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"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. "

"At last, victims of Japan's nuclear crisis can claim compensation. And they are angry. They are furious at the red tape they have to wade through just to receive basic help and in despair they still cannot get on with their lives seven months after the huge quake and tsunami triggered the world's worst nuclear disaster in 25 years. Shouts fill a room at a temporary housing complex where seven officials, kneeling in their dark suits, face 70 or so tenants who were forced to abandon their homes near the Fukushima nuclear plant after some of its reactors went into meltdown after the March 11 quake struck."

* 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.

"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."

"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. "

"* 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."

"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."

The scale of the Chernobyl disaster is not exaggerated and even understated," a victims representative and leading nuclear expert told Xinhua in an exclusive interview Wednesday. Alexander Zenchenko, the chairman of the Focal Alliance of Chernobyl Disaster victims, also said the nuclear power plant catastrophe in Ukraine in 1986 and the current crisis at the Fukushima Daiichi plant in Japan were very different. Zenchenko, who is a famous Ukrainian nuclear chemist and physicist, is in a good position to know. He was rec

"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."

"A bipartisan group of senators led by Sen. Tom Udall, D-NM, is requesting a hearing on a proposed expansion of the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act (RECA), aimed at reaching victims throughout the western U.S. whose high rates of cancer and other diseases have been tied to radiation exposure. RECA currently provides funding to qualified "downwinders" in Beaver, Garfield, Iron, Kane, Millard, Piute, San Juan, Sevier, Washington and Wayne counties. The proposed expansion would extend coverage to all of Utah, along with the other six states, and increase the list of illnesses eligible for compensation. Introduced in April, the bill was referred to the Judiciary Committee for consideration, and the group wrote a letter to the committee requesting the hearing."

"AN £80m loan to support the civil nuclear supply chain has been cancelled as part of spending cuts announced by the government. The loan to Sheffield Forgemasters was announced by the former Labour government before the election, but has fallen victim to the review of spending decisions taken since January. Copeland MP Jamie Reed said: "This is a very serious blow for the UK nuclear industry and begs the question does the new government actually know what its doing and does it want nuclear ? "The signs are not good, confusing at best."

"Few people see nuclear power as a cheap option. The capital cost is high, and the ultimate cost, if something goes seriously wrong, could be very large. The UK's nuclear liability law is based on the Paris and Brussels Convention on Nuclear Third Party Liability, which has been in operation since the 1960s. The operator is required to take out the necessary financial security to cover its liabilities and in the UK this is currently set at £140m. Recent amendments, which are not yet in force, are aimed at ensuring that greater compensation is available to a larger number of victims in respect of a broader range of nuclear damage. In particular, it will be possible to claim compensation for certain kinds of loss other than personal injury and property damage, including loss relating to impairment of the environment. The period of operators' liability for personal injury has been increased from 10 to 30 years and, more generally, the limit on operators' liability has been increased to €700 m. That's the situation as summarised recently by Lord Hunt, then energy Minister. However if the worst comes, then even €700m is unlikely to be enough. The cost of just upgrading the emergency containment shelter at Chernobyl in 1997 was $758 m. Quite apart from the loss of life, with estimates of early deaths ranging up to several thousand and beyond, and also lifelong illnesses (e.g. related to immune system damage) for some of those exposed, the total economic costs of the Chernobyl disaster were much larger: e.g. Belarus has estimated its losses over 30 years at US $235 bn, with government spending on Chernobyl amounting to 22.3% of the national budget in 1991, declining gradually to 6.1% in 2002. And 5-7% of government spending in the Ukraine still goes to Chernobyl-related benefits and programmes. www.greenfacts.org/en/chernobyl"

"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."

"As research scientists and federal regulators gathered in Washington, D.C., last month to discuss a new study of cancer rates near nuclear power plants, Sarah Sauer of Corydon, Ind., asked them for a favor. Don't forget the people behind the numbers, said Sarah, 16, a sophomore at Presentation Academy in Louisville. Moments earlier, as she spoke to the National Academy of Sciences panel, the teen brought some in the room to tears, standing on a step-stool to reach the microphone as her high-pitched and strained voice told as much about her cancer battle as her words. Linda Modica, a Sierra Club member from Tennessee who attended the panel meeting, said Sarah was a brave girl."

