(This post is by Christine McCann)   State of Nuclear Politics
in Japan  In an interview with The Mainichi Daily News, Prime
Minister Yoshihiko Noda said he is considering approving
operation of nuclear plants that are currently under
construction. Noda said, ‘I’ll make a final decision on each of
them while considering the opinions of local communities.’ Until
now, Japan has had a custom that local municipalities have the
final say in whether or not nuclear plants could operate within
a community. Noda’s statement is a reversal of his previous
assertion that building new nuclear power plants would be
‘unlikely.’  Japan’s Nuclear Safety Commission (NSC) has
released a draft plan recommending that evacuation zones around
nuclear disasters be extended to a 30 kilometer radius, which
would bring Japan in line with international standards. The
current Japanese evacuation standard is 10 kilometers. In
addition, the commission says that residents living within 5
kilometers should be evacuated immediately after any