1.
SV: Vessel 'Mutsu', showing nuclear sections on board. (3 SHOTS)
0.27

2.
GV PAN INT: Speaker at Nagasaki District council meeting.
0.37

3.
SV: Council chairman ordering protestors out of hall. (2 SHOTS)
0.51

4.
SV PAN: Police moving in on protestors, and scuffling breaks out.
1.02

5.
SV: Council members.
1.05

6.
SV PAN: Police fighting with demonstrators, PAN TO protestors chanting.
1.12

7.
SV: Council chairman, making further appeal to protestors PAN TO other council officials.
1.54



Initials JS/1740



Script is copyright Reuters Limited. All rights reserved

Background: In Japan, about 50 demonstrators were evicted by police from a council building in the town of Nagasaki, after they tried to stop approval of plans to repair a nuclear-powered ship that has been laid up since a defect was discovered in its reactor.

SYNOPSIS: The ship, the Mutsu, has been moored off Amori, in northern Japan, since its maiden voyage four years ago, in 1974. When it was built the Mutsu was seen by some as the forerunner of a nuclear-powered Japanese commercial fleet. But, after a radiation leak developed in the nuclear power unit, it was laid up. On Thursday, (1 June) Nagasaki District Council met to vote on a plan to repair the Mutsu. The plan has met with strong disapproval from a group of anti-nuclear demonstrators. As the meeting got underway, there were about 700 of them inside and outside the council chamber, trying to prevent approval of the plan. When the protestors started shouting their disapproval the council chairman ordered them out of the building.

Police moved in to eject the demonstrators, and scuffles broke out.

Despite the protests the council approved the repair plans by 37 votes to ten. There were more scuffles and this time riot police moved in to evict 50 protestors.

Some of the protestors were survivors of the nuclear bomb attack of august 1945, which killed an estimated 39,000 people in Nagasaki. After the meeting representatives of the organisation of the anti-Mutsu protestors said they would use force, if necessary to stop the ship being repaired. Under the plan approved by Nagasaki Council, the 8,000 ton Mutsu will be sailed to the naval repair dockyards at Sasebo, just north west of Nagasaki. While repairs are going on, the ship's reactors will be sealed, and work will be carried out with the nuclear fuel still on board the ship.