Thousands demonstrated in Tokyo on Saturday against nuclear power generation, 11 months after a massive earthquake and tsunami sparked reactor meltdowns at the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant.
Kenzaburo Oe, the 1994 Nobel prize winner for literature, told a central rally at Yoyogi Park: “Radioactive waste from nuclear power plants will be borne by generations to come.”
“This must not be condoned by human beings. It is against ethics,” the 77-year-old novelist said.
The rally was attended by 12,000 people, its organizers said. Police estimated the turnout at about 7,000.
The March 11 quake-tsunami disaster left more than 19,000 dead or missing and sparked the Fukushima crisis, the world’s worst nuclear accident since the 1986 Chernobyl disaster, on Japan’s northeast coast.
Tens of thousands of people were forced from their homes around the plant, located 220km northeast of Tokyo, as radiation levels rocketed, with many not knowing when and if they would be allowed to return.
The vast majority of Japan’s 54 commercial nuclear reactors are offline because popular opposition has prevented them from being restarted in the wake of the Fukushima nuclear crisis.
Japanese actor Taro Yamamoto, who has allegedly lost acting opportunities for his anti-nuclear advocacy, told the rally: “Our country will cease to exist if there is another big earthquake.”
“To prevent our country from ceasing to exist, we shall not allow nuclear plants to be reactivated,” he said.
A similar rally, smaller in size, was also reportedly staged in Niigata Prefecture on the Sea of Japan coast dotted with nuclear plants.
After the Tokyo rally, the protesters marched down the streets of Shibuya, one of Tokyo’s major shopping and entertainment districts.
They chanted slogans and held placards reading messages such as “Sayonora to nuclear plants,” “Have the courage to say no nukes” and “Another accident will occur if nuclear plants are reactivated.”
A fire caused by a burst gas pipe yesterday spread to several homes and sent a fireball soaring into the sky outside Malaysia’s largest city, injuring more than 100 people. The towering inferno near a gas station in Putra Heights outside Kuala Lumpur was visible for kilometers and lasted for several hours. It happened during a public holiday as Muslims, who are the majority in Malaysia, celebrate the second day of Eid al-Fitr. National oil company Petronas said the fire started at one of its gas pipelines at 8:10am and the affected pipeline was later isolated. Disaster management officials said shutting the
US Vice President J.D. Vance on Friday accused Denmark of not having done enough to protect Greenland, when he visited the strategically placed and resource-rich Danish territory coveted by US President Donald Trump. Vance made his comment during a trip to the Pituffik Space Base in northwestern Greenland, a visit viewed by Copenhagen and Nuuk as a provocation. “Our message to Denmark is very simple: You have not done a good job by the people of Greenland,” Vance told a news conference. “You have under-invested in the people of Greenland, and you have under-invested in the security architecture of this
UNREST: The authorities in Turkey arrested 13 Turkish journalists in five days, deported a BBC correspondent and on Thursday arrested a reporter from Sweden Waving flags and chanting slogans, many hundreds of thousands of anti-government demonstrators on Saturday rallied in Istanbul, Turkey, in defence of democracy after the arrest of Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu which sparked Turkey’s worst street unrest in more than a decade. Under a cloudless blue sky, vast crowds gathered in Maltepe on the Asian side of Turkey’s biggest city on the eve of the Eid al-Fitr celebration which started yesterday, marking the end of Ramadan. Ozgur Ozel, chairman of the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), which organized the rally, said there were 2.2 million people in the crowd, but
JOINT EFFORTS: The three countries have been strengthening an alliance and pressing efforts to bolster deterrence against Beijing’s assertiveness in the South China Sea The US, Japan and the Philippines on Friday staged joint naval drills to boost crisis readiness off a disputed South China Sea shoal as a Chinese military ship kept watch from a distance. The Chinese frigate attempted to get closer to the waters, where the warships and aircraft from the three allied countries were undertaking maneuvers off the Scarborough Shoal — also known as Huangyan Island (黃岩島) and claimed by Taiwan and China — in an unsettling moment but it was warned by a Philippine frigate by radio and kept away. “There was a time when they attempted to maneuver