RIKUZENTAKATA, Japan (Reuters) – Japanese police painstakingly search the river and shoreline for bodies of the missing a year after the huge earthquake and tsunami swept away large areas of the fishing town of Rikuzentakata.

Once renowned for a fine beach and seaside pine thicket nestled beneath mountains, the town is now synonymous with the destruction and widespread death wrought by the triple disaster.

TOKYO, March 6 (Reuters) – A year after the Fukushima
nuclear crisis, Japan’s government is still too slow in
providing health checks and information to residents, leaving
them confused and suspicious of authorities, Human Rights Watch
said on Tuesday.

“A year on, we are really not seeing basic health services
being offered in an accessible way and we are not seeing
accurate, consistent, non-contradictory information being
disclosed to people on a regular basis,” Jane Cohen, a
researcher at the New York-based rights group, told Reuters.

TOKYO (Reuters) – Shareholders of Tokyo Electric Power Co Inc, operator of the crippled Fukushima nuclear plant in northeast Japan, are suing the utility’s executives for a record 5.5 trillion yen ($67.4 billion) in compensation, lawyers said.

The Fukushima Daiichi plant was wrecked by a quake and tsunami last March, triggering the world’s worst nuclear crisis in a quarter of a century and swamping the firm with huge clean-up, compensation and decommissioning costs.

TOKYO, March 5 (Reuters) – Shareholders of Tokyo
Electric Power Co Inc, operator of the crippled
Fukushima nuclear plant in northeast Japan, are suing the
utility’s executives for a record 5.5 trillion yen ($67.4
billion) in compensation, lawyers said.

The Fukushima Daiichi plant was wrecked by a quake and
tsunami last March, triggering the world’s worst nuclear crisis
in a quarter of a century and swamping the firm with huge
clean-up, compensation and decommissioning costs.

TOKYO (Reuters) – Japan is close to agreement with Washington on the size of cuts refiners must make in imports of Iranian crude oil to win waivers from U.S. sanctions, two ministers said Tuesday after a media report the two sides would settle on an 11 percent cut.

The Yomiuri newspaper, citing unidentified sources, said Japan and the United States reached an agreement at talks last week about the size of cuts to crude imports from Iran, with a formal deal expected by the end of this month.

TOKYO, Feb 21 (Reuters) – Japan’s trade and foreign
ministers said on Tuesday they have not yet reached an agreement
with Washington on how much Tokyo will cut Iranian crude imports
to win waivers from U.S. sanctions designed to starve Iran of
oil revenue.

Japan is likely to reduce imports of crude oil from Iran by
at least 11 percent per year, the Yomiuri newspaper reported, to
earn an exemption from sanctions that could shut Japanese banks
out of the United States.

TOKYO (Reuters) – Nearly a year after Japan’s Fukushima nuclear disaster, then-premier Naoto Kan is haunted by the spectre of an even bigger crisis forcing tens of millions of people to flee Tokyo and threatening the nation’s existence.

“Having experienced the 3/11 nuclear disaster, I changed my way of thinking. The biggest factor was how at one point, we faced a situation where there was a chance that people might not be able to live in the capital zone including Tokyo and would have to evacuate,” Kan told Reuters in an interview on Friday.

TOKYO (Reuters) – Nearly a year after a huge quake and tsunami sparked Japan’s Fukushima nuclear crisis, then-premier Naoto Kan is haunted by the specter of an even bigger disaster forcing tens of millions of people to flee Tokyo and threatening the nation’s existence.

“Having experienced the 3/11 nuclear disaster, I changed my way of thinking. The biggest factor was how at one point, we faced a situation where there was a chance that people might not be able to live in the capital zone including Tokyo and would have to evacuate,” Kan told Reuters in an interview on Friday.

TOKYO (Reuters) – Nearly a year after a huge quake and tsunami sparked Japan’s Fukushima nuclear crisis, then-premier Naoto Kan is haunted by the specter of an even bigger disaster forcing tens of millions of people to flee Tokyo and threatening the nation’s existence.

Two weeks after the crisis in March, the head of Japan’s Atomic Energy Commission drew up a worst-case scenario. It was presented to Kan, but never officially released to the public.

TOKYO, Feb 14 (Reuters) – A group of Japanese
activists submitted a petition to the western city of Osaka on
Tuesday seeking a referendum on scrapping atomic power, a step
some hope will boost a campaign that appears to be flagging a
year after the Fukushima disaster.

The world’s worst nuclear crisis in 25 years after an
earthquake and tsunami wrecked the Fukushima plant spurred
anti-nuclear movements, previously seen as the preserve of
left-leaning activists.