Lawsuit against TEPCO, over suicide in Fukushima
Japan grapples with post-tsunami suicides Daily Mail, By Arata Yamamoto, NBC News , 12 May 12 TOKYO, Japan – More than 60 people have committed suicides related to last year’s 9.0 quake and tsunami, which triggered meltdowns at a nuclear plant in Fukushima, the Japanese government says.
The data comes as a family prepares to file the first lawsuit against the Tokyo Electric Power Co. over the suicide of Hamako Watanabe, a 58-year-old woman who set herself on fire in wake of the disaster.
In 2011, 55 people committed suicide, with another six cases reported since the beginning of 2012. Suicides linked to the Fukushima nuclear accident are included in the numbers, but attribution to the nuclear crisis has been omitted due to privacy concerns. The data was collected using local police reports since last June…..
Watanabe’s family will seek $910,000 in damages in the death of Hamako Watanabe from TEPCO, the operator of the Fukushima nuclear plant, according to The Japan Times and The Mainichi . They plan to file the lawsuit – which would be the first over a suicide linked to the nuclear crisis – on May 18 in Fukushima District Court….
Hamako Watanabe had been a poultry worker until her workplace was shuttered after the tsunami, and she began to show signs of insomnia and had a poor appetite. A group of lawyers representing victims of the nuclear crisis said her depression and suicide were due to the nuclear disaster, The Mainichi reported. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2142849/Haunting-shots-Chernobyl-nuclear-disaster-revealed-true-scale-catastrophe–cost-photographers-lives.html?ito=feeds-newsxml
Nuclear missiles – the ultimate phallic symbol
North Korea’s Performance Anxiety, NYT, By WILLIAM J. BROAD, May 5, 2012 “IT’S a boy,” Edward Teller exulted after the world’s first hydrogen bomb exploded in 1952 with a force 1,000 times more powerful than the bomb that destroyed Hiroshima.
From the start, the nuclear era seethed with sexual allusions. Military officers joked about the phallic symbolism of their big missiles and warheads — and of emasculating the enemy. “Dr. Strangelove” mocked the idea with big cigars and an excited man riding into the thermonuclear sunset with a bomb tucked between his legs.
Helen Caldicott, the antinuclear activist, argued in the 1980s that male insecurity accounted for the cold war’s perilous spiral of arms. Her book? “Missile Envy.” Today, the psychosexual lens helps explain why North Korea, in addition to dire poverty and other crippling woes, faces international giggles over its inability to “get it up” — a popular turn of phrase among bloggers and some headline writers.
“Things like this never go away,” Spencer R. Weart, an atomic historian and director emeritus of the Center for History of Physics at the American Institute of Physics, said in an interview. “There’s little doubt that missiles are phallic symbols. Everybody agrees on that.”
On Friday, April 13, North Korea fired a big rocket on a mission to loft the nation’s first satellite into orbit. But it fell back to Earth with a splash……. The phallic symbolism once centered on success. Nowadays, at least with North Korea, it seems as if it’s more about dysfunction. http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/06/sunday-review/north-koreas-fizzling-missiles.html?pagewanted=2&_r=1
Japanese do not trust the government about Fukushima radiation
83% of Fukushima residents and 73% countrywide felt ‘greatly’ or ‘somewhat’ worried about radioactive contamination. More importantly, 70% of people in the three disaster hit prefectures , and 71% people countrywide , felt that government was “hiding” information.
This background of mistrust and deception, coming on top of enormous suffering, haunts the island nation, and especially the 350,000 people, who are living in camps unable to go back home to Fukushima.
Debris, radiation fear, mistrust still piling up Times of India, Subodh Varma, TNN | Mar 12, It is one year since the Great Eastern Japan Earthquake generated a tsunami that ripped apart the north-eastern sea-coast of Japan leaving over 20,000 people dead and the Fukushima nuclear power plant damaged. The triple disaster is estimated to have caused losses worth $235 billion according to World Bank.
Pictures circulated worldwide by visiting journalists show spectacular scenes of the massive clean up operation launched by the government of Japan. But the reality is numbingly grim. Goshi Honoso , Japan’s environment minister speaking at a routine press conference on February 21, urged local governments to help in cleaning up the debris left behind in Iwate, Miyagi and Fukushima prefectures, the three areas which bore the brunt of the tsunami, reports Kyodo news agency.
