Sanaa, April 16
Thousands of Yemeni women protested in Sanaa and other cities on today, enraged by President Ali Abdullah Saleh's remarks it was against Islam for women to join men in the demonstrations aimed at toppling him.

The women, many clad in black Islamic dress with full face veils, said their role in protests was religiously sound and called on the President to step down in line with nearly three months of demonstrations demanding his ouster.

"It seems that President Saleh failed in all his efforts to employ tribes and security to strike at those seeking his exit, and so he resorted to using religion, especially after he saw that thousands of women were taking part in protests," said Samia al-Aghbari, a leader in the protest movement.

Saleh, who has warned of civil war and the break-up of Yemen if he is forced out before organising an orderly transition, urged the opposition on Friday to reconsider their refusal to join talks to resolve the crisis in the fractious state.

But he also struck a defiant tone, calling the opposition liars and bandits, and appealing to religious sensitivities in the conservative Muslim country by criticising the mixing of unrelated men and women among Sanaa protesters. — Reuters

Tokyo/Fukushima, April 16
Japanese engineers began dumping zeolite mineral to check sea water contamination near the crippled Fukushima nuclear plant, even as desperate efforts were launched today to combat the surge in the level of highly radioactive water in the reactor’s tunnel.

As efforts continued to stabilise the plant, an aftershock of 5.9 magnitude struck the Kanto region in eastern Japan today at 11:19 am local time and was centred about 79 km below the ground in southern Ibaraki prefecture, according to the country’s Meteorological Agency.

There were no initial reports of damage from the tremor, which shook buildings in Tokyo as well, more than a month after a monster magnitude-9 quake and tsunami left nearly 30,000 people dead or unaccounted for.

Meanwhile, Tokyo Electric Power Company, the operator of the troubled plant has begun dropping sandbags containing the mineral zeolite into the sea near the plant’s water intakes. Zeolite is widely used to absorb contaminating materials. TEPCO hopes it will absorb toxic materials, including cesium-137, which has a half-life of 30 years, the NHK news reported.

It plans to drop in 10 sandbags each containing 100 kg of zeolite. It will raise the bags at regular intervals to check the radiation levels on their surfaces. The 5.9 quake came hours after the government’s nuclear safety agency asked operators of 13 nuclear plants across the country to step up their preparation to avoid outages and other damage to the facilities in the event of an earthquake.

Last month’s twin disaster has caused massive damage to the Fukushima nuclear plant, which continues to leak high radiation into the air and sea.

TEPCO said the level of highly radioactive water in a tunnel of the No.2 reactor has been rising, national broadcaster NHK reported.

Contaminated water in the plant’s facilities is hampering efforts to restore reactor cooling systems. Leakages of such water into the sea and the ground are also raising concern.

On TEPCO’s announcement that it would provide $12,000 in provisional compensation to each of 50,000 affected households near the plant, some of the evacuees said the firm should have made the decision earlier. — PTI

BRIEFLY

Fresh claims of sexual abuse embroil Australian military
Melbourne: A class action lawsuit by an ex-recruit who claims he was beaten and raped while serving in the Navy threatens to open hundreds of cases of abuse in the scandal-hit Australian defence forces. South Australian police detectives are investigating claims made by navy junior recruit Neill Leslie Batten that he was subjected to sickening assaults at the HMAS Leeuwin training establishment in Western Australia in 1971, The Australian newspaper reported. — PTI

5 foreign troops killed in Afghan blast
Jalalabad: Five international troops and four Afghan soldiers died in a suicide attack claimed by the Taliban at the Afghan army's headquarters in the war-torn country's east, officials said. The attack is the worst single incident since December against foreign forces in Afghanistan, and comes amid a wave of suicide attacks on security targets, three months before foreign forces are to start a limited pullback. — AFP