First of all, the breaking news of today:
Another reactor in Japan was shut down, leaving just one reactor -out of the 54- running. As stated in this article, the official reasons are maintenance and stress tests, but also local governments and electric companies are facing a big public opposition.
There was one panel at the Left Forum in New York City that broached the issue of this public opposition called ‘People’s Movement In the Post Fukushima Nuclear Power Catastrophe‘. Panelists were Keisuke Jinno, Yuko Tonohira as well as Sabu Kohso – the latter two are founders of jfissures.org, a bilingual blog/webpage where we found a lot of information for the preparations of RADIOACTIVISTS and also some of our interview partners (Yoshitaka Mori, Yoshihiko Ikegami, Chigaya Kinoshita. We were also invited as panelists but since we couldn’t come to New York we ended up sending a video message where we summarize our experiences with RADIOACTIVISTS.
You can watch the whole panel here:
While first panelist Keisuke Jinno explains some general facts concerning the situation of the nuclear catastrophe regarding social, political and economical aspects, Yuko Tanahira goes into different aspects of people’s movements against nuclear power in Japan. Her discourse (which can be followed starting video number 5) answers a lot of questions we got asked at the Q&As after screenings of RADIOACTIVISTS, so if you are interested in the issue, please watch her lecture. Also Sabu Kohso gives some relevant insights on the issues of public opposition to nuclear energy in Japan, also explaining differences and similarities with the Occupy Wallstreet movement.
Last but not least, you can watch our video message for the panel here: