Japanese film director Takafumi Ota needed financing for a film that was critical of the Japanese nuclear industry but found no one was interested in funding his project so he turned to the general public.
SCRIPT: This Japanese film almost never saw the light of day. “The House of the Rising Sun” tells the story of a family torn apart by a nuclear disaster. A subject so sensitive in Japan that the director found it impossible to finance his project through conventional means. But the groundswell of anti-nuclear feeling following the Fukushima disaster persuaded Takafumi Ota to turn to the public. He raised 100,000 dollars through crowd-sourcing – and the film’s now being screened in independent cinemas.
SOUNDBITE 1 – Takafumi Ota (man), Director of “The house of the rising sun” (Japanese, 16 sec): “The media talks less and less about the problem of nuclear refugees. I asked myself what I could do as a director. I decided to make a film to voice the message that newspapers and televisions don’t.” Three years after the Fukushima disaster and the anti-nuclear demonstrations are waning. The Japanese media barely give them any airtime – even if surveys show most people are still against the industry.
SOUNDBITE 2 -Kazuo (woman), Demonstrator (Japanese, 14 sec): “Japanese people have a tendency to be quite passive. And it’s such a tough fight that many have given up. But we have to keep going!” The pro-nuclear lobby is an impressive foe, whose reach spans many sectors .
SOUNDBITE 3 – Professor Jeff Kingston (man), Temple University (English, 39 sec): “Japanese companies sit at the nexus of the global nuclear industry. Toshiba, Hitachi, Mitsubishi. They are part of what Japan calls the nuclear village. Pronuclear advocates in industry, finance, in politics, in academia, in mass media, bureaucracy. These people control the commanding heights of national energy policy and they are not prepared to let the public decide something that important.” Despite the lobby’s power, the government still hasn’t restarted the country’s 50 nuclear reactors, taken offline for safety checks. Japan is one of the only countries in the world to have completely shut down its nuclear energy industry, but many expect it’ll rise up again before too long.
Japan director turns to crowdfunding for anti-nuclear film / Tokyo (Japan) – 30 November 2013 11:19 – AFP / FEATURE Japanese film director Takafumi Ota had a problem. He needed studio financing for a film that was harshly critical of the nuclear industry in the aftermath of Fukushima, but no one was interested in funding his project the traditional way. Large sections of Japan’s movie industry wanted nothing to do with it, and he was told that influential sponsors did not want to be associated with anything that criticised the powerful atomic sector. “It wasn’t only major film distribution companies but also DVD companies — who usually get interested in investing in films to share copyright — who showed no interest in my plan,” said the 52-year-old Ota, whose previous work includes the critically acclaimed 2006 film “Strawberry fields”, which screened at the Cannes International Film Festival. “A senior film director told me ‘Don’t do this. You’ll never be able to make commercial films.'” With few options to make the film, but a groundswell of anti-nuclear feeling in post-Fukushima Japan, Ota turned to the public to make his film in another example of how crowdfunding is changing the face of traditional financing.
The practice sees individuals or firms raise micro-donations from small investors over the Internet. While still small, the market has been booming, with companies such as the pioneering KickStarter offering donation-based funding for creative projects. Globally, the crowdfunding market grew 81 percent last year and was on track to raise $5.1 billion in 2013, with investments in everything from business startups and philanthropic projects to films and music, according to research firm Massolution.
“Are you asking the 92-year-old grandfather to keep fighting? That’s impossible,” he said. “While I was in Fukushima, I couldn’t walk for long, I fell and couldn’t stand up by myself. How can I photograph with such a frail body?”
But without missing a beat he asked me a final question.
“By the way, do you happen to know a good tiny point-and-shoot camera?”
Hiroyuki ItoKikujiro Fukushima in Yanai, Yamaguchi, Japan. Dec. 2, 2013.
Kikujiro Fukushima’s life in photography took off when he promised to avenge the Hiroshima bombing. It was 1952, and Mr. Fukushima — a watchmaker, volunteer social worker and photographer — met Sugimatsu Nakamura, a 43-year-old fisherman, who was gravely ill from the atomic bomb’s effects.
“For the first two years I was too timid to photograph him,” Mr. Fukushima told me a few weeks ago. “But one day, he got on his knees, crying, and begged me.”
“Fukushima, can you please take revenge on the atomic bomb?”
“Yes, but how?”