Then, he revealed jaw dropping numbers: an estimated 22.53 million tonnes of debris was created by the tsunami . Of this, only 1.18 million tonnes, that is, about 5% has been disposed of.The rest of it is simply bulldozed and piled into giant heaps, some as high as 20 meters high. ….
Safecast helps Japanese people to learn about radiation
Even if nuclear science and the impact of a nuclear meltdown on human health were simple to understand (and they are not), there is still the rather uneasy fact of dealing with a daily foe: invisible, odourless radiation.
Working with Safecast , which crowdsources radiation readings gathered by volunteers, and combines it with data from other outfits to give a clearer picture of what’s going on, Saito wanted people to be able to determine what was safe for them based on fact, not paranoia or nuclear industry propaganda.
Japan’s radiation: Ignorance isn’t bliss Feeling that officials aren’t doing enough, everyone, farmer to housewife, is learning about radiation contamination. Aljazeera, D. Parvaz 10 Mar 2012 Iitate Village, Japan – Second-generation farmer Muneo Kano has not been able to tend to his cattle or grow crops since the Daiichi nuclear power plant contaminated land, air and sea after being damaged by last year’s earthquake and tsunami.
He had his 11 cows scanned for radiation and sold them to another farm outside the radiation area. Kano’s own seven-hectare farm is 45km from the nuclear site, and the soil has been deemed too contaminated for farming.
And Kano has had to learn all about radiation and soil fast – he now tracks and maps radiation dips and spikes on an iPad, and has a series of maps he consults to check what authorities say about farms in the area.
Soil samples tested in Iitate still contain ten times the acceptable levels of the radioactive isotope Caesium-137 for agricultural soil, and the government has yet to remove the top layers of contaminated soil and wash the streets…. Read more »
The mental health effects of the nuclear accident at Fukushima
they live in fear of the invisible threat in their midst. …. there is agreement that the Fukushima case is unprecedented.
conflicting information has left them confused and fearful about the future.
“We’re being treated like lab rats. The authorities should have told us as soon as they knew the reactors had melted down and helped us leave immediately
Fukushima residents plagued by health fears of nuclear threat in their midst A year after the power plant’s triple meltdown, conflicting official information leaves families confused and fearful for their future, Justin McCurry in Fukushima guardian.co.uk, 9 March 2012 The noise levels soar inside Fukushima city’s youth centre gymnasium as dozens of nursery school children are let loose on bouncy castles and pits filled with plastic balls.
The handful of teachers and volunteers on duty are in forgiving mood: for the past year, the Fukushima nuclear accident has robbed these children of the simple freedom to run around.
Instead, anxious parents and teachers have confined them to their homes and classrooms, while scientists debate the possible effects of prolonged exposure to low-level radiation on their health. Read more »
Fukushima’s psychological trauma, as well as radiation cancer risk
Radiation is still leaking from the now-closed Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant, though at a slower pace than it did in the weeks after the March 11 earthquake and tsunami. It’s not immediately fatal but could show up as cancer or other illnesses years later.
The uncertainty breeds fear.
The [cancer] risk is cumulative. The radioactivity in one’s body builds up through various activities, including eating contaminated food every day or staying in a hot spot for an extended period.
Uncertain risks torment Japanese in nuclear zone, THE HINDU, 8 March 12, Yoshiko Ota keeps her windows shut. She never hangs her laundry outdoors. Fearful of birth defects, she warns her daughters — never have children.
This is life with radiation, nearly one year after a tsunami-hit nuclear power plant began spewing it into Ota’s neighbourhood, 60 km away. She’s so worried that she has broken out in hives.
“The government spokesman keeps saying there are no immediate health effects,” the 48-year-old nursery school worker says. “He’s not talking about 10 years or 20 years later. He must think the people of Fukushima are fools. It’s not really OK to live here,” she says. “But we live here.” Read more »
The continuing human cost of Fukushima’s continuing radiation
Enduring the nuclear winter, Irish Times, 26 Dec 11“……..More than 100,000 people have been displaced due to radiation around Fukushima Prefecture, home to the crippled Daiichi nuclear plant. Those who stay keep children indoors for much of the day. Others, such as single mother Kanako Nishitaka from Fukushima City, have fled in an attempt to find normality in a different part of the country.
