A Voice from Fukushima at the UN
A girl in grade 7:
30 October 2012
After the accident at the nuclear power plants, as I watched TV and heard someone talking about it, I became a little bit worried that I might become ill in 10 years or so, but wasn’t very cautious.
But, now I’ve learnt and I have 3 things I am worried about.
No.1. I’m worried if I can have a healthy baby like a normal woman when I grow up and get married. My mum looks after me very well. She asks my school to keep me indoors during PE lessons. As much as she can, she buys food from far way places in Japan and abroad. She is so thoughtful. But, I think I already have a bit of radiation inside of my body. So, maybe my body is more polluted than a normal person’s. I think of the possibility of my baby to be born with some defects. If I’m not lucky enough, maybe, my womb is damaged, and I might not be able to have a baby at all. So, I’m ready for giving up having a baby when I get old.
No.2. I’m worried about what will happen to Fukushima in the future. I love my mum and dad very much. They live in Fukushima. My friends, Grandma and Grandpa live in Fukushima, too. I really want all of us to move to somewhere else far away from here, but we can’t. My Mum is so kind that she sends me to the rest and recuperation programmes, but many of my friends don’t go because their mums don’t allow them. I’m worried about my health. I am worried even more about the health of my friends’ and that of the people who are important to me. I’m worried the most about my mum. She’s been trying very hard to keep me safe. Recently, I had a dream where people in Fukushima die in a few years because of radiation. This scares me a lot. These scary thoughts keep me awake at night. I hope this dream won’t come true.
No.3. although the people in the government know we are suffering, but they don’t do anything. I’m passed feeling sad and now feel very angry about them. They don’t protect our lives. People in Fukushima are suffering because of the nuclear power plants making electricity for the people in Tokyo. And, I think it’s wrong the government doesn’t do anything to help us and pretend they don’t know anything about us. Not only the government, but the Fukushima local government also doesn’t do anything. I want to tell them, “you pretend you are a victim, but actually you are guilty too”.
Lastly, people from all over the world are thinking of us, but I say, they don’t know much about the danger of having nuclear power. I want to tell them about the danger of radiation and ask them never to repeat the same mistake.
I am grateful to the things I learnt. It helped me think through these things.
http://www.save-children-from-radiation.org/2013/01/23/letters-from-fukushima-children-read-at-un/
Jail sentence for falsification of injuries at three nuclear power plant sites.
An American court has sentenced a former engineering safety manager to 78 months in prison for falsifying information about injuries at three nuclear power plant sites.
15 April 2013
http://www.world-nuclear-news.org/RS-Jail_sentence_for_falsification-1504137.html
Browns Ferry, one of the sites where injuries were misreported (Image: TVA)
Walter Cardin was convicted by a federal grand jury of eight counts of major fraud against the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA), a US government corporation, November 2012. The offences were committed over a period from 2004 to 2006. Cardin was convicted of providing false information by under-reporting the number of injuries and their severities.
New ! 47 Arrested – Police forced to lift protesters at anti-nuclear demo at Faslane Video and Pictures
Update! The video “has been removed by the user” according to youtube
the video was playing but with that message?? hmm?
heres the pics of the demo any way and a link to the original youtube site.. it might get fixed?
Published on 15 Apr 2013
Forty-seven arrested; Faslane Nuclear Weapons Base Shut by Protesters for 3 Hours Today
Forty seven protesters were arrested this morning blockading the Faslane Naval Base, in Scotland, calling for Trident nuclear weapons based there to be scrapped and the £100 billion which the UK government plans to spend on them over the next 50 years, to be directed to welfare, pensions, disability benefits, green jobs and other human needs. [1]
All gates were blocked with the base completely shut from 7am until 10am. The entrance was filled with people. singing and in good spirits. The blockade is one of more than a hundred Global Day of Action on Military Spending protests calling for deep reductions in military spending, currently at £1.73 Trillion annually, and follows a demonstration on Saturday when thousands of protesters called for the government to Scrap Trident. [2]
Activists from a dozen campaign groups and political parties laid down in the entrance to the base and locked themselves together with metal and plastic tubes, chains and thumb cuffs. Police used specialist cutting equipment to cut them out before they were able to lift them out of the road. Those arrested ranged in age from 19 to 83 and came from across Scotland, Wales and England.