“Take pictures of my pain and let the world know how terrible it is.”
Mr. Nakamura was not only angry about the bombing, but also with the Japanese government, which refused to provide proper care for its victims. Mr. Fukushima understood this well — he had been in the Japanese military, stationed in Hiroshima until one week before the bombing, when he was transferred to prepare for a suicide mission. Most of his comrades who stayed behind were killed.
Mr. Nakamura died in 1967, but the documentary filmmaker Saburo Hasegawa believes that the vow Mr. Fukushima made to the ailing fisherman guided his subsequent career, in which he photographed individuals fighting social injustice. During the social upheaval of the 1960s and ’70s, Mr. Fukushima photographed student and feminist movements, antiwar protests and industrial pollution. He even infiltrated Japan’s Self-Defense Forces by telling the head of public affairs that he would gladly give it free pictures if it gave him access.
He had other plans.
“If the government or corporations knowingly deceived the public by breaking the law, it’s O.K. for photographers to break the law in order to uncover the truth they are hiding,” Mr. Fukushima explained in “Japan Lies,” the documentary Mr. Hasegawa made about him.
For three years, he photographed the Navy, Army and military academy, giving them photographs to use for publicity. All the while, he was photographing military secrets, like machine guns and missiles made inside factories. Without permission, he published the exposé, “A Farewell to Arms,” in a magazine. Soon after its publication, he was punched and kicked by a stranger who was lurking outside his house in Tokyo. A few weeks later, another stranger slashed his face. An arsonist torched his house while he was away, but his daughter Noriko carried his negatives to safety.
This was not the first time Mr. Fukushima’s photography took a personal toll. The decade he spent photographing Mr. Nakamura overwhelmed him and led to a nervous breakdown that put him in an asylum for three months. In 1960, he divorced his wife and moved to Tokyo to become a professional photojournalist.
Photographer UnknownKikujiro Fukushima, the 20-year-old imperialist. He said that when he was young, he and his classmates were led to believe that killing as many enemies and dying for the emperor was the highest honor.
He worked mostly on personal projects, telling me that he was never a good photographer on assignment.
“Professional photographers go to newsy events, take beautiful pictures, publish nice spreads in magazines and move on,” he said. “I was very slow and shy. But once I throw myself into something, nobody could get me out of it. I simply get deeper and deeper. As a result, I ended up with the pictures nobody has.”
But when the Japanese economy prospered in 1980s and people willed themselves to forget the hard times of the postwar years, Mr. Fukushima’s politically charged photographs fell out of fashion. Instead, he designed jewelry to pay the bills. This was not too far from his roots: after the war — then married and with three children — he supported his family as a watchmaker. That was how he ended up in Hiroshima, which he visited several times a month to buy parts.
He first photographed the city’s ruins in 1946, after reading a newspaper article about how grass had begun to grow on the spot where the bomb was dropped. While also working as a volunteer social worker, he photographed orphans, widows and the elderly who were left alone after the bombing, giving the pictures to local authorities so they could raise money to help them.
Jan 2 (Reuters) – Fortum Oyj : * Loviisa nuclear power plant produced 8.04 terawatt hours of electricity in 2013. * Estimates renewal of turbines and reheaters to increase production
capacity by 29 MW (Reporting by Helsinki Newsroom)
DOI: 10.1039/C3JA50291K Received 10 Sep 2013, Accepted 10 Dec 2013
First published online 02 Jan 2014
Abstract
A method was developed for the determination of 134Cs/137Cs and 135Cs/137Cs in rainwater samples using a triple quadrupole ICP-MS, with the objective of investigating radioactive cesium isotope ratios released by the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant (FDNPP) accident. The high background caused by Ba ions and Xe impurities in argon plasma gas has made it difficult to carry out determination of the 134Cs/137Cs and 135Cs/137Cs ratios on conventional ICP-MS instruments without prior chemical separation.
In this study, nitrous oxide was used as the reaction gas for reducing the isobaric interference by 134Ba, 135Ba, 137Ba and 134Xe, and an additional quadrupole in front of the reaction cell was shown to effectively remove Sn and Sb that could have produced possible interference such as SbO and SnO by the N2O reaction.
The detection limit for 134Cs, 135Cs and 137Cs in solution containing Ba was successfully improved. In order to confirm the applicability of this method to the measurement of 134Cs/137Cs and 135Cs/137Cs ratios of rainwater, four samples were collected for analysis from 40–200 km away from the FDNPP.
