Hundreds of activists from throughout South Korea have gathered in force on Jeju Island to hold a “peace event” aimed at halting construction of a naval base slated to be used by US forces—in defiance of a court injunctions against protests.
Authorities boast that radiation readings in the Fukushima area are now a minute fraction of what they were in March. But a new survey shows that 45% of children and infants in the area absorbed radiation.
Japan’s Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communication is contacting media outlets and Internet service providers to suppress “irresponsible rumors” about the disaster at Fukushima—where the reactors have still not been brought under control.
The US energy giant ConocoPhillips, operating in a joint agreement with the China National Offshore Oil Corporation, was responsible for a devastating oil spill in the Yellow Sea that Chinese authorities hushed up for weeks.
Angry parents held a hundreds-strong march in Japan’s Fukushima city to demand greater protection for their children from radiation—as the government prepares to re-open reactors closed in the wake of the disaster.
Nearly three months after the start of the Fukushima disaster, the stricken reactors have still not been brought under control, and activist demands are growing for the abolition of nuclear power in Japan.
Hundreds of Vietnamese turned out to protest against Chinese naval operations in disputed waters of the South China Sea. The tensions come as Vietnam is moving closer to the US, holding unprecedented joint naval exercises.
Deadly blasts that targeted government buildings in Fuzhou, Jiangxi province, are being blamed on a peasant farmer who waged a legal struggle for years after his home was destroyed to make way for a new expressway.
Engineers at Japan’s stricken Fukushima nuclear plant abandoned attempts to stabilize reactors by flooding them with water, finding that melting fuel rods have created holes in the chambers, allowing contaminated water to leak out.
Japan will abandon plans to expand its nuclear power industry and instead focus on renewable energy, Prime Minister, Naoto Kan announced—following weeks of the country’s biggest public protests in 40 years.
Tokyo Electric Power Company and its corporate partners like General Electric and Bechtel have drawn up a plan for decommissioning the disaster-stricken Fukushima reactors—which they say could take up to 20 years.
Tokyo Electric Power Company issued a plan for cooling down the reactors and reducing radiation leaks within six to nine months at the crippled Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant on Japan’s Pacific coast.
