3 Former Executives to Be Prosecuted in Fukushima Nuclear Disaster
TOKYO — In the first criminal prosecutions of officials connected to the Fukushima nuclear plant disaster of 2011, the Japanese authorities said Friday that they would move forward with cases against three former executives of the Tokyo Electric Power Company, the owner of the plant where reactors melted down after a tsunami.
The move was a victory for citizens’ groups that have been pursuing charges against dozens of officials at Tokyo Electric Power, known as Tepco, and the government, with no success until now. Prosecutors had twice rejected requests to indict the three former Tepco executives, but a review board overruled their decision on Friday and ordered that charges be brought.
“We had given up hope that there would be a criminal trial,” said Ruiko Muto, an opponent of nuclear power who leads the Fukushima Nuclear Disaster Plaintiffs Group, an umbrella organization representing about 15,000 people, including residents displaced by the accident and their supporters. “We’ve finally gotten this far.”
One of the biggest and most polluted military sites is here on St. Lawrence Island in Alaska’s farthest western reaches close to the former Soviet Union. Here, a 4,800-acre radar station, Northeast Cape, bristled with electrical components containing polychlorinated biphenyls, better known as PCBs, that were later linked to cancer and banned in many countries. Tiny fish living downstream from the site, eaten by birds and larger fish that islanders harvest for food, are loaded with PCBs, scientific tests have found. And PCB levels in residents are multiple times higher than in most other places in the nation, studies show.
24 hours after blockade began in Portland, Greenpeace continues effort to block drilling ship from leaving harbor
Most Americans Say Their Children Will Be Worse Off
Parents don’t think their kids will be as wealthy as they are
The next generation of Americans will be healthier, their parents say, all except for their finances.
Barely more than one in 10 (13%) American adults believe their children will be better off financially than they were when their career reached its peak and just over half (52%) believe their children will have less disposable income than they did in the future, according to a survey of more than 1,100 American adults released Wednesday by life insurer Haven Life and research firm YouGov. What’s more, just 20% of Americans believe their children will have a better quality of life when they reach their age.
The protests against the Kinder Morgan pipeline that occurred earlier this year on Burnaby Mountain will look like a pale imitation of what will happen should the project gain approval and construction actually begins.
Another place to keep an eye on is the proposed LNG facility at the Woodfibre site on Howe Sound. The local population there seems thoroughly divided over whether it should be built, and the chances of opponents simply sitting idly by while construction begins seem remote.
A homeless man stands in front of a closed down business in Puerta de Tierra in the outskirts of Old San Juan, Puerto Rico, Sunday, Aug. 2, 2015. Mired in a 10 year old economic crisis, Puerto Rico failed to pay a $58 million bond payment due Saturday.
If defaults continue, analysts say Puerto Rico will face numerous lawsuits and increasingly limited access to markets, putting a recovery even more out of reach. (AP Photo/Ricardo Arduengo)
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