Washington, DC, United States (AHN) – The uncertainty of another Chernobyl-style nuclear accident triggered by the magnitude 8.9 earthquake and subsequent tsunami that devastated Japan Friday has nations taking a second look at the safety of nuclear energy to power homes and industry.

American lawmakers are considering placing a hold on all nuclear power program development until the world fully understands the impact of what happened in Japan, according to a U.S. senator.

Prior to the Fukushima plant accident, nuclear power had gained more acceptance among nations despite questions over its safety.

In Washington, President Barack Obama has sought billions of dollars of government insurance as new nuclear plant constructions are in the pipeline after the U.S. deemed nuclear power a major component of future American energy policy.

A White House spokesman said the federal government is committed to learning from the Fukushima disaster and ensuring nuclear energy is produced safely and responsibly in the U.S., but said Obama believes meeting energy needs means relying on a set of energy sources, nuclear power still included.

Jason Grumet, president of the Bipartisan Policy Center, added that while it is too early to reach a conclusion on what happened in Japan, safety of nuclear power will be high on the agenda for the coming months. But Grumet stressed a climate solution based on existing technology is not possible without heavier reliance on nuclear power.

In Ottawa, the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission said Sunday that the country’s nuclear reactors are designed to meet any potential threat from earthquakes because of their location on more stable ground.

However, industry experts agreed that a Japanese meltdown will once more raise safety fears in North America. A nuclear engineering expert warned that a prolonged crisis in Japan could fuel more public opposition to several nuclear projects in Canada, including the sale by the Atomic Energy of Canada Limited of two new reactors to Ontario.

A Greenpeace anti-nuclear activist said that despite Canada’s boast of power plants designed to withstand a tremor, every design has safety flaws, particularly older facilities that were built under less stringent standards.

In the Philippines – which mothballed the Bataan Nuclear Power Plant in the mid-1980s – some legislators said the Fukushima accident is a strong argument against the activation of the BNPP. The Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines said what happened in Japan proved that the church leaders were right in opposing plans to revive the power plant.

The House Committee on Energy is poised to discuss a proposal from the representative of the province of Pangasinan to hold a validation process to determine if the Philippines should pursue nuclear power. The province’s board backed in 2010 a proposal for Pangasinan to host two nuclear power plants.

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Ottawa, Ontario, Canada (AHN) – While many government purchases are often overpriced because of corrupt practices, Canada’s planned purchase of F-35 fighter jets is underpriced by $12 billion. However, the opposition is using the underpricing to hit the Harper government.

Ottawa estimates the total cost of purchasing the stealth fighters over 30 years will be only $9 billion, plus another $7 billion spread over 20 years for maintenance. However, Parliamentary Budget Officer Kevin Page reckoned the total cost would actually reach almost $30 billion.

Page attributed the discrepancy to the Department of Defense’s failure to include cost of set-up and logistics and to correctly estimate amounts for maintenance, and failure to calculate lifespan to 30 years for maintenance.

The Liberal Party, seizing Page’s report as an opportunity to hit the Tories, said the party would cancel the F-35 contract if they won the next election. The Liberals had been gearing to trigger a spring election by planning to reject the Conservative Party’s federal budget proposal and possibly pushing for a no-confidence motion because of the Tories’ alleged breach of House ethics.

The Liberals said the wrong estimates of the F-35 jets price is another proof that the Tories often mislead Canadians and Parliament, following two similar accusations over an alleged doctored report by International Cooperation Minister Bev Oda and non-disclosure of details of corporate tax rate cuts.

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Boston, MA, United States (AHN) – In Massachusetts, a state which has a statewide healthcare law that was the model for the federal law pushed by the Obama administration, the rate of personal bankruptcies caused by medical bills actually rose since the law was enacted in 2006.

Both the Massachusetts and federal healthcare laws require people to buy health insurance. When President Barack Obama was promoting the bill in Congress, he said it was aimed at significantly reducing medical bankruptcies nationwide.

But if Massachusetts is a harbinger, this may not happen.

Researchers with City University of New York and Ohio University said in their report that the actual number of medical bankruptcies in Massachusetts rose from 7,504 in 2007 to 10,093 in 2009.

The authors say a main reason bankruptcies increased after the Massachusetts law went into effect was because health costs continued to rise.

“High premium costs and gaps in coverage – co-payments, deductibles and uncovered services – often left insured families liable for substantial out-of-pocket costs. None of that changed. For example, under Massachusetts’ reform, the least expensive individual coverage available to a 56-year-old Bostonian carries a premium of $5,616, a deductible of $2,000, and covers only 80 percent of the next $15,000 in costs for covered services,” the authors wrote.

The study’s lead author, Dr. David Himmelstein, who was an associate professor at Harvard when he conducted the study, said Massachusetts’ health reform takes many uninsured and makes them “underinsured. Typically giving them a skimpy, defective private policy that’s like an umbrella that melts in the rain: the protection is not there when you need it.”

A report on the study is published this week in the American Journal of Medicine.