“My daughter is smaller and closer to the ground, so she absorbed more radiation,” she says. “They found caesium in her body. I was told it was about the same amount as people exposed to nuclear bomb tests. When I told my son we were moving, he cried his eyes out because he
didn’t want to leave his friends.”
Many doubt the immediate area around the plant will ever again be habitable. The Daiichi plant will become an unwanted monument to Japan’s nuclear ambitions for years to come, while the cost of dismantling its reactors and supporting its victims will haunt future
governments…….” http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/features/2011/1227/1224309514995.html
Iranian people are frightened of military strike, nuclear disaster
Fear, speculation in Iran over military strike, By Parisa Hafezi and Hashem Kalantari TEHRAN Dec 8, 2011 (Reuters) – The threat of military strikes on Iran has upturned the quiet and comfortable lives once enjoyed by many Iranians, ushering in a new era of struggle and fear.
Like many Iranians, Maryam Sofi says the West and Iran are locked in a dangerous game. “I don’t think we can know just yet if war will break out, but I am concerned for my family and my country,” says university teacher Sofi, 42, a mother of two.
“I cannot sleep at night, thinking about destruction and bloodshed if Israel and America attack Iran.”
The United States and Israel have not ruled out military action against Iran’s nuclear facilities Read more »
The lingering nuclear disaster of Chernobyl
the global death toll by 2004 was closer to 1 million and said health effects included birth defects, pregnancy losses, accelerated aging, brain damage, heart, endocrine, kidney, gastrointestinal and lung diseases.The physical and financial legacies of that disaster are obvious: a 30-km uninhabited ring around the Chernobyl plant, billions of dollars spent cleaning the region and a major new effort to drum up 600 million euros ($840 million) in fresh funds that Kiev says is needed to build a more durable casement over the stricken reactor. Read more »
Iran and nuclear issues: diplomacy is the only answer
Let’s be clear: there is still no concrete evidence Iran is building a bomb.The latest report from the IAEA, despite its much discussed reference to “possible military dimensions to Iran’s nuclear programme”, also admits that its inspectors continue “to verify the non-diversion of declared nuclear material at [Iran's] nuclear facilities”.
The simple fact is there is no alternative to diplomacy, no matter how truculent or paranoid the leaders of Iran might seem to western eyes. If a nuclear-armed Iran is to be avoided, US politicians have to dial down their threatening rhetoric and tackle the very real and rational perception, on the streets of Tehran and Isfahan, of America and Israel as military threats to the Islamic Republic. Iranians are fearful, nervous, defensive – and, as the Middle East map shows, perhaps with good reason…
If you lived in Iran, wouldn’t you want the nuclear bomb? Mehdi Hasan, guardian.co.uk, 19 Nov 11 The best way for the US to stop Iran developing nuclear weapons is to dial down the rhetoric and adopt some diplomacy
Imagine, for a moment, that you are an Iranian mullah. Sitting crosslegged on your Persian rug in Tehran, sipping a cup of chai, you glance up at the map of the Middle East on the wall. It is a disturbing image: your country, the Islamic Republic of Iran, is surrounded on all sides by virulent enemies and regional rivals, both nuclear and non-nuclear… Read more »
Iran’s nukes – a matter of national pride
At Tehran University, a group of hard-line students starts a petition urging Iran to withdraw from an international treaty regulating nuclear development. There’s no doubt Iran carefully stage manages much of its backlash to Western pressures over its nuclear efforts. But not all.
Iran’s defiance remains one of the few patches of common ground in a nation with multiple divisions: Hard-liners against opposition groups; power struggles between the ruling clerics and President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad; infighting among various parliament factions.
“Iranians don’t agree on much these days, but you could say the nuclear issue is one where they more or less speak in a common voice,” said William O. Beeman, aUniversity of Minnesota professor who follows Iranian affairs. Read more »
The psychology of attitudes in Iran to nuclear power
what about Ahmadinejad’s promise to “wipe Israel off the face of the map?” Several problems exist with the idea.
Firstly, scholars of the Persian language say that his oft-cited words have been mistranslated and taken out of context. Ahmadinejad was actually quoting the revolutionary regime’s founder, Ayatollah Khoemeni, not making a policy statement.. (Read here for more on this dispute).
