Farmers protest against Japanese nuke plant owner

[Omaha Steve]

Source: AP

By SHINO YUASA and JACOB ADELMAN

TOKYO (AP) - Angry farmers brought two cows to Tokyo where they shouted and punched the air Tuesday in a protest to demand compensation for products contaminated by radiation spewing from Japan's crippled nuclear plant.

The 200 farmers, mostly from northeastern Japan, wore green bandanas, held aloft cabbages they said they couldn't sell and carried signs saying "Stop nuclear energy" outside the headquarters of Tokyo Electric Power Co., the operator of the plant damaged in the March 11 tsunami.

"My patience has run out. The nuclear crisis is totally destroying our farming business," said 72-year-old Katsuo Okazaki, who grows peaches and apples.

Radiation leaking from Fukushima Dai-ichi plant - about 140 miles (220 kilometers) north of Tokyo - has been found in milk, water and vegetables such as spinach from around the plant.

Read more: http://apnews.excite.com/article/20110426/D9MRA6OG0.html

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Farmers, mostly from Fukushima Prefecture where the tsunami crippled Fukushima Dai-ichi plant is located, gather in front of the Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO) headquarters in Tokyo Tuesday, April 26, 2011. More than 200 farmers affected by radiation spewing from the nuclear plant staged a demonstration to demand that TEPCO pays them adequate compensation for loss of income caused by having to leave their farms, or for having produced withdrawn from the market due to contamination fears. (AP Photo/Koji Sasahara)

[CountAllVotes]

1. The Japanese people are rightly pissed!

Had an interesting experience yesterday. I had to go to have blood drawn and the phlebotomist was a lovely young woman from Japan. I asked her if she had family there and she said yes, they were about 180 miles from where Fukushima is located.

She said the people are very angry at the Japanese government and that they believe they have been lied too and that there are demonstrations against more nukes, etc. every single day since this has happened and that the young people living in Japan are leading this path to end nukes while the media is covering this up. Wow was she ever rightly angry! :thumbsup:

She told me that the people of Japan had no idea that the government was so deceptive. I likened it to the Gulf Oil spill of last year, albeit a minor event compared to this disaster in Japan. We agreed that the main motivation behind all of these "events" is GREED. :(

I told her I was very sad for her and her family and that I'd offer up prayers for her, her family and all of Japan. She bowed to me after that; a gesture of appreciation.

How damn sad this whole thing is. The faces of the farmers show where the people of Japan at at now. They too want no more damn nukes!

:dem: