Last Blog.... or is it?

I started this blog as a way to learn and gain more experience in blogging. It was fun and taught me a lot. Brought Closer to Home was a way for me to connect global news into one place from various topics with global perspectives. My sources ranged from CNN, to China Daily, to video game blogs. With how small our big world really is, its important for us to stay connected with the facts around us.

This was a great experience and as time goes on, who knows, I might expand more on my blog and share more of what I find, with the world.

EASTER

With Easter being last Sunday I want to direct your attention to the story of how Easter is celebrated in another country, this country is El Salvador. The salvadorian tradition of Easter Sunday. 
Easter is a very important time in the Christian and Catholic holiday, and to some, it is seen as the holiest day in the year as we remember how Jesus died for our sins and on the third day he rose from the dead.

U.S. troops kill Osama bin Laden in Pakistan

With talk of the death of Bin Laden in the air news reports around the world are flooding with information, speculation, and rumors of all that is taking place. From fake photos, to lake of photos people what to know what has happened to "Public Enemy Number One" some even doubt if this is real or fake due to the prompt burial of Bin Laden and his quick death. Most importantly millions worldwide are starting to feel more safe as lives return to normal.

Special CNN Bin Laden Report:

[Updated 2:38 p.m. ET] President Barack Obama's top counterterrorism adviser said Monday that the elimination of Osama bin Laden is "a strategic blow" to al Qaeda.
"It is a necessary but not necessarily sufficient blow to lead to its demise," said John Brennan, Obama's adviser on homeland security and counterterrorism.
[Updated 2:33 p.m. ET] President Obama and his top intelligence and military officials were able to monitor in a "real-time basis" the progress of the operation on Osama bin Laden's compound, the president's top counterterrorism adviser said.
"It was probably one of the most anxiety filled periods of time I think in the lives of the people who were assembled here yesterday. The minutes passed like days and the president was very concerned about the security of our personnel," he said. "That is what was on his mind throughout and we wanted to make sure that we would get through this and accomplish the mission. But it was clearly very tense. A lot of people holding their breath."
Brennan said "there was a tremendous sigh of relief" when they believed bin Laden was in fact at the compound.
[Updated 2:30 p.m. ET] A woman shielded Osama bin Laden from gunfire during the assault by U.S. forces, President Barack Obama's top counterterrorism adviser said Monday.
"There was a female who was in fact in the line of fire that reportedly was used as a shield to shield bin Laden from the incoming fire," said John Brennan, Obama's adviser on homeland security and counterterrorism.
Brennan said it was his understanding that bin Laden picked up a weapon and was killed in the firefight with the U.S. forces carrying out the assault.
"He was engaged in a firefight," Brennan said of bin Laden. "Whether or not he got off any rounds, I don't know."
[Updated 2:21 p.m. ET] The decision by President Barack Obama to launch the assault that killed Osama bin Laden was one of the "gutsiest" calls by any president in recent memory, Obama's top counterterrorism adviser said Monday.
John Brennan, assistant to the president for homeland security and counterterrorism, said that despite intelligence indicating that bin Laden was in the compound in Pakistan, there was no certainty the al Qaeda leader was actually there.
Obama "made what I believe was one of the ... gutsiest calls of any president in recent memory," Brennan said.
[Updated 2:08 p.m. ET] President Barack Obama's top counterterrorism adviser said Monday that it was "inconceivable" that Osama bin Laden did not have some kind of support system in Pakistan that allowed him to live in hiding there.
John Brennan, the president's assistant on homeland security and counterterrorism, refused to speculate on what kind of support bin Laden might have received, or whether the Pakistani government or official Pakistani institutions had any role.
[Updated 1:39 p.m. ET] Officials compared DNA of the person killed at the Abbottobad compound with bin Laden "family DNA" to determine that the 9/11 mastermind had in fact been killed, a senior administration official said.
Four others in the compound also were killed. One of them was bin Laden's adult son, and another was a woman being used as a shield by a male combatant, officials said.
[Updated 12:39 p.m. ET] The compound where Osama bin Laden was killed by U.S. forces is located a bit more than 1,000 yards from a Pakistan Military Academy, raising some questions about how much information the Pakistan military may have had about his whereabouts.
U.S. Sen. Carl Levin, Senate Armed Services Committee chairman, said during a press conference that the Pakistani army has "a lot of explaining to do."
[Updated 12:27 p.m. ET] Senior defense officials said that for a majority of the 40 minute operation at the Abbottobad compound, special forces were involved in a firefight - clearing their way through two other floors before they reached Osama bin Laden.
Bin Laden was not killed until the last five to ten minutes of the firefight, officials said.