The Threat of a Nuclear Theocracy, Act II. Slate, By Michael Moran , Nov. 15, 2011 As the U.S. debate over Iran’s nuclear program has heated up, an issue of war and peace is being framed in a very dangerous way. The United States, with all its other problems right now, must get this right, because all options on Iran’s nuclear program are laden with risk, and the truth is very inconvenient.
The debate—roughly sanctions and diplomacy versus airstrikes—fails to acknowledge some important facts, the most important of which is that neither a military option—short of the lunacy of an all-out invasion of Iran—nor diplomacy will guarantee that Iran won’t soon gatecrash the nuclear club. Read more »
Japan: the psychological impact of Fukushima nuclear catastrophe
For Japanese, Fukushima spells fear, MARK MACKINNON,TOKYO—Globe and Mail, Oct. 12, 2011 The Fukushima fallout has now spread well beyond what can be measured with a Geiger counter. In the minds of many consumers, Fukushima prefecture – which, at almost 14,000 square kilometres is bigger than Lebanon or Jamaica – and the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant are one and the same. Though the Japanese government has evacuated only a 20-kilometre radius around the plant, many inside and outside Japan treat the entire region as though it’s contaminated, unsure of what to make of shifting official assessments of the situation. Read more »
Radiation standards for children should be lower than for adults
”Safety standards established in nuclear power countries are currently set for adults,” .. “It is a given fact that children are far more vulnerable to exposure.”
New Radiation Limits Demanded for Children, By Suvendrini Kakuchi TOKYO, Sep 29, 2011 (IPS) – The threat of radioactive contamination faced particularly by children after the Mar. 11 nuclear disaster in Japan has touched the heart of the Japanese public, and become a major political and social issue.
Mothers are inevitably in the forefront of citizen groups working to protect children. At a meeting this week at the Ministry of Welfare, they presented an appeal that included a demand for the world’s first radiation safety standards for minors. Read more »
Japan’s nuclear crisis making young Japanese more thoughtful
young people in Japan have significantly shifted their focus from material gain to altruism….
Previously, the key purpose for finding a career had been to earn money …..respondents said that their views had also changed about nuclear power
Nuclear incidents cause shift in values among young Japanese, Inside Japan Tours, 15th September 2011 A new survey reveals that the earthquake and nuclear disaster that beset Japan earlier this year has led to a shift in attitudes among the country’s young citizens. Read more »
1 THIS MONTH
- http://ifyoulovethisplanet.org/?p=5755 Mary Olson on how women are more vulnerable to atomic radiation
http://soundcloud.com/flashpoints/flashpoints-daily-newsmag-05-6Fukushima reactor 4 still threatens the world Dr. Micio Kaku
of the week http://www.youtube.com/user/GoddardsJournal
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San Onofre: Bad Vibrations http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RP7e83MErWw&feature=share - Low-Dose Radiation ☢ NEW A-Bomb Study http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-VAncqK6bl0&feature=share
“Pay-to-print”: How Media Corruption Undermines Indian Democracy http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AbjsQ_dYuJQ&feature=share
VIDEO http://vimeo.com/35212151 Cancer Risk To Young Children Near Fukushima Daiichi Underestimated
- and this VIDEO Kazakhstan’s Nuclear Legacy http://www.euronews.com/2010/04/14/kazakhstan-s-nuclear-legacy/
ACTION
USA EMERGENCY PLANNING PETITION NOW OPEN FOR PUBLIC COMMENT
PLEASE SUBMIT YOUR COMMENTS IN FAVOR OF EXPANDING EMERGENCY PLANNING ZONES; IMPROVING REGULATIONS The deadline for public comments is July 16, 2012. You can submit your comments here. more information at http://nuclear-news.net/action/
- Shut down the nuclear restart. Sign now!! http://www.avaaz.org/en/japan_no_to_nuclear_restart_ms/
- Stop Kudankulam - Please sign http://org2.democracyinaction.org/o/5502/p/dia/action/public/?action_KEY=10090 –
EVENTS – USA
- May 31 - Portland, Maine, Bonnie Raitt benefit concert for New England Coalition on Nuclear Pollution
The Nuclear Industry and WOMEN- theme for May 2012
Although women have rarely been part of decision-making about nuclear power, they have been at the forefront in opposing it.Women in organisations Strongly present in anti-nuclear activities in peace, environmental, religious and civil liberties, women have also formed their own anti-nuclear organisations . e.g. Women’s International League For Peace and Freedom, Women For Peace. Women Against Nuclear Power, Women Against Nuclear Energy,
“When it comes to opposing nuclear power in Finland, the toughest and most active and conspicuous resistance has been among women. A rather small group of women working as teachers, freelance editors, authors and in rather alternative professions. Women who perfectly well are aware of the fact that they are far too radical to be promoted for high posts within traditional parties or getting well-paying jobs in some big companies. Women who are not trying to reach equality on male values. These women have kept the resistance alive, have invited foreign speakers getting through in the mass media, have arranged post-card campaigns aiming at parliamentarians, have written inserts in daily newspapers, have collected signatures from organizations worldwide against nuclear power, etc.