The measured 134Cs/137Cs ratios in the samples are consistent with the values determined by Ge semiconductor analysis to within the analytical error, suggesting that the developed method can provide reliable isotopic data without any correction of the mass-discrimination effect.
No variation was found in the 135Cs/137Cs ratios of the four samples, suggesting either the same contamination source or a uniformly consistent mixing ratio between contamination sources. The measured 135Cs/137Cs ratios in the samples are different from global fall-out values and from that of Chernobyl. This result indicates that the value of the rainwater samples can be used as a radiocesium tracer in the environment.
Though the most significant increases were observed roughly a year after the incident, the study makes mention of the fact that the problems first began in 2011.
Thursday, January 02, 2014 by: Ethan A. Huff, staff writer
(NaturalNews) The Pacific Ocean appears to be dying, according to a new study recently published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Scientists from the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI) in California recently discovered that the number of dead sea creatures blanketing the floor of the Pacific is higher than it has ever been in the 24 years that monitoring has taken place, a phenomenon that the data suggests is a direct consequence of nuclear fallout from Fukushima.
Though the researchers involved with the work have been reluctant to pin Fukushima as a potential cause — National Geographic, which covered the study recently, did not even mention Fukushima — the timing of the discovery suggests that Fukushima is, perhaps, the cause. According to the data, this sudden explosion in so-called “sea snot,” which is the name given to the masses of dead sea creatures that sink to the ocean floor as food, has skyrocketed since the Fukushima incident occurred.
“In the 24 years of this study, the past two years have been the biggest amounts of this detritus by far,” stated Christine Huffard, a marine biologist at MBARI and leader of the study, to National Geographic.
At an ocean research station known as Station M, located 145 miles out to sea between the Californian cities of Santa Barbara and Monterey, Huffard and her colleague Ken Smith observed a sharp uptick in the amount of dead sea life drifting to the ocean floor. The masses of dead sea plankton, jellyfish, feces and other oceanic matter that typically only cover about 1 percent of the ocean floor were found to now be covering about 98 percent of it — and multiple other stations located throughout the Pacific have since reported similar figures.
“In March 2012, less than one percent of the seafloor beneath Station M was covered in dead sea salps,” writes Carrie Arnold for National Geographic. “By July 1, more than 98 percent of it was covered in the decomposing organisms. … The major increase in activity of deep-sea life in 2011 and 2012 weren’t limit to Station M, though: Other ocean-research stations reported similar data.”
No more sea life means no more oxygen in our atmosphere
Examines the incident, aftermath and implications for the adoption of Nuclear energy in other countries. From ‘Four Corners’, an Australian investigative program on the ABC.
＜日本語訳↓: Jo2Rayden＞*CC click to Eng.Sub./CCクリックで字幕 *福島原発放射能漏れ事故の影響:五千人の子供たちが、癌と診断されるであろう： 科学者、アンナ・サブリナ氏。 26 Dec.2013 *Impact of Fukushima radiation disaster: 5,000 kids could be diagnosed with cancer. -Scientist, Anna Sablina, cancer researcher and assistant professor at University of Leuven(The Katholieke Universiteit Leuven in Belgium)
2013年12月26日、アンナ・サブリナ氏、癌研究者およびルーヴェン・カトリック大学・助教:
* そのような高い放射線量や被曝の場合には、明らかに癌 -特に甲状腺癌と白血病- の発症の可能性を増加させる場合があります。
* 私たちは、[福島は]全く同様の状況にあるので、チェルノブイリ事故に関し、人々に既に知られている事と、常に比較可能です。
* チェルノブイリ周辺のただ一つの問題は、特に、子供たちの甲状腺癌の実際の増加率です。チェルノブイリ事故後、その地域の五千人を超す子供たちが、甲状腺癌だと診断されました。したがって、私は、恐らく日本でも、同様の状態になるかもしれないだろう、と言えます。
そして、その他[の症状]については、少し言い難いのです。
* 大抵の場合、除染や事故の対処に直接関係していた人々についてだけは、癌の実際の増加率を把握できたと、思います。しかし、それ以外の人々については、実際には言い難いでしょう。 -END-
**参考:ルーヴェン・カトリック大学（Katholieke Universiteit Leuven）はベルギーのルーヴェンにある大学。1425年設立。中世において既に主要な大学の一つとして有名。16世紀には人文主義者として著名なエラスムスが教える。現代人体解剖学の創始者アンドレアス・ヴェサリウスも教鞭とった。三角測量を発展させたゲンマ・フリシウスや、メルカトル図法のゲラルドゥス・メルカトルらも学びまた教えた。
Source: The Voice Of Russia: http://voiceofrussia.com/2013_12_26/I…
Voice: Sato Sarasa
* Anna Sablina, cancer researcher and assistant professor at University of Leuven, Dec. 26, 2013:
*in case of such high radioactive dose and exposure it obviously can increase a probability of cancer development especially thyroid cancer and leukemia.