Bin Laden and his family lived on the 2nd and 3rd floors of the 3-story building, and those floors were cleared last, the official said. The official says one of bin Laden’s own wives identified his body to U.S. forces, after the team made visual identification themselves.
U.S. forces also recovered what a senior Intelligence official is calling “quite a bit of material.”
“There’s a robust collection of materials we need to sift through, and we hope to find valuable intelligence that will lead us to other players in al Qaeda,"  a senior intelligence official said.
The official added a Task Force has been set up “because of the sheer volume of material collected. That material is currently being exploited and analyzed.”
[Updated 12:25 p.m. ET] A soldier in a special forces unit based in Georgia told CNN on Monday that while the news of Osama bin Laden’s death is cause for celebration, elite military units have sprang into high alert.
“A lot of guys got their security clearances elevated due to what happened last night,” said Lamont, who didn’t give his last name because of what he said were security reasons. “I lot of people got called back” overseas, he said, adding that his unit already was scheduled for deployment as early as two weeks ago.
[Updated 12:22 p.m. ET] Osama bin Laden's body was buried at sea according to Islamic law because no country was willing or able to take his body for burial on land, senior Defense officials said.
"When there is no land alternative, Islamic law dictates that the body be buried within 24 hours, and that was the basis," one official said. "
A second senior Defense official said there was no country willing or able to accept the body for burial, and U.S. forces "took pains to observe Muslim law."
"Today's religious rites were conducted on the deck of the USS Carl Vinson in the Arabian sea. The ceremony started at 1:10am and finished at 2:10am ET," the second official said. "Procedures for Islamic body were followed. The body was washed and placed in a white sheet. A military official read prepared remarks, which were then translated into Arabic by a native speaker. The body of Osama bin Laden was placed on a flat board, which was then tipped up, and allowed to slide into the sea."
[Updated 12:16 p.m. ET] President Barack Obama said Monday that he thinks "we can all agree this is a good day for America."
"Our country kept its commitment to see that justice is done," he said. The world, he said, is a better place because of the death of Osama bin Laden.
The successful operation to kill bin Laden reminds Americans that there is "nothing we can't do" when we work together, he said. That spirit, he said, is seen in the patriotic crowds that have gathered across the country.
"We're reminded that we're fortunate to have Americans who have dedicated their lives to protecting ours," he said. "As commander-in-chief, I could not be prouder."

Technology Nintendo

March 25, Nintendo launched the next generation in video and gaming technology. They launched the Nintendo 3DS, a hand held game system that incorporates glasses free 3D technology.  This is phenomenal in that with 3D being so young in the technology world to be able to be put into a handheld. It is showing how fast technology is developing and hopefully with the trend we can achieve greater heights in the future.  

  

“If you haven’t already heard, Nintendo 3DS is the new Wii and the new Avatar (sorry James Cameron).

Since June of last year, when the 3DS was revealed at the E3 convention, people have been all abuzz over this little gaming device that has the gaming world taking notice and giving Nintendo the spotlight once again.

In the recent years, the DS and the DS Lite wasn’t really considered to be a hardcore gaming device and was typically branded as a casual gaming rig. Now Nintendo wants to change all that with the Nintendo 3DS. A powerful device that can show you eye popping 3D without those goofy looking glasses.” (Nintendo 3ds gamer)

Nine months - From CNN

Tokyo (CNN) -- Engineers will need six to nine months to bring the damaged nuclear reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi power plant to heel, the plant's owners said Sunday in their first public timetable for ending the crisis.

It will take three months to reduce the levels of radioactivity in the plant and restore normal cooling systems in the reactors and spent fuel pools, the Tokyo Electric Power Company announced. Another three to six months will be needed before the reactors are fully shut down and building new shells around their damaged housings, the company said.

Meanwhile, Japan's government said it would try to decontaminate "the widest possible area" in that period before deciding whether the tens of thousands who have been forced to flee their homes will be allowed to return, said Goshi Hosono, an adviser to Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan.

"We have to go step by step in order to resolve the problems one by one," Hosono said.

The timetable was released five days after Kan called for Tokyo Electric to show Japanese a pathway to ending the worst nuclear accident since the 1986 Chernobyl disaster. A day earlier, the company would not comment on an industry group's estimate that restoring normal cooling would take two to three months -- a period comparable to the first stage of Sunday's plan.

Tokyo Electric spokesman Hiro Hasegawa acknowledged that public pressure helped speed the company's decision to release a plan and warned that the outline remained tentative -- "but we will do our best" to stick to it, he said.

Because of the still-unknown volume of highly irradiated water flooding the basements of units 1-3, where the normal cooling equipment is housed, the utility is working toward building a separate cooling system. That system would remove heat from the water being pumped through the reactors and decontaminate it before circulating it back through them.

