Press Conference,
Hideyuki Ban,Secretary General Citizens' Nuclear Information Center,
Aileen Mioko Smith, Executive Director, Green Action

The speech and Q & A will be English

Some time in mid to late-May, Japanese nuclear power plants in Saga, Ehime, and Shizuoka Prefectures will receive mixed uranium-plutonium (MOX) fuel, when ships carrying the cargo arrive in Japanese waters after a long, secret, and roundabout voyage from France, where the fuel was manufactured. The MOX fuel shipment, the first in a decade, marks the beginning of a new chapter in Japan's attempts to burn the fuel in conventional nuclear reactors. The last time MOX fuel was shipped to Japan, it arrived the morning of the Tokaimura nuclear explosion and later had to be returned to the British manufacturer after a data falsification scandal related to the fuel's manufacture came to light.

What are the dangers of not only MOX fuel itself but the way it is being transported to Japan? What does Japan's resumption of it's MOX program mean for new efforts worldwide to introduce nuclear nonproliferation issues, which the Japanese government says it supports? Two of Japan's leading antinuclear activists, Hideyuki Ban, of Citizens' Nuclear Information Center, and Aileen Mioko Smith, of Green Action in Kyoto, will review Japan's MOX policy and outline their concerns on the eve of what is expected to be the arrival of the ships.

Hideyuki Ban & Aileen Mioko Smith