* We can always compare what people already know about the Chernobyl accident, because it is a quite similar situation [to Fukushima].
* the only problem in the Chernobyl area is a really increased rate of thyroid cancer especially for kids. More than 5,000 kids there diagnosed the thyroid cancer after Chernobyl. So, I would say it probably could be the same case as in Japan. And for the rest it is a bit difficult to say.
* I think, most of the time, the only people who were directly involved in cleaning up and fixing the accident could have a really increased rate of cancer. but for the rest it will be really difficult to say.
** コピーやリンクされる方は、訳者名入れてね^^/ **
“Many times over the past 30 or 40 years, the two sides have started dialogue by agreeing to stop slander of the other,” Carlin said in an email. “It’s a relatively easy (and verifiable) first step.”
In comments that mirror past North Korean propaganda, Kim also warned of an accidental conflict that could trigger “an enormous nuclear catastrophe,” which would threaten US safety.
SEOUL — Kim Jong Un boasted yesterday that North Korea enters the new year on a surge of strength because of the elimination of “factionalist filth” — a reference to the young leader’s once powerful uncle, whose execution last month raised questions about Kim’s grip on power.
Kim’s comments in an annual New Year’s Day message, which included a call for improved ties with Seoul but also a warning of a possible “nuclear catastrophe,” will be scrutinized by outside analysts and governments for clues about the opaque country’s intentions and policy goals.
Already widespread worry about the country has deepened since Kim publicly humiliated and then executed his uncle and mentor, one of the biggest political developments in Pyongyang in years, and certainly since Kim took power two years ago after the death of his father, Kim Jong Il.
North Korea’s “resolute” action to “eliminate factionalist filth” within the ruling Workers’ Party has bolstered the country’s unity “by 100 times,” Kim said in a speech broadcast by state TV. He didn’t mention by name his uncle, Jang Song Thaek, long considered the country’s No. 2 power.
But Kim included rhetoric that some analysts saw as a first step to renewing dialogue with rival Seoul. Kim called for an improvement in strained ties with South Korea, saying it’s time for each side to stop slandering the other and urging Seoul to listen to voices calling for Korean unification.
That language, which is similar to that of past New Year’s messages, is an obvious improvement on last year’s threats of nuclear war, though there is still skepticism in Washington and Seoul about Pyongyang’s intentions.
China has committed $6.5 billion to dual chief energy plants being assembled in Karachi and efforts are underneath proceed to serve lower civil-nuclear cooperation, pronounced Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif whose supervision is struggling to cope with strident energy shortages.
He was addressing on Wednesday a special cupboard assembly on a state of a economy, which, distinct a past, was not hold behind sealed doors though in a participation of media.
Sharif pronounced China was providing a concessionary loan for K2 and K3 chief energy plants carrying total era ability of 2,117 megawatts. The amends duration will be 10 to 20 years. Talks with China for some-more loans for energy projects are also underneath way.
The premier pronounced a supervision was executing a multi-pronged plan to finish energy outages, though he did not give any timeframe.
In his Dec. 31 Commentary piece, F.W. de Klerk states that: “Unfortunately South Africa is still the only state that has ever voluntarily dismantled its entire nuclear weapons capability.” Unfortunate indeed!
The first international conference on the Humanitarian Impact of Nuclear Weapons was hosted by Norway last March. In November, 125 countries at the U.N. General Assembly adopted a joint statement on the humanitarian consequences of nuclear weapons asserting that: “The only way to guarantee that nuclear weapons will never be used again is through their total elimination.”
Most unfortunately, the nuclear powers, including the United States, have not supported these multilateral efforts.