Currently, engineers have improvised by pumping roughly 170 metric tons (45,000 gallons) of water a day into each reactor, an unknown portion of which is leaking out. The leaking water comes out full of particles like radioactive iodine and cesium, the byproducts of the reactors.

At the plant on Sunday, workers used remote-controlled robots to record radiation, water and temperature data in the building that houses reactor No. 3. Photos released by the utility showed the devices, provided by the U.S. company iRobot, opening the inner door to the reactor and entering the darkened building.

"Everything is a high-radiation area inside the reactor buildings," Hasegawa told reporters at a briefing for international news outlets -- another first for a company that has been sharply criticized for its handling of the crisis.

Meanwhile, Tokyo Electric Chairman Tsunehisa Katsumata fended off nearly a dozen questions from Japanese reporters about whether he or other top executives planned to resign as a result of the disaster.

"At this point, we do not have any decisions or discussions about resigning, as all our efforts is towards resolving the situation," Katsumata said. "We are not sure if resigning is the best way to take the responsibility or to stay in position to resolve the situation." Any decisions may wait until the company's general shareholders meeting in June, he said.

The 5-week-old crisis began March 11, when the plant was swamped by the tsunami that followed northern Japan's historic earthquake. The 14- to 15-meter (45- to 48-foot) wave knocked out the plant's coolant systems, causing the three reactors operating at the time to overheat.

The results included two spectacular explosions that blew apart the housings of the No. 1 and No. 3 reactors and the release of a massive amount of radioactivity that has shrunk considerably, but continued Sunday.

The wildcard in the utility's plan may be reactor No. 2, where another suspected buildup of hydrogen is believed to have ruptured the suppression pool -- a donut-shaped reservoir at the base of the reactor. That may make it more difficult to carry out one of the first stages of their planned cooling process, filling the concrete primary containment shell around the reactor pressure vessel with water, Hasegawa said.

Unless that damage is repaired somehow, that part of the plan may be unsuccessful, he said.

Japan's government declared Fukushima Daiichi a top-scale nuclear disaster last week, warning residents of several towns outside the current 30-km (19-mile) danger zone around the plant to evacuate or prepare to leave their homes. Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano visited the stricken area Sunday, including a brief trip into the 20-km radius from which all residents have been ordered out.

Clad in a white protective suit and face mask, Edano got within about 15 km of the plant as he met with police who are still searching the area for victims of the March disaster.

"Ensuring people's livelihoods and security is our foremost priority," Edano said after meeting with the governor of Fukushima Prefecture, Yuhei Sato.

Radiation levels in the area are not high enough to cause immediate health effects, but prolonged exposure could cause an increased risk of cancer, according to government data and reports from outside researchers. In Iitate, a village Edano visited Sunday, government figures released Sunday show cumulative doses of radiation since the accident are already more than half the 20-millisievert limit the government said for long-term evacuations.

Iitate is about 40 kilometers northwest of the plant, outside the danger zones drawn in the early days of the crisis. Hosono said the government does not yet know how much of the contaminated areas can be cleaned up, but added, "We will try to decontaminate as much of an area as possible."

Workers stopped a severe leak of contaminated water into the Pacific Ocean on April 6, but elevated levels of the short-lived nuclear waste iodine-131 recorded over the weekend could indicate a new problem, a Japanese safety official announced Saturday. Iodine concentrations sampled Saturday around the No. 2 water intake were 6,000 times Japan's legal standards, up from 1,100 times on Thursday and down slightly from Friday's figure of 6,500 times.

That number is far below the levels recorded when the earlier leak was spewing radioactive iodine into the ocean at 7.5 million times the limit. Authorities have built a silt and placed steel plates around the intake fence to corral the contamination since April 6.

Iodine-131 has a radioactive half-life of eight days, and the increase could be either from a fresh leak or from sediment stirred up while placing steel panels around the intakes, said Hidehiko Nishiyama, the top spokesman for Japan's Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency.

"They will continue to monitor this carefully," Nishiyama said. "At this point, they have not visually found any leakage of any water into the ocean, and it is hard to check the conditions around No. 2 due to high radiation levels."

                                        

To My Reader(s)...to me

I have started by writing a blog and then switched to a new blog about current issues globally (but while regurgitating what I read w/o in site), but I realize that I have been going at this wrong. I took on blogging to learn how to utilize this medium for internet communication without planning. I think what would be best would be for me to look at various aspects of the globe and take a look at things of interest. It would be better to do it that way then to simply go to CNN.com or BBC.com and say the same thing that they have already posted. This will help me develop a treatment for class and get the project that this blog is for, to become better developed.

Thanks for reading and commenting.
Ben

AP: Earthquake footage