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Santa Cruz, CA, United States (AHN) – The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission and Health Canada, in cooperation with the firm named below, today announced a voluntary recall of the following consumer product. Consumers should stop using recalled products immediately unless otherwise instructed. It is illegal to resell or attempt to resell a recalled consumer product.

Name of Product: OBall Links & Mini Rattles™

Units: About 14,000 in the United States and 14,000 in Canada

Importer: Rhino Toys Inc., of Santa Cruz, Calif.

Hazard: The hard plastic C-links on both ends of the rattles’ soft plastic chain can break, posing a choking hazard to young children.

Incidents/Injuries: Rhino Toys has received one report of a broken C-link. No injuries have been reported.

Description: This recall involves infant rattles called OBall Links & Mini Rattles™. The soft plastic OBall is 2 1/2 inches in diameter and has beads inside a small plastic bubble that make the rattle sound. The OBall is attached to a 7 1/2 inch soft plastic chain by C-shaped plastic links on both ends. “OBall” is stamped into the top of the plastic chain.

Sold at: Toys R Us and other specialty toy stores nationwide from April 2010 through December 2010 for about $8.

Manufactured in: China

Remedy: Consumers should immediately take the recalled rattle away from children and contact Rhino Toys to receive a full refund.

Consumer Contact: For additional information, contact Rhino Toys toll-free at (888) 250-9969 between 9 a.m. and 3 p.m. PT Monday through Friday or visit the firm’s website at www.rhinotoys.com

Note: Health Canada’s press release is available at http://cpsr-rspc.hc-sc.gc.ca/PR-RP/recall-retrait-eng.jsp?re_id=1288

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D.C., Washington, United States (AHN) – The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filed Tuesday charges against Rajat Gupta, a former director of American bank Goldman Sachs, for providing illegal insider information.

The SEC said Gupta passed illegal tips about Goldman Sachs to hedge fund billionaire Raj Rajaratnam, the founder of the Galleon Group who is scheduled to be tried next week for insider trading charges.

Gupta passed information about Goldman Sachs’s and Procter & Gamble’s earnings and Warren Buffett’s $5 billion investment in Goldman in 2008. Gupta was also a board member of Procter & Gamble, but resigned on Tuesday.

The charges against Gupta is part of the widening probe on insider trading initiated by the SEC against lawyers, consultants, accountants, corporate insiders and hedge fund managers.

The 62-year old Gupta, a senior executive at McKinsey & Company, is the most prominent business executive charged by the SEC. In the last 18 months, federal prosecutors in Manhattan have filed insider trading charges against 46 people, but most of them are junior traders, lawyers or midlevel executives.

The SEC said Rajaratnam used tips provided by Gupta to pocket more than $18 million of investment gains or avoided losses. The regulator said Gupta betrayed the highest trust given to him by leading public companies by disclosing their most sensitive and valuable secrets.

The SEC said Gupta called Rajaratnam right after Goldman Sachs directors met and approved a $5 billion infusion by Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway in September 2008. Rajaratnam then ordered Galleon funds to purchase Goldman shares and sold the stocks at a profit a day after the Berkshire investment was announced.

Gupta’s lawyer, Gary Naftalis, said the SEC charges were baseless. Naftalis said Gupta did nothing wrong and stands by his 40-year record of ethical conduct, integrity and commitment to keeping clients’ confidence.

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New Market, Virginia, United States (AHN) – New Market Poultry, a New Market, Va., establishment, is recalling approximately 3,339 pounds of ice-packed, whole chicken products that may be adulterated due to leaking cooler condensate, the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) announced today.

The problem was identified Feb. 24, 2011 when the company discovered product under USDA retention had been shipped.

On Feb. 23, 2011 FSIS personnel observed standing water with unidentified black specks pooling on the box lids of the packed chickens stored in a company cooler. The palletized boxes, which contain drainage holes, were retained by FSIS and should not have been shipped.

The products subject to recall include:

Approx. 60-pound boxes of “New Market Poultry 2007, LLC, EVISCERATED POULTRY, For Further Processing Only, Some Parts Missing” bearing case code of “05412.”

Each box bears the establishment number “P-4602A” inside the USDA mark of inspection.

The chicken products were produced on Feb. 23, 2011 and inadvertently shipped the same day to six distribution centers in the Bronx, Brooklyn and Farmington, N.Y.

FSIS has not received any consumer complaints or reports of illness at this time. Anyone concerned about an illness from consumption of this product should contact a healthcare provider.

FSIS routinely conducts recall effectiveness checks to verify recalling firms notify their customers of the recall and that steps are taken to make certain that the product is no longer available to consumers.

Consumers and media with questions about the recall should contact the company’s General Manager, David Whitehouse at (540) 740-4260.

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New York, NY, United States (AHN) – Madoff trustee Irving Picard is sparing no one in getting back funds on behalf of victims of hedge fund operator Bernard Madoff.

On Wednesday, Picard filed a lawsuit against David Becker, the general counsel of the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Becker is the executor of his mother’s estate, which Picard charged with earning over $1.54 million in fictitious profits from the Madoff Ponzi scheme.