The next international conference on the Humanitarian Impact of Nuclear Weapons will be hosted by Mexico next month. Hopefully, the United States will become a vigorous partner in the international effort to achieve a global treaty banning nuclear weapons. Is there anything more important to the future of the human race?
The Japanese government plans to revise a basic policy for disposing of nuclear waste so that it can play a more active role in selecting disposal sites.
The industry ministry says starting early this year it will act on proposals submitted in November by a panel of experts.
The government plans to store highly-radioactive waste from nuclear power plants deep underground. It has been asking local governments to come up with candidate sites under a law that came into effect in 2000.
But no municipalities have stepped forward, and the government has still not secured any candidate sites.
Under a new policy, the government plans to draw up a list of locations that are deemed scientifically suitable for disposal, and ask relevant municipalities to agree to the project.
The government hopes to pave the way by the end of this year for finding sites for the disposal of nuclear waste.
But some experts are calling on the government to handle the issue more carefully. They say the public has not fully accepted the idea of storing radioactive waste underground, or in their localities.
They are concerned that trying to proceed with the new policy in a haphazard way could cause doubts among the public, and make the disposal issue harder to resolve.
Assistant Professor Kota Juraku of Tokyo Denki University, who was a member of the advisory panel, says he doesn’t believe the public has reached full agreement on nuclear waste disposal.
He says it will take time for the government to regain public trust and support for the use of nuclear power.
Juraku calls on the government to listen closely to people’s opinions and change the policy if necessary.
The luggage of a Japanese citizen flying from Frankfurt to Kyiv exceeded the acceptable radiation levels more than twice. It turned out that the man was carrying a mixture of clay and soil taken from the Fukushima nuclear power plant after the nuclear disaster.
The radioactive luggage was found at the Borispol airport, the press service for the Ukrainian State Border Guard Service reported.
An inspection of the luggage yielded two plastic containers with a mixture of clay and soil weighing a total of 12 kilos. The radiation levels in the containers exceeded the acceptable levels more than twice.
The Japanese man said the mixture of clay and soil was taken on the territory of the Fukushima nuclear power plant during the nuclear disaster. He said he was carrying it to the Zhytomyr National Agroecological University.
The containers have now been seized and will be provided to representatives of the state-run enterprise Radon for further tests and disposal.
……………………………………………………………………………..
Just a quick bit of dot connecting here… Arclight2011
IAEA, Vienna. State Agency of Ukraine on Exclusion Zone Management. 1.3 … SSE. “Ukrainian State. Corporation. “Radon”. Ukrainian radiological training.
Published: January 1st, 2014 at 4:21 pm ET
By ENENews
Fairewinds Energy Education, Jan. 1, 2014: […] the Internet has been flooded with conjecture claiming that Fukushima Daiichi Unit 3 is ready to explode. Fairewinds Energy Education has been inundated with questions about the very visible steam emanating from Fukushima Daiichi Unit 3. […] Hot water vapor has been released daily by each of the four Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plants since the accident. We believe that is one of the reasons TEPCO placed covers over Daiichi 4 and 1. […] radioactive rubble (fission products) was left in each unit […] heat from this ongoing decay of radioactive rubble is constantly releasing moisture (steam) and radioactive products into the environment. […] [Unit 3] is still producing slightly less than 1 megawatt (one million watts) of decay heat […] it is creating radioactive steam […] hot radioactive releases […] have occurring [sic] for the entire 33 months […] The difference now is that the only time we visibly notice these ongoing releases is on the cold days […]
The Ecologist reported on this unsubstantiated rumor which was then used as a source by ‘Gizmodo. The Ecologist has now changed their original report without any notice or explanation. Here’s the original ending: “The Turner Radio Network is advising people on the West Coast of North America to”prepare for the worst” in case a meltdown of the waste fuel is in fact commencing. No official warnings have been released on either side of the Pacific.”
Here’s how it ends now: “According to a Fairewinds Energy Education posting on Facebook, the reactor is currently producing about 1 MW of heat, equivalent to 1,000 1KW electric fires, so enough to produce plenty of steam. This would provide the least worrying explanation for the steam, in that as the radioactivity continues decline so will the heat production and the volume of steam produced. If this explanation is correct, there is no reason expect any catastrophic outcome. However the steam is carrying considerable amounts of radiation into the atmosphere and represents an ongoing radiation hazard.”
Pandora’s Poison, part 1 of 2 [On Fukushima Beach 4 remixable]
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