I reject the international mass media to read this site without taking a contact with me.I know some of the mass media corporations read Fukushima Diary to understand the trend so they know when to report about Fukushima as if they were independently following it for a long time.
In short, they make you individual readers pay for this site while they pay nothing, and when they publish the “authorized news”, you pay for the “secondhand news”, which is nothing new for us.
This site is free for the individual readers, but not for corporations.In the world, this site is nearly the only source about Fukushima. I came here alone without any supporting organizations, background or anything. I’m not pleased to be exploited by the corporations that didn’t even properly report about Fukushima when 311 took place. I demand them to take a contact with me BEFORE reading this site whatever the purpose is.
_____
Français :
Le nombre de travailleurs gravement irradiés a doublé entre juillet et septembre 2013 Note : Si vous êtes de la grande presse internationale, ne lisez pas ce site sans avoir préalablement pris contact avec moi.
La fréquence de travailleurs de Fukushima dont l’exposition (externe) dépasse 5 mSv en septembre se révèle être au-dessus du double de celle de juillet.
Ceci signifie que le nombre de travaux dangereux a significativement augmenté depuis juillet dernier.
La proportion de travailleurs ayant reçu plus de 5 mSv d’irradiation externe était de 1,96 % en juillet. Elle passe à 3,09 % en août atteint 4,36 % en septembre dernier.
Le 1er novembre 2013, Tepco déclare que c’est à cause de l’augmentation de la fréquence de travaux liés aux eaux extrêmement radioactives depuis l’été dernier.
Plus les eaux extrêmement radioactives augmentent, plus on a besoin de travailleurs pour les travaux les plus dangereux.
J’interdis à la grande presse internationale de lire et d’utiliser ce site sans préalablement prendre contact avec moi. Je sais que certaines grandes sociétés de presse lisent le Fukushima Diary pour comprendre la tendance et trouver quand rendre compte de la situation de Fukushima comme s’ils la suivaient indépendamment depuis longtemps.
En résumé, ils vous font payer à vous, simples lecteurs, ce qu’ils prennent gratuitement dans ce site et lorsqu’ils publient des “nouvelles de première main” vous payez pour des “nouvelles resucées”, qui n’ont rien de nouveau pour nous.
Ce site est gratuit pour les lecteurs individuels, pas pour les sociétés. Ce site est pratiquement la seule source au monde sur Fukushima. Je viens ici seul sans aucun soutien d’organisation quelconque, ni références, ni rien. Je n’apprécie pas de me faire exploiter par ces sociétés qui n’ont même pas été foutues de relater correctement ce qui se passait à Fukushima quand a eu lieu le mois de mars 2011. Je leur demande de prendre contact avec moi AVANT de lire ce site dans quelque but que ce soit.
How to predict the probability of a nuclear accident using past observations? What increase in probability the Fukushima Dai-ichi event does entail? […] We find an increase in the risk of a core meltdown accident for the next year in the world by a factor of ten owing to the new major accident that took place in Japan in 2011. […]
Two months after the fukushima Dai ichi meltdown, a French newspaper published an article coauthored by a French engineer and an economist1. They both argued that the risk of a nuclear accident in Europe in the next thirty years is not unlikely but on the contrary, it is a certainty. They claimed that in France the risk is near to 50% and more than 100% in Europe. […]
The Fukushima Dai-ichi results in a huge increase in the probability of an accident. […]
The Fukushima Dai-ichi effect of [delta] 43 could appear as not realistic. In fact, at first glance the triple meltdown seems very specific and caused by a series of exceptional events. For most observers, however, the Fuskushima Dai-ichi accident is not a black swan. […] It has also been ignored by the nuclear safety agency NISA because as well-demonstrated now the Nippon agency was captured by the nuclear operators (Gundersen (2012)). [Gundersen, A. (2012), The echo chamber: Regulatory capture and the fukushima daiichi disaster, Technical report]
[…] Unfortunately, it is likely that several NPPs in the world have been built in hazardous areas, have not been retrofitted to take into account better information on natural risks collected after their construction, and are under-regulated by a non-independent and poorly equipped safety agency as NISA. […] a massive release of radioactive elements from a nuclear power plant into the environment is no longer a risk limited to a few unstable countries where scientific knowledge and technological capabilities are still scarce. […]
Toxic nuclear and industrial waste, dumped illegally by the Neapolitan mafia, is responsible for a surge in cancers in southern Italy, it is feared.
