FUKUSHIMA ACCEPTS STORAGE OF RADIOACTIVE WASTE

Tokyo: The governor of disaster- struck Fukushima agreed Monday to accept the “temporary” storage of nuclear waste from the Japanese accident, paving the way for an end to a years- long standoff.

Yuhei Sato has been cajoled and lavished with the promises of subsidies if he accepts a central government plan to build a depot on land near the battered Fukushima Daiichi plant.

“I have made an agonising decision to accept plans to construct temporary storage facilities in order to achieve recovery in the environment as soon as possible,” Sato told central government ministers in Tokyo.

The worst nuclear accident in a generation erupted in March 2011 when a huge tsunami swamped the plant on Japan’s northeast coast, flooding cooling systems and sending reactors into meltdown. The resulting plumes of radiation contaminated areas far and wide, rendering a swathe of Fukushima uninhabitable and forcing thousands of peopl from their homes.

— AFP Filipino activists hold a protest at the Japanese embassy in Manila on Monday against the controversial six- month dolphin hunting season as it begins September 1 in Taiji, Japan. The annual catch, in which people from the southwestern town corral...