Japan, which suffered one of the world's worst nuclear accidents, has gone nuclear again. A power plant operator in southern Japan yesterday restarted a nuclear reactor - the first since a nationwide shutdown of all 43 for safety checks - amid widespread public unease, with some polls showing more than half the population opposed.

The country remains divided more than four years after a meltdown at the Fukushima nuclear power plant in northeastern Japan following a devastating earthquake and tsunami that left 16,000 dead and 2,500 missing. The nuclear disaster is not recorded as having directly killed anyone, but more than 100,000 people evacuated because of radioactive contamination remain displaced from their homes.

The Fukushima catastrophe prompted global reflection on the safety of nuclear power. Economically, however, the government of Shinzo Abe had little choice but to throw the nuclear switch again to power the resource-scarce country, once the nuclear regulation authority gave the green light to each reactor under stricter safety rules. A huge import bill for fossil fuel replacements for power plants has done nothing for the government's efforts to restore sustained economic growth, not to mention growing carbon emissions.