: 100 nhân viên sẽ có 100 nền tảng và 100 cá tính khác nhau, làm sao bắt họ phải giống hệt mình? Tôi cũng đã từng bị nhân viên phản bội. Buồn lắm. Nhưng rồi phải chấp nhận. Cuộc sống mà!

Có khi nào chị tiếc vì đã theo kinh doanh, một công việc có quá nhiều sức ép và bất trắc?

Không. Nếu không kinh doanh chắc tôi không được như bây giờ. Nhờ kinh doanh tôi học được rất nhiều bài học. Trưởng thành và độc lập hơn.

Làm 10 chỉ giữ cho mình 2

Làm việc cật lực ngay cả trong những ngày tháng ốm nghén, chị cho phép mình tận hưởng bao nhiêu phần trăm lợi nhuận của công ty?

Tôi tâm niệm, nếu làm được 10 chỉ giữ cho mình 2, còn 8 để trả cho nhân viên, cho xã hội.

Trong số 2 đó, bản thân chị được hưởng bao nhiêu phần trăm?

Trước thì nhiều, vì tôi mê đồ hiệu. Nhưng giờ “cai” rồi, lại dành phần lớn cho các con, cho gia đình.

Nhiều doanh nhân nói rằng, việc sử dụng đồ hiệu chỉ tốt cho công việc của họ mà thôi, sao chị lại “cai”?

Vì tôi nhận ra nó phù phiếm, nó không làm nên giá trị thật của một con người. Tất nhiên, nếu ký hợp đồng bằng một cái bút Mont Blanc thì sẽ tự tin hơn một cái bút bình thường. Nhưng cái bút Mont Blanc bản thân nó không đem đến hợp đồng cho bạn. Nó cần nhưng không có ý nghĩa quyết định. Và đến một đẳng cấp nào đó thì không có Mont Blanc cũng chẳng sao.

Tức là những dấu hiệu giàu có của một doanh nhân sẽ trở nên rất khó nhận biết?

Tôi có một người quen là một doanh nhân rất thành đạt người nước ngoài, nhưng nếu gặp ngoài đường không ai nghĩ ông ấy giàu. Trên người ông ấy chẳng có thứ gì là đồ hiệu cả. Sang nước mình ông ấy đi taxi bình thường, cung cách, cử chỉ hết sức khiêm nhường. Nhưng từ con người ông vẫn toát lên sự sang trọng, tiếp xúc với ông bạn bị thuyết phục vì nhân cách, vì trí tuệ. Tôi nghĩ những thứ đó quan trọng hơn hàng hiệu.

Tức là bây giờ, những đam mê cá nhân của chị đều được cắt xén để dồn cho con. Lại có những người giàu nói rằng: họ sẽ không để cho con nhiều tiền, vì chúng dễ hư?

Tôi cũng vậy. Tôi chỉ tạo điều kiện tốt nhất để hai cháu học xong đại học. Còn sau đóđến 18 tuổi thì làm ơn, kiếm một việc gì đó để tự nuôi thân. Và sau này nếu có thừa kế thì cũng chỉ thừa kế doanh nghiệp mẹ xây dựng. Muốn làm Tổng giám độc hay chủ tịch Hội đồng quản trị thì cũng phải học hành tử tế, rồi bắt đầu từ vị trí của một nhân viên chứ không có chuyện con bà chủ là một bước lên thành ông chủ.


“Cai” đồ hiệu

Trước đây, Thu Thủy là tín đồ của đồ hiệu. Từ đầu đến chân, đến cả những cái kẹp tóc bé xíu của chị cũng đều là đồ hiệu. Chị kể, có những thời gian “tiêu như phá”, cả ăn cả mặc. Ăn uống không cầu kỳ nhưng thích những thứ xa xỉ. Mẹ chị bảo: Thủy “trả thù đời” vì đã phải trải qua cả tuổi thơ khó khăn. Đi học chỉ có hai cái quần thay đổi.

Một lần, ngồi ăn trưa với các nhân viên của Bellissima Salon, các cô đùa một em ở Thanh Hóa phải dành tiền để cưới chồng. Thủy bảo: Sao phải làm thế, việc ấy chồng phải lio chứ? Cô nhân viên buồn buồn: Em xuất thân con nhà nghèo, bố mất sớm, mẹ đau yếu, lại là dân đạo, lại làm cái nghề này nên không thể kiếm một anh chồng như mọi người nghĩ. Muốn cưới thì em phải tự chuẩn bị thôi. Thủy hỏi: Thế đi làm 5 năm em dành dụm được bao nhiêu? Cô trả lời: 30 triệu. Miếng cơm trong miệng Thủy nghẹn lại. Cô phải chạy vào toilet để ngăn tiếng khóc. 30 triệu, chưa bằng một cái túi xách của cô. Mua cái túi ấy chỉ sung sướng được 10 phút đồng hồ, trong khi đó cô gái kia phải ki cóp 5 năm trời. Từ đó, Thủy từ bỏ dần những cơn khát mua sắm, và giản dị lúc nào không biết.

Đống đồ hiệu giờ chất đống trong nhà, thỉnh thoảng Thủy phải nhờ người giúp việc giặt là cho khỏi mốc. Đồ cô dùng thời điểm này bình thường như tất cả các phụ nữ văn phòng khác.

Thay vì đến nhà hàng thưởng thức những bát xúp giá cả nghìn đô la, Thủy bây giờ xả hơi bằng việc đọc sách và chơi với con. Khi nào mệt thì vào nhà tắm, xả nước, ngâm mình trong hương tinh dầu và nghe nhạc. Những thú vui đắt tiền còn sót lại chỉ dành cho laptop và điện thoại. Thủy bảo, cô không cưỡng lại được lòng đam mê công nghệ. Có một sản phẩm đời mới ra lò thế nào cũng lùng mua bằng được.

Theo Người Đẹp

25/03 Nuclear commission releases radiation estimates for 1st time

The Yomiuri Shimbun

One-year-old infants might be at risk of radiation exposure exceeding the level that requires precautionary medication, even if they live outside the 30-kilometer-radius evacuation zone from the troubled Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power station, according to a government panel.

The Nuclear Safety Commission on Wednesday night released its first estimates on infants' internal exposure to radioactive iodine in the atmosphere. The estimates were based on a retroactive simulation of the release of radioactive material from the plant since March 12, one day after the massive earthquake.

The NSC's calculations were based on the assumption that 1-year-old infants were outside the entire time from 6 a.m. on March 12 until Wednesday midnight, a period of nearly 12 days.

They estimate the amount of internal radiation 1-year-old infants would have received from radioactive iodine in the air under those conditions. Infants are more susceptible than older children and adults to the effects of radiation.

According to the estimates, infants could have been exposed to radiation of more than 100 millisieverts, even in some areas outside a 30-kilometer radius of the nuclear power plant. People within that radius were instructed by the government to evacuate or stay indoors, depending on their proximity to the plant.

Potassium iodine should be administered to infants who receive exposure of 100 millisieverts as a precautionary measure.

However, a panel official said: "Even if the exposure level tops 100 millisieverts, it won't pose health risks [to infants]. Furthermore, if infants stay inside, the exposure level drops to between one-fourth and one-tenth [of levels outdoors]."

The simulation on which the estimates were based was conducted using a computer system of the Nuclear Safety Technology Center called the System for Prediction of Environmental Emergency Dose Information (SPEEDI).

The system was originally designed to quickly formulate projections of which areas should be evacuated after an accident at a nuclear power plant. However, power blackouts and hardware malfunctions caused by the March 11 earthquake made it impossible for the commission to measure the amounts of radioactive substances discharged into the air from the plant, and therefore unable to provide useful projections about the need for evacuations.

The panel retrospectively calculated the amounts of radioactive iodine discharged, based on surveys of the atmosphere around the power station from Sunday to Tuesday.

Based on the results of the surveys, the panel calculated how far the radioactive material had spread.

The NSC announced the estimates at 9 p.m. Wednesday, after the U.S. Energy Department announced its own estimates at 9 a.m. that day. The data is available at www.energy.gov/japan2011.

The panel has been criticized by experts for not announcing other estimates it calculated earlier, without specifying the specific amount of radioactive material discharged from the plant.

SPEEDI was designed to make quick, accurate projections of the proliferation of radioactive substances from a nuclear power plant in the case of an accident.

In developing its projections, the system factors in data such as the climate and geographical surroundings.

The then Science and Technology Agency launched development of the system in the wake of the nuclear accident on Three Mile Island in the United States in 1979.

The SPEEDI system has been revised regularly, with 780 million yen allocated to the project in the 2010 budget.

(Mar. 25, 2011)

25/03 Safety team neglects risk

The Yomiuri Shimbun

Before Thursday's incident, at least 14 workers had been exposed to more than 100 millisieverts of radiation since the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant was crippled by the March 11 earthquake and tsunami, it has been learned, raising questions about safeguards in place to protect people working to avert nuclear disaster at the power station.

Under the Industrial Safety Health Law, which stipulates rules to prevent injuries from radiation, workers at nuclear sites are allowed to be exposed to 50 millisieverts of radiation annually, and up to 100 millisieverts per year in emergencies.

The Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry, however, recently raised the emergency limit even further to 250 millisieverts for workers at the Fukushima plant.

In the ongoing nuclear crisis, radiation safety specialists were supposed to accompany people working in high radiation areas, but workers at the troubled nuclear plant on Thursday had no such safety personnel with them, a spokesman of plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Co. said. When the site was examined Wednesday, water levels were reportedly low, as was radiation, at only several millisieverts.

Armed with this data, safety specialists reasoned workers would absorb only up to 20 millisieverts of radiation while at the No. 3 reactor's turbine building Thursday, and did not accompany them because of the low level of risk, the spokesman said. When workers arrived, however, they were met with much higher water levels than expected and were unknowingly absorbing significantly higher levels of radiation.

Thursday's accidental exposure of three workers to excess amounts of radiation raised serious questions over whether sufficient safety measures are in place at the nuclear plant.

"Trying to keep water out of your shoes is common sense at locations with [radiation] contaminated water," said a specialist in radiation protection. "Failure to do even that means the workers weren't trained properly and radiation safety specialists weren't given good enough instructions."

===

Compensation for workers

According to the labor ministry's compensation division, people who are sickened or injured from radiation exposure at work are provided with medical expenses, paid recovery leave and other financial assistance based on the Workers' Accident Compensation Insurance Law.

Paid leave can be up to 1-1/2 years, and those who require more time to recover are entitled to a disability pension, an injury and disease compensation pension, or a lump-sum payment.

At a press conference Thursday evening, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano called the exposure of the three workers "very regrettable."

When asked about compensation, he said, "We have to look into each case to determine what law should be applied."

(Mar. 26, 2011)

25/03 Experts unsure on source of radiation leak

The Yomiuri Shimbun

Government officials and nuclear experts were still investigating Friday the source of the leak that exposed three workers to high levels of radiation at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant.