The SEC lawyer’s mother, Dorothy Becker, died in 2004 with a reported balance of over $2 million in a Madoff account, based on court filings. Becker and his two brothers closed the account in 2005 and even withdrew more money than what was deposited by their mother in the Madoff account.

Becker, through an SEC spokesman, said he was not involved with his parents’ financial affairs and denied knowledge of any investment by his mother in a Madoff account until her demise in 2004. Becker said he will consult with a legal counsel regarding the lawsuit filed by Picard.

Becker was SEC deputy general counsel from 1998 to 2002. He returned to SEC in February 2009 as general counsel and senior adviser to Chairman Mary Schapiro. Becker, however, announced plans to return to the private sector by the end of this month.

At the time he took care of his mother’s estate, Becker was a partner at the Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton. But when he returned to SEC, Becker informed the agency of the Madoff link of his mother’s estate, according to reports.

Aside from Becker, Picard has filed lawsuits against major U.S. and foreign banks, including JPMorgan Chase, for their complicity in the Ponzi scheme of Madoff. Picard has recovered so far almost $10 billion of about $20 billion investors lost in the scheme.

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Palo Alto, CA, United States (AHN) – Facebook has added “Civil Unions” and “Domestic Partnerships” to its relationship status options. The move on Thursday gives gay and lesbian couples the option to declare themselves “in a civil union” or “domestic partnership,” and is viewed as a victory for same-sex couples.

According to Facebook, “this has been a highly requested feature from users. We want to provide options for people to genuinely and authentically reflect their relationships on Facebook.”

Effective immediately, Facebook users in the U.S. can choose relationship options of single “In a relationship,” engaged, married, “It’s complicated,” “In an open relationship,” widowed, separated and divorced.

“Today, Facebook sent a clear message in support of gay and lesbian and couples to users across the globe,” said Jarrett Barrios, president of the Gay and Lesbian Alliance against Defamation. “As public support for marriage equality continues to grow, we will continue to work for the day when all couples have the opportunity to marry and have their relationship recognized by their community, both online and off.”

According to Barrios, GLAAD was involved in the efforts to add the status option.

The rollout of the new options is slated to next be unveiled in Canada, United Kingdom, France and Australia followed by countries where same sex marriages are legal and recognized.

Facebook has over 600 million users.

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Toronto, Ontario, Canada (AHN) – Another Canadian youth is apparently taking the same route toward international stardom as Canadian teen star Justin Bieber through social networking portal YouTube.

Former American Idol judge Simon Cowell, a major influence in the music industry, has noticed 10-year Heather Russell and signed her up on his record label.

Cowell learned about Russell from a former Canadian Idol judge Zack Werner, who told Cowell of Russell’s YouTube viral video posted by the girl’s parents. The videos had more than 250,000 hits. It includes Russell singing her own song “Every Step of the Way” with her father, James Russell, on the guitar.

Also helping the upcoming singer is Rob Fusan, the producer who helped launch Lady Gaga.

Her musicality is an influence from both her parents. The father was a former youth symphony member and part of the band Acosta Russell, and her mother Monica Cidade is the vocal coach of the Toronto Amateur Singing Contest.

Like Bieber who is scouting for a house is Los Angeles, Heather and her family are preparing to relocate to LA from Toronto after she signed the contract with Cowell.

The 16-year old Bieber from Startford, Ontario, was discovered by U.S. music promoter Scooter Braun, who saw the Canadian teen’s videos in YouTube. It was also the launch pad for Filipina teen Charice Pempengco, who was noticed by Ellen DeGeneres and Oprah Winfrey and now has a recurring role in the second season of hit TV series Glee.

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London, England, United Kingdom (AHN) – British Prime Minister David Cameron has ordered local councils to cut their pay instead of services that support charities. Cameron made the command Monday at the relaunch of the Big Society concept in which people would be given more responsibility for public services and their communities.

Cameron stressed that the Big Society is as important as reducing the government deficit. However, Sir Stephen Bubb, chief executive of the Association of Voluntary Organizations, warned Cameron that his Big Society vision is under threat due to the coalition government’s cuts in public spending.

Over 220 town hall executives have a salary higher than Cameron’s $213,750 (GBP 142,500) pay last year, while at least 1,000 other council officials got more than $150,000 (GBP 100,000), according to a survey released Monday.

Cameron insisted executive pay should be reduced ahead of cuts in budgets for voluntary bodies and charities.

The prime minister admitted the austerity measures it put in place are unpopular. The Labour Party charged that the Big Society concept is just public service cuts in disguise.

The funding cuts have caused Labour councils to reduce 50 percent more posts than Conservative authorities. Labour authorities have issued an average of 745 jobs “at risk” notifications, while the Tories issued 498 and Liberal Democratic councils 414.

The coalition government has accused Labour councils of deliberately making larger cuts for political reasons. Aside from job cuts, overall spending power of Labor councils has been reduced by 7 percent, the LibDems by 6 percent and the Tories 5 percent.

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