At the port in Natchez, Miss., barge traffic is at a standstill, both to keep downstream levees from being overwhelmed and from fears that the barges would be unable to get around safely in the elevated water levels. Port officials had no clear idea when the river traffic would resume. That the river is closed at all is indicative of the scope of the disaster, as port officials estimate that lost revenues could exceed hundreds of millions of dollars.

The Mississippi River, swollen beyond normal capacity by frequent rainstorms and higher than usual snowmelt, has seeped into surrounding land in several states along the long route to the Gulf of Mexico. Residents of Louisiana were on high alert, expecting displacement similar to those suffered in Tennessee, Mississippi, Arkansas, among other states in which a total of nearly 3 million acres of farmland has flooded. The water level at Natchez was already three feet higher than the record flooding of 1937, and the crest wasn’t expected until the weekend. An intense watch on levees continued, staffed by engineers and, in some places, inmates.

In Louisiana, engineers have released water from the Morganza Spillway, opening it for the first time since 1973 and letting the floodwater flow through the bayou and away from Baton Rouge and New Orleans, where river levels have crested but show no signs of lowering any time soon.

Similar flooding has inundated Vicksburg, Miss., threatening thousands of Civil War-era graves, and Memphis, Tenn. Thousands of people have fled their homes, taking refuge with family and friends or in temporary shelters.

By: socialstudiesforkids.com

Cars, ships and buildings were swept away by a wall of water after the 8.9-magnitude tremor, which struck about 400km (250 miles) north-east of Tokyo.

A state of emergency has been declared at a nuclear power plant, where pressure has exceeded normal levels.

Officials say 350 people are dead and about 500 missing, but it is feared the final death toll will be much higher.

In one ward alone in Sendai, a port city in Miyagi prefecture, 200 to 300 bodies were found.

In the centre of Tokyo many people are spending the night in their offices. But thousands, perhaps millions, chose to walk home. Train services were suspended.

Even after the most violent earthquake anyone could remember the crowds were orderly and calm. The devastation is further to the north, along the Pacific coast.

There a tsunami triggered by the quake reached 10km (six miles) inland in places carrying houses, buildings, boats and cars with it. In the city of Sendai the police found up to 300 bodies in a single ward. Outside the city in a built-up area a fire blazed across several kilometres.

Japan’s ground self-defence forces have been deployed, and the government has asked the US military based in the country for help. The scale of destruction from the biggest quake ever recorded in Japan will become clear only at first light.

The quake was the fifth-largest in the world since 1900 and nearly 8,000 times stronger than the one which devastated Christchurch, New Zealand, last month, said scientists.

Thousands of people living near the Fukushima nuclear power plant have been ordered to evacuate.

Japanese nuclear officials said pressure inside a boiling water reactor at the plant was running much higher than normal after the cooling system failed.

Officials said they might need to deliberately release some radioactive steam to relieve pressure, but that there would be no health risk.

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton had earlier said the US Air Force had flown emergency coolant to the site.

But US officials later said no coolant had been handed over because the Japanese had decided to handle the situation themselves.

The UN’s nuclear agency said four nuclear power plants had shut down safely.

Measured at 8.9 by the US Geological Survey, it struck at 1446 local time (0546 GMT) at a depth of about 24km.
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The tsunami rolled across the Pacific at 800km/h (500mph) – as fast as a jetliner – before hitting Hawaii and the US West Coast, but there were no reports of major damage from those regions.

Thousands of people were ordered to evacuate coastal areas in the states of California, Oregon and Washington.

The biggest waves of more than 6-7ft (about 2m) were recorded near California’s Crescent City, said the Pacific Tsunami Warning Centre.

A tsunami warning extended across the Pacific to North and South America, where many other coastal regions were evacuated, but the alert was later lifted in most parts, including the Philippines, Australia and China.

Strong waves hit Japan’s Miyagi and Fukushima prefectures, damaging dozens of coastal communities.