High levels of radioactive substances--10,000 times normal levels--were detected in water in the basement of the turbine building next to the plant's No. 3 reactor. On Thursday, the three workers were exposed to these excessive amounts from an unknown source in the basement.

While suspecting the radioactive substances in the water could have come from broken nuclear fuel rods, the experts were not able to determine the exact source. The water likely came from the reactor or the storage pool for spent fuel rods, but they did not know which one yet, an official of the Economy, Trade and Industry Ministry's Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency said at a press conference Friday.

"As far as we can tell by the data, the reactor is still able to contain radioactivity," the official said. "But those radioactive substances leaked out of somewhere so we have to investigate what happened. It's possible the reactor itself is broken."

Nuclear experts cited three possible ways radiation could have leaked:

-- Spent nuclear fuel rods stored in a temporary pool on the fourth and fifth floors of the reactor building broke and were pushed out by the recent water spraying operations.

-- Steam gradually leaked from the main pipe connecting the reactor to the turbine building due to a valve malfunction.

-- Large amounts of radioactive substances discharged into the air were absorbed by the water.

In the No. 3 reactor, the exterior building that accommodates the storage pool was severely damaged by a hydrogen explosion on March 14. Because the reactor's control system was left unable to cool the storage pool or add water to it, nuclear experts said it is possible the spent nuclear fuel rods overheated and were partially damaged.

Regarding the first possibility, because a special team from the Tokyo Fire Department and Self-Defense Forces personnel had sprayed 4,050 tons of seawater on the building as of Thursday, the nuclear experts suspect this water could have scattered radioactive materials in the pool.

It has been difficult to confirm whether the pool contains water, as radiation levels around the building have been very high and access to the site is obstructed by debris from the explosion.

About 1,425 tons of water have been sprayed at the pool, nearly triple its volume.

When the pool is full, the surface of the water is about 40 meters aboveground, and the first basement of the turbine building is about nine meters underground, a difference of nearly 50 meters. It is possible water that had overflowed from the pool leaked through the broken exterior building and flowed into the turbine building.

As for the second possibility, TEPCO officials said functions keeping out steam in the main pipe had worked properly until the reactor lost all outside power in the tsunami. But, one official said, "We can't rule out the possibility that pipes connecting the reactor and the turbine or other parts have broken."

The experts did not believe the third possibility was likely, considering the density of radioactive substances in the air around the nuclear power plant.

(Mar. 26, 2011)

23/03 Control room power restored / Revived panel warns of high temperatures; pumps turn to fresh water

The Yomiuri Shimbun

The lights finally came on in the central control room of the No. 3 reactor at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant Tuesday night after the electricity supply was restored.

On Wednesday morning, workers began trying to activate additional pumps to help flood storage pools for spent fuel rod at the Nos. 3 and 4 reactors with fresh water.

Tokyo Electric Power Co., operator of the nuclear plant which was devastated by the massive March 11 earthquake and tsunami, said supplying power to some meters and gauges in the central control room of the No. 1 reactor showed the temperature inside the reactor was 100 C higher than its design allowed for.

TEPCO said electricity reached the No. 3 reactor Tuesday night, enabling the utility to turn on lights and some instruments and collect various data.

The firm said a temporary pump sending seawater into the No. 3 reactor core would be replaced by a different pump, which would send in fresh water, by Thursday.

On Wednesday morning, workers suspended some of their efforts at the No. 2 reactor because of high radiation levels at the turbine building, where they had planned to try to connect an external power cable, TEPCO said.

TEPCO is also looking into whether a temporary pump could be powered with external electricity to pour water directly into a spent fuel rod pool at the No. 4 reactor, which has also been cooled down with sprayed water.

TEPCO is exploring the feasibility of using the central control room of the Nos. 3 and 4 reactors as a base for workers to repair and maintain a battery charger room in the facility's basement that provides power to the reactor's control system.

TEPCO would cover the room's walls with lead plates to shield the interiors from high amounts of radiation.

The central control room of the Nos. 3 and 4 reactors is located on the second floor of the central control building, between the reactors' turbine buildings. Precise details of its location are not disclosed, as a security measure against terrorism.

The workers would also check pumps and electrical systems at the reactor buildings, located just west of the turbine buildings.

Under normal circumstances, each control room is staffed around the clock by 11 workers on a two-shift system.

TEPCO said it succeeded between Tuesday night and early Wednesday in supplying electricity to meters and gauges at the Nos. 1, 3 and 4 reactors to collect various data.

Consequently, they found the internal temperature of the No. 1 reactor was rising sharply. To cool it down, they increased the amount of water poured into the reactor to 18 tons per hour.

At 6 a.m. Wednesday, the internal temperature of the No. 1 reactor was in excess of 400 C, much higher than the 302 C intended by its design, but it declined slowly to reach 390 C as of 10 a.m.

The company said fuel rods' temperature had apparently risen after being exposed to the air after the water level in the reactor fell.

Workers had difficulty restoring power at the No. 2 reactor, which was damaged extensively by tsunami following the massive earthquake.

TEPCO said two workers were slightly injured when they tried to set up a temporary switchboard at a common fuel rod storage pool between Tuesday night and early Wednesday.

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Pumping operations expand

The utility firm started spraying water around 10 a.m. Wednesday into a spent fuel rod storage pool at the No. 4 reactor with a German-made squeeze pump. On Tuesday, TEPCO sprayed 150 tons of water into the pool with the same machine.

TEPCO has borrowed two more squeeze pumps of a different model but with the same capabilities. The company is considering introducing the two additional pumps to the dousing operation at the nuclear power plant as soon as possible.

The Self-Defense Forces dispatched a CH-47 helicopter to fly over the nuclear plant and measure temperatures at the nuclear reactors shortly before 9 a.m.

A RF-4 reconnaissance plane was dispatched shortly after 9 a.m. to take photos of the damaged reactors with a high-performance camera.

(Mar. 24, 2011)

24/03 Firefighters from Tokyo heroes in time of disaster

BY SEIKO SADAKUNI STAFF WRITER

2011/03/24

Yasuhiro Ishii, leader of the Tokyo Fire Department's rescue team (Seiko Sadakuni)
A Tokyo Fire Department chief leading a crew to prepare for hosing water on reactors of the hobbled nuclear power plant in Fukushima Prefecture called the operation "a race against time and radioactivity levels."

Yasuhiro Ishii, 47, led the first batch of the TFD Hyper Rescue team to cool nuclear reactors at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant.

The TFD has played a central role in the water spraying operation, along with the Self-Defense Forces.

Ishii's team arrived at the plant after 5 p.m. last Friday, a week after the magnitude-9.0 temblor knocked out the nuclear reactors' cooling systems.

His team's responsibility was to determine where a fire engine equipped with height-refraction water cannon should be positioned to spray water.

According to data, the amount of radiation at a location to the immediate west of the No. 3 reactor were 300 millisieverts per hour, a level that would require immediate evacuation under normal circumstances.

The TFD initially planned to place a fire engine equipped with a height-refraction water cannon between the No. 3 reactor and the coastline, but the plan was changed because the area is clogged with tsunami-swept debris and lumber.

A new location was found inland between the No. 2 and No. 3 reactors, where the fire engine with a water pump could be positioned at the wharf northeast of the No. 1 reactor to pump seawater.

The process of putting extension hoses in place for about 450 meters from the planned water-discharging spot proved relatively smooth. But connecting the remaining 350-meter extension to the Super Pumper fire engine at the wharf had to be done manually because tanks containing hazardous materials and other obstacles blocked the path.

Although radiation levels at the site were between 80 millisieverts an 100 millisieverts per hour, Ishii's team working on the hose extension were so focused on their task that they paid little attention to the radiation reading on their gauges.

Ishii and six other members of the team also monitored the radioactivity in the area with dosimeters and were able to warn other workers of hazardous areas.

"It's dangerous. Don't come closer," Ishii ordered a member during the course of the operation. He had to gesture to stop members many times because of the high amount of radioactivity.

Spraying water began 30 minutes after midnight on Saturday, about seven hours after Ishii's crew arrived on the scene.

By then, the exposure of radiation for each individual was within safe limits.

25/03 N.Korea Kim Jong-il sends $500,000 to quake-hit Japan

REUTERS

2011/03/25

SEOUL--North Korean leader Kim Jong-il has sent half a million dollars to aid Korean expatriates in Japan after the devastating earthquake and tsunami, Pyongyang's official news agency said on Thursday.

Decades of tightly controlled economic policy that has seen North Korea channel much of its scarce resources to arms development has left the country acutely short of cash although its leaders continue to live lavishly, according to South Korean news reports. Food is also reportedly scarce.

Japan, formerly Korea's colonial master, is frequently lambasted as a "war monger" in North Korea's state-controlled media along with South Korea and the United States.

"Leader Kim Jong-il sent (a) relief fund of 500,000 U.S. dollars to Korean residents in Japan who suffered from the killer quake and tsunami happened there," KCNA news agency said.

Half a million U.S. dollars is equivalent to the annual average income earned by 520 North Koreans in all of 2009, according to Bank of Korea data.

U.N. sanctions in 2009 imposed for its nuclear and missile tests that defied international warnings have further cut into North Korea's finances, choking off much of its lucrative arms trade.

The North's Red Cross has separately sent $100,000 in disaster relief to Japan, KCNA said.

25/03 Operation resumes to cool Fukushima reactors

2011/03/25

The Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant's No. 1 reactor, foreground, No. 2 reactor, No. 3 reactor and No. 4 reactor behind the rising white smoke on March 15 (Tokyo Electric Power Co.)
Work resumed Thursday to cool reactor cores and storage pools containing spent fuel rods at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant, but two workers were hospitalized because of radiation contamination.

Although the No. 5 and No. 6 reactors have safely stopped operations and cooling mechanisms are functioning using an outside power source, the situation at the other four reactors remains unstable.

Three workers who were laying power cables to the No. 3 reactor had been exposed to 170 to 180 millisieverts of radiation, the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency said Thursday.

Contamination was found on the skin of the feet of the two taken to the hospital. They had been working in an area of the plant that was partially soaked.

Work at the Fukushima plant was halted Wednesday when black smoke was observed from the No. 3 reactor.

At 11:30 a.m. Thursday, lights were turned on at the No. 3 reactor's central control room. Lights had already been turned on at the No. 1 reactor's central control room.

Officials of Tokyo Electric Power Co., which operates the Fukushima plant, confirmed around 5 a.m. Thursday that no black smoke was emerging. The order evacuating plant workers issued the previous day was lifted at 7:51 a.m.

All six reactors were connected to an outside power source by Tuesday.

The focus of work now shifts to restoring the cooling systems for the cores of the No. 1 to No. 3 reactors.

Although those three reactors automatically shut down soon after the March 11 Great East Japan Earthquake, there was no power to operate the cooling mechanism because the outside power source was lost and the emergency generators failed.

