Japan downplayed Chernobyl concerns at G-7 for energy policy's sake

Eager to maintain its nuclear energy policy in the wake of the 1986 Chernobyl disaster, Japan made sure concerns about the technology were downplayed at the Group of Seven summit it chaired in the days after the disaster, according to Japanese diplomatic records declassified Wednesday.References to "radiation" and "concerns" about the nuclear accident in what is now Ukraine were deleted from a draft of the G-7 statement. The final statement instead dubbed nuclear power "an energy source that will be ever more widely used in the future."The declassified records show that Japan worked to buil…READ FULL ARTICLE