A 10m wave struck Sendai, deluging farmland and sweeping cars across the airport’s runway. Fires broke out in the centre of the city.
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Japan’s NHK television showed a massive surge of debris-filled water reaching far inland, consuming houses, cars and ships.

Motorists could be seen trying to speed away from the wall of water.

In other developments:

* Four trains are missing along the coast, says Japan Railways; and a ship carrying 100 people was swept away
* Fire has engulfed swathes of the coast in Miyagi prefecture’s Kesennuma city, one-third of which is reportedly under water
* A major explosion hit a petrochemical plant in Sendai; further south a huge blaze swept an oil refinery in Ichihara city, Chiba prefecture
* Some 1,800 homes are reported to have been destroyed in the city of Minamisoma, Fukushima prefecture
* A dam burst in north-eastern Fukushima prefecture, sweeping away homes, Kyodo news agency reports
* At least 20 people were injured in Tokyo when the roof of a hall collapsed on to a graduation ceremony

In a televised address, Prime Minister Naoto Kan extended his sympathy to the victims of the disaster.

As aftershocks rattled the country, residents and workers in Tokyo rushed outside to gather in parks and open spaces.

Many people in the Japanese capital said they had never felt such a powerful earthquake.

In central Tokyo, a number of office workers are spending the night in their offices because the lifts have stopped working.

“This is the kind of earthquake that hits once every 100 years,” said restaurant worker Akira Tanaka.

Train services were suspended, stranding millions of commuters in the Japanese capital.

About four million homes in and around Tokyo suffered power cuts.

By: BBC News

Reminiscent of the recent protest movement in Egypt, tens of thousands of people have gathered in Pearl Square, the main square in Bahrain’s capital, Manama, to demand a more representative government. Despite the presence of a parliament, the crown prince currently has the power to dictate policies and make all political appointments. The prime minister, uncle to the crown prince, has been in his post for 40 years.

The crowds in Pearl Square and elsewhere across the small country are nowhere near as large as Egypt’s, in numbers, but Bahrain has only half a million citizens, so the proportion of people demonstrating in public compared to the overall population is sizable. The protesters range in age from young students — the lifeblood of Egypt’s recent protest movement — to retirees.

The protests have gone on for a week or so now, and the government’s initial response to crack down violently, firing shots of warning into a crowd and killing several people. Undeterred, the protesters have kept up their calls for reform, some of the calls more radical than others. Prominent opposition leaders are returning from exile to join in the protests. The government has said that it is willing to discuss reforms but not to fully remove itself from power.

Like Egypt, Bahrain has struggled economically since the protests began. International entities have lowered the country’s main credit ratings, and the wildly popular Bahrain Grand Prix (due to run on March 13) has been postponed. The Formula One race is the country’s largest international event and has brought in large sums of money since its beginning in 2004.

The main disagreement in Bahrain, though, is along religious lines. The royal dynasty and the government are very much Sunni Muslim. This is the case with a large part of the population as well. However, the majority of people living in Bahrain are Sunni Muslim.

Shias and Sunnis share some core beliefs but differ fundamentally on some key historical and theological details. The two groups trace their religious inheritance in different ways and worship in different ways. They largely oppose each other along religious lines, with cooperation to form governments relatively scarce. The number of Sunni Muslims is far greater than the number of Shia Muslims, yet many countries are ruled by Shia minorities through exactly the kind of dynasty that rules Bahrain.

By: socialstudiesforkids.com

The Supreme Council of the Armed Forces has given a group of civilian scholars and judges just 10 days to come up with concrete changes to the country’s constitution that would put in place a more representative government than the one that had supported former President Hosni Mubarak for 30 years. Tareq al-Bishri, a former head of the country’s administrative court, is leading the group. Among the extraordinarily wide powers that this group now wields are the ability to “amend all articles as it sees fit to guarantee democracy and the integrity of presidential and parliamentary elections,” among them the removal of the unlimited term of office for president and the direct path of law cases to military tribunals.