As a stopgap measure, fire trucks pumped in cold seawater to cool the cores.

Left uncooled, the fuel rods could have heated up and been damaged by decay heat, leading to the release of large amounts of radioactive materials.

With control room lighting re-established, work to restore an outside power source centered on the No. 3 reactor on Tuesday night.

Work is proceeding to prepare for a test run of pumps in the water supply line to inject fresh water to cool the core. A test of the pumps is planned for Thursday at the earliest.

Work also resumed to restore outside power to the No. 1 and No. 2 reactors.

Workers were also trying to fix a pump using an outside power source that had been pumping seawater into the No. 5 reactor, but which stopped Wednesday night.

Figures obtained from instruments indicate that between half to one-third of the approximately 4-meter long fuel rods are exposed, but TEPCO officials do not know what the actual situation is like.

The temperature of the core of the No. 1 reactor at one time reached about 400 degrees, above the design limit of 302 degrees. To cool the core, the amount of seawater being pumped in was increased early Wednesday from 2 cubic meters an hour to 18 cubic meters an hour.

The temperature decreased to 243 degrees as of 1 a.m. Thursday, leading one TEPCO official to say the situation was improving.

However, pressure within the containment vessel that holds the pressure container in the core of the No. 1 reactor increased from about 1.7 atmospheres (atm) at 11 a.m. Tuesday to 3.6 atm at 6 p.m. Wednesday.

The amount of seawater being pumped in was reduced to about 10 cubic meters per hour from 2:30 a.m. Thursday.

At a Wednesday night news conference, Haruki Madarame, chairman of the Nuclear Safety Commission, said: "Personally, I am concerned about the increase in pressure in the No. 1 reactor. We may have to open the vent (to release steam)."

The spent fuel rods kept in storage pools also have decay heat, although not at the same levels as fuel rods in the core. Work continues to spray water from the outside or pump in water through cooling pipes to replenish the water in the storage pools.

Work to spray water had continued at the No. 3 and No. 4 reactors. The buildings housing the two reactors were damaged due to an explosion believed caused by hydrogen as well as fires. However, work has begun to use existing pipes to supply water to the pool at the No. 3 reactor, similar to what has been done for the No. 2 reactor. The same step will also be taken for the No. 4 reactor.

Work for supplying water to the pool in the No. 1 reactor is taking a back seat to the other three reactors because the amount of heat being released is smaller. However, plans call for supplying water to the pool through pipes from Friday.

To continuously and stably cool the core and storage pools will require restoring an outside power source and then switching from emergency seawater cooling to the reactors' built-in cooling system.

As a result of the accident at the Fukushima plant, radioactive materials have been detected in areas of eastern Japan.

The two likely sources of those materials are the storage pools containing the spent fuel rods as well as damage to the reactor core or surrounding parts.

A fire broke out March 15 near the storage pool at the No. 4 reactor. The water level of the pool dropped, exposing the spent fuel rods. That led to the creation of hydrogen that likely eventually exploded.

The radioactive materials released at that time may have been contained within the plant site and continue to give off radiation.

There is also the possibility that radiation came from the core.

TEPCO officials continue to insist that the No. 1 and No. 3 reactors' containment vessels are sound, even after the outer buildings were damaged due to hydrogen explosions. They also believe that there was no major damage to the No. 2 reactor even though an explosion likely occurred in the suppression pool that lies under the containment vessel.

A TEPCO official said if there had been significant damage "the radiation levels would not have been what was measured so far."

However, there is data that points to partial damage of the core.

One is the detection of radioactive cesium in the outer atmosphere. Cesium is a by-product of nuclear fission involving uranium.

Steam was also released into the atmosphere to prevent damage to containment vessels in which pressure had increased. However, because the steam passes through water, there is a low possibility that cesium was emitted through the release of steam.

There are also questions about what part of the core has been damaged.

According to sources, the weakest link within the core is the sealing material that fills in the space between the containment vessel and airlock door that is opened to enter the core for inspections.

TEPCO officials admit it is possible that other small parts that connect various pieces of equipment may have been damaged.

26/03 Workers exposed to radiation in water 10,000 times normal level

2011/03/26

Two of three workers exposed to high levels of radiation are carried to a hospital in Fukushima on Thursday. (Shinichi Iizuka)

Two workers hospitalized for radiation exposure were wearing ordinary work shoes in liquid containing radioactivity 10,000 times the normal level of reactor-cooling water at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant, officials said Friday.

Three workers were in the ankle-deep water Thursday and were carrying dosemeters. But they ignored the high-radiation warnings of the devices and continue repair work in the soaked basement of the No. 3 reactor's turbine building, officials of Tokyo Electric Power Co., the plant operator, said.

The water was about 15 centimeters deep, officials said.

"I thought (the dosemeter) was out of order," one of the workers was quoted as saying. The radioactivity level had been low in the basement before.

TEPCO has come under fire for failing to properly ensure the safety of the workers trying to bring the nuclear crisis under control. The company has acknowledged that its safety measures were inadequate.

Two of the workers were rushed to a hospital in Fukushima city Thursday. They were taken Friday to the National Institute of Radiological Sciences in Chiba for examinations and treatment for possible beta ray radiation burns below their knees.

The third worker wearing long boots was unharmed.

TEPCO said the water was likely contaminated with radioactive substances leaked from damaged nuclear fuel rods inside a reactor core or a cooling pool for spent fuel rods.

"Perhaps the fuel was damaged to a certain degree, and a certain amount may have been released," Takeshi Takahashi, a TEPCO official, told a news conference.

The company was trying to determine where the water came from.

According to TEPCO and the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency (NISA), the water was found with 3.9 million becquerels of radioactive substances per cubic centimeter, about 10,000 times the level of water used to cool reactor cores.

Cobalt-60, iodine-131, cesium-137 and other substances, which do not normally exist in cooling water, were detected, the officials said.

The workers' dosemeters showed radiation amounts totaling 173 to 180 millisieverts, less than the maximum of 250 millisieverts per year allowed for an emergency situation.

But the level at the water's surface was later found to be 400 millisieverts per hour.

The workers wore three layers of protective clothing, masks, helmets and gloves. But TEPCO gave them no instructions about their footwear because there were no deep water puddles the previous day.

The workers in ordinary work shoes were in the contaminated water for 40 to 50 minutes, and the tainted water had soaked through their clothes to their skin, according to officials.

Under an internal TEPCO rule, an official to gauge radioactivity levels is required to accompany workers and give instructions, but none did so for the three.

TEPCO officials admitted rules and guidelines were breached in some cases. NISA officials said they instructed the utility to correct its lax safety management.

Industry minister Banri Kaieda criticized TEPCO for the absence of the official in charge of measuring radiation levels.

"It was a mistake in the very basics of work," he said.

Tadashi Narabayashi, a professor of nuclear reactor engineering at Hokkaido University, said the water may have come from the overflowing cooling pool for spent fuel rods or from the reactor's containment vessel, which may have been deteriorated.

25/03 Radiation from Fukushima exceeds Three Mile Island

2011/03/26

Top: Steam rises from the No. 3 reactor at the No. 1 Fukushima nuclear power plant in this satellite image taken on March 14. (DigitalGlobe); Bottom: The Three Mile Island nuclear power plant (Asahi Shimbun file photo)
Editor's note: We will update our earthquake news as frequently as possible on AJW's Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/AJW.Asahi. Please check the latest developments in this disaster. From Toshio Jo, managing editor, International Division, The Asahi Shimbun.

* * *

Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant, crippled by the Great East Japan Earthquake of March 11, has discharged more radiation than the infamous Three Mile Island nuclear plant in the United States, according to calculations by the central government.

It has already reached a level 6 serious accident on the International Nuclear and Radiological Event Scale (INES).

Separately, calculations made by experts place the level of soil contamination in some locations at levels comparable to those found after the Chernobyl accident in 1986.

With the Fukushima plant continuing to release radiation, there is the danger that the contaminated land will be unusable for many years.

To calculate the spread of radiation using the System for Prediction of Environmental Emergency Dose Information, the Nuclear Safety Commission of Japan estimates the discharge rate for radioactive iodine per hour from the Fukushima plant based on radiation measurements taken at various locations.

Using those figures to make a simple calculation of the amount of discharge between 6 a.m. March 12 and midnight Wednesday results in figures between 30,000 and 110,000 terabecquerels. Tera is a prefix meaning 1 trillion.

The INES defines a level 7 major accident such as Chernobyl as one in which radiation of more than several tens of thousands of terabecquerels is released.

The Fukushima accident is already at a level 6, which is defined as having a radiation discharge of several thousands to several tens of thousands of terabecquerels.

The discharge of radioactive iodine at the Chernobyl accident was said to be about 1.8 million terabecquerels. The Three Mile Island accident, which was considered the second-worst accident until now, had only a limited discharge of radioactive iodine into the outside atmosphere, but was classified as a level 5 accident because of the considerable damage done to the core.

In a provisional assessment made March 18 by the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency, the situation at the No. 1 to No. 3 reactors at Fukushima was classified as a level 5 accident, but if estimates of the radiation discharged should progress, there could be the possibility of a revision in that assessment.

Meanwhile, calculations of soil contamination by experts have already produced results that are at the same level as for Chernobyl.

Cesium-137 levels of 163,000 becquerels per kilogram of soil was detected in Iitate, Fukushima Prefecture, about 40 kilometers northwest of the Fukushima plant, on March 20. That was the highest figure in the prefecture.

According to Tetsuji Imanaka, an associate professor of nuclear engineering at the Kyoto University Research Reactor Institute, if the Iitate figure was converted to one square meter, the figure would be 3.26 million becquerels.

After the Chernobyl accident, residents who lived in regions with cesium levels of 550,000 becquerels ore more per square meter were forcibly moved elsewhere.

"Iitate has reached a contamination level in which evacuation is necessary," Imanaka said. "Radiation is still being released from the Fukushima plant. The areas of high contamination can be considered to be on par with Chernobyl."

Residents who were forced to move after the Chernobyl accident were believed to have been exposed to an average of about 50 millisieverts of radiation.

However, a study of the health of residents who lived for many years on contaminated land found that the incidence of leukemia among adults did not increase.

The increase in thyroid gland cancer was believed due to internal radiation exposure among children who drank milk contaminated by radioactive iodine when they lived in areas close to Chernobyl.

The accumulated radiation level at Iitate as of Thursday afternoon was 3.7 millisieverts.

Shigenobu Nagataki, professor emeritus at Nagasaki University, who specializes in radiation medicine, said, "Because there were no other health problems after the Chernobyl accident besides thyroid gland cancer among children, it is unlikely (that the situation in Fukushima) would lead immediately to health problems. In areas where high levels of contamination were detected, measures should be considered after holding sufficient discussions with residents based on the data that is available."