Scottish CND Executive Committee member Brian Quail, 70, a retired teacher from Glasgow was first to be arrested with a group of Scottish Green Party members last. UK CND Chair Dave Webb and MSP Patrick Harvie. [3]
Among those arrested were Myra Garrett, 80, a community activist from the East End of London, Sylvia Boyes, 69, a Quaker from Yorkshire, Kristin Barrett, 70 a grandmother and foster mother of many children from Blairgowrie, Barbara Dowling, 68, a retired Occupational Therapist and Barbara Maver from Edinburgh, both members of Trident Ploughshares, one of the groups which organised the weekend of protest and action, who have been arrested at Faslane on numerous occassions.
Veteran campaigner Caerphilly Labour councillor, Ray Davies, 83, who features in Ken Loach’s new film Spirit of ’45, and who ahas been arrested many times in protests against nuclear weapons was arrested today after blockading for three hours. [4]
Many younger people were arrested, including Ryan Morrison of Paisley, a student at Strathclyde University and Duncan Logie a Theology and politics student at Glasgow University and Paddy Durnin a student from Dundde Univerisity and member of Action Palestine Society.
Dominic Lindley, 20, Development Officer with Yorkshire CND who said: “I am taking action to stop the Breach of the Peace committed by the UK by owning and refusing to disarm the weapons of mass destruction. These weapons are both inhumane, illegal and their use can never be justified. In the next few years the UK has an opportunity to join the vast majority of countries in the world by disarming our POINTLESS nuclear weapons and spend the £100 billion wasted on them on vital services for our communities like the NHS, Education and the Welfare State. We cannot work towards a nuclear free world without disarming our own nuclear weapons. We must SCRAP TRIDENT and invest in our local communities.”
Sara Moon a Development Officer from Sheffield University said: “Sheffied University Student Union has a firm commitment to the belief that money should not be spent on funding the arms trade and supporting war butinstead be spent on fundamental social goods such as education. It would take a fraction of the cost of the Trident nuclear programme to fund free education for all in the UK. At a time when the worst off in our communities have been stripped of their access to education we have to demand that public money is not wasted on something as unnecessary and devastating as Trident”
Former Netherlands MP and IKV Pax Christi Disarmament campaigner Krista van Velzen, before being arrested, said, “I’m here witnessing the run up to the first time ever a people have the chance to vote on whether they want to live in a nuclear weapons state. It’s appalling that the UK spends £3Billion per year on weapons of mass destruction, while refugees in Syria struggle even to have a piece of tarp to make a shelter.”
Laurie Ross of Christchurch, representing Nuclear free New Zealand and an Ambassador of the Auckland Peace City came to support the Scrap Trident blockade of Faslane before going on to Edinburgh for a meeting of the international nuclear disarmament campaigning network Abolition 2000. [5] [6] She said “I am here to achieve the Nuclear weapons convention for the abolition of nuclear weapons starting with Scotland.”
Today’s blockade culminated the Scrap Trident weekend of protest and action which began on Saturday with a mass demonstration in Glasgow’s George Square.
Photos from the Blockade will available at: http://www.facebook.com/ScrapTrident?ref=hl
ends
For further details contact:
Brian Larkin 07584492257
Leonna O’Neill 07511793227
Iran’s Ahmadinejad visits uranium-producing Niger
…This month, several thousand people protested on the streets of Niamey against Areva, burning French flags.
Talks are continuing between Niger and Areva, which has agreed to pay 35 million euros ($46 million) in compensation over delays to the planned Imouraren project…..
Image source ; http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/iran/9994964/Iran-does-not-need-nuclear-bomb-says-Mahmoud-Ahmadinejad.html
April 15, 2013
By Abdoulaye Massalatchi
NIAMEY, April 15 (Reuters) – Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad arrived on Monday in Niger, the world’s No. 4 uranium producer, where the French nuclear group Areva has seen its grip on the industry loosened by a government looking to diversify its partners.
Niger is the second of three stops on a trip aimed at deepening Iran’s ties with Africa, a continent Ahmadinejad has courted for business deals and diplomatic support as the Islamic Republic becomes increasingly isolated by international sanctions prompted by its disputed nuclear programme.
Some Western analysts say Iran may be close to exhausting reserves of raw uranium crucial to its nuclear activity and might have to seek out foreign sources, although the U.N. sanctions would forbid such purchases.
Last week, Iran said it had started up two uranium mines and a milling plant, and that Western opposition would not slow its nuclear work.
Hydropower makes 16% of world electricity
Dear friend of Technical English!
