As if the earthquake and the following tsunami were not enough, Japan got into another nightmare with its damaged and apparently out-of-control Fukushima nuclear power plant.

It can of course be argued over the logic in the reasoning to construct nuclear plants in a region that is on the absolute top of the list when it comes to earthquake risks. Japan have naturally not been unaware of the risks involved, but have apparently deemed that in order to provide the electrical energy needed to power the world's second largest economy the risks were worth taking. It now seems that the safeguards even in such a hightech country have not been sufficient.

It is not the first time the safety of Japan's nuclear programme has been questioned, or even the first time incidents have cast a shadow on the policies. But this is by far the worst such incident.

The earthquake with its epicentre outside the northeastern coast of the Japanese main island of Honshu seems to have been an unusually bad one even by Japanese standards. By being an 8 on the Richter scale it is one of the biggest earthquakes ever recorded, and even if it struck the most earthquake-prepared country in the world, the devastation is massive.

Even if the actual earthquake itself most likely made for a not insignificant amount of damage, the really horrible part is without doubt the giant tsunami that it produced. With waves of up to ten metres, there simply cannot have been much in the way of disaster preparation that have withstood the destructive forces of the water.

One question that draws to mind is if this was the great earthquake that is expected to strike the Kanto region anytime now and to be compared to the destructive 1923 Kanto earthquake. According to the seismologists it maybe was not. Which provides for an equally horrible disaster scenario if that is the case. Because even if this current one struck further north than Tokyo it definitely to some degree affected the city as well, and we can only try to imagine if an earthquake of equal power would strike even closer to the Tokyo metropolitan region, considering the extreme destruction made by this current earthquake and tsunami on a less populated region than Kanto.

In either case, what is unfolding is a tragedy and unfortunately a very harsh reminder of how small we humans are compared to nature's powers.

There has been a very big earthquake in the sea outside the Japanese east coast. The earthquake apparently measured 8.8 on the Richter scale and has also produced a tsunami which hit part of the northeastern coast of Japan with waves up to ten metres in height. The city of Sendai and the Miyagi prefecture seem to be severely hit while large parts of eastern Honshu, including Tokyo, have been affected to different degrees.

Hosni Mubarak, Egypt's president since 1981, yesterday resigned as president after over two weeks of mounting demonstrations against the regime.

Birgitta Jónsdóttir, a member of the Althing - the parliament of Iceland - and a former Wikileaks supporter has apparently been informed by Twitter that the US Department of Justice has demanded that Twitter turns over the stored Twitter data they have regarding her account. This includes all actual tweets as well as some personal information about her. Not surprisingly, she is regarding the subpoena as a breach of privacy since she is not suspected of any crime. While Twitter have chosen to actually inform the targeted person of the existence of the subpoena, there seem to be a rising suspicion that other companies such as Google and Facebook are not as open toward their users. Which of course makes it an even worse privacy break since the persons are not even aware of that their personal information are eventually turned over to a third party, no matter that the third party happens to be a US governmental body.

The main problem here is not only the fact that personal user data aren't as protected as the users in most case presume it to be, but also the fact that personal data belonging to persons not even in the legal jurisdiction of a country can be submitted to that country's views of legality when it comes to data protection. In one way, if the process described in this case is deemed legal by US courts, it is perfectly legal. A sovereign state has the full right to have a bad legal protection when it comes to data - so long as it doesn't go against any potential international treaties and agreement said state has signed of course. The problem however takes on a diffent dimension when personal data given up by persons not residing in or in any way having a connection to said state end up getting their personal information ceded to the authories in that state.

Now, of course there most likely is a clause in the user agreements for both Twitter, Facebook and Google that states something like that the user agrees to having their personal data stored and handled in the USA, and as such being under the jurisdiction of the US legal system. But the real question is how many of the millions of international users who are actually aware of this fact. Data protection and safety are tricky things, since they are so elusive in their geographical attachment.

Sources: http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2011/jan/08/us-twitter-hand-icelandic-wikileaks-messages, http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2011/jan/08/wikileaks-calls-google-facebook-us-subpoenas?INTCMP=ILCNETTXT3487