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Finding places to store water remains the biggest imperative at Fukushima Daiichi, in part because flooding has blocked access to the reactors' disabled cooling pumps.

Those efforts inched forward Friday, as the Buy nike cheap mens acg sandals blackgovernment moved water that had been stored in a tank outside the building of reactor No. 2 into a vessel even farther away. Having emptied the tank close to the reactor's turbine building, plant operators hope to fill it with the contents of a condenser unit inside the turbine building. Once that vessel is empty, in turn, officials hope to fill it with radioactive runoff water. Similar transfer processes are under way at reactors No. 1 and 3.

Authorities want toBuy nike cheap mens acg sandals black switch to regular cooling systems so they can stop using the jury-rigged systems—spraying water at reactors and spent-fuel pools, or injecting water into the vessels that surround the reactor core.

The station's three most troubled reactors—Nos. 1, 2 and 3—were stable on Friday, according to Tepco and theBuy nike cheap mens acg sandals black government, measured by pressure and temperature readings. "We have to remove the water and establish a sustainable cooling system as soon as possible," said Mr. Nishiyama. "The status of the reactors is to a certain degree stable, but it still does not allow us to be optimistic."

Mr. Nishiyama's caution was echoed by Prime Minister Naoto Kan. "We are ready to fight a long battle," he said. "But we will surely prevail."

One committee was appointed to investigate deaths in Dara’a and Latakia, two cities where the government has cracked down on protesters, according to the state news agency.

 Syrian Human Rights Information Link, an activist organization, has documented the names of 103 people killed across the country since the protests began March 15, including at least 73 in Dara’a and 10 in Latakia. It was not clear if the number for Latakia included those killed Wednesday night.

The government also announced the

 creation of a committee to study lifting the emergency law imposed in 1963 and replacing it with legislation “that secures the preservation of the country’s security, the dignity of citizens and combating terrorism,” according to the state news agency.

Lifting the emergency law, which has been in place since 1963, has been a major demand of the protesters. Among its provisions, the law silences dissent and allows security forces to detain citizens without charge.

Activists expressed little faith that the

 government would expand political freedoms in any meaningful way. Mr. Ziadeh said he feared that replacing emergency law with antiterrorism laws would constitute only a cosmetic change. “They will put the same restrictions on basic rights into the terrorism law that they put into the emergency law,” he said. “The emergency law might be lifted but the state of emergency that governs every aspect of our lives will be the same."