Suvendrini Kakuchi
TOKYO, Sep 3 2011 (IPS) – The Fukushima disaster has thrown up the first opportunity in decades to bring justice to thousands of unskilled workers who risk radioactive contamination to keep Japan s nuclear power plants running.
Fukushima has created public awareness on a section of nuclear workers castigated as radiation- exposed people but forming the dark underbelly of an industry that depends on them, says Minoru Nasu, spokesperson for the Japan Day Labourers Union.
Nasu, a long-time labour activist, says that while nuclear industry relies heavily on unskilled workers it has left it to thuggish subcontractors to marshal them as daily wagers.
The common practice for the past several decades can best be described as human auctioning, Nasu …
Experts have said for years that Kathmandu is an extremely high-risk city in the event of seismic activity, yet Nepal was caught off guard when a massive earthquake struck on Apr. 25, 2015. Credit: Amantha Perera/IPS
COLOMBO, May 8 2015 (IPS) – There has never been any doubt that Nepal is sitting on one of the most seismically active areas in South Asia. The fact that, when the big one struck, damages and deaths would be catastrophic has been known for years.
Indeed, when this correspondent visited Nepal several years ago, and found himself climbing up the narrow, winding stairwell of the Nepal Red Cross Society office in Kathmandu, a poster on one of the doors demanded …