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Japanese Table of Contents

Volume 480 Number 7377 pp291-406

15 December 2011

About the cover

How Japan deals with the radioactive and political fallout from the natural disasters of March 2011 that wrecked the Fukushima Daiichi atomic plant will have immense implications for the nuclear power industry worldwide. In a Comment piece this week, two prominent Japanese politicians, Tomoyuki Taira and Yukio Hatoyama, call for the nationalization of the plant as part of the recovery process. Only with the government in control, they say, can scientists find out what really happened and make the necessary plans to cope with the aftermath. One example of the inadequacy of the current arrangement is the redacted reactor-operator's manual shown on the cover. Presented to a Diet committee by the plant's operators, the document was rendered almost unintelligible by heavy redactions.

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