Tennessee

Protesters assemble at nuclear power plant

About 300 protesters marched on the Oak Ridge nuclear weapons plant Sunday, waving banners and carrying ashes to symbolize the victims of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima.

“It is fire and damnation. You are protecting a death camp,” protester Erik Johnson, 59, shouted at security guards watching from the other side of a barricade at the entrance to the Y-12 facility.

Above, Nashua Chantal, of Americus, Ga., gathers with other protesters at the plant.

About 50 veterans and plant supporters gathered for a counter-demonstration, with one shouting over a bullhorn: “You lose, we win. The plant is still open.”

The Y-12 plant made uranium for the “Little Boy” bomb dropped on Hiroshima, Japan, on Aug. 6, 1945, near the end of World War II. The protest marked that anniversary and Y-12’s continuing role in making parts for every nuclear warhead in the U.S. arsenal.

London

Blair apology sought for dead weapons expert

Prime Minister Tony Blair should apologize for a government spokesman’s implication that a dead weapons expert at the center of a heated political dispute had overblown notions of his own importance, an opposition leader said Sunday.

Government weapons expert David Kelly, the suspected source of a British Broadcasting Corp. report that raised questions about Blair’s case for war in Iraq, killed himself last month.

Blair spokesman Tom Kelly apologized Tuesday for having compared the late scientist to the fictional Walter Mitty, an ordinary man who dreamed of being a hero.

But Conservative Party leader Iain Duncan Smith issued a statement accusing Kelly of trying to cheapen the scientist’s reputation.

“Malicious briefings are part of their culture, and Tom Kelly was only presenting the agreed counterattack briefing. The fault line goes right to the top,” Smith said. “It is surely Mr. Blair who must apologize.”

Tokyo

Cult’s headquarters raided after fatality

Japanese police raided the headquarters of a religious cult Sunday after the death of a member under mysterious circumstances.

More than 100 investigators poured into the Pana Wave Laboratory’s main center in Fukui state on suspicion that its members beat the victim, police said.

Recent media reports have identified the victim as Satoshi Chigusa, a 40-year-old assistant university professor, who died Thursday after being rushed to a hospital from the cult’s facility.

An autopsy linked his death to heat stroke and trauma from external injuries. Wounds that appeared to have been caused by a beating were found on his back, TV Asahi reported Sunday. No arrests have been made.

The Kyodo news service, citing police sources, said Sunday the group regularly beat its members with wooden sticks, believing it protected them from electromagnetic waves that it considers harmful.

The group has been under close scrutiny by authorities since May, when its all-white caravan of vehicles blocked a mountain road during a weeklong standoff with police.