Meanwhile, in Vienna, Yukiya Amano, the director-general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, told The Asahi Shimbun that while the situation at the Fukushima No. 1 plant was still serious, it was too early to compare it to Chernobyl.

Asked about radiation found in agricultural produce and drinking water, Amano said, "The circumstances are serious based on the standards used in Japan."

However, touching upon analyses and predictions about radiation contamination that have related the Fukushima incident to Chernobyl, Amano said, "The studies are being conducted based on very limited data and are very extreme."

Amano also referred to debate in other nations about their own nuclear energy policy.

"There is no change to the fact that nuclear power is a stable and clean form of energy," he said, indicating his hope that other nations would respond in a calm manner.

25/03 TEPCO ignored latest research on tsunami

2011/03/26

Top: A photo taken Saturday of the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant following the Great East Japan Earthquake; Bottom: A 2004 photo of the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant. (Photos by Google)

Amid all the finger-pointing over the crisis that engulfed the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant, one poor example of decision-making stands out.

Tokyo Electric Power Co., the plant's operator, chose not to consider advances in tsunami research when considering safety measures.

As far back as 20 years or so ago, experts realized that a giant tsunami could pound the region where the nuclear plant is located.

The central government was also slow to mount new inspections of older nuclear plants, partly because it bent to pressure from the business sector which feared higher costs.

The tsunami that hit the Fukushima plant after the March 11 Great East Japan Earthquake was more than 14 meters high, close to three times the 5.4-meter tsunami that TEPCO officials had forecast in considering safety measures.

Plant facilities near the ocean were wrecked. Officials of the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency (NISA) said fuel tanks for emergency in-house power generators were destroyed.

In sharp contrast, the Onagawa nuclear power plant, situated about 120 kilometers to the north and operated by Tohoku Electric Power Co., was built to withstand a 9.1-meter tsunami. As a result, it did not sustain major damage.

The Fukushima No. 1 plant lost its outside power source when steel towers carrying transmission lines toppled. Without the backup of emergency generators, the plant went into what is known as blackout condition.

That meant the multilayered safety system, including the emergency core cooling system, did not work, triggering the crisis that has raged ever since.

At a March 13 news conference, TEPCO President Masataka Shimizu said, "The tsunami greatly exceeded our estimates."

However, experts had repeatedly said that TEPCO's estimates were way too low.

Experts attending a June 2009 meeting at the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry to discuss a re-evaluation of quake standards for old nuclear plants, got disquieting news.

Yukinobu Okamura, who heads the Active Fault and Earthquake Research Center at the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST), told the gathering, "We have discovered that an incredibly huge (tsunami) that goes way beyond (TEPCO's estimates) has already hit the region."

Okamura said there was a possibility that another giant tsunami could strike the region.

He noted repeatedly that TEPCO's estimates never weighed the possibility that a hugely powerful tsunami could strike again.

Even a NISA safety inspector admitted that TEPCO's estimates were inadequate and would have to be reviewed.

The incredibly huge tsunami that Okamura mentioned hit in 869. Documents from the period suggest it claimed at least 1,000 lives. Researchers have found sand carried by the tsunami in the Sendai plain, which is several kilometers inland.

When the Fukushima No. 1 plant was being designed, little was known about the 869 tsunami.

However, a study by Tohoku Electric Power found that waves as high as 3 meters traveled 3 kilometers inland. A report of that study was submitted in 1990. Subsequent research led to an estimated magnitude of 8.4 for the earthquake that caused the tsunami. That was about six times the energy of the magnitude-7.9 earthquake that TEPCO predicted would hit off the coast where the Fukushima plant is located.

A research team at AIST also uncovered traces of a huge tsunami that hit a wide area stretching from the Tohoku region to the Kanto region in about 1500.

Kunihiko Shimazaki, professor emeritus at the University of Tokyo, said the government's Earthquake Research Committee has begun to assess the likelihood of more giant tsunami pounding coastal areas in the future.

With regard to the tsunami that struck in 869 and 1500, experts do not know whether they were caused by the same type of earthquake that occurred March 11. They say the tsunami triggered by the Great East Japan Earthquake may in fact have been much larger.

That said, a large tsunami hitting the plant was not something totally unexpected.

"Safety inspections must reflect the latest scientific research results," said Yasuhiro Suzuki, a professor at Nagoya University whose specialty is active faults. "Rather than pushing it off into the future, the issue of major tsunami should have been evaluated."

If a reactor core cannot be cooled after it has stopped operations because of an earthquake, the fuel rods will melt, triggering a core meltdown. That increases the chances of hydrogen explosions, which have occurred at the Fukushima plant.

A report in 1997 by Katsuhiko Ishibashi, professor emeritus of seismology at Kobe University, included a passage that eerily echoes what is happening at the Fukushima plant today.

Ishibashi warned of a nuclear accident caused by an earthquake in which damage and radiation contamination would interfere with relief activities.

Ishibashi was concerned that the latest seismology research was not being utilized in any review of the safety of nuclear plants constructed years ago.

For example, the Fukushima plant was designed more than 40 years ago when the existence of a plate boundary off the coast that caused the March 11 earthquake was not yet known.

In the 1990s, government officials began to review anti-quake guidelines for older nuclear plants as well as to ensure that newly constructed nuclear plants could withstand powerful earthquakes.

However, according to Kenji Sumita, professor emeritus of nuclear engineering at Osaka University who once served as acting chairman of the Nuclear Safety Commission of Japan, construction of new nuclear plants went ahead at that time without taking plans for revised safety standards into account.

"There was pressure from the business sector not to change the guidelines until construction plans were completed to a certain degree," Sumita said.

The business sector was concerned that the revision of the guidelines would force electric power companies to scrap or improve existing reactors and review new construction plans, incurring huge costs for them.

"For that reason, a political decision was made to shelve the review into the future," Sumita said.

A thorough review of the anti-quake guidelines was finally made in 2006, 28 years after the old guidelines were first drawn up. A re-inspection of older nuclear plants only began after the new guidelines were in place.

(This article was written by Shunsuke Kimura, Keisuke Katori and Shigeko Segawa.)

25/03 Nuclear expert: Hubris led to disaster

2011/03/26

Atsushi Kasai

Having heralded Japan's entry into the atomic age, a leading nuclear scientist has been left reeling by the crisis at the Fukushima No. 1 power plant.

Atsushi Kasai, a former laboratory chief at what is now the Japan Atomic Energy Agency, suggests that today's generations of scientists and plant operators may have been blinded by an overconfidence in Japanese technology, saying they must try to prepare for the unforeseeable.

He and other nuclear experts also called for a thorough review of the events that led to the accident, which was triggered by the March 11 Great East Japan Earthquake and subsequent tsunami, the worst natural disaster in Japan in modern history.

"Nuclear power has always had a dark side: nuclear weapons and accidents," Kasai said. "We have succeeded in passing on nuclear power technology from our generation to the next, but perhaps we failed to pass on the ability to think about that dark side."

Kasai joined the then Japan Atomic Energy Research Institute in 1959, just two years after Japan's first nuclear power reactor in Tokai, Ibaraki Prefecture, achieved a self-sustaining nuclear reaction.

He served as a safety assessment committee member at the International Atomic Energy Agency and took part in numerous field inspections following the Chernobyl nuclear power plant disaster in 1986.

While others have denied the possibility of such a crisis occurring, Kasai firmly believes there is "maybe a one in several million of a chance that the China syndrome could become a reality."

The China syndrome is a hypothetical situation in which a nuclear meltdown destroys a power plant, melting the core all the way through the Earth's crust and reaching the other side of the globe.

However, when he mentioned this to younger researchers, he was shocked by their reactions.

"The younger generation appeared to believe that nuclear accidents cannot occur--that's a myth," he said, recalling how they argued that such a situation was "impossible" and appeared confident that Japanese technology ranked top in the world.

Moreover, when he visited a Tokyo Electric Power Co. nuclear power plant as an instructor 20 years ago, he was startled to find that workers thought that "the actual work on the floor can be carried out by a small clique."

He started to worry that the younger generation "lacked an awareness that such a practice could lead to an accident."

Kasai also feels uneasy about TEPCO's failure to fully disclose information about the current problems at the Fukushima No. 1 plant.

He said that they had failed to provide data needed to accurately evaluate both the seriousness of the incident and the spread of radiation.

According to Kasai, nuclear power plants are obliged to set up radiation monitoring devices capable of operating without an electric power source. These devices keep a cumulative record of the radiation released after an accident.

Operators are supposed to retrieve that data when an accident occurs, but Kasai said the data has not been published.

He also said that data indicating how much fuel was being spent at the time of the accident has yet to be released.

"As one who has been involved in nuclear development since the beginning, I feel a certain responsibility," Kasai said.

He also said that if the situation stabilizes, he hopes to conduct contamination studies with like-minded colleagues.

Ayao Tsuge, president at the Shibaura Institute of Technology and a former technician at Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd., who designed a type of nuclear reactor different from the ones at the Fukushima No. 1 plant, said he believed that Japanese engineers can "take pride in the fact that the reactors withstood the magnitude-9.0 quake and automatically shut down operations."

"We can only say that the earthquake and tsunami exceeded all expectations. Of course, those who designed the plant could be held accountable for the results caused by factors they had not taken into consideration."

Tsuge said that even after a power plant shuts down operations, there is a need to cool the reactor cores. He also said that nuclear power plants are equipped with a backup safety system, such as a diesel generator, that will kick in if the external power connection is severed.

"The fact that this multilayered, fail-safe system has broken apart, was, in itself, an unforeseeable disaster," he said, emphasizing that it will be necessary to start a chronological review of the orders and decisions made in the crisis.

Tsuge said workers must broaden their imaginations to consider just how powerful and unpredictable nature can be.

(This article was written by Mikiharu Sugiura and Manabu Sasaki.)

25/03 Killer tsunami worst in Japan's history

2011/03/26

Fires continued to rage in Kesennuma, Miyagi Prefecture, on March 12, the day after a huge tsunami swallowed homes and flipped boats inland. (Shingo Kuzutani)
With nearly 30,000 people dead or missing, the giant tsunami triggered by the Great East Japan Earthquake is the worst in the nation's history.

The death toll from the series of tsunami on March 11 is set to exceed the 22,000 lives lost in the 1896 Meiji Sanriku Tsunami, which also struck Honshu island's northeastern Pacific coast.

The first devastating waves of the March 11 tsunami exceeded 3 meters in height. They slammed into the coast about 30 minutes after the quake, according to the Japan Meteorological Agency.

In the Meiji Sanriku Tsunami, the first waves hit the shore just 20 minutes after the earthquake. With waves reaching a terrifying 38.2 meters, it demolished towns and villages deep inland across the V-shaped terrain of the Sanriku region.

Decades later, the same area was pummeled by the 1933 Showa Sanriku Tsunami, which towered at 28.7 meters and claimed 3,064 lives.