This once we will discuss hydropower. Hydro accounted for 16% of global electricity consumption. In 2009/2010 11 000 hydro power plants (HPPs) in 150 countries were generating electricity.The total electricity generated by HPPs in 2009 reached 3 329 TWh, 16.5% of global electricity production.
So, pay attention and make comments to the technical text below. Enjoy!
Sayano-Shushenskaya Hydro Power Plant
The Sayano–Shushenskaya hydro power plant is the largest power plant in Russia by the installed capacity and the sixth-largest operating hydro power plant in the world at present. The HPP is part of the Yenisei Cascade that is located in the territory of the Krasnoyarsk district and the Republic of Khakassia. It comprises three stages:
- Sayano–Shushenskaya HPP(installed capacity — 6400 MW);
- Maynskaya HPP (installed capacity — 321 MW);
- Krasnoyarskaya HPP(installed capacity — 6000 MW).
All hydro power plants were designed by the institute „Lengidroproject“. The main consumers…
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USA – National Radioactive Waste Call-In Day This Wednesday : April 17, 2013
…..The idea of a mass radioactive waste transport campaign and the accompanying risk of a catastrophic Mobile Chernobyl accident is no more acceptable now than it was in the 1990s…..
6930 Carroll Avenue, #340, Takoma Park, MD 20912; 301-270-6477; nirsnet@nirs.org; www.nirs.org
National Radioactive Waste Call-In Day
This Wednesday: April 17, 2013
Dear Friends,
Activists from across the country are in Washington, DC this week talking with Congressmembers about radioactive waste, nuclear weapons site clean-up and more, as part of our friends at Alliance for Nuclear Accountability’s annual DC Days.
We are asking you to support these intrepid activists, who are working on all of our behalf, by making sure they can hear the phones ringing off the hook as they visit Congressional offices on National Radioactive Waste Call-In Day this Wednesday, April 17.
The Congressional Switchboard number is 202-224-3121. But on Wednesday morning, watch for our Alert with a new e-mail action–when you take that action your Congressmembers’ direct phone numbers will show on your screen.
Let’s stuff their inboxes, let’s keep their phones ringing all day long.
The Issues
White House Approves radical radiation clean up rollback to support Japan?
Some swearing in this video – links to report below
Published on 15 Apr 2013
In soil, the PAGs allow long-term public exposure to radiation in amounts as high as 2,000 millirems. This would, in effect, increase a longstanding 1 in 10,000 person cancer rate to a rate of 1 in 23 persons exposed over a 30-year period;
Image source ; http://www.extremumspiritum.com/2011/04/07/america-and-eu-agree-raise-radiation-levels-for-food/ (Thinking NAFTA and the TPP)WHITE HOUSE APPROVES RADICAL RADIATION CLEANUP ROLLBACK
Civilian Cancer Deaths Expected to Skyrocket Following Radiological Incidents
Posted on Apr 08, 2013
Washington, DC — The White House has given final approval for dramatically raising permissible radioactive levels in drinking water and soil following “radiological incidents,” such as nuclear power-plant accidents and dirty bombs. The final version, slated for Federal Register publication as soon as today, is a win for the nuclear industry which seeks what its proponents call a “new normal” for radiation exposure among the U.S population, according Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER).
Issued by the Environmental Protection Agency, the radiation guides (called Protective Action Guides or PAGs) allow cleanup many times more lax than anything EPA has ever before accepted. These guides govern evacuations, shelter-in-place orders, food restrictions and other actions following a wide range of “radiological emergencies.” The Obama administration blocked a version of these PAGs from going into effect during its first days in office. The version given approval late last Friday is substantially similar to those proposed under Bush but duck some of the most controversial aspects:
In soil, the PAGs allow long-term public exposure to radiation in amounts as high as 2,000 millirems. This would, in effect, increase a longstanding 1 in 10,000 person cancer rate to a rate of 1 in 23 persons exposed over a 30-year period;
- In water, the PAGs punt on an exact new standard and EPA “continues to seek input on this.” But the thrust of the PAGs is to give on-site authorities much greater “flexibility” in setting aside established limits; and
- Resolves an internal fight inside EPA between nuclear versus public health specialists in favor of the former. The PAGs are the product of Gina McCarthy, the assistant administrator for air and radiation whose nomination to serve as EPA Administrator is taken up this week by the Senate.
- Despite the years-long internal fight, this is the first public official display of these guides. This takes place as Japan grapples with these same issues in the two years following its Fukushima nuclear disaster.
