Angry parents held a hundreds-strong march in Japan's Fukushima city June 26 to demand greater protection for their children from radiation more than three months after the start of the world's worst nuclear disaster in 25 years in the northern prefecture. The parents won a victory last month, when a protest campaign pressured the government to lower the limit for radiation exposure for children at schools, and to offer money for schools to remove topsoil in playgrounds with too much radiation. But also June 26, government officials met with local residents in a televised meeting at Saga, on Kyushu island, to try to convince them that it is safe to restart the prefecture's Genkai nuclear power plant. Since the Fukushima disaster, 35 of Japan's 54 nuclear reactors have been temporarily shut down. (Reuters, AFP, June 26; Asahi Shimbun, June 14)

From the Movement for Democratic Socialism (MDS), Tokyo, June 10:

It will soon be three months since the Eastern Japan catastrophic earthquake and tsunami broke out and the successive Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant disaster was triggered. We are grateful to all of you for the messages and largesse you have sent us from many parts of the world to encourage us in our efforts to gain democratic recovery from the disaster and the total abolishment of nuclear power plants. We, once again, express our profound gratitude. As for the donations, we are making full use of them in our activities to help reconstruct the disaster-stricken communities. Let us now turn to how we, MDS, are campaigning against nuclear power plants.

Hundreds of Vietnamese turned out to protest against Chinese naval operations in disputed waters of the South China Sea on June 5. the protesters in Hanoi marched on the Chinese embassy, shouting slogans including "The Paracels and Spratlys belong to Vietnam"" and "Stop Chinese invasion of Vietnam's islands." The demonstrations in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City follow a May 26 confrontation between a Vietnamese oil and gas survey ship and Chinese patrol boats. Hanoi accused the Chinese vessels of cutting the cables of the Vietnamese ship conducting seismic research about 120 kilometers off Vietnam's south-central coast. (BBC News, June 5)

At least two people were killed and six wounded by three explosions within an hour on May 26 at government office buildings in Fuzhou, in southern China's Jiangxi province. The targets were the Fuzhou Procurator's Office, the Linzhuan District government building and the Linzhuan Food and Drug Administration office. The attacker was said to ben unemployed man named Qian Mingqi, 52, who was himself among those killed in the blasts. Reports indicated Qian was a farmer angry over the handling of a court case. Feeds he posted on Weibo, the Chinese equivalent of Twitter, protested that his home was demolished in 2002 to make way for a new highway, without adequate compensation: "My newly built home was demolished illegally so that I incurred a great loss. After ten years of futile petitioning, I am forced to take a path I don't want to take. I want to seek justice but there's no justice; jackals and wolves are everywhere in Linchuan district in Fuzhou." During his fight to keep his home, Qian's wife was hung upside down by a demolition team, and died a few days later. His land seized for the new Beijing-Fujian expressway was never built on, and remains vacant. (Spero News, May 28; NYT, May 26)

Engineers at Japan's stricken Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant have abandoned their attempt to stabilize reactor Number 3 by flooding it with water, finding that melting fuel rods had created a hole in the chamber, allowing some 3,000 tons of contaminated water to leak into the basement of the reactor building—raising concerns about groundwater contamination. Plant operator TEPCO now says it will pump the 4,000 tons of water out to be transferred to a waste-disposal facility before pumping in new water and installing a "self-circulating" system. The Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency has approved the new plan—but it appears to carry its own risks. The temperature in reactor No. 3 has been rising since the beginning of the month, reaching more than 200 degrees Celsius (392 Fahrenheit).

Japan will abandon plans to expand its nuclear power industry and instead focus on renewable energy, Prime Minister, Naoto Kan announced May 11 as Japan marked two months since the devastating earthquake and tsunami. As workers continued efforts to bring the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant under control, Kan said he would "start from scratch" on an energy policy that initially foresaw nuclear meeting more than 50% of Japan's energy needs by 2030. Japan, whose 54 reactors now provide 30% of its electricity, had planned to build at least 14 new reactors over the next 20 years. "I think it is necessary to move in the direction of promoting natural energy and renewable energy such as wind, solar and biomass," Kan said. Renewables now make up 20% of Japan's overall supply.

Workers have entered the unit 1 reactor building of Japan's damaged Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant for the first time since a hydrogen explosion hit the facility a day after the devastating March earthquake and tsunami. Twelve staff members stepped in to install duct pipes to six ventillation machines that will filter out the radioactive material in the air, Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) said May 5. High radiation levels inside the plant have kept workers from entering the facility to repair the plant's cooling systems. The workers—equipped with protective suits, masks and air tanks—entered through a special tent set up to prevent radiation leaks. They are to work in 10-minute shifts. The operation is expected to take four or five days. (AlJazeera, May 5)

Tokyo Electric Power Company on April 17 issued a plan for cooling down the reactors and reducing radiation leaks within six to nine months at the crippled Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant on Japan's Pacific coast. The plan was announced as a pair of remotely controlled robots measured radiation levels inside three of the reactor buildings too high for workers to endure.