News Headlines - 23 February 2021
▽Fukushima nuclear plant operator: Seismometers were broken
The operator of the wrecked Fukushima nuclear power plant said Monday that two seismometers at one of its three melted reactors have been out of order since last year and did not collect data when a powerful earthquake struck the area earlier this month... The malfunctioning seismometers surfaced during a Nuclear Regulation Authority meeting on Monday to discuss new damage at the plant resulting from a magnitude 7.3 quake that struck the region on Feb. 13.
▽Mekong's falling water level riles China's downstream neighbors - Nikkei Asia
China's water relations with Southeast Asian neighbors are under strain after Beijing held up the Mekong River's flow at one of its large dams upstream, precipitating a sudden drop in volume for downstream countries that share the region's longest body of water... An estimated 60 million people along the lower Mekong depend on the river's flow for their livelihood. Communities in Thailand, Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam were caught off guard by Beijing's move, worsening their plight in the midst of the annual dry season.
Apainting of a kangaroo in Western Australia is the oldest known rock art in the country, according to scientists, who say radiocarbon-dating analysis shows it was created more than 17,000 years ago.
The kangaroo depiction was among a number of rock paintings first recorded by researchers in the 1990s in the Kimberley region, which holds one of the world's largest collections of indigenous rock art. Scientists at several universities and research agencies worked with local indigenous leaders to analyze the paintings, with their findings published Monday in the journal Nature Human Behaviour.
▽Czech freediver sets world record in under-ice swim | DW
David Vencl swam 80.9 meters (265 feet) holding his breath on Tuesday, a record distance for under-ice swimming.
Vencl took 1 minute, 35 seconds for the record at a lake in Lahost in the northern Czech Republic. The 38-year-old dropped into the water through a hole that was cut in the one-foot-thick ice before he emerged from another.
▽Malcolm X family demands reopening of murder investigation - BBC News
The daughters of assassinated US black civil rights leader Malcolm X have requested that the murder investigation be reopened in light of new evidence.
They cite a deathbed letter from a man who was a policeman at the time of the 1965 killing, alleging New York police and the FBI conspired in the murder.
Raymond Wood wrote his responsibility was to ensure Malcolm X's security team were arrested days before he was shot dead in Manhattan, his family says.