The military rulers outlined a six-month blueprint that immediately followed the constitutional reforms with a nationwide referendum and then ended with the already scheduled elections in September. Of significant interest on Tuesday was the announcement by the Muslim Brotherhood, long an opposition operation with some following but little power, that it would form a political party in preparation for the elections but would not submit a candidate for president. A lawmaker representing the group is on the council evaluating constitutional amendments.

Of growing concern to the ruling council is the continued scale of nationwide protests. Thousands of people still refuse to return to work, demonstrating in the streets and squares, and outside businesses in cities around the country. In the face of such protests, the central bank and stock exchange showed no signs of opening, as did many state-owned businesses, amoung them the country’s largest exporter of clothes, Arafa Holding. This would have been grim news, especially given a recent report saying that Egypt had lost $300 million a day since the protests began in earnest on January 25.

Egyptians’ success in toppling their government has emboldened protesters in other nearby countries, including Bahrain, Iran, and Yemen. Security forces in Iran and Yemen have actively engaged with protesters, resulting in violent clashes that have left some people dead. The largest of the protests, in Bahrain’s capital, numbered thousands of people and was more peaceful.

By: socialstudiesforkids.com

The usual big industry names had their usual big industry presentations at the American Interational Toy fair. Mattel, Hasbro, Toys R Us, and Lego were among the big names offering large displays of bright, shiny and new toys and games for children and adults alike.

Some manufacturers stuck to the tried-and-true approach but with a new twist, such as the Toys R Us offerings in conjunction with the Disney movie Cars. The movie is a few years old now (2006), but on the theory that it’s never too late to cash in on the movie’s timeless appeal to the relationship between kids and cars, Toys R Us has issued a group of vehicles, tracks, and playlets all made entirely of wood.

Keeping with the movie tie-ins, Mattel was showing off a line of toys to go with the movie The Green Lantern and Hasbro was doing its part to help promote the movie Thor.

On the new-idea side of things, Lego was showing off Ninjago, a line of toys that features ninjas battling against an evil lord. Along with the usual building blocks that Lego is famous for, the company is also rolling out a trading card game and an online game — illustrating the various stages of toy evolution for the past few decades.

Advanced software drives many of the new toys featured at the fair, including a video camera inside the Videoracer from Hot Wheels, and a “Sweet Talkin’ Ken” doll that says whatever its owner records on a built-in microphone.

In a move from new school to old school, Mattel was featuring a tabletop board game based on the hugely popular iPhone feature Angry Birds.

In all, organizers were expecting 30,000 people to mill around and view the offerings from more than 1,000 exhibitors.

By: socialstudiesforkids.com

The protests have largely been peaceful, although clashes between anti-government protestors and supporters of Mubarak have turned violent in recent days. Nearly 100 people have been killed, and more than a thousand people have been injured.

Mubarak has already said that he would not stand for re-election. Egypt’s every-six-years elections are due to take place in September.

When the protests began, Mubarak fired his government and named military men to the most important posts, including former intelligence chief Omar Suleiman as vice president. Mubarak also succeeded in shutting down the country’s cell phone networks and in turning off access to and from the country’s Internet sources.

Since then, the crowds in Cairo’s Tahrir Square have grown, swelling to nearly 1 million. Mubarak ordered in tanks to keep the peace, but army soldiers have not fired on protestors, even though they have defied a government curfew.

People have gathered in similar protests in Alexandria, Suez, and other Egyptian cities, as well as in cities in other countries around the world.

The protests began in earnest in the wake of unprecedented political unrest and governmental change in northern Africa. The people of southern Sudan voted to divide their country in two; in the north, protestors have been gathered in the country’s capital, Khartoum, for the removal of the president, Omar Hassan al-Bashir, in the wake of the genocide in Darfur.

The president of Tunisia, Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali, was forced from power by the sheer magnitude of protests in his country.

Other nearby countries experiencing similar unrest include Algeria and Jordan.

Leaders of many other countries, including U.S. President Barack Obama, have urged Mubarak to leave before September.

Source: socialstudiesforkids.com