“This is a public health policy only Dr. Strangelove could embrace. If this typifies the environmental leadership we can expect from Ms. McCarthy, then EPA is in for a long, dirty slog,”
Inhuman Radiation Experiments
At the Fernald State School, mentally retarded boys were fed radioactive iron and calcium but consent forms sent to parents didn’t mention radiation. Elsewhere psychiatric patients and infants were injected with radioactive iodine
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by JOHN LaFORGE
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This year marks the 20th anniversary of the declassification of top secret studies, done over a period of 60 years, in which the US conducted 2,000 radiation experiments on as many as 20,000 vulnerable US citizens.[i]
Victims included civilians, prison inmates, federal workers, hospital patients, pregnant women, infants, developmentally disabled children and military personnel — most of them powerless, poor, sick, elderly or terminally ill. Eileen Welsome’s 1999 exposé The Plutonium Files: America’s Secret Medical Experiments in the Cold War details “the unspeakable scientific trials that reduced thousands of men, women, and even children to nameless specimens.”[ii]
The program employed industry and academic scientists who used their hapless patients or wards to see the immediate and short-term effects of radioactive contamination — with everything from plutonium to radioactive arsenic.[iii] The human subjects were mostly poisoned without their knowledge or consent.
An…
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Omnia – Pagan Folk Lore (OT but for my dear friend Christina, plus a mystery friend and all you wonderful caring people! )
Enjoy! 😉 especially “The Raven” by Edgar Allen Poe 🙂
Uploaded on 10 Jan 2012
Tracklist:
01. Intro/Bealtaine
02. Wytches’ Brew
03. Richard Parker’s Fancy
04. The Raven
05. Alive!
06. Dil Gaya
07. Entrezomp ni Kelted
08. Fairy Tale
09. Saltatio Vita
Fukushima Rad News 4/14/13: Mag 5.2 Quake Jolts Fukushima; 490 Bq/Kg of Strontium-90 Near Plant
Published on 14 Apr 2013
M5 jolts Fukushima — Day after powerful Intensity 6- quake hit Japan — No confirmed damage so far at nuclear plant
M5.2 quake jolts Fukushima, vicinity […] An earthquake of preliminary magnitude 5.2 jolted Fukushima Prefecture and its vicinity Sunday evening, the Japan Meteorological Agency said. […] no damage was confirmed at the Fukushima Daiichi and Daini nuclear power plants so far, according to Tokyo Electric Power Co.
http://enenews.com/m5-quake-jolts-fuk…
IAEA sends experts to damaged Fukushima plant
A team of experts from the International Atomic Energy Agency is on its way to Japan to review the decommissioning of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant.
Team leader Juan Carlos Lentijo left Vienna, Austria, for Tokyo on Saturday. Lentijo is director of the Agency’s division of nuclear fuel cycle and waste technology.
He will be joined by 12 experts, including several specialized in reactor decommissioning.
They are scheduled to visit the Fukushima plant from Wednesday through Friday. The team will assess decommissioning work at reactors 1, 2 and 3, which suffered core meltdowns.
Before departure, Lentijo said the team will look closely at how plant operator, Tokyo Electric Power Company, is dealing with leaks of contaminated water from underground tanks.
He said he wants to confirm that TEPCO staff and organizations are working effectively to address the problem.
Apr. 13, 2013 – Updated 16:45 UTC
Fukushima police officers were among the first to enter the zones devastated by the tsunami and nuclear accident of March 2011, some of which remain off-limits today. They searched for missing people and evacuated stranded residents, while gathering photos and video of the events as they unfolded. This report retraces the experiences of a police helicopter pilot and a lieutenant in the immediate aftermath of the crisis.
http://fukushima-diary.com/2013/04/wi…
http://fukushima-diary.com/2013/04/le…
http://fukushima-diary.com/2013/04/le…
http://fukushima-diary.com/2013/04/39…
http://fukushima-diary.com/2013/04/te…
http://fukushima-diary.com/2013/04/st…
Lawsuit seeks evacuation of Fukushima children
TOKYO (AP) — Their demand: The right to live free of radiation. The plaintiffs who started the legal battle: 14 children.
A Japanese appeals court is expected to rule soon on this unusual lawsuit, filed on behalf of the children by their parents and anti-nuclear activists in June 2011 in a district court in Fukushima city, about 60 kilometers (40 miles) west of the crippled nuclear plant that spewed radiation when a massive earthquake and tsunami hit it more than two years ago.
http://asiancorrespondent.com/105247/…
DOE finalizing plans to dump man-made uranium in Nevada
Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/…
San Onofre to the Public: DROP DEAD!