If women had been asked if nuclear power should be used for energy production or if nuclear weapons should be produced there would hardly be any nuclear power stations in the world and no nuclear weapons. Women represent half of humanity. Our voice must be heard! “- Ulla Klötzer WISE – Nuclear issues information service service
Below, a note on some of the courageous women who have stood out against the nuclear forces and apologies for the thousands of such women who are not mentioned here
Dr Helen Caldicott. - Australia and The World. The single most articulate and passionate advocate of citizen action to remedy the nuclear and environmental crises, Dr Helen Caldicott, has devoted the last 38 years to an international campaign to educate the public about the medical hazards of the nuclear age and the necessary changes in human behavior to stop environmental destruction. Helen Caldicott – About
Jean McSorley. – UK. A prolific writer and activist, Jean McSorley has advised government and environmental organisations, in the UK and abroad, for many years revealing the facts about Sellafield, and other UK nuclear facilities.
Her MajestyQueen Noor ofJordan is an international humanitarian activist and an outspoken voice on issues of world peace and justice. Today Her Majesty Queen Noor plays a major role in promoting international exchange and understanding of Arab and Muslim culture and politics, Arab-Western relations, and conflict prevention. Queen Noor | Global Zero
Ulla Klötzer - Finland. A powerful speaker and writer, Ulla Klötzer continues to oppose uranium mining, nuclear proliferation, and to expose the construction of Finlands reactor, Olkiluto OL 3 – the biggest nuclear reactor in the world.
Satomi Oba –Japan. Another leading voice for non-proliferation and disarmament was Japan’s Satomi Oba, former president of Plutonium Action Hiroshima and chair member of the international non-proliferation movement Abolition 2000. For decades before her untimely death in February 2005, Oba organized grassroots events, spoke to international groups and broke ground for other activists
Dianne Stokes – Australia An Aboriginal elder of the Yapa Yapa clan, which owns land at Muckaty in the Northern Territory, has for years continued the fight against the Australian government’s plan to put a nuclear waste dump on Aboriginal land, – resisting enormous pressure from powerful interests and politicians Toxic feelings at proposed nuclear dump – National – smh.com.au
Jean Grossholtz – (USA) Professor emeritus at the Dept. of Women’s Studies, Mt. Holyoke College, Jean helped organize the Women’s Pentagon Action (1980-82) and has long been active in peace and social justice work.
Ellen Diederich –Germany A peace activist for more than three decades, Ellen Diederich is Director of the German-based International Fasia Jansen Women’s Peace Archive, an extensive collection of books, print, audio-visual and artistic resources on women and militarism and women’s action for peace, world-wide, collected over 25 years.
Corazon Valdez Fabros - Philippines A lawyer by profession, Corazon Fabros is Chairperson of the Pacific Concerns Resource Centre (the Secretariat of the Nuclear Free and Independent Pacific Movement) and Secretary General of the Nuclear Free Philippines Coalition, which led the successful campaign to stop the nuclear power plant projects in the Philippines . Currently Philippine Coordinator of the No Nukes Asia Forum and the International Network on Military Activities and Environmental Justice.
Karen Silkwood remembered In 1974, US anti-nuclear activist Karen Silkwood was killed in a car crash many suspect was deliberately caused by the Kerr McGee nuclear company.Karen Silkwood will be remembered as someone who fought an uphill and often unpopular battle against the ruthless nuclear industry. She is an inspiration to all who believe in environmental justice and workers’ rights BY SHARYN JENKINS. Karen Silkwood remembered | Green Left Weekly
Much of the material here was obtained from Women and Life on Earth: English by Anna Gyorgy, Women & Life on Earth Network coordinator, English website editor. Contact: info(at)wloe.org
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