The Star Online: World Updates
The Star Online: World Updates |
- South Korea warns of rolling power blackouts after nuclear closures
- Japan finance minister to visit Seoul next week amid diplomatic tensions
- Egypt PM to visit Gaza in support of Hamas against Israel
| South Korea warns of rolling power blackouts after nuclear closures Posted: 15 Nov 2012 08:40 PM PST SEOUL (Reuters) - South Korea may have to bring in rolling power blackouts this winter after the closure of nuclear plants for safety checks means the electricity network will have less than a third of normal reserve capacity. Asia's fourth-largest economy said it plans to add 4,000 megawatts (MW) of power supply capacity through savings and new plants in a bid to head off potential blackouts. The nuclear problems have increased the risk of power shortages in the harsh Korean winter after the closure of two reactors to replace parts with fake certificates and an extended shutdown of another reactor where microscopic cracks were found. The northeast Asian country is heavily dependent on oil, gas and coal imports, but usually supplies about a third of its electricity from nuclear power generation from its 23 reactors. Economy minister Hong Suk-woo said it remained uncertain whether reactors would be restarted in December after parts were replaced because the approval of the regulator was necessary, as well as support from residents. "This winter will be very, very difficult for us to cope with," he said, when asked what would happens if reactors did not restart as planned in December Under the government's plans, an additional 1,270 MW of power capacity would come from private and public power generators, a statement from the economy ministry said. A further 3,000 MW is targeted from power savings including less heating at firms and public places, switching off neon lights and even a campaign to wear thermal underwear. Without this, South Korea's excess generating capacity in January is forecast at 1,270 MW, or 28 percent of the margin that the government aims for to guarantee supplies, the statement said. With little spare capacity, the grid would be vulnerable to power outages. If two 1,000-MW nuclear reactors fail to restart by the end December, the margin will drop sharply. "It is important that no more power plants have outages from now on," said an economy ministry source, declining to be named. BUYING MORE FUEL South Korea would have to conduct rolling blackouts in the public sector if excess power generating capacity falls below 2,000 MW, the ministry said. If the margin goes down below 1,000 MW, nationwide rolling blackouts could occur, a ministry source said, similar to what happened in September of last year when there was maintenance during a period when demand unexpectedly spiked due to hot weather. The economy ministry said that shortage of power supply was expected to improve from 2014 as a combined 7,000 MW from power plants would be added to a total of more than 80,000 MW of power generating capacity by the end of 2013. Minister Hong said South Korea may need to buy more fuel on spot markets to provide extra power. "We would buy on the spot markets if necessary. At the moment we don't need to do as there are enough stocks." South Korea said this week it lost two December LNG shipments from Indonesia after a fire at a terminal there. The cancelled volume was equivalent to 0.3 percent of South Korea's natural gas consumption of 35.41 million tonnes of LNG equivalent, it said. South Korea is the world's second-largest LNG importer after Japan and its stocks stand at more than 80 percent of storage capacity. Spot LNG prices are still far below the peak of $18 per million British Thermal Units (mmBtu) seen earlier this year caused by the closure of all of Japan's nuclear capacity over safety concerns after the Fukushima disaster. (Additional reporting by Jane Chung, Eunhye Shin in Seoul, and Rebekah Kebede in Perth; Editing by Ed Davies) Copyright © 2012 Reuters | ||
| Japan finance minister to visit Seoul next week amid diplomatic tensions Posted: 15 Nov 2012 07:01 PM PST TOKYO (Reuters) - Japanese Finance Minister Koriki Jojima said on Friday he would visit Seoul on November 24 to meet with his South Korean counterpart at a finance dialogue, in a sign of some thawing in bilateral relations amid tensions over a territorial dispute. The dialogue, the fifth of its kind, marks the first fully-fledged official meeting between the two Asian neighbours since the territorial spat flared up in the summer. Talks had been postponed since Jojima's predecessor Jun Azumi cancelled his trip to Seoul in August when President Lee Myung-bak's visit to the islands that both countries claim sovereignty over sparked the political row. South Korea controls the islands, known as Dokdo in Korean and Takeshima in Japanese, equidistant from the mainlands of both countries. Japan is also embroiled in a dispute with China over a different group of islands in the East China Sea. Jojima said he would discuss Europe's problems, emerging market economies as well as the bilateral economic issues with South Korean Finance Minister Bahk Jae-wan during his visit. He shrugged off some doubt about the significance of the meeting as it comes just before elections in both countries due next month, which may result in a change of government. "Even if a change of government occurs, it is still meaningful to carry out the dialogue under the current administration," he told reporters. Japan is set to dissolve parliament's lower house on Friday for a December 16 election that is likely to return the long-dominant Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) to power with a conservative former prime minister at the helm. Tokyo and Seoul agreed last month not to renew a $57 billion currency swap facility designed to shield their economies from financial crisis, a decision they said was based on economic grounds and unrelated to the territorial dispute. But Japan is still considering purchasing South Korean government bonds to promote bilateral economic cooperation. (Reporting by Tetsushi Kajimoto; Editing by Jacqueline Wong) Copyright © 2012 Reuters | ||
| Egypt PM to visit Gaza in support of Hamas against Israel Posted: 15 Nov 2012 06:48 PM PST GAZA (Reuters) - Egypt's prime minister prepared to visit the Gaza Strip on Friday in an unprecedented display of solidarity with Hamas militants embroiled in a new escalation of conflict with Israel that risks spiralling into all-out war.