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has ignored critical questions from two powerful members of Congress just as the Government Accountability Office has cast serious doubt on the emergency planning at the San Onofre nuclear plant.
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2013…
State’s new nuclear agency gets cloak of secrecy
Virginia is creating a new agency to support development of nuclear power — a move that has upset environmentalists and open-government advocates, because the entity won’t have to comply with the state’s Freedom of Information Act and other laws.
http://www.dailypress.com/news/politi…
Toyo ITO 伊東 豊雄 – Brings beauty and comfort to Japans dispossessed!
……“An architect is someone who can make such places for meager meals show a little more humanity, make them a little more beautiful, a little more comfortable.”….
Image source ; http://www.lvmh.fr/lvmh-news/news#/news/878
Published on 8 Mar 2013
http://www.yonaoshi311.com
Architecte /建築家/Architect
Less than two months after the catastrophe, Toyo Ito, at the Sendai Mediatheque, was explaining that we ought to rethink our architecture from scratch by taking nature in account. He endured a real shock. One year later, he is awarded the “Golden Lion” at the Venise architectural biennale for his “Home for all” project, community living centers for refugees from tsunami striken areas into temporary housings. The first “Home for all” were built in Sendai, then at Rikuzen Takata in association with other architects.
Image source: Dead Link
FR
Moins de deux mois après la catastrophe, Toyo Ito expliquait à la Médiathèque de Sendai qu’il fallait repenser toute l’architecture à zéro en tenant compte des paramètres de la nature. Il avait subi un véritable choc. Un an plus tard, il reçoit le Lion d’or à la Biennale d’architecture de Venise pour son projet de “Maisons pour tous”, des lieux de vie communautaires pour les réfugiés en logement temporaire dans les villes dévastées par le tsunami. Les premières “Maisons pour Tous” ont été construites à Sendai puis à Rikuzen Takata en collaboration avec d’autres architectes.
日本
日本を代表する建築家、震災２ヶ月後、建築家伊藤豊男は仙台のメディアテークで、再建築はゼロからと提唱した。仮住まいを余儀なくされている避難者の憩いの場所として”みんなの家”を設計し建てた。その年、ヴェネチア・建築ビエンナーレで伊藤豊男は金獅子賞を授与された。
2012年3月8日
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Interview conducted by Keiko Courdy for 霧の向こう＊AU-DELA DU NUAGE°Yonaoshi 3.11_ Japan Webdoc project in Tokyo on March 08, 2012
All rights reserved – Copyrights KI 2013
Architectural Iconoclast Wins the Pritzker Prize
By ROBIN POGREBIN
Published: March 17, 2013
…..But Mr. Ito is also proud of the building’s significance as a project that was meant to withstand an earthquake. (It won a Golden Lion Award at the 2012 Venice Architecture Biennale.) A video of the inside of the building taken by someone under a table during the earthquake in 2011 went viral.
“The building shook and swayed violently; everything cascaded from shelves and desks onto the floor,” the architecture critic Ada Louise Huxtable wrote in The Wall Street Journal. “Ceiling panels appeared to swing drunkenly overhead. But the Mediatheque did not collapse. It stood firm against the massive seismic forces that were tearing other buildings apart; the basic structure did not fail.”
Mr. Ito has been active in the recovery effort. He recruited three young architects to help him develop the concept of Home-for-All, communal space for survivors. In his book “Toyo Ito: Forces of Nature,” edited by Jessie Turnbull and published last year by Princeton Architectural Press, Mr. Ito writes, “An architect is someone who can make such places for meager meals show a little more humanity, make them a little more beautiful, a little more comfortable.”
The citation said Mr. Ito consistently couples his personal creative agenda with a sense of public responsibility. “It is far more complex and riskier to innovate while working on buildings where the public is concerned,” the jury said, “but this has not deterred him.”
Though perhaps not as well known as architects like Rem Koolhaas or Frank Gehry, Mr. Ito rose to prominence with the completion of his stadium in Kaohsiung, Taiwan, built for the World Games in 2009.
And he has received his share of awards, including, in 2010, the Praemium Imperiale, which recognizes lifetime achievement in areas of the arts not covered by the Nobel Prizes.
But Mr. Ito said he doesn’t worry about status or architecture competitions. “We cannot predict what we will win or we won’t win,” he said…….
Please sign this petition (h/t Mia http://fukushimaappeal.blogspot.co.uk/ )
Nuclear Is NOT a Low-Carbon Source of Energy – Dick Cheney lied!