In 1993, a 31.7-meter tsunami triggered by a magnitude-7.8 earthquake in the sea southwest of Hokkaido devastated Okushiri island and left 230 people dead.

Records collected at a seawater level monitoring station in the port of Ofunato, Iwate Prefecture, provide a picture of how the nation's most devastating tsunami developed.

After the quake struck at 2:46 p.m. on March 11, the sea started receding. The water level began rising at 3:10 p.m., increasing to more than 3 meters by 3:15 p.m. Just three minutes later, the surge had swelled into a wall of water 8 meters high.

The meteorological agency's monitoring device was damaged by the increased water pressure, and ceased recording the sea level at 3:19 p.m. As a result, the agency was only able to announce that the tsunami was 8 meters or higher. However, an official said the waves were "likely to have been much higher."

As of Thursday, the highest level was recorded at the coast of Miyako, Iwate Prefecture, at 8.5 meters or more.

In that city, about 70 kilometers north of Ofunato, waves above 3 meters hit about 35 minutes after the quake, and reached a maximum 8.5 meters before records went blank.

Officials said the waves pounded a wide area along Pacific coastal regions about 30 minutes after the quake.

The wave measurements were taken at the shoreline, but the water continued to gush inland for several kilometers at great force.

According the Port and Airport Research Institute based in Yokosuka, Kanagawa Prefecture, eyewitnesses spoke of waves 11 meters higher than sea level crashing into a cliff.

Shigeo Takahashi, director of the Asia-Pacific Center for Coastal Disaster Research at the Port and Airport Research Institute, said that a wide area along the coast from Iwate to Fukushima prefectures was likely struck by waves higher than 10 meters.

"The size of this tsunami was probably unprecedented, and likely 1.5 times the scale of the Meiji Sanriku Tsunami," Takahashi said.

(This article was written by Yusuke Nikaido and Yasushi Okubo.)

26/03 Safety of nuclear plants a key issue in governor elections

2011/03/26

Nuclear power safety has become a key issue in gubernatorial elections scheduled for April, with incumbents seeking stricter safety standards for nuclear plants and opponents demanding the scrapping of reactor projects.

The ongoing crisis at the hobbled Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant in Fukushima Prefecture has prompted candidates to take shots at the pro-nuclear power stances of the incumbents in Hokkaido, Fukui, Shimane and Saga prefectures, which are home to nuclear power plants.

The governors have not changed their stands but have somewhat toned down their arguments. They are focusing more on ensuring that the nuclear power plants can withstand natural disasters like the March 11 Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami that devastated wide areas of northeastern Japan.

Fukui Governor Issei Nishikawa, who is seeking a third term, quickly took action as the crisis unfolded at the Fukushima plant.

Six days after the earthquake, Nishikawa visited the industry ministry, which is in charge of mapping out Japan's nuclear power policy, and demanded a review of the screening process on whether nuclear facilities can withstand a huge earthquake.

Fukui Prefecture is home to 15 nuclear reactors, the most in the country.

When he was elected for the first time eight years ago, Nishikawa, with the support of an electric power company, clashed head-on with a candidate who advocated a break from the reliance on nuclear power.

"Fukui Prefecture is contributing the most of any prefecture to the country's energy policy," Nishikawa, a former central government bureaucrat, told voters Thursday, when campaigns for the first round of the unified local elections in April kicked off.

"I would like the central government and the utility company to be responsible (for the safety of nuclear power plants) in light of the current accident."

In the past two elections, Nishikawa pledged to continue to host 15 reactors. That promise has not been included in the current campaign.

A project to build two more reactors is under way in Fukui Prefecture.

But the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency's safety screening process for new reactors has been prolonged since stricter standards were set after the 2007 Niigata Chuetsu-oki Earthquake.

If tighter safety guidelines are introduced in light of the magnitude-9.0 earthquake, the reactor projects could be further delayed.

Yasushi Furukawa, the incumbent seeking a third term in Saga Prefecture, said his stand on nuclear power has not changed.

"After the Fukushima accident occurred, a chorus for abandoning nuclear power plants has grown," he told a rally Thursday. "But it is not a realistic choice to immediately halt nuclear power generation."

He said Japan's dependence on nuclear power is high--around 30 percent of all electricity produced in Japan--and that cutting nuclear power would cause an energy shortfall.

But in a manifesto announced Tuesday, he promised to take all possible measures to prevent a nuclear accident in Saga Prefecture, putting the issue at the top of his pledges. The manifesto was postponed from the scheduled March 13 release.

Hokkaido Governor Harumi Takahashi on Wednesday explained her plans to re-examine preparations for a possible nuclear accident in a meeting with four mayors of communities where the Tomari nuclear power plant is located.

In a campaign speech Thursday in Shimane Prefecture, incumbent Zenbe Mizoguchi urged the central government to drastically review its policies concerning nuclear power and energy.

Utilities are paying great attention to the words of the candidates in their campaigns.

"What incumbents are saying and doing in election campaigns after the nuclear crisis unfolded is of central concern for each power company," said a source in the energy industry.

Stricter safety standards, which voters will likely call for, could put new reactor construction projects on hold or lead to the decommissioning of older reactors, causing major headaches for their operators.

Contenders on the Japanese Communist Party's ticket are confronting the pro-nuclear incumbents in the four prefectures, criticizing their previous words touting the safety of nuclear power.

In the Saga race, JCP candidate Masakatsu Hirabayashi blasted Furukawa for stressing "the safety" of the Genkai nuclear power plant in the prefecture even after the extent of the Fukushima plant crisis emerged.

"What is the basis for his affirming the safety of Genkai, although he acknowledged that Fukushima is in danger?" Hirabayashi said.

He called for a mothballing of the No. 1 reactor of the Genkai plant, which is more than 35 years old, and a suspension of the use of a uranium-plutonium mixture, which is considered more dangerous than uranium, as fuel for the No. 3 reactor.

In a speech in Tokyo's Shinjuku district, JCP leader Kazuo Shii said his party will make Japan's nuclear power policy an issue in the unified gubernatorial and local elections.

"Projects to build 14 new reactors should be scrapped," he said. "We also strongly urge the cancellation of the use of the uranium-plutonium mixture as fuel at some reactors and the Monju prototype fast-breeder reactor."

Japan has 54 commercial reactors. Three more reactors are already under construction, and projects to build 11 others have been planned.

The first round of the unified local elections will be held April 10. A total of 39 candidates have entered the races in 12 prefectures, including Tokyo.

26/03 Cold shutdown still far away as workers struggle to control No. 1 reactor

2011/03/26

The walkway workers used to reach the No. 1 and No. 2 reactors at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant was destroyed by the March 11 tsunami. (Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency)
Another, possibly more serious, venting of radioactive materials into the atmosphere remained a possibility late Thursday as workers struggled to bring an unstable reactor under control at Fukushima No. 1 power plant.

According to officials, the No. 1 reactor at the plant was exhibiting unstable temperatures and pressures within the core.

In the worst-case scenario, steam containing radioactive materials would have to be released, according to officials of Tokyo Electric Power Co., the operator of the Fukushima plant, and the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency (NISA).

White smoke believed to be steam was confirmed coming from the storage pool for spent fuel rods of the No. 1 reactor Thursday morning.

Seawater is being pumped into the No. 1 reactor core to cool the decay heat of the fuel rods.

However, on Tuesday, the temperature in the core at one time rose to about 400 degrees, about 100 degrees over the design limit. While exceeding the limit will not lead immediately to damage to the core, the amount of water pumped in was increased from early Wednesday as a precaution.

While the temperature fell to about 218 degrees by Thursday afternoon, pressure within the containment vessel began to rise.

Pressure within the pressure container may have risen after the pumped-in seawater turned to steam and that may have led to steam moving into the containment vessel.

According to NISA officials, the temperature and pressure within the No. 1 reactor appeared to have stabilized Friday. NISA officials said the temperature of the No. 1 reactor core was 204.5 degrees as of 6:10 a.m. Friday.

In the worst-case scenario, the containment vessel may become damaged by the steam pressure and that could lead to the release of large amounts of radioactive materials.

To avoid that possibility, TEPCO officials are considering ventilation to lower the pressure by releasing steam into the outside atmosphere.

While that is a measure that TEPCO officials want to avoid because the steam contains radioactive materials, it has been used a number of times after the Great East Japan Earthquake on March 11 damaged the Fukushima No. 1 plant.

According to NISA officials, the No. 1 reactor was ventilated once on March 12, while the No. 2 reactor was ventilated on March 13. The No. 3 reactor was ventilated three times, on March 12, 13 and 14.

However, those ventilations were conducted in a way to reduce the effects on the environment.

The steam was first sent to the suppression pool under the pressure container and made to pass under water in the pool before being released.

That process is believed to reduce the level of radioactive iodine released in the steam to about 1 percent of the original level.

If the pressure cannot be reduced by that process, TEPCO officials would be forced to turn to dry ventilation in which the steam does not pass under water. That would mean a much larger release of radioactive materials.

An attempt to reduce pressure within the No. 2 reactor was made on March 15, but it is unclear if steam was actually released.

Because there is the possibility that part of the containment vessel of the No. 2 reactor may have been damaged on March 15, there is the possibility steam was ventilated without passing under water.

An increase in radiation levels due to such ventilations could affect the work to restore functions in other reactors if workers have to be evacuated.

Because the steam is released from a ventilation tower about 120 meters high, TEPCO officials will also have to take into consideration wind direction before deciding to release the steam.

A NISA official said Thursday about releasing steam from the No. 1 reactor, "We will make a decision after taking into consideration the pressure, temperature, the pumping of seawater and the status of the core. In the end, the prime minister will have to give his approval."

Meanwhile, other experts said that even in the best-case scenario, it would take at least one month to bring the No. 1 to No. 3 reactors to a cold shutdown in which the temperature of the cooling water falls under 100 degrees.

To achieve a cold shutdown requires two pumping systems to work, one to circulate water into the core and the other to cool the heated water by using seawater.

However, there is a strong possibility that the pumps in the No. 1 and No. 3 reactors are damaged. In that case, because sufficient water could not be supplied, seawater may have to be pumped in for several months.

Radioactive materials would be released during that period.

According to TEPCO sources, a greater degree of precision control would be required the larger the pump was. Moreover, the pumps must also be cooled at the same time. The pipes to the cores have many valves.

Even if sensors could be used to let workers know the status within the core, a source said, "Properly operating the cooling mechanism would be many times more difficult than pumping in water."

Workers have already run into problems trying to confirm if the pumps actually work.

On Wednesday, high radiation levels were detected at the No. 2 reactor, forcing workers to evacuate.

On Thursday, two workers at the No. 3 reactor had to be taken to the hospital after being exposed to radiation.

Following the exposure to radiation by the workers, consideration was being given to processing the water that contained high levels of radiation as well as changing the location where power cables would be installed.

Moreover, if the hydrogen explosions at the No. 1 and No. 3 reactor which damaged the outer building also damaged the pumps, the pumps would have to be replaced.

