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• A subcontractor of plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Co., or TEPCO, acknowledged having nine workers cover their dosimeters with lead plates late last year so the instrument would indicate a lower level of radiation exposure.
• The investigation marks the first time the government has looked into the case, believed to be part of a widespread practice at the plant since it was hit by the worst atomic crisis since Chernobyl.
• The government more than doubled the emergency radiation exposure limit soon after the accident, but lowered it back to the previous level in December. The law now sets the exposure limit at 50 millisieverts per year, or a five-year total of 100 millisieverts.
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• BERLIN (AP) -- Rabbi David Goldberg had performed about 25 ritual circumcisions this year before a regional court ruled in June that the practice amounted to causing criminal bodily harm.
• Despite the decision, he expects to perform the same number in second half of the year.
• "I haven't changed anything," said Goldberg, one of Germany's few mohels -- a person trained in the Jewish ritual of circumcision.
• Though the Cologne court's decision has raised fears among Muslims and Jews that circumcising their children could get them into legal trouble, it has had little practical effect in reducing religious circumcisions -- especially since the government has weighed in with assurances to both communities that their practices will be respected.
• But both Jews and Muslims say that a more lasting effect may be "us vs. them" tensions that have raised an invisible barrier between secular Germans and religious minorities.
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