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"Tim Bridgewater and Mike Lee, the Republican candidates for Bob Bennett's U.S. Senate seat, say they support the resumption of underground nuclear testing in Nevada, either to verify the reliability of the existing arsenal or to develop new weapons. But Utah's deadly history as a downwind victim of fallout from previous nuclear tests argues for a much more cautious approach to any resumption of testing. First, it is not necessary to resume test explosions to verify the safety, security and reliability of existing nuclear weapons. That was the conclusion of a panel of the National Academy of Sciences in 2002. It has since been confirmed by the JASON group of independent scientific advisers that consults with the U.S. government on defense issues. "

"Tom Peterson walked into the Toyota Center in Kennewick on Monday leaning on a walker and breathing supplied oxygen through a tube to his nose. "You guys don't need this," he told about 600 CH2M Hill Plateau Remediation Co. Hanford workers. A former ironworker rigger at Hanford, he once taught health and safety classes at the HAMMER training center to other Hanford workers. Now, at 58, he's working to make sure that other workers don't fall victim to the same workplace illness that's robbed him of his breath, chronic beryllium disease."

"* Govt to put about 5 trln yen ($62 bln) into compensation fund -lawmaker * Shareholders to be protected but dividend payment unlikely for 10 yrs -lawmaker * Tepco to post 1 trln yen annual net loss for year that ended Mar 31 -Nikkei * Tepco booking charges for scrapping reactors, tax asset writeoff -Nikkei (Adds Kyodo report on asset sale, streamlining) By Kiyoshi Takenaka and Taiga Uranaka TOKYO, May 11 (Reuters) - Japan's government is planning to inject about $62 billion into a fund to help Tokyo Electric Power compensate victims of the crisis at its nuclear plant and save Asia's largest utility from financial ruin. The scheme, set to be approved by the cabinet as early as Thursday, is designed to protect bondholders and will keep Tokyo Electric shares listed, although the utility will be forced to forgo dividend payments for several years, ruling party lawmakers briefed on the plan said on Wednesday. The plan is the result of weeks of wrangling among government officials, bankers and Tokyo Electric executives over who should foot the bill for the crisis at the Fukushima Daiichi plant, which was crippled by the March 11 earthquake and tsunami in northeastern Japan and is leaking radiation."

"Japan faces the possibility of having to pay huge compensation to overseas victims of the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant because it has yet to sign any international convention that defines procedures for filing lawsuits for damages from a nuclear accident that extend beyond a nation's borders. While the Kan administration has compiled a framework to provide support to Tokyo Electric Power Co., the operator of the Fukushima plant, as it makes compensation payments, if lawsuits were filed overseas the total compensation could go much higher than current estimates of several trillions of yen. There are three conventions which establish the standards for having the nation where a nuclear accident has occurred handle compensation lawsuits. "

* Compensation covers damages until Aug 31 * Subsequent claims to be taken quarterly * First round of compensation does not cover property damage By Taiga Uranaka TOKYO, Aug 30 (Reuters) - Tokyo Electric Power unveiled the first details on Tuesday of how it would compensate Fukushima residents for lodging and other costs stemming from their evacuation of areas close to its crippled nuclear plant. The payments, due to reach victims in October, nearly seven months after the start of the nuclear crisis, mark just the first round in a series of state-supported outlays that some analysts estimate could climb as high as $130 billion. About 80,000 people were evacuated from a 20 kilometre radius around Tokyo Electric's Fukushima Daiichi plant, which has been leaking radiation since a March 11 earthquake and tsunami triggered a meltdown of reactor cores.

"As of today, it has been a quarter century since the Chernobyl nuclear disaster. The Raging Grannies, in solidarity with Abalone Alliance in San Francisco and other activists around the world, remembered the victims of that man-made catastrophe. They demonstrated against nuclear energy along the El Camino Real in Menlo Park, California, and performed for a lunch crowd in front of nearby Cafe Borrone."

"Japan's TEPCO said Wednesday it had booked an extra $1.1 billion loss to compensate victims of the Fukushima crisis, and would set aside another $473 million to bring the crippled plant under control. In May Tokyo Electric Power Co. reported a $15 billion annual net loss for the year ended March, the biggest ever for a non-financial Japanese firm, on costs related to the world's worst nuclear crisis since Chernobyl in 1986. But on Wednesday it said it would book an additional loss of 88 billion yen ($1.1 billion) to cover compensation related to "psychological distress" suffered by tens of thousands of evacuees from areas near the plant, following calculations by an official government commission."

