The original content of Democracy Now! Headlines appears under the Creative Commons BY-NC-ND 3.0 License (United States). For more, including their other shows and media, visit www.democracynow.org. October 31, 2013 Activists Warn Plan to Move Fukushima Fuel Rods Could Spark Massive Disaster ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Regulators in Japan have given final approval to a plan for removing more than 1,500 fuel rods from a cooling pool at the embattled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant. The process is set to begin next month. But Japan's nuclear regulatory chair has warned of a potential disaster if the fuel rods are damaged or break during the removal process. Writing for the website "Common Dreams," anti-nuclear activist Harvey Wasserman said the plan marks "humankind's most dangerous moment since the Cuban Missile Crisis." He said the fuel, currently perched on top of a damaged reactor unit, could release more than 15,000 times as much radiation as the nuclear bomb dropped by the United States on Hiroshima. .