Former Japanese Prime Minister Naoto KanAmy Goodman, host of Democracy Now! on the Pacifica Radio Network, has conducted an exclusive interview with former Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan in his Tokyo offices. The nearly hour-long interview was aired today, on the third anniversary of the beginning of the Fukushima nuclear catastrophe on 3/11/11. Goodman questions Kan on his decision, while still serving as Prime Minister, to completely change his position on nuclear power, calling for its abolition in Japan in the aftermath of Fukushima Daiichi. He describes the so-called "Nuclear Village" -- Japan's nuclear power industrial-governmental-academic complex -- as the single most powerful lobby in the country.
Kan points to Germany as a "carbon-free, nuclear-free" example to follow, and describes how his 2011 feed-in tariff policy has already led to widespread deployment of solar photovoltaic power across Japan. The interview also addresses the inextricable links between nuclear power and nuclear weapons, a connection about which Kan -- who participated as Prime Minister in annual Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombing commemorations -- is very clear. Kan encourages the grassroots anti-nuclear activists of Japan, the U.S., and around the world to think globally, and act locally.