The Italian Senate is investigating a link between buried pollutants and a rise of almost 50 per cent in tumours found in the inhabitants of several towns around Naples.
In classified documents from 1997, only now released to the public, a mafia kingpin warned authorities that the poison in the ground would kill everyone ‘within two decades’.
Camorra chief Francesco Schiavone, once the world’s number one mafia fugitive, said: ‘The inhabitants are all at risk of dying from cancer within twenty years.
‘In towns like Casapesenna, Casal di Principe, Castel Volturno, and so on, they have, perhaps, twenty years to live. In fact I don’t think anyone will survive.’
Doctors first noticed that cancers in towns around Naples were on the rise in the 1990s. But since that time they have increased by 40 per cent in women and 47 per cent in men.
The illegal trafficking of hazardous waste came to light in 1997 when Francesco’s cousin, Carmine Schiavone, was overcome by guilt at the environmental damage he and others were inflicting, and decided to turn super-grass.
Francesco Schiavone was arrested and eventually given a life sentence for a string of murders.
In secret out-of-court testimony he told lawyers how the Casalesi clan ran ‘a military style operation’ dumping millions of tonnes of waste on farmland, in caves, in quarries and even on the edge of towns.
The mafia family also disposed of contaminated waste in Lake Lucrino and all along the coast.
Joint Statement The United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation (UNSCEAR) is about to submit a report on Fukushima to the United Nations General Assembly. Human Rights Now, along with 63 Japanese civil society organizations, has issued a statement requesting UNSCEAR, and the General Assembly Fourth Committee to revise the report and its finding from a human rights perspective. The statement outlines the case for a more cautious approach to low level radiation exposure in order to help protect the most vulnerable people after the Fukushima nuclear accident. UNSCEAR_Statement_Submission (PDF) 24 October 2013 Japanese civil society requests that the reports of the United Nations Scientific Committee on Fukushima be revised 1. Concern for the reports of the United Nations Scientific Committee The United Nations Scientific Committee has inserted the results of investigations on the effects of radiation exposure from Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant Number 1 into its report, which will be submitted to the 68th session being held at the moment. We, the undersigned civil society organizations in Japan express serious concern that the results of these investigations contain some problems in terms of objectivity, independence, and accuracy, and that the underestimation of the effects of radiation exposure could have negative effects on the human rights and protection of citizens. We request that the United Nations Scientific Committee and the United Nations General Assembly Forth Committee revise the reports from a human rights perspective to protect the most vulnerable people based on careful and sufficient deliberations. The parts of the reports which include the foremost concerns of Human Rights Now are outlined as follows: · “The doses to the general public, both those incurred during the first year and estimated for their lifetimes, are generally low or very low. No discernible increased incidence of radiation-related health effects are expected among exposed members of the public or their descendants.” (para. 39) · ”For adults in Fukushima Prefecture, the Committee estimates average lifetime effective doses to be of the order of 10 mSv or less, and first-year doses to be one third to one half of that. While risk models by inference suggest increased cancer risk, cancers induced by radiation are indistinguishable at present from other cancers. Thus, a discernible increase in cancer incidence in this population that could be attributed to radiation exposure from the accident is not expected. An increased risk of thyroid cancer in particular can be inferred for infants and children.” (para. 40) 2. The lack of independent investigation Firstly, the United Nations Scientific Committee has never officially visited Fukushima prefecture to investigate after the Fukushima nuclear accident. The estimate by the committee of health effects, contamination, and the radiation exposure of workers at the nuclear plant from radioactive substances are based only on data given by the Japanese Government and Fukushima prefecture. […] 3. The conclusion of the Committee lacks accuracy culates that the risk for thyroid cancer for infants needs to be increased, they do not expect an increase in risks for other kinds of cancer. This contradicts the results of current epidemiological research which indicates health effects of low-level radiation. The Radiation Effects Research Foundation has released results of new LSS reports that collect reports from 1950 to 2003 on the atomic bomb victims in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. This research indicates that the excess relative risk for all solid cancer increases with even low-level doses of radiation. In research conducted by Cardis on six hundred thousand nuclear plant workers in 15 countries, the death rate of nuclear plant workers who are exposed to an average annual dose of 2mSv radiation is high. The International Commission of Non-Ionizing Radiation Protection, including BEIR, supports the linear no-threshold model, which portrays low dose exposure that is 100 mSv or less as a risk to health and does