Even if replacement pumps were available, installing them under high radiation levels would be a difficult task.

When an accident occurred in 1979 at the Three Mile Island plant in the United States, it took about three weeks after the accident to achieve a cold shutdown.

Because of the damage to the four reactors at the Fukushima plant from the tsunami and hydrogen explosions, Hiroaki Koide, an associate professor at Kyoto University's Research Reactor Institute, said, "The conditions are much more difficult. Achieving a cold shutdown in one month would be very optimistic."

Fuel rods in the core continue to give off decay heat from the elements that have decayed after nuclear fission.

According to calculations by Koide, decay heat has decreased to minimal amounts compared to when the reactor was actually operating, but the fuel rods still have about 6,000 kilowatts of energy in the No. 2 and No. 3 reactors. The energy will only gradually reduce to about 3,000 kilowatts after six months and to 2,000 kilowatts after one year.

Koide said, "To achieve cold shutdown will require dissipating the heat from the core into the ocean by using the two pumping systems, but the work will be time-consuming because of an environment of high radiation levels."

Tuyết Lan, Thu Thủy, Huyền Trang vào chung kết Next top model

Ngoài phần trình diễn như những vedette trong buổi trình diễn thời trang cho Levi’s và thương hiệu chăm sóc tóc Clairol, ấn tượng nhất trong tập 14 là buổi chụp hình "Đêm trắng" tại căn nhà tuyết. Nhìn 4 cô gái cứng đờ người dưới nhiệt độ từ -7 đến -10 độ, khán giả không khỏi rùng mình.
Các thí sinh "nhí nhố" bên nhà thiết kế Huy Võ.

Thanh Hoa và Thu Thủy trở thành tâm điểm trên sàn diễn.

Hoa hậu Thu Thủy “bị đuổi” ra khỏi nhà ?

( Gaidepvn.com) – Có lẽ ngay cả trong mơ, hoa hậu Thu Thủy cũng chẳng hình dung được rằng mình có thể mất chốn dung thân chỉ vì một lý do… lãng nhách.

Bên cạnh những thông tin liên tục được cập nhật về hai tân hoa hậu Ngọc Hân, Diễm Hương, hiện còn có câu chuyện của một cựu hoa hậu đang làm xôn xao dư luận. Đó là Hoa hậu Việt Nam 1994, Nguyễn Thu Thủy.

Hoa hậu Nguyễn Thu Thủy


Chỉ vì những phát ngôn có phần phóng khoáng và cá tính trong một “ghi chú” trên trang cá nhân mà người đẹp một thời đã bị “dập” không thương tiếc bằng một bài báo dài 1.702 chữ. Theo như bài báo này thì phần “ngôn” của cựu hoa hậu tỷ lệ nghịch hoàn toàn với phần “dung”.

Để minh chứng cho nhận định trên, bài báo đã đi sâu vào việc bắt bẻ cách dùng từ ngữ của Thu Thủy cũng như không quên nhặt nhạnh những câu cú có khả năng gây sốc làm bằng chứng. Tuy nhiên, toàn bộ phần “ghi chú” có thể giúp độc giả đối chiếu và đánh giá khách quan lại không được đăng tải.

Dù xuất hiện đúng thời điểm thiên hạ đang xôn xao về hai tân hoa hậu Ngọc Hân, Diễm Hương, nhưng bài viết phê phán đó vẫn thu hút được nhiều lượt người đọc. Và thật không may cho Thu Thủy khi trong số ấy có cả… bà chủ nhà trọ của cô.

Ảnh chụp trang facebook của cựu hoa hậu


Hôm qua, trên facebook cá nhân của mình, chủ nhân của chiếc vương miện hoa hậu cách đây 16 năm buồn bã cập nhật: “Tình hình là bà chủ nhà đang gọi mình ra nói chuyện yêu cầu 3 mẹ con mình dọn ra khỏi nhà vì mấy cái bài báo công-dung-ngôn-hạnh gì gì vừa rồi đấy ạ…”.

Thu Thủy còn cho biết thêm rằng vợ chồng chủ nhà là cán bộ về hưu, có con gái làm cùng viện nghiên cứu với bố mẹ cô. Họ cho cựu hoa hậu thuê nhà vì quý mến. Tuy nhiên, sau bài báo trên thì họ không còn cảm tình nữa và quyết định cắt hợp đồng.

“Mình sẽ đến nói chuyện, nếu hai bác không hiểu thì cũng đành chịu. Coi như oan gia phát này”, bà mẹ hai con chia sẻ sau khi nhận được sự quan tâm của đông đảo bạn bè.

Từng trải qua nhiều biến cố, khó khăn trong cuộc sống kể từ sau ngày đăng quang. Thế nhưng có lẽ, ngay cả trong mơ, Thu Thủy cũng chẳng bao giờ hình dung ra được có một ngày, cô có thể sẽ mất chốn dung thân chỉ vì một cái “note” trên facebook.


Source: Hoa hậu Thu Thủy "bị đuổi" ra khỏi nhà ? http://www.gaidepvn.com/tin-tuc-trong-ngay/hoa-hau-thu-thuy-bi-duoi-ra-khoi-nha/#ixzz1HfpPF4OM

Thèm sex điên cuồng vì mắc bệnh ‘người đẹp ngủ’

Do mắc một chứng bệnh hiếm gặp liên quan đến giấc ngủ, Donna Glover (40 tuổi, người Anh) trở nên “khát” sex đến mức không bao giờ thấy đủ.

Donna có biểu hiện bệnh từ khi còn ở tuổi vị thành niên, nhưng mới đây được chẩn đoán là mắc hội chứng Kleine-Levine, còn gọi là hội chứng “người đẹp ngủ”, 6 triệu người mới có một người mắc phải dạng rối loạn giấc ngủ đặc biệt này.

Căn bệnh khiến Donna thèm khát quan hệ tình dục với bất kỳ người đàn ông nào, kể cả những người hoàn toàn xa lạ. Điều này đã hủy hoại cuộc sống của cô, ảnh hưởng đến các mối quan hệ và buộc cô phải nghỉ việc.

Người mẹ một con đã ly thân này bộc bạch: “Khi lên cơn, tất cả cái tôi muốn là sex. Tôi không quan tâm mình đang ở đâu, với ai và hậu quả sẽ thế nào. Tôi chỉ muốn được đáp ứng nhu cầu tình dục”. Donna đã phải lên mạng để làm quen, hẹn hò trong vài giờ rồi “quan hệ” với họ trong nhà, khách sạn hay trên ô tô. Donna cũng từng làm “chuyện ấy” với một người đàn ông ngay sau khi người này bắt tín hiệu với cô qua ánh mắt khi đang ở siêu thị, đúng thời điểm cơn khát tình dục xuất hiện.

Donna thú nhận: “Tôi đã ngủ với hơn 150 người đàn ông theo cách này. Càng ngày tôi càng thấy xấu hổ với bản thân, nhưng tôi không thể kiểm soát được hành động của mình”.

Từ khi còn là một cô gái trẻ, Donna đã rất quan tâm về tình dục. Cô thường nghĩ về nó và vẽ ra những tư thế quan hệ vào cuốn sổ tay của mình. Trong suốt quãng thời gian này, Donna thường ngủ 20 giờ mỗi ngày. Khi thức, cô buồn nôn và có cảm giác say xỉn, mất kiềm chế, và làm “chuyện ấy” cả một ngày. “Thoạt đầu, những người bạn trai của tôi rất thích thú, nhưng đôi khi những đòi hỏi của tôi trở nên quá nhiều với họ”, Donna cho biết. “Khi cơn bệnh qua đi, tôi không thể tin những gì mình đã làm. Bình thường tôi là một người nhút nhát, kín đáo và chung thủy”.

Năm ngoái, Donna đã phải tìm đến bác sĩ và đã được chẩn đoán mắc hội chứng trên bởi có những triệu chứng như ngủ quá nhiều, hành vi thay đổi và sắc dục quá độ. Hiện, Donna đã hiểu biết được về bệnh của mình và tránh hành vi gây hại. Cô tháo pin điện thoại, tránh xa internet và ở trong nhà. “Nếu phải ra ngoài, tôi sẽ cúi đầu xuống và không nhìn bất cứ người đàn ông nào. Tôi đã bị vùi dập bởi sex nên giờ tôi phải tự vực dậy. Giờ đây, ít nhất tôi cũng có cơ hội để giải thích về căn bệnh của mình với bạn đời tương lai. Một vài người nghĩ đó là sự đổ lỗi cho hành vi bừa bãi, nhưng đó là bệnh”.

Theo bác sĩ Hilary Jones, đặc điểm rõ ràng nhất của hội chứng Kleine-Levine là ngủ quá nhiều (trên 18 tiếng đồng hồ một ngày), thèm ăn, gây hấn và tăng tình dục. Hơn một nửa trong số bệnh nhân quan hệ tình dục một cách bừa bãi. Đàn ông mắc hội chứng này thường dễ phạm tội.

Hội chứng Kleine-Levine, được cho là do mất cân bằng hóa chất ở não, thường biến mất một cách bí ẩn như khi nó xuất hiện. Việc dùng thuốc Lithi (Lithium) đôi khi có tác dụng.

(Theo Đất Việt)

Một sự thèm khát khó cưỡng

Vắng Bôn một đêm là Cẩm Nhung không sao ngủ được… (Ảnh minh họa)

Đôi khi vắng người, Cẩm Nhung còn cố tình áp má vào má Bôn. Cô biết Bôn thèm khát và bản thân cô cũng rất thèm khát vì cô đã goá chồng gần 2 năm rồi…

Cẩm Nhung lấy chồng sớm, 21 tuổi đã có con và 22 tuổi đã thành goá phụ vì một tai nạn bất ngờ. Trước đây Nhung quan niệm rằng phụ nữ thiên chức là làm vợ và làm mẹ, lấy chồng thì theo chồng và nhờ chồng. Chồng của Cẩm Nhung là một người tháo vát, biết kiếm tiền.

Nhưng một vụ tai nạn giao thông thảm khốc đã xảy ra và trong số những người tử nạn có chồng của Cẩm Nhung. Thế là từ chỗ chỉ lo nội trợ và nuôi con giờ đây Cẩm Nhung tự phải kiếm sống để nuôi mình và nuôi con nhỏ.

Làm gì để kiếm tiền bây giờ? Đi buôn thì không có vốn, mở quán ăn thì không biết nghề, vào các cơ quan hành chính sự nghiệp thì không có bằng cấp, đi làm công nhân ở công trường thì Nhung không đủ sức khoẻ.

Cuối cùng Nhung quyết định học nghề làm đầu để mở quán. Số tiền đền bù từ vụ tai nạn giao thông vừa đủ cho Nhung học nghề, thuê địa điểm và mua sắm thiết bị để mở một cái quán gội đầu loại bình dân.