….The bottom line ….. is that scientists pushing nuclear to combat global warming are misinformed. (True, nuclear industry lobbyists may be largely responsible for the claim that nuclear fights climate change. Indeed, Dick Cheney – whose Halliburton company builds nuclear power plants, and which sold nuclear secrets to Iran – falsely claimed that nuclear power is carbon-free in a 2004 appearance on C-Span…..
Why Do People Claim that Nuclear Power is a Low-Carbon Source of Energy?
Page added on April 14, 2013
Even well-known, well-intentioned scientists sometimes push bad ideas. For example, well-known scientists considered pouring soot over the Arctic in the 1970s to help melt the ice – in order to prevent another ice age. That would have been stupid. Even Obama’s top science adviser – John Holdren – warned in the 1970′s of a new ice age … and is open to shooting soot into the upper atmosphere. That might be equally stupid.
In other words, scientists – even prominent ones – sometimes fall prey to hairball theories and dangerous proposals. (Remember, doctors used to bleed patients to remove the “bad humors”.)
Similarly, some scientists are under the mistaken impression that nuclear power is virtually carbon-free, and thus must be pushed to prevent runaway global warming. (If you don’t believe in global warming, then this essay is not aimed at you … although you might wish to forward it to those who do.)
But this is a myth.
Amory Lovins is perhaps America’s top expert on energy, and a dedicated environmentalist for close to 50 years. His credentials as an energy expert and environmentalist are sterling.
Lovins is a former Oxford don, who taught at nine universities, most recently Stanford. He has briefed 19 heads of state, provided expert testimony in eight countries, and published 31 books and several hundred papers. Lovins’ clients have included the Pentagon, OECD, UN, Resources for the Future, many national governments, and 13 US states, as well as many Fortune 500 companies, major real-estate developers, and utilities. Lovins served in 1980-81 on the U.S. Department of Energy’s Energy Research Advisory Board, and in 1999-2001 and 2006-08 on Defense Science Board task forces on military energy efficiency and strategy.
Lovins says nuclear is not the answer:
Nuclear plants are so slow and costly to build that they reduce and retard climate protection.
Here’s how. Each dollar spent on a new reactor buys about 2-10 times less carbon savings, 20-40 times slower, than spending that dollar on the cheaper, faster, safer solutions that make nuclear power unnecessary and uneconomic: efficient use of electricity, making heat and power together in factories or buildings (“cogeneration”), and renewable energy. The last two made 18% of the world’s 2009 electricity, nuclear 13%, reversing their 2000 shares–and made over 90% of the world’s additional electricity in 2008.
Lawsuit seeks evacuation of Fukushima children
AP April 14, 2013 8:46PM
THEIR demand: The right to live free of radiation. The plaintiffs who started the legal battle: 14 children.
A Japanese appeals court is expected to rule soon on this unusual lawsuit, filed on behalf of the children by their parents and anti-nuclear activists in June 2011 in a district court in Fukushima city, about 60 kilometres west of the crippled nuclear plant that spewed radiation when a massive earthquake and tsunami hit it more than two years ago.
The lawsuit argues that Koriyama, a city of 330,000, should evacuate its children to an area where radiation levels are no higher than natural background levels in the rest of Japan, or about 1 millisievert annual exposure.
In a culture that frowns upon challenging the authorities, the lawsuit highlights the rift in public opinion created by the baffling range in experts’ views on the health impact of low dose radiation. Although some experts say there is no need for children to be evacuated, parents are worried about the long-term impact on their children, who are more vulnerable to radiation than adults. Consuming contaminated food and water are additional risks.
After the Fukushima accident, the world’s worst since Chernobyl, Japan set an annual exposure limit of 20 millisieverts for determining whether people can live in an area or not. The average radiation for Koriyama is far below this cutoff point, but some “hot spots” around the city are above that level.
“This is the level at which there are no major effects on health and people can live there,” said Keita Kawamori, an official with the Japanese Cabinet Office. “Academic experts decided this was the safe level.”
A prominent medical doctor in charge of health safety in Fukushima has repeatedly urged calm, noting damage is measurable only at annual exposure of 100 millisieverts, or 100 times the normal level, and higher.
A lower court rejected the lawsuit’s demands in a December 2011 decision, saying radiation had not reached the 100-millisievert cutoff. The International Commission on Radiological Protection, the academic organisation on health and radiation, says risks decline with a drop exposure, but does not believe there is a cutoff below which there is no risk.