Two rockets from Gaza crashed near Tel Aviv in the first such attack on Israel's commercial capital in 20 years. One fell into the Mediterranean Sea and the other in an uninhabited part of one of the Tel Aviv suburbs south of the city. Two days of Israeli air strikes have killed 19 Palestinians, including seven militants and 12 civilians, among them six children and a pregnant woman. A Hamas rocket killed three Israelis in the town of Kiryat Malachi on Thursday morning. The latest upsurge in the long-running conflict came on Wednesday when Israel killed Hamas' military mastermind, Ahmed Al-Jaabari, in a precision air strike on his car. Israel then began shelling the coastal enclave from land, air and sea. Israel says its offensive responded to increasing missile salvoes from Gaza. Its bombing has not yet reached the saturation level seen before it last invaded Gaza in 2008, but Israeli officials have said a ground assault remains possible. The Gaza conflagration has stoked the flames of a Middle East ablaze with two years of Arab popular revolution and a civil war in Syria that threatens to spread farther afield. Israeli warplanes bombed targets in and around Gaza City, rattling tall buildings. In a hint of escalation, the spokesman for Israel's military said it had received the green light to call in up to 30,000 reserve troops. Egypt's new Islamist president, Mohamed Mursi, viewed by Hamas as a protector, led a chorus of denunciation of the Israeli strikes by allies of the Palestinians. Mursi's prime minister, Hisham Kandil, is to visit Gaza on Friday with other Egyptian officials in a show of support for the enclave, an Egyptian Cabinet official said. Israel promised the delegation would come to no harm. An Egyptian government source, speaking on condition of anonymity, said officials accompanying Kandil would explore the possibility of brokering a ceasefire. Mursi faces domestic pressure to act tough. But Egypt gets $1.3 billion a year in U.S. military aid and looks to Washington for help with its ailing economy, constraining Mursi despite his need to show Egyptians that his policies differ from those of his U.S.-backed predecessor, Hosni Mubarak. TEL AVIV TARGETED Air raid sirens sent residents running for shelter in Tel Aviv, a Mediterranean city that has not been hit by a rocket since the 1991 Gulf War, when it was targeted by Saddam Hussein's Iraq. The Tel Aviv metropolitan area is home to more than 3 million people, more than 40 percent of Israel's population. "This escalation will exact a price that the other side will have to pay," Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak said in a television broadcast shortly after the strike. But an Israeli Cabinet statement on Wednesday spoke only of "improving" national security - acknowledgement that the Jewish state had no illusions about crushing the militants once and for all. Speaking at the same time in Gaza, Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh urged Egypt to do more to help the Palestinians. "We call upon the brothers in Egypt to take the measures that will deter this enemy," the Hamas prime minister said. The resurgent conflict will be the biggest test yet of Mursi's commitment to Egypt's 1979 peace treaty with Israel, which the West views as the bedrock of Middle East peace. Cairo recalled its ambassador from Israel on Wednesday. Israel's ambassador left Cairo on what was called a routine home visit. Israel said its embassy would remain open. The Muslim Brotherhood, which brought Mursi to power in an election after the downfall of Mubarak, has called for a "Day of Rage" in Arab capitals on Friday. The Brotherhood is seen as the spiritual mentor of Hamas. The Israeli army said 300 targets were hit in Gaza, including more than 130 militant rocket launchers. It said more than 270 rockets had struck Israel since the start of the operation, with its Iron Dome interceptor system shooting down more than 130 rockets bound for residential areas. Expecting days or more of fighting and almost inevitable civilian casualties, Israeli warplanes dropped leaflets in Gaza advising residents to stay away from Hamas and other militants. DIPLOMATIC EFFORTS U.N. diplomats said Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon would head to Israel and Egypt next week to try to mediate a ceasefire, although they gave no further details. The United States has asked countries that have contact with Hamas to urge the Islamist movement to stop its recent rocket attacks from Gaza, a White House adviser said. "We've ... urged those that have a degree of influence with Hamas, such as Turkey and Egypt and some of our European partners, to use that influence to urge Hamas to de-escalate," Ben Rhodes, deputy national security adviser, said in a conference call with reporters. U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said in an interview with Voice of America: "I understand the reasons Israel is doing what they're doing. They've been the target of missiles coming in from Gaza..." He added, "Our hope is that in striking back that they can minimize the civilian deaths that are likely to occur." French President Francois Hollande began talks with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other world leaders in an attempt to avert an escalation of violence in the Gaza Strip, Prime Minister Jean-Francois Ayrault said. British Prime Minister David Cameron spoke to Netanyahu too, saying Hamas bore the principal responsibility for the crisis. Israel's sworn enemy Iran, which supports and arms Hamas, condemned the Israeli offensive as "organised terrorism." Lebanon's Iranian-backed Shi'ite Muslim militia Hezbollah, which has its own rockets aimed at the Jewish state, denounced strikes on Gaza as "criminal aggression," but held its fire. The Organisation of Islamic Cooperation condemned Israel's action. (Additional reporting by Louis Charbonneau at the United Nations and Phil Stewart in Bangkok; Writing by Ori Lewis in Jerusalem, Editing by Mark Heinrich, Todd Eastham and Peter Cooney)
Copyright © 2012 Reuters |
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