Quán bình dân thì giá cũng bình dân. Tại những salon sang trọng chủ quán có thể thu của khách hàng trăm nghìn đồng một lần gội đầu nhưng quán của Nhung thì chỉ 20.000 đồng thôi. Với các quán gội đầu bình dân muốn sống được thì phải đông khách. Quán của Cẩm Nhung dù chỉ có hai bàn và hai thợ thôi nhưng khá đông khách vì bà chủ xinh đẹp và biết lấy lòng khách.

Với dịch vụ này để lấy lòng khách không khó, chỉ biết cách trò chuyện với khách và biết làm những động tác giả là khách hài lòng ngay. Sau khi gội đầu và mát xa da đầu cho khách xong người thợ chỉ cần bới mái tóc của khách mấy giây để kiểm tra xem còn sót gầu không là khách hài lòng ngay, vì họ thấy mình được chăm sóc, được phục vụ chu đáo.

Khách của Cẩm Nhung, đông nhất là giới mày râu. Đàn ông vào quán, ngồi vào ghế, được cô chủ cúi xuống, áp cái má trắng hồng và thơm mùi nước hoa rất quyến rũ gần chạm má của khách và hỏi thì thầm: “Anh ơi! Dùng dầu gì?”. Chỉ mới thế thôi là cánh mày râu đã sướng lắm rồi.

Trong số khách quen thuộc của Cẩm Nhung có anh chàng Bôn to cao, cường tráng và mới 20 tuổi. Bôn rất chăm đến quán của Cẩm Nhung. Anh nói rằng nếu hai ngày mà không gội đầu thì ngứa không chịu nổi. Nhưng anh chàng này cũng kén thợ, nhất định phải là Cẩm Nhung gội thì Bôn mới vừa ý.


Bôn vô cùng hăng hái và dũng mãnh khiến Cẩm Nhung sung sướng đến tột cùng… (Ảnh minh họa)

Mỗi tuần 3 lần Bôn đến quán gội đầu và lần nào cũng trả thừa tiền nhưng không lấy lại. Với những vị khách này thường được Cẩm Nhung chiều hơn một chút. Cô gội kỹ hơn, trò chuyện thân mật hơn. Bắt gặp ánh mắt háo hức của Bôn nhìn xoáy vào phần ngực hở của mình Cẩm Nhung biết ngay rằng anh chàng này thèm muốn cái gì. Đây là bản năng thiên bẩm của phụ nữ. Chỉ trong vài giây đầu tiên phụ nữ đã biết người đàn ông muốn gì ở mình. Vì thế mỗi khi gội đầu cho Bôn bà chủ xinh đẹp thường giả vờ sơ ý đụng chạm vào anh chàng này một chút.

Khi Bôn lên bàn xả, Cẩm Nhung cúi người thấp hơn để xả tóc cho anh và cố ý cho Bôn được nhìn thấy gần như toàn bộ đôi gò bồng đảo của mình. Đôi khi vắng người, Cẩm Nhung còn cố tình áp má vào má Bôn. Cô biết Bôn thèm khát và bản thân cô cũng rất thèm khát vì cô đã goá chồng gần 2 năm rồi.

Có lần nằm trên bàn xả, vì không kìm nổi ham muốn, Bôn đã nhổm người lên, thơm rất nhanh vào vồng ngực Cẩm Nhung. Người đẹp mỉm cười: “Làm người ta hết cả hồn”. “Cho anh xin lỗi, vì em đẹp quá”. “Anh em gì. Còn kém tuổi người ta đấy”. “Dù kém đến mấy thì anh vẫn là anh”. “Có biết làm anh không?”. “Cứ thử xem”. Và họ đã bí mật hẹn nhau đi “thử”.

Bôn lúng túng mãi mới làm được cái việc của một người đàn ông phải làm với một người đàn bà trong trạng thái Eva. Sự lúng túng và chật vật của Bôn khiến Cẩm Nhung cảm động. Phải là người lần đầu tiên làm chuyện ấy mới lúng túng và chật vật như thế. Nhung biết ơn Bôn về cái sự lúng túng đó. Và khi đã vượt qua trạng thái tâm lý căng thẳng khi nhập cuộc lần đầu thì Bôn lại vô cùng hăng hái và dũng mãnh. Cẩm Nhung sung sướng đến tột cùng. “Tuyệt vời lắm. Nữa đi anh”.

Từ đó Cẩm Nhung không thể nào thiếu được Bôn. Khi biết Bôn chưa có nghề ngỗng gì, Cẩm Nhung biến anh chàng này thành người thợ học việc, ngày hai bữa ăn cơm ở quán và tối về nhà mình sống chung như vợ chồng. Vắng Bôn một đêm là Cẩm Nhung không sao ngủ được. Cô gái một con này trở nên nghiệm “nem”!

Nhưng Cẩm Nhung cũng biết rằng anh chàng này tiêu xài rất tốn kém. Bôn không thể không có thuốc lá 3 số, không thể không uống bia vào các bữa ăn và thỉnh thoảng cũng không thể không bù khú ở quán xá. Thu nhập từ quán gội đầu sau khi trả tiền thuê nhà và tiền mua mỹ phẩm, tiền công cho thợ còn lại không nhiều lắm nên Cẩm Nhung không thể chu cấp đủ cho nhu cầu của người tình.

Còn Bôn sau giai đoạn thèm thuồng ban đầu, giờ no xôi chán chè rồi nên anh không háo hức và mạnh mẽ như trước nữa. Hễ phải sống thiếu thốn một chút là Bôn lại bị ức chế thần kinh và anh ta không muốn làm chuyện ấy.

Để có tiền nuôi người tình, Cẩm Nhung đã làm thêm dịch vụ môi giới mại dâm và bị bắt, bị kết án 18 tháng tù giam. Trong dịp đặc xá nhân Quốc khánh Nhung cũng được ra tù trước thời hạn nhưng không có ai đến đón cô. Mẹ cô thì đang phải trông con trai của Cẩm Nhung ở nhà, còn Bôn thì đã đi đâu mất tăm. Chẳng biết sau khi ra tù người đàn bà xinh đẹp này còn “nghiện” nữa không?

Nhà văn Hoàng Hữu Các

Theo 24h.com.vn

Mỹ: Công bố kết quả khảo sát lớn nhất về sex

Hôm qua, 4 – 10, các nhà nghiên cứu Mỹ công bố kết quả khảo sát toàn diện nhất về hành vi tình dục của người dân nước này kể từ năm 1994.

Theo đó, tình trạng tình dục đồng giới phổ biến hơn, vị thành niên sử dụng các biện pháp tránh thai nhiều hơn so với thế hệ trước, có sự khác biệt lớn về cực khoái giữa nam và nữ…

Sau khi khảo sát 5.865 người Mỹ trong độ tuổi từ 14 đến 94, Trung tâm Quảng bá Sức khỏe tình dục nhận thấy, trong số nam thiếu niên từ 14 đến 17 tuổi, 79% dùng bao cao su trong lần quan hệ tình dục gần đây nhất, so với mức 25% của tất cả nam giới được khảo sát. Khoảng 2% nam thiếu niên 14 tuổi và 40% nam thanh niên 17 tuổi nói rằng, họ có quan hệ tình dục trong năm qua.

Tỷ lệ sử dụng bao cao su ở người da đen và người gốc Tây Ban Nha, Bồ Đào Nha (cộng đồng có nhiều người nhiễm HIV/AIDS) hiện cao hơn so với người da trắng. Tỷ lệ dùng bao cao su ở đàn ông trên 50 tuổi thấp nhất. Điều này khiến các nhà nghiên cứu lo ngại vì hiện nay đối tượng này thường có nhiều bạn tình.

Theo nhà nghiên cứu Debra Herbenick, nam giới dễ đạt cực khoái khi có giao hợp âm đạo, trong khi phụ nữ dễ lên đỉnh hơn khi trải qua nhiều động tác, trong đó có quan hệ bằng đường miệng (oral sex).

Bà Herbenick nói rằng, 85% đàn ông nói rằng bạn tình của họ đạt cực khoái trong lần gặp gỡ gần nhất, nhưng chỉ có 64% phụ nữ nói rằng, họ có cảm giác trên đỉnh Phù Vân. Có tới 33% phụ nữ bị đau vùng sinh dục trong lần ân ái gần nhất, trong khi tỷ lệ này ở nam giới chỉ là 5%.

Trong khi chỉ có 7% phụ nữ trưởng thành và 8% nam giới tự nhận mình là đồng tính nữ, đồng tính nam hoặc lưỡng tính, tỷ lệ cá nhân có quan hệ tình dục đồng giới tại thời điểm nào đó trong đời cao hơn nhiều. Có tới 15% đàn ông trong độ tuổi 50-59 nói rằng, họ nhận oral sex từ nam giới.

theo TP

“Gái hư” – Niềm khao khát của các quí ông

"Gái hư" là những phụ nữ khá hoàn hảo… (Ảnh minh họa)

Không giống như những cô “gái ngoan” coi tình dục là nghĩa vụ, là món quà tựa kiểu ban ơn với chồng, những “cô gái hư” quan niệm tình dục giống như cơm ăn, nước uống hằng ngày và không thể thiếu. Họ có thể làm mọi thứ bạn tình thích và để cảm xúc của mình được thăng hoa.

“Yêu” giúp cân bằng cuộc sống

Quả thật với tuýp người phụ nữ này, chuyện ái ân có ý nghĩa vô cùng quan trọng cuộc sống. Vì nhu cầu trong chuyện đó của họ lớn hơn những phụ nữ bình thường khác.

Chị Lý Diệp Đình, chủ một Spa chăm sóc sắc đẹp, phố Lý Thường Kiệt, Hà Nội tâm sự: “Tôi coi ái ân như cơm ăn, nước uống và hơi thở. Khi chưa có đủ liều lượng của “chuyện ấy”, tôi cảm thấy mỏi mệt, chán nản, chẳng chuyên chú vào công việc. Gối chăn trở thành một điều kiện không thể thiếu cho sự cân bằng của tôi. Với bản thân tôi, rất khó khăn để có thể kiềm chế “chuyện đó” lâu ngày cùng với ông xã”.

Cũng theo chị Đình, chị có thể sống thật được với cảm xúc thực của mình là nhờ sự khích lệ và hiểu vợ của chồng. Chồng chị khích lệ rằng vứt bỏ mọi lo lắng để “yêu” nhau không làm cho chị “mất nết” mà chỉ biến chị thành người đàn bà thực sự. Do đó, chị sẵn sàng thể hiện sự thích thú khi được chạm vào điểm đặc biệt và mạnh dạn yêu cầu được chồng yêu chiều. Chị quan niệm ân ái không phải là sự ban ơn và ham muốn cũng không phải chỉ của riêng đàn ông.