An appeal filed is still before Sendai High Court in nearby Miyagi Prefecture more than a year later.
After the 1986 Chernobyl disaster, which emitted more radiation than the Fukushima Dai-ichi plant, the Soviet government made it a priority to evacuate women and children from within a 30-kilometre radius of the plant, bigger than the 20-kilometre no-go zone around the Fukushima Dai-ichi plant.
The number of children behind the original lawsuit dwindled to 10 for the appeal, and is now down to one as families left the prefecture voluntarily or the children grew older. Legally in Japan, a city has responsibility for children only through junior high (7th-9th grades), since high school is not compulsory.
But the case serves as a precedent for other Fukushima children.
Toshio Yanagihara, one of the lawyers, criticised the government as appearing more worried about a population exodus than in saving the children.
“I don’t understand why an economic power like Japan won’t evacuate the children – something even the fascist government did during World War II,” he said, referring to the mass evacuation of children during the 1940s to avoid air bombings. “This is child abuse.”
After Chernobyl, thousands of children got thyroid cancer. Some medical experts say leukemia, heart failure and other diseases that followed may be linked to radiation.
In Fukushima, at least three cases of thyroid cancer have been diagnosed among children, although there’s no evidence of a link with the nuclear disaster. There are no comparative figures on thyroid cancer in other areas of Japan.
The children in the lawsuit and their families are all anonymous, and details about them are not disclosed, to protect them from possible backlash of ostracism and bullying.
“Why is Japan, our Fukushima, about to repeat the mistakes of Chernobyl?” wrote a mother of one of the children in a statement submitted to the court. “Isn’t it up to us adults to protect our children?”
The trial has attracted scant attention in the mainstream Japanese media but it has drawn support from anti-nuclear protesters, who have periodically held massive rallies.
Among the high-profile supporters are musician Ryuichi Sakamoto, manga artist Tetsuya Chiba and American linguist and political activist Noam Chomsky.
“There is no better measure of the moral health of a society than how it treats the most vulnerable people within it, and none or more vulnerable, or more precious, than children who are the victims of unconscionable actions,” Chomsky wrote in a message.
A 12-year-old, among those who filed the lawsuit but have since left the area, said she was worried.
“Even if I am careful, I may get cancer, and the baby I have may be hurt,” she said in a hand-written statement.
Published on 8 Mar 2013
http://www.yonaoshi311.com
Journaliste activiste /Anti-nuclear activist&journalist / 作家, 反原発運動家
EN
Former engineer and journalist, Takashi Hirose warns about nuclear dangers and its industry in numerous publications. In Japan everyone knows his name and several of his works became best-sellers like “the time bomb”.
FR
Ancien ingénieur et journaliste, Takashi Hirose dénonce les dangers du nucléaire et de son industrie dans de très nombreux ouvrages. Au Japon, tout le monde connait son nom et plusieurs de ses ouvrages sont devenus des “best sellers” comme ‘la Bombe à retardement”.
日本
作家、反原発運動家、原子力の危険に着いての多くの本を書いている。ベストセラーの一冊に『原子炉時限爆弾』など
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Interview conducted by Keiko Courdy for 霧の向こう＊Au-delà du Nuage °Yonaoshi 3.11_ Japan Webdoc project on March 3, 2012 in Tokyo.
Copyrights KI 2013
Published on 13 Apr 2013
Katharine Hamnett, fashion designer
Japan’s Ministry of Environment has money for KILLING “radioactive” boar, but no money for removing Fukushima animals.
April 14, 2013
The Japanese Ministry of Environment or MOE has budgeted money for KILLING “radioactive” boar. The boar will be trapped in cages so that they can be EASILY SHOT by the “hunters”. It’s called HUNTING, Ministry of Environment style. The “hunted” boar will then be sent off for Radiation Researchers to examine at 25,000 yen per boar. BUT, the same Ministry of Environment HAS NO FUNDS budgeted for removal of the Fukushima Left Behind Animals.
If you would like to contact the Japanese Ministry of Environment to “compliment” their budgeted boar hunt, here is the link:
https://www.env.go.jp/en/moemail/
The Government of Japan’s Fukushima wild boar kill has been budgeted. The wild boar are accused of helping spread radiation and causing damage. The Ministry of Environment will budget 30,000,000 yen for this planned “kill” event. They will use hunters to trap and shoot the boar. The hunters will “make” 25,000 yen per boar killed.
