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Tens of thousands of Taiwanese have protested to demand that the government scrap a $10 billion nuclear power plant slated to begin operating in two years.
March 9, 2013Saturday’s protests were held in four cities. Many protesters chanted “We must not put the future of our children up for a vote.”
The government says halting the project could lead to electricity shortages and has proposed a public referendum to resolve the issue. But at least half of the eligible voters need to vote for a referendum to pass, which activists say will work against them.
Taiwan’s opposition party has long opposed nuclear power, and public caution over nuclear safety has risen following the 2011 nuclear disaster in Japan.
At first I thought it was a no nuclear bomb protest… And the problem with nuclear energy is what? It’s one of the cleaner versions of power. I guess wind turbines wouldn’t be bad, but what’s the geography of Taiwan? Is it good enough for wind power?
Sorry friend, but you’re reciting corporate propaganda-nonsense (as if it’s actually true) without any recognition of context. Why do you think tens of thousands of people are taking to the street over the ‘cleanest version of power’ (whatever that corporate-nonsense line is supposed to mean)?
The protests (in Taiwan, Japan, and elsewhere) come two years after the Fukushima plant disaster (by far the worst Nuclear disaster in the world’s history, at least since Chernobyl) that cost many, many people their lives & forced many, many people to be displaced.
People in Taiwan, who are smart enough to make their decisions themselves, clearly do not want to be forced to live under such unfairly dangerous circumstances. Today, thousands of people are still living in temporary housing in Japan, and officials say it could be SIX TO TEN years before they’re re-settled.
Two years after a powerful earthquake and tsunami wrecked Japan’s Fukushima Dai-Ichi nuclear plant, many towns nearby remain abandoned, too affected by radiation for residents to return for more than short visits.
About 160,000 people were displaced by the nuclear disaster, and even some areas outside the 20-kilometer (12-mile) zone that initially was completely off-limits are too contaminated to be cleaned up in the foreseeable future. In others, work is proceeding on cleaning soil, leaves, grass and buildings to help reduce radiation to safer levels.
It remains unclear how effective the cleanup will be or how many people will eventually return to their homes, given fears over potential risks from the radiation and the lack of jobs in an area that depended mainly on farming, fishing and work at the now defunct nuclear plant. Source
Sounds clean & safe to me.
More than a third of Fukushima children at risk of developing cancer
July 20, 2012
Over a third of children in Japan’s Fukushima region could be prone to cancer if medics don’t apply more effort in treating their unusually overgrown thyroid glands and commit to international health aid and consultations, according to a new report.
The shocking new report shows that nearly 36 per cent of children in the nuclear disaster-affected Fukushima Prefecture have abnormal thyroid growths. This is an extremely large number of abnormalities – some of which, experts say, pose a risk of becoming cancerous.
After examining more than 38,000 children from the area, medics found that more than 13,000 have cysts or nodules as large as 5 millimeters on their thyroids, the Sixth Report of Fukushima Prefecture Health Management Survey states.
In comparison, a 2001 analysis by the Japan Thyroid Association found that fully zero per cent of children in the city of Nagasaki, which suffered a nuclear attack in August of 1945, had nodules, and only 0.8 per cent had cysts on their thyroids, reports the Telegraph.
Radiation enters the body and is distributed through soft tissue, especially in muscle, and then accumulates in the thyroid. It is this accumulation that can potentially lead to cancer.
“Yes, 35.8 per cent of children in the study have lumps or cysts, but this is not the same as cancer,”says Naomi Takagi, an associate professor at Fukushima University Medical School Hospital, which administered the tests.
“This is an early test, and we will only see the effects of radiation exposure after four or five years”she added.
But some doctors are outraged that the results are not being sufficiently publicized.
“The data should be made available. And they should be consulting with international experts ASAP. And the lesions on the ultrasounds should all be biopsied, and they’re not being biopsied. And if they’re not being biopsied, then that’s ultimately medical irresponsibility. Because if some of these children have cancer and they’re not treated, they’re going to die,“ says pediatrician Helen Caldecott, as cited by Business Insider.
Note: This horrifying news comes during an incredible time of mass protest in Japan as thousands have taken the streets to oppose opening new nuclear reactors. For more information on the current protests going on in Japan against nuclear energy, click here.
Thousands protest Japan’s return to atomic energy
June 24, 2012
Around 20,000 people gathered in Tokyo to protest the Japanese government’s unilateral decision to restart two nuclear reactors. Many in Japan are wary of nuclear power, as memories of last year’s devastating Fukushima disaster as still fresh.
Slogans chanted by protesters included “No to the restart!”, while posters brandished “No nukes”. The rally, organized in front of the prime minister’s residence, was attended by a number of public figures, including Nobel-prize winning author Kenzaburo Oe, investigative journalist Satoshi Kamata and electronic music pioneer Ryuichi Sakamoto of Yellow Magic Orchestra fame.
Activists promised to hold another anti-nuclear rally next week.
Opposition to the government’s decision to restart the reactors just a month after the country’s last nuclear power plants were shut down has been on the rise. Activists managed to gather some 7.5 million signatures through an online petition.
Last week, Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda gave the go-ahead to restart two nuclear reactors at the Oi plant in western Japan. The decision was taken in conjunction with local authorities, though Noda fell short on his promise to not act without public backing.
