Food Contamination: The Last Thing Japan Needed

In recent years, Japan has languished on many fronts. Its economy has been weak, its politics muddled and its birth rate declining.

But there’s one area where Japan has forged ahead: food. Boasting dining options that offer that rare combination of healthfulness and tastiness — as well as the odd comfort-food special — Japanese cuisine has grown in international stature and influence.

So if there’s one thing Japan doesn’t need in the wake of the disastrous combination of the March 11 earthquake and tsunami and the ensuing nuclear drama, it’s problems with its food industry. But those seem a distinct possibility following Saturday’s announcement by the government that milk and spinach bearing radioactive particles well above normal limits — the first-ever such discovery in Japan — have been found in the broad area around the troubled Fukushima prefecture nuclear complex.

Quick Read: Latest Japan News at a Glance

NUCLEAR POWER PLANT STATUS

The Japan Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency said electricity from the power grid will be restored to reactors 1 and 2 at the stricken Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power station in stages starting Sunday morning.

Last week’s earthquake and tsunami left the reactors and waste-fuel storage pools without electricity to power their cooling systems, putting the fuel at risk of overheating and releasing radiation.

Asia Today: Will Japan’s Economy Recover?

Last week’s earthquake and tsunami in Japan, in addition to killing thousands of people and causing tens of billions of dollars in damage, has seriously disrupted the world’s third-largest economy. WSJ’s Jake Lee and Simon Wong, regional economist at Standard Chartered, discuss.

Video: A Thousand Cranes for Japan

Japanese moms in New York City came together in Union Square after one started a local relief movement on Facebook. WSJ’s Andy Jordan reports on how they are making a thousand origami paper cranes as a symbol of their support for Japanese earthquake and tsunami victims.

Radioactive Isotope Detected in California

Quick Read: Latest Japan News at a Glance

NUCLEAR POWER PLANT STATUS

Japan continues to battle to cool reactors at the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, conditions which an International Atomic Energy Agency official said Friday were “moving to a stable, non-changing situation, which is positive.”

Over the weekend, workers are expected to keep trying to use helicopters and fire trucks to deliver water to the site, in the hope of cooling overheating fuel. They will also try to attach power lines to the reactors in order to restart water pumps.

If successful, those steps could forestall the nuclear fuel from overheating and then releasing radiation.

Japan’s fire department will resume operations to pour water into pools storing spent fuel rods from 0430 GMT, Kyodo news service reported.

Japan’s nuclear safety agency said it expects to restore power to reactors No. 1 and 2 Saturday, and to reactors No. 3 and 4 on Sunday.

This is even as the country continues to be hit by aftershocks Saturday, more than one week after the massive magnitude-9.0 earthquake that triggered a devastating tsunami.

Earthquake Another Blow to Students’ Job Market

The March 11 earthquake’s grim impact on Japan is only too well known, with TV images of destruction wrought by the tsunami.

Still being assessed is exactly how much it will undermine Japan’s economy. But fearing the worst in the short term are the country’s high-school and college graduates, with job-hunting becoming that much harder.

The latest job report released Friday by Japan’s Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare said the percentage of college and high-school graduates who found work dropped 2.6 points to 77.4% in February, the lowest since the government started compiling the statistics in 1996. Some fear that the earthquake’s aftermath will further squeeze the job market.

“I canceled all interviews with companies in Tokyo because the train services are cut,” said Kenji Kakishima, a senior at Sanno Noritsu University. “I simply didn’t have access to Tokyo.”

Thailand Braces for Tsunami, Then Cold Snap

First it was worries about tsunamis. Then it was a panic over radioactive plumes draping across Asia. Now some people in Thailand are pinning another cross-border panic on Japan’s earthquake: Bangkok’s unseasonably cold temperatures.

Thailand’s capital should be sweltering in sauna-like temperatures of 86 degrees Fahrenheit or more (30 degrees Celsius and up) round about now. In a few weeks the country is due to celebrate its traditional new year with raucous water-pistol fights and elaborate ceremonies to bring cooler temperatures.

The problem, though, is that the colder weather has already come. Day-time temperatures have struggled to reach a meager 64 degrees Fahrenheit (18 degrees Celsius) over the past couple days – and many here blame Japan’s massive, 9.0-on-the-Richter-scale temblor in the latest outbreak of earthquake-related paranoia to grip Asia.

Quick Read: Latest Japan News at a Glance

The latest news from Japan at a glance:

NUCLEAR AGENCY: FUKUSHIMA AS BAD AS THREE MILE ISLAND

The accident at the Fukushima plant now ranks alongside the 1979 accident at Three Mile Island in terms of scale, Japan’s nuclear-safety agency said Friday. The agency raised the accident rating to level five from four after considering the suspected extent of damage to fuel at the plant’s reactors.

The Japanese Self Defense Force finished its water-cooling operations using water cannons and fire trucks. Seven trucks trained water on Reactor No. 3, which is thought to present the greatest immediate danger. An SDF official said radiation levels were low enough not to present a health risk to SDF members conducting the operation.

Prime Minister Naoto Kan pledged to disclose as much information as possible on the crisis to the international community during his meeting Friday with International Atomic Energy Agency Chief Yukiya Amano. He said an agency team will be dispatched “within a couple of days” to monitor radiation levels in Tokyo.

Asia Today: Supplies Run Low For Quake Survivors

Earthquake survivors are stuck in shelters with little food and no electricity, as aid workers are still unable to reach areas of devastation. Tokyo Deputy Bureau Chief Mariko Sanchanta and Yumiko Ono, managing editor of Japanese-language WSJ.com, discuss.