Since the last weekend, Japan is officially nuclear power free. On Saturday, the 6th of May, the last reactor in Hokkaido has been shut down. According to the Guardian,

Last-ditch attempts by the prime minister, Yoshihiko Noda, to win support for the early restart of two reactors at Oi power plant in western Japan have failed amid a hardening of public opposition to nuclear power.

Of course, anti-nuclear activists have been celebrating this once-in-a-lifetime-success all weekend. Who would have imagined a year ago that all reactors would shut down so soon after the Fukushima disaster in 2011?

Watch them celebrating (last Sunday, Koenj, Tokyo) in the following video:

Today is April 10, 2012. Exactly one year ago, something happened in Japan that would shake up its society to the core: On April 10, 2011, the biggest grassroots-demonstration since the 1970s took place in Tokyo. With more than 15,000 participants, the “Genpatsu Yamero Demo” marked a historical turning point in Japanese postwar history.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=leafNnVWB24&feature=player_embedded

A group called ‘Amateurs’ revolt’ (in Japanese: Shiroto no ran) organized this demonstration shortly after the nuclear power plant accident in Fukushima on March 11, 2011. Read the rest of this entry »

RADIOACTIVISTS touring Germany

Posted: 5th April 2012 by Du Fuchs in Interview, Photography

In the last couple of months we have been touring Germany with our film RADIOACTIVISTS. We had a great time and met a lot of interesting people by showing the film in Bremen, Mannheim, Darmstadt, Freiburg, Erlenbach, Hannover, Leipzig and Berlin – in squatted places, communities’ cinemas, in a cineplex and even in an old, empty factory: it’s time to show you some pictures. Read the rest of this entry »

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.

Read the rest of this entry »

Last Sunday (March 11, 2012) a lot of protest events took place all over Japan (and the world) to commemorate the triple catastrophe and especially the Fukushima nuclear power plant accident of 3.11. The “Metropolitan Coalition Against Nukes”, a network of anti-nuclear organizations and individuals which formed in September 2011, organized the biggest protest march at Hibiya Park, Tokyo, with more than 30.000 participants under the following appeal: Read the rest of this entry »