Nearly three-quarters of Japanese companies support abandoning nuclear power after last year's Fukushima disaster, although a majority set the condition that alternative energy resources must be secured, a Reuters poll showed on Friday.

The poll offers fresh evidence of the deep public distrust of nuclear power, the role of which the government is reconsidering after the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami that wrecked the Fukushima nuclear plant, triggering a radiation crisis that caused mass evacuations and widespread contamination.

The radiation released in the first days of the Fukushima nuclear disaster was almost 2-1/2 times the amount first estimated by Japanese safety regulators, the operator of the crippled plant said in a report released on Thursday.

Tokyo Electric Power said its own analysis conducted over the past year put the amount of radiation released in the first three weeks of the accident at about one-sixth the radiation released during the 1986 Chernobyl disaster.

A German development aid organisation said on Thursday it was in talks with the Indian government to dispose of 350 tonnes of toxic waste from the 1984 Bhopal gas disaster.

“We are in discussions with the Indian government,” a spokesman for the government-run Society for International Cooperation (GIZ) said, adding that Indian officials had approached Germany with the request.

No contract had been concluded yet, he said.

Details of the possible deal were unclear, but the GIZ would likely transport the toxic waste to Germany for treatment.

The Department of Environment (DoE) yesterday fined a dyeing factory in Gazipur Tk 14 lakh for not setting up Effluent Treatment Plant (ETP) even 21 months after the factory owner promised to set up the ETP.

The DoE fined the owner of the factory, Ema Cintex Ltd, and also ordered to keep its production shut. It also rebuked its owner Modabber Hossain, said a DoE press release.

The factory has been dumping untreated chemical wastes into the river Turag and polluting the river severely, it added.

The owner has been promising to set up ETP since October 5, 2010.

Private hospitals and clinics in Federal capital daily generate hazardous hospital waste, which is not properly disposed of, but dumped in the city causing serious health problems.

Medical experts say that 20 to 25 percent of the total hospital wastes are considered extremely hazardous to human health and is a potential source of fatal diseases such as hepatitis.

Spikes in radiation caused by the Fukushima nuclear disaster were below cancer-causing levels in almost all of Japan, but infants in one town appear to be at a higher risk of developing thyroid cancer, the World Health Organization said on Wednesday.

In a preliminary report, independent experts said that people in two locations in Fukushima Prefecture may have received a radiation dose of 10-50 millisieverts (mSv) in the year after the accident at the power station operated by TEPCO.

Pretrial discussions began on Wednesday in a rare public interest lawsuit whose plaintiffs include non-governmental environmental organizations.

The three plaintiffs — Friend of Nature, Chongqing Green Volunteers Union and the Qujing environmental protection bureau — exchanged evidence with Luliang Chemical Industry, the defendant, on Wednesday, said Chang Cheng, a program officer of Friend of Nature.

The exchange and discussion will last at least three days, Chang said.

A minister in Ivory Coast has been sacked over his alleged role in the disappearance of millions of dollars meant for victims of pollution.

Adama Bictogo says he has not done anything wrong.

The case relates to a 2006 incident in which thousands became ill after toxic waste was dumped in Abidjan.

Multinational Trafigura, which shipped it, denied any wrongdoing but made a series of payments in relation to the case without admitting liability.

Hearing a petition against transportation of effluents from industries manufacturing H-acid, the Bombay High Court asked the Maharashtra Pollution Control Board (MPCB) to specify particulars about such industrial units and details of sale price of their products.

The MPCB has also been asked to furnish information on whether such industries are located within the limits of Maharashtra Industrial Development Corporation (MIDC) or not.

Radiation doses received after the Fukushima nuclear accident last year were below international reference levels in all but two locations in Japan and below the level seen as "very small" in neighbouring countries, the World Health Organization said on Wednesday.

The preliminary report by independent experts found that, using conservative assumptions, people in two locations of relatively high exposure in Fukushima prefecture may have received a dose of 10-50 millisieverts (mSv) in the year after the accident at the power station operated by TEPCO.