"30 October 2011 TOKYO - Thousands of people angered by Japan's nuclear power plant accident rallied in Fukushima on Sunday to demand full compensation for victims of the crisis, and swift decontamination of their neighbourhoods. The rally in Fukushima city, some 60 kilometres (40 miles) from the plant, was attended by around 10,000 people, its organisers estimated. 'Our town should be decontaminated at the earliest possible date and our life should be restored as it was before March 11,' Tamotsu Baba, mayor of Namie town, told the rally, according to Jiji Press. A 9.0-magnitude earthquake and monster tsunami on March 11 crippled the plant's cooling systems and sparked reactor meltdowns, a series of explosions and the release of huge amounts of radiation into the environment. All the 21,000 residents in Namie, just north of the Fukushima Daiichi plant, were forced to evacuate from their homes and remained sheltered in the region, also called Fukushima, and elsewhere in the country. More than seven months after the disaster, tens of thousands of people remain evacuated from homes and businesses in a 20 kilometre (12 mile) no-go zone around the plant and in pockets beyond. Fully decontaminating those areas is expected to take decades. "

"A group of atomic bomb survivors in Hiroshima on Wednesday protested over the start of talks between Japan and India aimed at sealing a bilateral civilian nuclear cooperation pact, saying the move runs counter to attempts at nuclear disarmament. To access full stories on Kyodo News English website, it is necessary to subscribe. Please contact Kyodo's International Department in Tokyo via e-mail at kokusai@kyodonews.jp or call 03-6252-8301. If you are outside Japan, please contact Kyodo News International in New York at kni@kyodonews.com or call +1-212-508-5440. Currently we offer subscriptions to only corporate clients such as newspapers, magazines, trade publications, research institutes, government and international organizations."

When the leaders of Japan and South Korea met on Monday to discuss reviving their battered economies there was little time for the likes of Park Cheol-woo, whose arm was left withered by radiation from the Hiroshima atomic bomb. Park and the thousands of Koreans who survived the U.S. atomic bombings of Japan in the final days of World War Two have struggled for decades with debilitating illness, poverty and discrimination with little help coming from Tokyo or Seoul. "Our families were forced to go to Japan and than forced into labour, only to be bombed by nuclear weapons," said Park, who was four years old at the time.

In a unique move to propagate the message of nuclear weapon free world, 102 Hiroshima-Nagasaki atomic bomb survivors have reached Kochi. With India making the right moves to strike the nuke deal, the Japanese Hibakushas or the atomic attack survivors are worried about the safety of the world.

Hiroko Ikeda's fate was sealed before she was even born. Exposed to radiation while still in her mother's womb after the bombing of Nagasaki, she suffered with frequent convulsions for many years until her death earlier this year, as her brother Teruo Deguchi, 72, explained to a local junior high school on Saturday.

TEN children from Stolin, in Belarus, will arrive in Malvern for a four-week "health giving" holiday on Wednesday (June 18). The trip is being organised and funded by the Chernobyl Children Life Line Malvern and District Link charity, which has been operating the scheme for the last six years.

Around 1000 servicemen who were involved in the nuclear testing conducted off the coast of Australia in the 1950's, have finally won their battle to be allowed to take their claim for compensation to the courts. With the help of "after the event" insurance and a "no win no fee" lawyer, they are finally on their way to receiving a payout from the MOD for the illnesses which have plagued them and their families ever since. The servicemen were involved in the testing of nuclear devices in the South Pacific in the 1950's and were expected to carry out such tasks as burying radioactive material and washing the vehicles used to transport the devices. At no time were they provided with protective clothing or told of the possible risks to their health. The eventual outcome has been cases of cancer, leukaemia in the servicemen's children, skin conditions and infertility. The men have attempted to get legal aid to take their case to court but were refused. They finally turned to lawyer Neil Sampson, a partner at Rosenblat Solicitors, who agreed to take on the case on a "no win, no fee" basis. The action is one of the largest group actions taken in the UK and has been financed by gaining After The Event (ATE) insurance from Brit Insurance. The cost is expected to be millions of pounds. It has previously been thought that ATE insurance is usually capped at £200,000, but changing markets have meant that it is possible to find this type of insurance to cover as much as £20m.

The Hibakusha keep telling their stories. As Hiroshima and Nagasaki prepare for the upcoming 64th anniversary of the atomic bombing, Hibakusha all over the country continue to talk about that day, and to press for a nuclear ban. It was good news when the leader of the one nation in the world that has used the atomic bomb spoke of America's moral obligation and declared that he "seeks a world where there are no nuclear weapons." But the Hibakusha are wary of lapsing into an easy optimism. After all, nuclear weapons continue to spread to all corners of the world.

Former Pantex employees who developed cancer can state their case to a Federal Health Board. The Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health is in Amarillo Tuesday and Wednesday to discuss topics related to energy employees occupational illness. Although not officlally discussing Pantex, the Board will hear from the public from 7pm to 8pm Tuesday and 4pm to 5pm Wednesday at the Holiday Inn, 1911 E. I-40. The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health has previously recommended that there is sufficient evidence at Pantex for a "dose reconstruction". It's a method to estimate how much radiation an energy employee was exposed to while working there.

The Dutch Foreign Affairs Ministry has announced that it has reached agreement with the Belarussian authorities on the continuation of the free visits to the Netherlands of children suffering health problems from the Chernobyl nuclear disaster 23 years ago today. The first group will arrive in the Netherlands next week, in time to celebrate Queen's Day on 30 April. In October, Belarussian President Alexander Lukashenko ruled that only children with cancer would be allowed to leave the country. The Belarus authorities reportedly feared the children would apply for asylum. Three private organisations fund trips for children from the Chernobyl region; over the years thousands of children have visited host families in the Netherlands.