 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
Mumbai (AFP) April 19, 2011 Mobs attacked a hospital and blocked a highway in western India on Tuesday in a second day of violent protests against a planned nuclear power plant, after a protester was shot dead a day earlier. The renewed violence prompted police to ban large public gatherings and political rallies, local television channels reported, with anger seething over the proposed power station amid Japan's nuclear emergency. A furious crowd targeted a hospital in Ratnagiri town in Maharashtra state, while state transport buses were pelted with stones and a district highway road blocked with burning tyres, the Press Trust of India news agency said. The Hindu nationalist Shiv Sena party called a shutdown in Ratnagiri town, 350 kilometres (220 miles) south of state capital Mumbai, television channels said. "The situation is calm and under control," a police official at the Ratnagiri police control room told AFP, asking not to be identified. Anger has been brewing in the area since national environment minister Jairam Ramesh last week ruled out a "rethink" on the planned six-reactor, 9,900-megawatt facility in Jaitapur in Ratnagiri district. On Monday police shot a man dead during clashes with protesters, later saying they had "no choice" but to fire live bullets at the crowd. Demonstrators set a police station ablaze after the killing, and at least 20 were arrested. The power plant is to be constructed with technical help from the French energy giant Areva. But environmental campaigners argue the location is prone to earthquakes, while local people who are dependent on fishing and farming say the plant will rob them of their livelihoods and nuclear waste could pollute the soil and sea. Nuclear industry insiders have also cast doubt on India's ability to deal with a crisis on the scale of that faced by Japan at its Fukushima Daiichi plant after a devastating earthquake and tsunami last month. Anti-nuclear activists had been planning further protests on Sunday in Maharashtra state to demand that the nuclear power plant be scrapped. Energy-hungry India currently sources three percent of its electricity from nuclear power, but the government wants to increase that to six percent by the end of the decade and 13 percent by 2030.
Share This Article With Planet Earth
Related Links Nuclear Power News - Nuclear Science, Nuclear Technology Powering The World in the 21st Century at Energy-Daily.com
German nuclear village bucks trendNeckarwestheim, Germany (AFP) April 19, 2011 Ever since the Japan nuclear crisis began last month, yellow and red badges saying "Atomkraft? Nein Danke" ("Nuclear Power? No Thanks") with a smiling sun are everywhere in Germany. But anti-nuclear activist Wolfram Scheffbuch has taken to removing his whenever he comes to the small village of Neckarwestheim in the southwest of the country. "It's not the done thing here," the 40-somethin ... read more |
|
|
| The content herein, unless otherwise known to be public domain, are Copyright 1995-2010 - SpaceDaily. AFP and UPI Wire Stories are copyright Agence France-Presse and United Press International. ESA Portal Reports are copyright European Space Agency. All NASA sourced material is public domain. Additional copyrights may apply in whole or part to other bona fide parties. Advertising does not imply endorsement,agreement or approval of any opinions, statements or information provided by SpaceDaily on any Web page published or hosted by SpaceDaily. Privacy Statement |
del.icio.us
Digg
Reddit
YahooMyWeb
Google
Facebook