not negate health effects due to low-level radiation exposure. The collective reports of approximately six hundred and eight thousand young patients who received computed tomographic scanning in Australia showed that leukemia, brain tumors, thyroid cancer and many other cancers have increased, and the infection rate has increased by an average of 1.24 overall. Also, from a case-control study on natural background radiation level exposure, it seems clear that as accumulated gamma-ray exposure increases, the risk of leukemia increases relatively, and if it exceeds 5mGy, the minimum of 95% confident interval exceeds one share and becomes significant. Moreover, with over 10mGy, the risk of cancer excluding leukemia also […] 4. Inconsistency with other views The United Nations Scientific Committee observes that there is little risk to health by radiation in Fukushima. However, this view differs greatly from the prospects which are included in the reports regarding […] 5. The actual conditions in Fukushima […] Soon after the nuclear plant accident in Fukushima, the Japanese government relaxed the limit on radiation exposure from less than 1mSv to 20 mSv a year and decided to set this limit as a standard for issuing evacuation advisories. As a result, many people, including children, infants and pregnant women, have been forced to live in high level radiation exposure areas with no support to evacuate, migrate or protect themselves from radiation exposure with sufficient health measures. The’Chernobyl Concept’, which was established by the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics in 1991 and was followed in Belarus, Ukraine, and Russia, designated areas where additional exposure is more than 5 mSv/year as an ‘evacuation area’, and it provides the people who lived there with support and compensation for the lives they were forced to abandon in order to evacuate. […] 6. The reports by Mr. Anand Grover should be reflected and considered […] 7. Conclusion As stated above, we, the civil society, request that the United Nations Scientific Committee and the United Nations General Assembly Forth Committee revise the reports of the United Nations Scientific Committee from a human rights perspective to take a more cautious approach with regards to low level radiation exposure to protect the most vulnerable people based on careful and sufficient deliberations.
Contact: Human Rights Now www.hrn.or.jp/eng 7F Creative One Akihabara Buiding 5-3-4, Ueno Taito, Tokyo, Japan Email: info@hrn.or.jp Tel +81-3-3835-2110 Fax +81-3-3834-1025 Human Rights Now(HRN) is an international human rights NGO based in Japan with ECOSOC special consultative status. HRN works for promotion and protection of human rights worldwide, with special focus in Asia.
(Source) http://hrn.or.jp/eng/activity/area/worldwide/japanese-civil-society-requests-that-the-reports-of-the-united-nations-scientific-committee-on-fukus/v Joint Statement The United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation (UNSCEAR) is about to submit a report on Fukushima to the United Nations General Assembly. Human Rights Now, along with 63 Japanese civil society organizations, has issued a statement requesting UNSCEAR, and the General Assembly Fourth Committee to revise the report and its finding from a human rights perspective. The statement outlines the case for a more cautious approach to low level radiation exposure in order to help protect the most vulnerable people after the Fukushima nuclear accident. UNSCEAR_Statement_Submission (PDF) 24 October 2013 Japanese civil society requests that the reports of the United Nations Scientific Committee on Fukushima be revised 1. Concern for the reports of the United Nations Scientific Committee The United Nations Scientific Committee has inserted the results of investigations on the effects of radiation exposure from Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant Number 1 into its report, which will be submitted to the 68th session being held at the moment. We, the undersigned civil society organizations in Japan express serious concern that the results of these investigations contain some problems in terms of objectivity, independence, and accuracy, and that the underestimation of the effects of radiation exposure could have negative effects on the human rights and protection of citizens. We request that the United Nations Scientific Committee and the United Nations General Assembly Forth Committee revise the reports from a human rights perspective to protect the most vulnerable people based on careful and sufficient deliberations. The parts of the reports which include the foremost concerns of Human Rights Now are outlined as follows: · “The doses to the general public, both those incurred during the first year and estimated for their lifetimes, are generally low or very low. No discernible increased incidence of radiation-related health effects are expected among exposed members of the public or their descendants.” (para. 39) · ”For adults in Fukushima Prefecture, the Committee estimates average lifetime effective doses to be of the order of 10 mSv or less, and first-year doses to be one third to one half of that. While risk models by inference suggest increased cancer risk, cancers induced by radiation are indistinguishable at present from other cancers. Thus, a discernible increase in cancer incidence in this population that could be attributed to radiation exposure from the accident is not expected. An increased risk of thyroid cancer in particular can be inferred for infants and children.” (para. 40) 2. The lack