Hundreds of people rallied in a Tokyo park on Saturday, demanding an end to atomic power nearly two years (Monday is the 2 year anniversary) after the disaster at the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear facility in northeastern Japan.
March 11, 2011, when the magnitude 9.0 earthquake -- the strongest recorded in Japan's history -- struck off the coast, followed by the tsunami left nearly 19,000 people dead or missing and more than 300,000 people still displaced.
Japan has struggled to clean up radiation from the Fukushima Dai-Ichi nuclear plant, whose reactors melted down after its cooling systems were disabled by the tsunami, and rebuild lost communities along the coast. A new government elected in December has vowed faster action, but has yet to devise a post-disaster energy strategy -- a central issue for its struggling economy.
ALLIES of global hacker group Anonymous have put on their masks and picked up litter in a Tokyo park as a protest against tough illegal download laws.
The 80-strong collective said yesterday's busy bee was a protest against Japan's tougher laws against illegal downloads.
In light rain, they took part in an "anonymous cleaning service" for one hour in a park and on pavements in the shopping and entertainment hub of Shibuya, a change from the group's trademark website attacks.
They were dressed in black and wore masks of Guy Fawkes, the central figure in England's 1605 Gunpowder Plot to blow up parliament, which have become a symbol of protests by the loosely linked alliance around the world.
The group said that cyber attacks are the work of other global Anonymous networks in the global internet community, and that they prefer "constructive and productive solutions."
"We want to make our fellow citizens aware of the problem with a productive message."
Scientists in California said on Monday that bluefin tuna had been found to contain radioactivity, carried 6,000 miles from Japan where radioactivity leaked into the waters after its nuclear crisis. “We were frankly kind of startled,” said Nicholas Fisher, one of the researchers in the National Academy of Scientists who reported the findings. The levels of radioactive cesium were 10 times higher than the amount in tuna off the California coast in recent years, although the levels are still well below the safe-to-eat levels set by the U.S. and Japan.
The results "are unequivocal. Fukushima was the source," said Ken Buesseler of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, who had no role in the research.
A group of Occupiers attempted to “mic check” Sarah Palin's keynote speech at the annual Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) Saturday.The audience drowned out the occupiers with boos, chants of “U.S.A.” and “Sarah!” before they were escorted away.
“See? You just won. You see how easy that is?” Palin asked as the protesters were removed from the room.
Not sure what Palin thinks they "won," but happy to leave it at that. I wouldn't want to have to listen to her explain it.
California Democrats held their annual convention in San Diego on Saturday, and about 100 Occupy members showed up for the event, too.
The Occupy movement is beginning to move into universities around the country. One professor in Chicago is teaching an "Occupy Everywhere" course and says that a third of the political science majors are enrolled in his class.
Two Occupy Oakland protesters were arrested after a march on Saturday. A woman was arrested for allegedly kicking a police officer, and a male protester who tried to pull her from officers was arrested for "attempting to unlawfully intervene." When he gets out of jail, I suppose he will have to allow the woman to kick away next time?
[Photo of the Year: Samuel Aranda - New York Times via Reuters]
2012 World Press Photo of the Year
The winning photo was taken inside a mosque in Sanaa, Yemen, that was being used as a field hospital by demonstrators against the rule of President Ali Abdullah Saleh. It's an extraordinarily powerful image, showing a woman holding a wounded relative in her arms.
1,000 Rally at Meeting over Two Dozen School Closings
More than one thousand students, parents, teachers and Occupy Wall Street protesters rallied in New York City on Thursday at a vote over the closing of two dozen public schools. The protesters, under the umbrella group Occupy the DOE, tried to stop the vote from happening. Using the human microphone, the protesters disrupted the meeting at times but were unsuccessful in stopping the closing of 23 schools. New York public school teacher Brian Jones and high school student Tafador Saurov helped organize the protests.
