report and get you the latest on the number casualties and local reaction. it's within one year since an earthquake triggered a tsunami and nuclear disaster in japan. see how the people of japan are marking this sad anniversary. a houston pastor asks members of his congregation to get tattoos for lent. we begin with breaking news out of afghanistan where government officials say seven people are, quote, feared dead following a shooting blamed on a u.s. service member. the incident taking place in the kandahar province. cnn's sara sidner in the capital city of kabul. a lot of conflicting reports on this story so far this morning. what have you been able to sort out? >> reporter: we heard finally from the kandahar government who say they were 15 casualties as they know it. seven feared dead and the other eight wounded. those people being treated by coalition forces in a medical facility in kandahar. according to isef, so far they have not released any kind of numbers when it comes to those who may have been killed. they are only saying people have been injured and that those people who are injured, all civilians, are being treated by coalition forces. yes, conflicting information. the taliban also weighing in saying that 50 people have been killed although their numbers a bit hard to believe in that they tend to exaggerate the number of casualties. that being said, we are getting information now from the u.s. embassy. isef has already released information saying they are deeply regrettable this incident involving civilians. any time you have an incident involving civilians, it makes it harder on coalition forces because generally there is another push and more talk from people saying that these forces need to get out of afghanistan. let me read you what the u.s. has put out in part of their statement. here's what the united states embassy has released just a few minutes ago. it says it extends its deepest condolences to the families of the victims of today's tragic shooting incident in kandahar province. by the way, this incident happening overnight actually on saturday. it says further, we are saddened by this violent act against our afghan friends. so there you have it from the american embassy. you do know, randi, this area in western afghanistan is a place that is known to have quite a sizable taliban presence there. it's seen a lot of action. certainly there is going to be a reaction to this in some form or fashion, randi. >> sara, what can you tell us about -- we understand this took place off base. and then this service member just turned himself in? >> reporter: yeah. what we're hearing now is that they confirmed it's a u.s. soldier. that the person left the base. they were not apparently on any sort of mission according to isef. they went off base, opened fire on civilians and then came back to the compound and turned himself in. that's what we've heard so far. at this point that person has been detained and certainly is likely being questioned. what we don't know is what the motive might have been behind this. what the reason was for this particular incident. and whatever happened before the incident. so we're still waiting for those details. certainly an investigation is going on not only with nato but also afghan officials are involved in the investigation as well as we hear it, randi. >> sara sidner, thank you for that reporting from kabul for us. appreciate that. diplomacy seems to be making little headway in syria as fierce fighting grips part of the country this weekend. tanks rumbled through a northern city. opposition activists say at least nine have died in idlid and other cities. kofi anan is meeting with assad for a second day today. he wants an agreement to a cease-fire and access to mu mantarian aid. exactly one year ago today everything changed in japan and the world can only watch in horror. a massive earthquake struck japan. the 9.0 quake was so powerful it shifted the earth's axis. what happened next was even worse. the quake triggered a giant tsunami that roared on to japan's northeast coast. the towering wave washed away nearly everything in its path. terrified residents fled in panic as the wall of water chased them. in this amateur video, you can hear a man screaming at the others to get to higher ground before the wave swallows them up. the tsunami crippled the fukushima daiichi nuclear power plant sparking a meltdown and unleashing radiation that forced thousands to flee. the quake and tsunami killed nearly 16,000 people and leveled entire towns. the disaster caused at least $300 billion in damage. it is evening in japan right now. across the country many people have been holding candle light vigils at a national ceremony of remembrance in tokyo earlier today japan's emperor and empress. the country will never forget and will rebuild. people also paused in cities along the tsunami battered coast. >> reporter: a year after the tsunami, this is downtown ishonumaki. still baring all the scars of when the tsunami roared ashore a year ago. there is so much work and rebuilding to be done for just this moment this city paused to remember all the victims who had died in the tsunami. people stopping here to lay flowers, to remember the dead. monks walked through ishunomaki chanting for the souls of the dead. chia kozosumi lay flowers for two friends who today are still missing. all i can do is keep going, she says, and live in the best way i can. one foot in front of the other as japan continues to recover. to politics now. rick santorum is celebrating another win this morning. he picked up 33 more delegates in yesterday's kansas caucuses. here's what he had to say. >> we've had a very, very good day in our neighboring state of kansas. this election is about big things. this is an important election. you've heard everybody say it on our side of the aisle. that this may be the most important election of our lifetime. >> tuesday's primaries and caucuses could be a make or break day. alabama and mississippi have primaries. american samoa and hawaii have caucuses. all the candidates are trying to reach 1,044 delegates. that will earn them the republican presidential nomination. here's the current count. mitt romney's campaign won the most delegates this past week. his current count stands at 458 delegates. rick santorum has 203, newt gingrich 118 and ron paul with 66. time to check our forecast. meteorologist alexander steele is in for reynolds wolf today. >> a few things to note in the weather department. one, temperatures today and this week off the charts. i'll tell you which direction they're headed. also a very wet and stormy day around the lot of the country. in the central and southern places. we're going to see potentially some severe weather. i'll show you that. also when i come back, we're going to take you to japan where the tsunami we've been talking about has created a line of trash 2,000 miles long in the central pacific and it is headed toward the u.s. west coast. i'll tell you when it gets there. that's coming up a little bit later. see you soon. >> that is a big pile of garbage you're tracking for us. thank you, alexandra. a youtube video goes viral. being an old message to a new generation of activists. could kony 2012 hurt the ongoing mission to find the man believed responsible for killing and raping thousands of women and children? a journalist from uganda joins me after the break to tell us why she actually feels the film falls short. a rescue at sea in italy. the details of this latest incident coming up. wow. wow. but you can help fight muscle loss with exercise and ensure muscle health. i've got revigor. what's revigor? it's the amino acid metabolite, hmb to help rebuild muscle and strength naturally lost over time. 