Article: (2013年1月11日16時13分 読売新聞）「イノシシばっこの福島第一原発周辺、駆除へ」
http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/national/news/20130110-OYT1T01531.htm
Not just for Whale hunts, reconstruction money is used to FUND Fukushima Animal KILL Studies
April 8, 2013
Canada to ship Uranium to India
April 11, 2013
New Delhi: Around 40 years after India used plutonium from a Canadian heavy water reactor to carry out its first nuclear test in defiance of world opinion,Ottawa is set to resume nuclear commerce with New Delhi.Earlier this week,India and Canada vaulted the final hurdle in dismantling sanctions imposed after the Pokhran I test by signing an Appropriate Arrangement Agreement (AAA) that will allow Canada to ship uranium to India.
The agreement was signed between Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission and India’s Department of Atomic Energy.Canada is home to the second most significant uranium mining industry in the world after Kazakhstan.
France and Russia have supplied some quantities of uranium,but Canada did not,after the nuclear embargo imposed by the developed world on India.
An agreement with Australia has been inked,but a safeguards framework is still being negotiated.Nuclear cooperation with Canada has high symbolic significance for India as it marks a change,as PM Manmohan Singh himself earlier put it,in international realities.
Ottawa has stopped all such cooperation after India used plutonium from the Canadian reactor to built its first atomic bomb.India and Canada had signed a civil nuclear cooperation agreement in 2010 that allowed them to initiate negotiations for supply of uranium,or the AAA.
Canada’s insistence on having a stringent monitoring mechanism for use of its uranium by India led to a stalemate in the talks.Canada,however,seems to have relented when PM Stephen Harper declared during his highly successful visit to India last November that both countries have concluded negotiations.
The AAA still needed to be signed,though.Government sources here said Canada will use nuclear watchdog IAEA’s safeguards already in place to ensure its uranium is not used for advancing India’s nuclear weapon programme.India had maintained all along during the negotiations that its safeguards agreement with IAEA – signed in February 2009 – was enough to take care of Canada’s concerns over nonproliferation and how New Delhi was going to use its uranium meant only for civilian facilities.The US,which yanked India out of nuclear isolation,was the driving force behind the safeguards agreement – approved by the IAEA in August 2008 – that paved the way for a special waiver from Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) allowing New Delhi to indulge in nuclear commerce despite not having signed NPT.The Indian government believes Canada,with its large and high-quality reserves of uranium,could become an important supplier for India’s ambitious nuclear power programme that envisages 30,000 MW of nuclear power by 2030.
India’s current nuclear power production stands at a paltry 5,000 MW.According to experts just producing 200 MW of nuclear power can require over 30 tonnes of uranium.SOURCING URANIUM To meet uranium shortfall India has signed civil nuclear cooperation deals with some of the most important uranium producing countries like Canada, Kazakhstan, Australia, Namibia and Mongolia.France and Russia are already supplying uranium to India,but with Australia it is having to negotiate a uranium safeguards agreement.
India wants to increase nuclear power to over 20,000 MW by 2020.This is four times the current production and involves an annual increase in uranium demand by 1,500 tonnes.India currently produces 450 metric tonnes of uranium and its reserves are modest: 61,000 tonnes of recoverable metal.
Copyright 2013 Bennett Coleman & Co. Ltd.
All Rights Reserved
http://www.powerengineeringint.com/news/2013/04/12/canada-to-ship-uranium-to-india.html
Bhutto rejected Indira’s offer of nuclear technology
….The cables also say Indira Gandhi was evasive about nuclear weaponisation. The cables quote her as saying, “If our scientists have the basic know-how, without which they couldn’t have done this, then any government could have directed them to make a bomb if they had so desired.”…
NEW DELHI – US Embassy cables released by WikiLeaks have revealed that late Indian prime minister Indira Gandhi offered to share information on nuclear technology with Pakistan, reported Times of India and PTI on Wednesday.
According to WikiLeaks, Gandhi had written to the then Pakistan prime minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto in 1974, in the wake of India’s first nuclear test in Pokhran, offering to share information if proper conditions for trust were created. But he rejected the offer, said the cable.
As per US cables, revealed by WikiLeaks, former prime minister Gandhi was quoted as saying, “I have explained in my letter to Prime Minister Bhutto the peaceful nature and the economic purposes of this experiment and have also stated that India is willing to share her nuclear technology with Pakistan in the same way she is willing to share it with other countries, provided proper conditions for understanding and trust are created. I once again repeat this assurance.”
1 This Month
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