"Tragic Veronica is the latest victim of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster that has robbed her of her sight and friends and without urgent help eventually her life. Her face has distorted so badly as a result of the radiation that hit her home village of Korosten in the Ukraine that doctors in the country now say there is no hope of saving her life if she stays there. The only chance to help her is a procedure that can be carried out in Israel - but even though doctors have offered much of their services for free the impoverished family, who earn less than 100 pounds a month, still need to find 34,500 pounds to have the chance to save their daughter's life and end her agony."

"U.S. Sen. Orrin Hatch is asking a national panel to take a fresh look at the science behind the government's program for compensating people who were injured by exposure to atomic-testing fallout and the uranium industry. Sponsor of the original Radiation Exposure Compensation Act (RECA), Hatch put the request in a letter Monday to the Nuclear and Radiation Studies Board of the National Academy of Sciences. His letter comes two weeks after the Utah Republican panned bipartisan legislation in Congress to expand RECA as overbroad and too expensive. "When I worked to enact the original RECA law to help Utahns exposed to radiation, the policy was based on scientific evidence -- an absolute must when you're talking about Hatch RECA letter (pdf) these types of programs," he said Tuesday. "The goal of the letter to the National Academy of Sciences [NAS] is to see whether or not new scientific data exists to justify expanding the RECA program; in the past it did not," he added. "I want NAS to examine the data and talk with Utah radiation victims to see if that is justified before anyone puts more taxpayer dollars on the line." Companion bills in the House and the Senate would expand RECA eligibility to those who suffered from exposure in seven states: New Mexico, Utah, Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, Montana and Nevada. Only those in certain counties in three states are now eligible to apply for payments from the fund of $50,000, $100,000 or $150,000, depending Advertisement on whether they were exposed as millers, miners, ore transporters, atomic program employees or downwinders. The Utah counties now covered include: Beaver, Garfield, Iron, Kane, Millard, Piute, San Juan, Sevier, Washington and Wayne. The federal government's current program has paid nearly $1.5 billion to more than 22,000 people. Some 4,776 of them are Utahns who have received nearly $275 million from the federal program. "

"In October 1962, the Cold War reached its crescendo, with the Cuban missile crisis. But in that same year, and in that tense political climate, the federal government saw fit to disband above-ground nuclear weapons tests on the Nevada desert. The risks - to unsuspecting Americans who lived, farmed and raised dairy cattle beneath the shadow of the inevitable radioactive fallout - was considered too extreme. With a 1990 law, the feds began to attempt to right past wrongs in the only manner possible: with money. Downwinders in 21 Nevada, Utah and Arizona counties began receiving compensation - $704 million to 14,000 cancer victims and their survivors."

"When one lusts for the bottom line of financial windfalls or political benefits, compassion always falls by the wayside. Only a lust for the bottom line of compassion itself will not leave any soul un-nurtured. :::::::: When late last month U.S. Senator John McCain was asked by a woman at a Springerville, Arizona, town hall meeting what he was doing about getting Mohave County, Arizona, added to the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act (or RECA, a 1990 law that compensates radiation victims of U.S. nuclear weapons activities including fallout victims called "downwinders'), his answer: "We are still doing everything we can to see that happens" - must have sounded to those in the audience like a hollow assurance. It sure did to me. The group Mohave Downwinders, led by Eleanore Fanire until her passing last November, and that group's allies, had feverishly lamented the cold shoulder given to them by their longtime Senator, Mr. McCain. But it must be April Fools day all this month because McCain actually followed through on his word and formally stated on April 28th his intention in a press release to introduce legislation to add Mohave County "to the list for counties eligible for downwinder compensation under RECA." "

"In its peace declaration of Aug. 9, the city of Nagasaki included some measures I hope will bring the global community at least one step closer to the goal of a non-nuclear world, including enshrining Japan's three non-nuclear principles in law and declaring northeast Asia a nuclear-free zone. As the next concrete step, we would like to call on global society to join us in moving toward a treaty banning nuclear arms, and strongly call on the United Nations to work toward the same. Furthermore, the cities that have been victims of nuclear attacks have an important mission to fulfill. Namely, when people speak of nuclear arms from the perspectives of national benefit, military strength or technological prowess, we must remind them of the human perspective."