【Japan】Five in Hunger Strike Against Kaminoseki Nuclear Power Plant Yamaguchi City

Press Release

Five in Hunger Strike Against Kaminoseki Nuclear Power Plant
Yamaguchi City, Saturday, January 29, 2011

Five young men (2 aged 19, 3 aged 20) are in the ninth day of a hunger strike outside the Prefectural Government offices in Yamaguchi City to protest land fill and sea reclamation work in preparation for construction of a nuclear power plant on the coast of the environmentally sensitive Seto Inland Sea. (See translation of their statement at the end of this press release.) The Seto Inland Sea is sometimes referred to as Japan’s Galapagos because of its rich environmental diversity.
They plan to continue their hunger strike at least until the tenth day (Sunday 30th), when they will conduct a one-hour sit-in from 12 noon outside the Prefectural Government offices. The sit-in will be joined by Diet Members from the Social Democratic Party and other supporters. Beyond Sunday, their plans will depend on their physical condition.
In October some of the hunger strikers joined the 800-kilometer “7 Generations Walk” from Kaminoseki to Nagoya, where COP 10 of the Convention on Biological Diversity was being held. Along with other activists from Japan and abroad they protested the threat posed by the Kaminoseki Nuclear Power Plant to the biodiversity of the Seto Inland Sea.

Related links
1. Video of hunger strikers
http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/12254054#utm_campaigne=synclickback&source=http://greenz.jp/2011/01/27/hungeryboy/&medium=12254054
2. COP10 International Appeal Against Kaminoseki Nuclear Power Plant
http://cnic.jp/english/topics/new%20plants/kaminosekinnaf18oct10.html
3. Article about Kaminoseki Nuclear Power Plant on Convention on Biological Diversity COP 10 NGO web site
http://cop10.org/issues/marine/73-kaminoseki
4. “7 Generations Walk” Japanese web site and English YouTube video
http://7gwalk.org/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xYCG_3Qm0bI&feature=player_embedded
5. Hunger strikers’ Japanese Blog and personal statement.
http://blog.goo.ne.jp/newgenerations
http://yaredeki2009.jugem.jp/?eid=866&guid=ON

Contacts
Naoya Okamoto (Kin-chan), Hunger Striker (speaks some English), mobile phone: 090-6515-2962
Philip White, Citizens’ Nuclear Information Center, Phone: +81-3-3708-2898, +81-3-3357-3800

【Taiwan】４ｔｈ nuclear power plant's start date delayed

Plant’s start date delayed
The date for the fourth nuclear power plant to begin commercial operations will be pushed back another year, mainly because of problems with the plant’s instrumentation and control system, state-owned Taiwan Power Company (Taipower) said yesterday. Work on the No. 1 generator at the plant is almost finished and it is being tested, the company said. The No. 1 generator was scheduled to begin commercial operations on Dec. 15 this year and the No. 2 generator in December next year. However, Taipower chairman Chen Kuei-ming (陳貴明) said in a meeting of the Legislative Yuan’s Economics Committee that the No. 1 generator probably will not begin commercial operations until late next year because there are still some problems with its instrumentation and control system that have not been fixed. This marks the fifth time that the date for commercial operations of the fourth nuclear power plant has been postponed.

Taipei Times （2011/01/07）
http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/taiwan/archives/2011/01/07/2003492906