CNN news 2013-03-14 加文本

cnn news 2013-03-14

I'm back, happy to be with you for thisTuesday edition of cnn Student News and I want to thank Tommy for filling infor me. Today we're going to start with an ending. North Korea is calling off thetruce that stopped the Korean War. The conflict involved North Korea and China,fighting against South Koreaand the U.S.It ended in 1953 with an armistice; we covered the details on the war and thearmistice. Plus the ongoing tension between North and South Korea inour show on March 6th, you can find that in our online archives.

What's happening now is that North Koreasays that truce is invalid; it's backing out of it, what does that mean? wedon't really know yet. We know that North Korea is angry about newpunishments from the United Nations over the North's controversial nuclearprogram. We know North Koreais angry about military drills that the U.S.and South Koreaare running right now. After the announcement about the truce, South Korea trycalling the North on a hotline that's set up between the two. The North didn'tanswer.

Next today, we're moving over to Japan as thatnation remembers a tragic anniversary this week. Monday was filled withceremonies, services and a moment of silent. Exactly two years ago whenearthquake struck, it was the largest one ever to hit the Island Nation. Andthe quake created tsunami, a giant ocean wave, the two combined to causemassive amounts of damage, nearly 16,000 people died. The tsunami led to ameltdown at the Fukushima-Daichi nuclear power plant. Crews have been workingon the plant ever since, but officials say it can take as much as 40 years tocompletely clean up the area and decontaminate it. The effects of the quake andtsunami spread far beyond Japan.This animation shows how huge amounts of debris were pulled out into the Pacific Ocean. Kyung Lah explains why some of it isshowing up.

Slamming the shores of one of Hawaii's most remote beaches, debris, big and small,covering every inch of the Kamilo Beach coastline, theforeign markings tell where some of it comes from.

"These are definitely from Japan, this issome type of pickle, and that's definitely Japanese."

Hawaii Wildlife Fund's Megan Lamson hasseen debris from Japanhit at a growing rates since fall. Like a refrigerator with Japanese on thetemperature dial, large buoys, even an intact fishing boat from Japan. Suckedinto the Pacific on that horrifying day two years ago, traveling through thePacific, volunteers like HWF had been fighting the already big problem ofmarine debris. Only made worse to the 1.5 million tons of floating tsunamidebris.

It's disheartening to come out here and seeall these marine debris in this area that's otherwise so remote, debris that'swashing up from other countries.

So the debris is washing up onshore, it'salso collecting out in the water. The areas outlined in red are called gyres,these are currents out in the ocean, and because of way they work, things thatfloat into them kind of get trapped there. That includes debris from the Japan tsunami,scientists are finding that trash, especially plastic inside fish and birds outin the Pacific.

We're going to look at the impact on wildlife,but heads up to teachers. This report involves some shots of dissection, so youprobably want to preview it before showing it to your class, once again, hereis Kyung Lah.

Look at what's inside this albatross ofseabird, found dead, plastics filled its body.

"So little fat."

David Hyrenbach's teams are researching thealarming rate of debris in the birds.

"So here you see."

"Wow, it is filled with plastic."

"Yes"

This is the stomach of a two months oldalbatross.

"Is that part of a drain?"

"Maybe, oh, it's a brush, look atthat, you see."

About 80% of the baby birds stomach isindigestible plastic, that this, by its parents who confused it for food.Morally, this is terrible, how is this possible, right? I mean, majestic,far-ranging beautiful birds, right? In a pristine place of the North Pacificand then you open them up and this is, you know, what you find.

Hyrenbach says every single bird he's openedup had some sort of plastic, some larger ones, like these toys, and lighters inthe adult bird.

A disaster still in the making, nowwidening its reach.

Environmental activists here say that thereis nothing they can do about the tsunami debris, they can just clean up thebeaches, but there is something that consumers can do to help them out. Theysee plastic bottle caps or plastic water bottles that we use around the world,consumers can simply use less plastic.

Kyung Lah, cnn, Hawaii.