"Japan plans to ask pregnant women and children to move away from radiation 'hotspots' that were found far away from the crippled Fukushima nuclear plant, the government said on Thursday, reflecting new anxieties about the spread of radioactivity.

The government will not, however, evacuate entire towns, but rather homes where residents could be exposed to more than 20 millisieverts of radiation per year. Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano told reporters.

Twenty millisieverts is the annual radiation limit the government has set for school children in Fukushima, where workers at the Daiichi plant 240 km (150 miles) from Tokyo are battling to bring under control the worst nuclear crisis since Chernobyl."

Shinichi Saoshiro reports for Reuters June 17, 2011. [2]