It is a task that has never been tried before removing damaged fuel rods from a tsunami-crippled nuclear reactor and it is being carried out by a utility with an accident-prone track record. Little wonder the whole world is watching, Craig Dale reports.

The convincing win by Shinzo Abe's Liberal Democrats in Japan's upper house on Sunday gives the country its most stable government in seven years. It also raises the spectre of a more militaristic and economically agressive Japan, which has some trading partners worried.