of independent investigation Firstly, the United Nations Scientific Committee has never officially visited Fukushima prefecture to investigate after the Fukushima nuclear accident. The estimate by the committee of health effects, contamination, and the radiation exposure of workers at the nuclear plant from radioactive substances are based only on data given by the Japanese Government and Fukushima prefecture. […] 3. The conclusion of the Committee lacks accuracy culates that the risk for thyroid cancer for infants needs to be increased, they do not expect an increase in risks for other kinds of cancer. This contradicts the results of current epidemiological research which indicates health effects of low-level radiation. The Radiation Effects Research Foundation has released results of new LSS reports that collect reports from 1950 to 2003 on the atomic bomb victims in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. This research indicates that the excess relative risk for all solid cancer increases with even low-level doses of radiation. In research conducted by Cardis on six hundred thousand nuclear plant workers in 15 countries, the death rate of nuclear plant workers who are exposed to an average annual dose of 2mSv radiation is high. The International Commission of Non-Ionizing Radiation Protection, including BEIR, supports the linear no-threshold model, which portrays low dose exposure that is 100 mSv or less as a risk to health and does not negate health effects due to low-level radiation exposure. The collective reports of approximately six hundred and eight thousand young patients who received computed tomographic scanning in Australia showed that leukemia, brain tumors, thyroid cancer and many other cancers have increased, and the infection rate has increased by an average of 1.24 overall. Also, from a case-control study on natural background radiation level exposure, it seems clear that as accumulated gamma-ray exposure increases, the risk of leukemia increases relatively, and if it exceeds 5mGy, the minimum of 95% confident interval exceeds one share and becomes significant. Moreover, with over 10mGy, the risk of cancer excluding leukemia also […] 4. Inconsistency with other views The United Nations Scientific Committee observes that there is little risk to health by radiation in Fukushima. However, this view differs greatly from the prospects which are included in the reports regarding […] 5. The actual conditions in Fukushima […] Soon after the nuclear plant accident in Fukushima, the Japanese government relaxed the limit on radiation exposure from less than 1mSv to 20 mSv a year and decided to set this limit as a standard for issuing evacuation advisories. As a result, many people, including children, infants and pregnant women, have been forced to live in high level radiation exposure areas with no support to evacuate, migrate or protect themselves from radiation exposure with sufficient health measures. The’Chernobyl Concept’, which was established by the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics in 1991 and was followed in Belarus, Ukraine, and Russia, designated areas where additional exposure is more than 5 mSv/year as an ‘evacuation area’, and it provides the people who lived there with support and compensation for the lives they were forced to abandon in order to evacuate. […] 6. The reports by Mr. Anand Grover should be reflected and considered […] 7. Conclusion As stated above, we, the civil society, request that the United Nations Scientific Committee and the United Nations General Assembly Forth Committee revise the reports of the United Nations Scientific Committee from a human rights perspective to take a more cautious approach with regards to low level radiation exposure to protect the most vulnerable people based on careful and sufficient deliberations.
Contact: Human Rights Now www.hrn.or.jp/eng 7F Creative One Akihabara Buiding 5-3-4, Ueno Taito, Tokyo, Japan Email: info@hrn.or.jp Tel +81-3-3835-2110 Fax +81-3-3834-1025 Human Rights Now(HRN) is an international human rights NGO based in Japan with ECOSOC special consultative status. HRN works for promotion and protection of human rights worldwide, with special focus in Asia.
(Nuclear-news.net fully supports this hard working and compassionate blogger in his bid for visas, we hope that he is succesful, especially as the Japanese government have recently made his blogging illegal with a ten year sentence. I hope that he finds away to continue his right to free speech.
Editorial note by ; Arclight2011, Christina and the many unseen contributers to nuclear-news.net)
It’s sad that you encounter the bad luck even if you do nothing bad.
I missed the chance to renew my visa in Romania.
I stay extra careful around my birthday. Something always happens in this time of year, but I couldn’t avoid it this time.
My visa expires soon. I wanted to start the renewal procedure before my leaving for the Arctic circle.
but I just found an error in the registry of Fukushima Diary corporation. It takes time to modify. (Bad luck #1)
Still me and my lawyer didn’t give it up. We tried to submit the application but there were too many people, we got shut out after queuing for 4 hours. (Bad luck #2)
My lawyer did her best and is still struggling. I say this for her honor.
I don’t know how the things would be when I come back from the Arctic circle, but I have already booked the flights and hotels, which cost me a bunch. Cancellation costs 100%. There is no option to change it.
This made me want to go to the Arctic circle even more than before.
