27/06/2013Japan receives first MOX nuclear shipment since Fukushima

A vessel under armed guard and loaded with reprocessed nuclear fuel from France arrived at a Japanese port on Thursday, an AFP journalist said, despite nearly all of the country's reactors being shut down.
The cargo of mixed oxide (MOX), a blend of plutonium and uranium, was the first such nuclear fuel to arrive in Japan since the atomic disaster at Fukushima, which was sparked by the earthquake and tsunami of March 2011.
The fuel left the French port of Cherbourg in mid April bound for Japan, French nuclear group Areva has said. The vessel was specially fitted to be able to transport nuclear material and was escorted by an armed sister ship.
Its route was not fully disclosed.
Anti-nuclear activists and residents have said they were planning a protest rally at breakwaters near a port in Takahama town on the eastern coast of central Japan, home to the Takahama nuclear plant, the final destination for the MOX.

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