The Yomiuri Shimbun newspaper is reporting that the Japanese government is close to settling on the F-35 Lightning as the much-needed replacement for its F-15 fighter. That’s exceptionally good news for a program that’s both key to preserving American military preeminence and at a lot of risk due to prospective deep defense budget cuts. Indeed, Japan’s decision may actually complicate the Pentagon’s challenges in meeting the targets laid out by the Budget Control Act, Obama administration po
In Western Europe, Fukushima’s power reactor disaster has produced a loud round of anti-nuclear power reactions. Germany says it will phase out atomic power by 2022, and the Swiss insist they will shutter their reactor fleet by 2034.
Japanese authorities on Tuesday raised the severity rating of the nuclear crisis at the Fukushima Daiichi power plant to the highest level on an international scale, on a par with the 1986 Chernobyl disaster.
The situation with the Japanese nuclear reactors, which were badly damaged as a result of the devastating 9.0 earthquake earlier this month, seems to be getting worse. The New York Times reports:
According to CNN, "Japan's national police say 8,928 people are confirmed dead after a 9.0-magnitude earthquake and devastating tsunami March 11 pulverized entire towns, leaving broken wood beams and massive piles of rubble where organized neighborhoods once stood."
The disaster at Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, and the upheavals in the Middle East are the sort of events that send economists back to their forecasters’ drawing boards. As usual, there is a tendency to confuse the long-run and the short-run, and to blame developments that were due to occur anyhow on the most recent events.
Hundreds have already been confirmed dead, following the earthquake that struck Japan. The quake measured an 8.9 on the Richter scale. The Wall Street Journal reports:
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