nuclear-news

“Japan needs drastic changes in energy policy by scrapping all the nuclear reactors,” Eda says from his tent erected in a corner of the ministry’s grounds two months ago. “We won’t allow the government to restart idled reactors” after they are shut down for maintenance, he says.

All of Japan’s 11 reactors still in operation, are scheduled to be shut down for servicing by April, he says. If the government withholds permission for them to restart, Japan would be free of nuclear power. “That’s an immediate goal,” Eda says outside the ministry, which has promoted the country’s nuclear-dependent energy policy for decades.

The country’s other 43 reactors are either currently being inspected, or have been shut down in the wake of the March 11 earthquake and tsunami…..round 1,300 people turned out last week to form a human chain around the ministry, despite the rain.
In other parts of the country, people have also been taking to the streets. On Sunday, on the southern island of Kyushu, the site of another nuclear power plant, 15,000 people demonstrated to call on the government to scrap all of the nation’s 54 reactors.

In Tokyo, many women involved in the protest at the industry ministry have also called for the immediate evacuation of all children in Fukushima prefecture, to protect them from the leaked radiation. Members of the Fukushima Network for Saving Children from Radiation met industry ministry officials in early November with the same request.

High levels of radiation have been detected 60 kilometres from the damaged Fukushima plant, well beyond the 20-kilometre official exclusion zone in place since April.
Chieko Shiina, a leader of the Fukushima-based group who joined the sit-in protest at the ministry, says, “The government has been trying to hide truths on the disaster.

Many children and babies have been left behind in the disaster zone.” The protest “is a way to take direct action to convey our voices to the government,” Shiina says.

Some see a link with the high-profile “occupy” protests in Western countries, which call for action against the capitalist economy and the growing gap between rich and poor. Tanaka, who covered the anti-Wall Street protests in New York, has dubbed the tent protest in Tokyo “Occupy Industry Ministry.” The nuclear situation in Japan does have a wealth dimension, Shiina says.

Many of the nuclear plants are in the country’s poorest regions, so the risk they pose to locals is underestimated.

The relative poverty of the region is one reason the government “abandoned Fukushima” after the disaster, she says.HTTP://WWW.BRECORDER.COM/ARTICLES-A-LETTERS/SINGLE/626/187/1252284/