(Some people nicely offer housings and meal, but I don’t have a visa in your country to stay longer than 90 days, which costs huge and take months to obtain. I even have to go back to Japan for the procedure. Even if I get a visa, I can’t afford the living expense. so please don’t think I’m doing something stupid. I’ve studied all the visa situations of every possible country. Language ? Everyone speaks English anywhere. Culture ? I haven’t had any cultural problems from Tunisia to Canada.)
Anything can happen. This may be a sign of telling me to move on.
I haven’t done anything illegal here. and I still have some time, so will keep trying.
but maybe something is telling me to look out for the next way of living too, which I can deploy for other people.
I reject the international mass media to read this site without taking a contact with me.I know some of the mass media corporations read Fukushima Diary to understand the trend so they know when to report about Fukushima as if they were independently following it for a long time.
In short, they make you individual readers pay for this site while they pay nothing, and when they publish the “authorized news”, you pay for the “secondhand news”, which is nothing new for us.
This site is free for the individual readers, but not for corporations.In the world, this site is nearly the only source about Fukushima. I came here alone without any supporting organizations, background or anything. I’m not pleased to be exploited by the corporations that didn’t even properly report about Fukushima when 311 took place. I demand them to take a contact with me BEFORE reading this site whatever the purpose is
Even more worrying for a party made up of various competing factions would be members sensing that public opinion is turning against the LDP on atomic energy.
Former prime minister’s return to spotlight to demand government phase out reactors has caused concerns in Tokyo’s halls of power
In the years after he stepped down as prime minister of Japan in September 2006 and then left the political arena in 2009, Junichiro Koizumi was apparently happy to remain in the shadows.
But the hugely popular Koizumi has decisively stepped back into the spotlight to demand that the government phase out nuclear power.
And such a high-profile figure breaking rank with his Liberal Democratic Party’s official line on nuclear power has caused concern in Tokyo’s halls of power.
After visiting nuclear facilities in Finland and Germany – which has committed to closing down all its nuclear plants by 2022 – Koizumi said his belief that Japan should get rid of its nuclear reactors had only been reinforced.
His comments were initially ignored by the media, until he began to repeat them in media interviews and then, on October 20, he invited reporters to a lecture during which he was strongly critical of the government’s vow to restart the nation’s mothballed reactors. His condemnations of the country’s official policy made headlines the next day and have continued to do so in the nation’s media since then.
TOKYO – The operator of Japan’s crippled Fukushima nuclear plant has logged a first-half net profit with its results boosted by a government bailout and electricity rate hike.
AMMAN — Jordan’s under-formation Green Party on Thursday sent invitations to political parties to hold an “urgent” meeting to discuss the government’s final decision to move ahead with the nuclear programme.
In a statement sent to The Jordan Times, the Green Party said it included with the invitation letters a brief study on the environmental impact of the projected nuclear plants, expressing hope that all political parties would reach a consensus to object to the government’s nuclear plans.
Earlier this week, the government announced that it has selected the Russian state-owned firm Rosatom to build two 1,000-megawatt nuclear power plants east of Amman by 2022.
Scunthorpe veterans of nuclear test site, Christmas Island, says they did not know how dangerous the work they were carrying out was.
The British nuclear veterans are fighting for compensation from the Government, claiming they have suffered a lifetime of illness following the exposure to radiation.
Former Deputy Chair of the Liberal Democrats, Donnachadh McCarthy, writes to Lib Dem DECC Secretary of State Ed Davey about Hinkley C nuclear power station.
Re: Nuclear assault on Poor, Workers and UK Economy
I could hardly sleep last night thinking about the enormity of the crime committed yesterday by you, George Osborne and Ed Miliband over your agreement to massively subsidise China and EDF to build poisonous nuclear plants in the UK.
The proposed £420 billion (minimum) subsidy for 12 nuclear poison-production plants, would have created huge employment in the UK’s energy efficiency and renewables industries.
This nuclear subsidy will to go to foreign firms as we no longer have the technological capacity in this old 1950s dirty technology.
This figure does not include the massive free open-ended blank cheque for free insurance to the French/Chinese consortium nor the increase in subsidy if/when renewables fall below current grid-price.
Thus the decision was a direct attack on UK workers with thousands of jobs sent overseas.
Secondly the decision means millions of the UK poor who could have had their energy bills eliminated through energy efficiency and home and decentralised renewables will now be kept in fuel-poverty for another generation.
Yesterday’s announcement of the tearing up of the Lib Dem and Tory manifesto promises, and the coalition agreement for no subsidies to nuclear was accompanied by no basic cost/benefit analysis.