Có lẽ với những quan niệm đúng đắn, được sống thật với cảm xúc của chính mình nên lúc nào trông chị cũng trẻ trung, tươi mới: Chị ăn mặc gợi cảm nhưng không quá hở hang, không ngừng làm đẹp chăm chút cho bản thân và việc mở Spa cũng là để chị có điều kiện chăm sóc cho mình nhiều hơn. Bên chồng lúc nào chị cũng là người vợ sinh động, trẻ trung, đáng yêu mà những ông chồng khác đều phát thèm.

Tuy nhiên, không phải vì thế mà lúc nào chị cũng cho chồng được “no xôi chán chè”. Chị Đình thổ lộ: “Ái tình nếu quá no đủ sẽ nhanh sinh ra chán ngán. Trong chuyện đó không có một chút “nghệ thuật” từ chối, hay không biết làm cho không khí nồng nàn mới mẻ, sẽ không bao giờ thấy sự khao khát, mãnh liệt của nửa kia dành cho mình. Hấp dẫn về thể xác trong hôn nhân là một yếu tố quan trọng quyết định hạnh phúc. Đừng quá quan tâm “Anh có mệt không?”, “Anh ăn gì chưa?”, “Anh có chuyện gì thế?”… Nếu suốt ngày cứ lo lắng thái quá và hỏi những câu tương tự như vậy, có thể anh ấy sẽ phát cáu và trả lời “không” như một cái máy. Đừng biến mình thành cái bóng của chồng, đừng coi anh ấy như một đứa trẻ chưa biết làm chủ bản thân. Đôi khi phải để chàng tự chăm sóc mình thì anh ấy mới biết giá trị của những thứ mình dành cho anh ấy. Đừng suốt ngày xoắn xuýt bên cạnh mà để cho chàng có được cảm giác vắng vợ. Hơn nữa đa số đàn ông đều không thích bị quản thúc hay quan tâm quá mức.



Là phụ nữ, là người vợ trong nhà cần nắm bắt được tâm sinh lý của người chồng… (Ảnh minh họa)

Niềm khao khát của quí ông

BS. Chuyên gia Nguyễn Trọng Thích, Trung tâm tư vấn Y tế BS. Lê Quang Hồng, Hà Nội thẳng thắn: “Tôi thích những cô “gái hư” kiểu này. “Gái hư” ở đây là để trong ngoặc kép, nên có thể nói một cách công tâm rằng đó là những phụ nữ khá hoàn hảo. Họ không chỉ biết yêu, biết quan tâm tới chồng mà còn rất biết cách chăm sóc con cái, thu vén công việc trong gia đình. Chắc chắc những phụ nữ khiến chồng hài lòng hội tụ khá nhiều đức tính tốt không chỉ riêng trong “chuyện đó”. Vì các ông chồng Á Đông thường khá tham lam, muốn và cần rất nhiều điều ở vợ. Theo tôi những phụ nữ biết hưởng thụ xúc cảm cũng là những phụ nữ biết thưởng thức những món ăn ngon. Biết ăn ngon là biết nấu ăn ngon. Không những thế trong thời điểm xã hội phát triển như ngày nay thì một người vợ còn phải cập nhật, sưu tầm những địa chỉ ẩm thực thật ngon để cuối tuần có thể đưa chồng con đến đó và khao cả nhà những bữa ăn ngon miệng. Không nhất thiết cứ phải ở nhà lúi húi trong bếp nấu nướng mới là phụ nữ giỏi nội trợ. Điều này lại quá dễ dàng đối với tuýp phụ nữ này”.

BS. Chuyên gia tư vấn Nguyễn Trọng Thích còn khẳng định rằng: Đây chắc chắn cũng sẽ là những phụ nữ biết trang hoàng cho cuộc sống. Một ngôi nhà sạch đẹp, những đứa con khôn ngoan, một người vợ tươi tắn, trẻ trung, khéo léo trong giao tiếp. Đương nhiên một người phụ nữ như thế sẽ là niềm mong ước, khao khát của tất cả cánh đàn ông.

Chị Nguyễn Thị Quyên, Trung tâm tư vấn tình cảm Thanh Tâm Hà Nội thì cho rằng: “Mỗi cặp đôi ở mọi lứa tuổi đều có những nhu cầu tình cảm khác nhau. Ngoài sự chăm sóc, yêu thương, quan tâm đến công việc và bạn bè, người thân của nhau còn có nhu cầu tâm sinh lý. Là phụ nữ, là người vợ trong nhà cần nắm bắt được tâm sinh lý của người chồng. Đấy thuộc tuýp phụ nữ “hư” nhưng cái “hư” ở đây là đáng khen, đáng học tập. Nếu người chồng về nhà với tâm trạng không vui, người vợ trong nhà nên nhẹ nhàng khuyên người chồng đi tắm, nghỉ ngơi, nấu cho chồng một món ăn bổ dưỡng mà chồng thích. Luôn xinh tươi cười rạng rỡ trong lúc làm những công việc đó, đợi đến khi đêm về, thủ thỉ những lời ngọt ngào yêu bên tai chồng, mọi cảm giác khó chịu, mệt mỏi ở chồng sẽ tan biến. Khi đó, chắc chắn người chồng sẽ chủ động cùng tận hưởng những giây phút hạnh phúc bên vợ. Bình yên sẽ trở lại căn nhà ấm áp tình yêu”.

Theo 24h.com.vn

25/03 Uranium Processor Still Optimistic About Nuclear Industry

March 25, 2011

David Stobbe/Reuters
Workers at a mine site of the Canadian uranium producer Cameco, which supplied the Fukushima Daiichi reactors in Japan.

By IAN AUSTEN


OTTAWA — On the same day earlier this month that the Canadian company Cameco, a global leader in uranium mining and processing, gathered its executives from around the world for a strategic planning session, news broke of Japan’s staggering earthquake.

The accompanying tsunami, they learned, had swamped a Cameco customer: the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. Suddenly, this strategy meeting would be anything but routine.

“We had kind of a fortuitous convergence,” said Gerald W. Grandey, the chief executive of Cameco, which held the meeting near its headquarters in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan.

Fortuitous, but not fortunate — for Cameco or the rest of the uranium industry, whose products fuel the world’s nuclear power plants.

Over the last five years, uranium miners and processors — and their stock prices — have generally benefited from the assumption that rising energy demand in developing countries, and global concerns about greenhouse gas emissions, were creating a new appreciation for nuclear power industry.

Shares of Cameco had reached a recent high of $43.14 in mid-February, reflecting a steady rise from a low of $16 in October 2008. But since the tsunami, shares of Cameco have closed as low as $30.82, and closed Friday at $31.17.

Unusually rich ore deposits, particularly at Cameco’s main deep-rock mine in northern Saskatchewan, help make it a low-cost producer. Uranium mining requires costly robotic systems and other measures to protect workers and the environment from radiation.

Cameco produces about 16 percent of the world’s uranium supply and dominates the market, along with Areva, a French company with 17 percent of production, and the British-Australian mining giant Rio Tinto, which also holds a 16 percent share. But compared with those more diversified companies, Cameco is essentially a pure-play uranium producer.

The Tokyo Electric Power Company, which owns that power plant, is not only a buyer of nuclear fuel from Cameco, among other suppliers. Tepco, as it is known, also holds a small stake in a Canadian mine that Cameco plans to open in 2013 as part of its goal to double production by 2018, which would make it the global leader in uranium.

Right now, most of the rest of the world is pausing to assess the future of its nuclear power programs. In Germany, a market for Cameco, Chancellor Angela Merkel has temporarily shut down seven nuclear plants and suspended a program for extending the life of aging reactors. And Italy, has suspended a plan to resume its nuclear power program, which it had stopped after the 1986 disaster at Chernobyl.

But for all that, Mr. Grandey said this week that he was still optimistic about the long-term future of nuclear power. He says he thinks the nuclear renaissance is only taking a temporary pause.

“Even with Chernobyl, Three Mile Island and now Fukushima, nuclear still has an impeccable safety record,” Mr. Grandey said in an interview. “There will be in time — I’m looking five, seven years — a rapid acceleration of nuclear building putting us back on track to where we would have been, absent Fukushima.”

Not everyone, of course, shares Mr. Grandey’s optimism, or his assessment of the industry’s safety record. But there is no question that Cameco’s future depends largely on the world’s appetite for processed uranium after Fukushima.

Even if there is a global pullback on developing new power plants, Cameco has something of a cushion with its current customers. The company generally has multiyear contracts with utilities that require them to pay for fuel even if they do not accept delivery. (The company has suspended some contract terms for Tokyo Electric and another Japanese utility with reactors in the heavily damaged north, Tohoku Electric Power. Long-term Japan accounts for about 18 to 20 percent of Cameco’s contracted sales.)

Farther out, Mr. Grandey bases his optimism on the inexorable rise in energy demand by developing economies like China and India, which have both indicated that they do not plan to curtail their ambitious rollout of new nuclear plants though they will proceed with a greater sense of caution. Fossil fuels, whether for environmental issues, supply constraints or price uncertainties, simply cannot meet the world’s needs, he said.

“It will take us six months a year to digest and learn the lessons of Fukushima,” he said. “After we digest the lessons learned, I think we’ll get back on the path of nuclear construction.”

Joshua M. Pearce, a professor of mechanical and engineering at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario, said that such analysis omitted an important factor.

“This is not the 1950s when there was just nuclear and fossil fuels,” he said, noting that alternative energy sources like solar and wind had become increasingly viable.

Professor Pearce was a co-author of a recent academic paper about indirect subsidies to nuclear power plants. He estimates that insurance liability caps granted to the American nuclear power industry, for example, produce an annual indirect subsidy of $33 million for every reactor in the United States.

He said that the liability costs to the Japanese government arising from Fukushima Daiichi, while still impossible to estimate, were presumably large, and might make other governments see that offering subsidies to renewable energy sources might be a comparative bargain.

Tony Ward, who heads Ernst & Young’s power and utility practice in London, agrees that the current crisis will focus new attention on wind and solar power, particularly in China, which has already heavily invested in renewable energy technologies.

But Mr. Ward points to a significant limit to renewable energy as an alternative to nuclear. “The supply chain is not sufficiently deep to provide the sheer scale of capacity that is sufficient,” he said.

For Mr. Ward, one potential long-term change for Cameco stemming from the Fukushima Daiichi disaster is the issue of spent fuel storage — which has been a big source of the trouble at that plant. He expects governments to reassess the economics of reprocessing nuclear waste into new fuel rather than allowing its continued storage.

But Cameco’s Mr. Grandey, voicing optimism, insists that the nuclear industry’s image will suffer no long-term harm.

“The numbers that are questioning safety have gone up but that’s inevitable,” Mr. Grandy said. “But it certainly can’t be described as a mass change in attitude toward nuclear.”

He added: “I think the public also understands that these are 35- and 40-year-old plants. So like airplanes that occasionally fall out of the sky, or like other industrial activities that experience disasters, every industry learns and improves.”












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