Congress gives in, accepts Mamata's offer for seats

Minutes before a deadline set by Mamata Banerjee expired, the Congress capitulated and accepted her terms for a political partnership for the West Bengal elections.

The Congress had originally asked for 90 seats, and Ms Banerjee, who is the chief of the Trinamool Congress, offered 64. Her take-it-or-leave-it deal today saw her willing to offer one additional seat. And the Congress accepted. So while it will contest 65 seats, Ms Banerjee's candidates will take the remaining 229 seats for the West Bengal Assembly. "To bring back democracy in Bengal, we are giving one more seat to Congress," she said today, as she announced her party's manifesto.

The Congress denied that it had sold out, a complaint voiced by unhappy state leaders from West Bengal who had travelled to Delhi to meet Sonia Gandhi, and urge her to push for 90 constituencies. "There is no question of compromise or surrender when two parties agree for a negotiated settlement. All should honour it," said Congress spokesperson Shakeel Ahmed in Delhi.

Ms Banerjee had surprised the Congress on Friday by unilaterally announcing her party's decision to contest 228 seats, even though her ally had asked for some more time to work on its shortlist of candidates and the constituencies it wanted.

Finally, Ms Banerjee told the party to indicate by 4 pm today whether it would team up with her. Through the day, a breakthrough seemed distant; a long afternoon meeting between Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee and Sonia Gandhi reportedly ended the dithering.

The devil, however, lies in the detail, mainly in who gets what constituency. The additional seat that Ms Banerjee has sanctioned for the Congress is Canning East and not one of the three it really wanted: Kolkata Port, Metiabruz or Kharagpur Sadar.

Both sides are aware though that they need to stick together to ensure the vote against the Left is not divided between them. In 2009, when the Left had suffered a crushing defeat in the Lok Sabha polls, Trinamool and Congress had fought as allies. The hope is for some sort of action replay.

Workers flee Japan nuclear plant as smoke rises

Fukushima, Japan:  Grey smoke rose from two reactor units on Monday, temporarily stalling critical work to reconnect power lines and restore cooling systems to stabilize Japan's radiation-leaking nuclear complex.

Workers are racing to bring the nuclear plant under control, but the process is proceeding in fits and starts, stalled by incidents like the smoke and by the need to work methodically to make sure wiring, pumps and other machinery can be safely switched on.

What caused the smoke to billow first from Unit 3 at the Fukushima Dai-ichi plant and later from Unit 2 is under investigation, nuclear safety agency officials said. Still, in the days since the March 11 earthquake and tsunami wrecked the plant's cooling systems, both reactors have overheated and seen explosions. Workers were evacuated from the area to buildings nearby, though radiation levels remained steady, the officials said.

Problems set off by the disasters have ranged far beyond the devastated northeast coast and the wrecked nuclear plant, handing the government what it has called Japan's worst crisis since World War II. Rebuilding the northeast coast may cost as much as $235 billion. Police estimate the death toll will surpass 18,000.Traces of radiation are tainting vegetables and some water supplies, although in amounts the government and health experts say do not pose a risk to human health in the short-term.

"Please do not overreact, and act calmly," said Chief Cabinet spokesman Yukio Edano in the government's latest appeal to ease public concerns. "Even if you eat contaminated vegetables several times, it will not harm your health at all."

Edano said Fukushima's operator, Tokyo Electric Power Co., would compensate farmers affected by bans on the sale of raw milk, spinach and canola.

The troubles at Fukushima have in some ways overshadowed the natural catastrophe, threatening a wider disaster if the plant spews more concentrated forms of radiation than it has so far.

The nuclear safety agency and Tokyo Electric reported significant progress over the weekend and Monday. Electrical teams, having finished connecting three of the plant's six units, worked to connect the rest by Tuesday, the utility said.

Once done, however, pumps and other equipment have to be checked -- and the reactors cleared of dangerous gas -- before the power can be restored. For instance, a motorized pump to inject water into Unit 2's overheated reactor and spent fuel storage pool needs to be replaced, said Hidehiko Nishiyama, an official at the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency.

Early on Monday, the Health Ministry advised Iitate, a village of 6,000 people about 30 kilometers (19 miles) northwest of the plant, not to drink tap water due to elevated levels of iodine. Ministry spokesman Takayuki Matsuda said iodine three times the normal level was detected there -- about one twenty-sixth of the level of a chest X-ray in one liter of water.

The World Bank said in a report Monday that Japan may need five years to rebuild from the disasters, which caused up to $235 billion in damage, saying the cost to private insurers will be up to $33 billion and that the government will spend $12 billion on reconstruction in the current national budget and much more later.

Growing concerns about radiation add to the chain of disasters Japan has struggled with since the 9.0-magnitude quake. The resulting tsunami ravaged the northeastern coast. All told, police estimates show more than about 18,400 died. More than 15,000 deaths are likely in Miyagi, the prefecture that took the full impact of the wave, said a police spokesman.

"It is very distressing as we recover more bodies day by day," said Hitoshi Sugawara, the spokesman.

Police in other parts of the disaster area declined to provide estimates, but confirmed about 3,400 deaths. Nationwide, official figures show the disasters killed more than 8,600 people, and leaving more than 13,200 missing, but those two lists may have some overlap.

The disasters have displaced another 452,000, who are in shelters.