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>> that's not what we're saying. indeed, this has been a long meandering war. right now i just read a moving story from a ugandaen working in the north who has brothers held by lra. we have to make sure other channels are open to make sure others' relatives are not killed just to get one man. we must be very careful in how we coin the military solution. even the office of children in armed conflict has warned a military solution alone cannot bring peace. killing just kony alone will not bring this war to an end. >> thank you very much. we appreciate you weighing in on kony 2012 with us. our journalist from uganda. thank you. uganda, of course, isn't the only place where women and children have been victimized like war criminals like joseph kony. the video has brought new attention to what really is a worldwide issue. not everyone thinks it's helpful. chairman for unhcr has been working for years with the organization on the worldwide battle to save lives. nice to have you on the show this morning. let's first take a look at a graphic. it really has some startling information that you actually provided to us. according to unhcr, of the 43 million refugees in the world, approximately 33 million are under protection of the united nations refugee agency in some form. 80% of those refugees are women and children. charity, tell us, why are women and children at a much higher risk here? >> well, thanks for having me, randi. i mean, you know, it's almost actually almost 34 million refugees are under the care of the unhcr. we suspect that about half of them are children. so when there's forced displacement or internal conflict, oftentimes the men are killed or, for instance, in somalia, may stay behind to watch the -- watch the crops. and the women and children, the most vulnerable, flee. it is the most vulnerable children that are at the highest risk of recruitment, forced recruitment. and if the infrastructure internally is so weak, po enshlly voluntarily recruiting themselves in order to receive some security and/or financial support and/or just a warm -- a warm meal. so there's all kinds of ways in which children who are displaced around the world are particularly vulnerable to recruitment by armed forces. >> you recently returned from colombia where this type of activity has also been a problem for years. just tell us briefly about that trip. >> i went down to look at our projects and learn about a project outside of bogata in an area called swatcha. i actually went to a school for displaced children where some families have been displaced two, three, four, five times. to illegal armed groups throughout the country for varying reasons. i think it's important to note that, you know, while children are recruited to participate in arms, they're also recruited to be laborers. you know, i spoke with one man where they're forced to sell drugs as young as 10 years old. these children are kind of in this limbo land. they're not protected, necessarily, by the government. their parents are no longer voting because they're constantly moving. so they can particularly fall through the cracks. >> just very quickly, if you wanted to leaf us with one thing, i know your agency has many strategies and priorities to try and help rescue the refugee children. we have some of them. we're not going to have time to get through all of them. give me the one goal here of your program. >> demobilization, disarmament and reintegration of children. the video talks about getting the children to go home. what's essential in that is having a transit center where children receive psychosocial services which the unhcr is providing in south sudan for some children who are being rescued right now. education and employment opportunities are two of the most preventive measures in places that are vulnerable and need infrastructure. unhcr is working on all those fronts. >> this is certainly a problem around the world just highlighted by this kony 2012 video. charity tooze, appreciate your time and efforts around the world. >> thank you very much. did you know there's a mini gold rush going on? 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[ male announcer ] progresso. you gotta taste this soup. let's take a look now at a few stories making news across the country. we'll start in the golden state. >> dream act, united, we'll never be denialed. >> the 3,000 mile march from san francisco to the nation's capital has begun. support oreers of the dream alc raising awareness to providing a path for citizenship for undocumented students. they expect the reach the u.s. capitol in october. >> i'm fighting for them because i believe that they deserve -- that they deserve the future. no, it's not 1849. but there's a gold rush in california. okay. a mini one. ideal conditions including a dry, warm winter plus a rise in the price of gold are bringing people out to waters in search of gold. >> you can make better than minimum wage. >> gold panners say if conditions get drier the gold rush will only get bigger. a round of applause for vietnam veteran robert roach. for the past eight years he's been living without something very important to him. his stolen purple heart. but this weekend, american legion post 1111 teamed up with his choir to honor the hero, presenting him with a new purple heart. >> i expected to cry. but i was able to just enjoy the situation with the people. and you are going to want to see a dramatic rescue at sea. you'll see how they ended up stranded, next. 19 people are safe after they were rescued from a stranded ship off the coast of sicily. two coast guard helicopters rescued the crew of an italian cargo vessel that ran aground during pretty rough seas and heavy winds yesterday. the crew members are all in good condition. today marks the one-year anniversary of the deadly earthquake and tsunami that ravaged parts of japan. the disaster also sent a wave of garbage into the sea. it's thousands of miles long, still floating in the ocean and it's now getting closer to our shores. i want to bring in meteorologist alexandra steele for much more on this. alexandra, you're tracking this big hunk of junk for us. what can you tell snus. >> you saw in those pictures, you can see that hunk of junk. now because it's so dispersed satellites really can't pick it up. computer models are kind of looking out and trying to track this. how big was this junk initially? 23 million metric tons of materials were displaced from the tsunami. most of that did sink to the ocean. there are still about 900,000 metric tons still floating about. computer scientists are out there. what they're doing is looking at and using computer models by look agent the ocean currents and winds in the pacific and trying to estimate where this kind of wall of junk will move. now, so far the one year it's traveled about 2,000 miles. scientists simulating this project, what they're expecting is the northwest hawaiian islands to begin to see some of this trash, believe it or not, beginning next month. th