Where is the comparison for jobs created, carbon saved, fuel poverty eliminated and UK jobs created by investing £420 billion in nuclear poison creation v energy efficiency / regulation / renewables?!
Any responsible political party not in the pockets of their in-house party nuclear-lobbyists, would carry out such an independent analysis and publish it for scrutiny.
But the sorry fact is we have no such party of government – as all 3 parties are infected with internal bought nuclear lobbyists.
The list of other reasons why yesterday should be marked as a black day for the UK and its people is overwhelming:
Nowhere to store the nuclear poisons.
Nuclear poisons will have to be stored “safely” for generations to come.
Over 90% of DECC (The Department of Energy and Climate Change) budget already consumed with storing / dealing with already produced nuclear poisons, with costs escalating every year, with no end in sight to this inflation.
1 in 100 nuclear plants have disastrously failed
the nuclear plants proposed is a new unproven design
the nuclear plants proposed are already years behind in Finland and France.
the nuclear plants proposed are already billions over budget in Finland and France.
Safe reliable existing alternative technologies already exist.
France, Germany and Italy all have rejected this 1950s technology and are pursuing renewables and energy efficiency instead thus creating thousands of jobs for their citizens.
Nuclear plays an irresponsible catastrophic Russian Roulette with our nation. A Fukushima catastrophe in Somerset would cause permanent evacuation of large areas of the county.
A Fukushima in Somerset would destroy offshore fishing industry of UK, Ireland and Scotland
Nuclear power stations are a national existential terrorist security risk – the costs of making them safe from a Jumbo Jet suicide mission is enormous
Many of the nuclear power stations are being built on low-lying coastal land that cannot be protected without huge costs to future generations, from the sea levels now inexorably rising due to the climate crisis.
The Glinsk renewable energy storage project in Ireland has the capacity of 2 nuclear power stations without any of the over-whelming risks and disadvantages above.
Every day of the week in my work as an eco-auditor, I encounter colossal waste of energy, from pointless daylight lighting to energy systems on in offices 24/7 to innumerable empty fridges to air-conditioned stores with wide open doors.
I am in no doubt you are building nuclear power stations to provide energy to be criminally wasted.
The list goes on and on. This is one of the largest ever criminal attacks on the UK state and the UK public by The Prostitute State.
Could I implore you to re-think this disastrous nightmarish decision and respect the promise to oppose nuclear white-elephants that you made each time you stood for election?
Yours sincerely,
Donnachadh McCarthy FRSA.
Donnachadh says: Please engage with your local MPs or those whom you know on this hugely important issue. Please feel free to use the letter I sent to Ed Davey as a basis if you wish.
Anti-nuclear protesters, many wearing business suits, marched through Tokyo’s Shinbashi district in the evening of Oct. 30.
Most of the attendees came straight from their offices to take part in the 40-minute demo.
The group started at a park near Shinbashi Station at 7 p.m and marched nearly 2 kilometers in the business district, shouting slogans such as “No to restarts,” “Stop contaminated water” and “Stop export.”
They also passed by the head office of Tokyo Electric Power Co., the operator of the crippled Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant, to raise their voices against nuclear energy.
The event organizer’s aim was to increase the involvement of office workers, who generally hesitate to join demonstrations. Ordinary people are generally not taking any action, the organizer said.
Satoko Namikawa, a corporate employee who lives in Tokorozawa, Saitama Prefecture, attended the march in her black suit after finishing work.
The 31-year-old Namikawa said, “Having seen the devastation in Fukushima Prefecture a year ago, I no longer feel that nuclear power is necessary.”
She added, “I hope more people feel inclined to join demonstrations after seeing that many company employees attended this one.”
About 600 people attended the march, the organizer said.
….But was it really? “No one can say for sure that the earthquake did not play a part,” the second video states. But what was clear was that the nuclear reactions were built in 1974 and Tepco believed that the risk was very low…..
US Editor, Author and Artist. Founder of Culture of One World, a media project devoted to foreign affairs, cultural diplomacy and global projects in the public interest. Lecturer on American studies, censorship and repression, and new technology in the arts. AWARDS: Society of Professional Journalists Deadline Club Award, NLGJA Journalist of the Year Award for Excellence in Journalism, George Jean Nathan Award for Dramatic Criticism, Associated Press Media Editors Diversity Scholarship.
The disaster at Fukushima nuclear power plant was “man-made and preventable.” It was not “an act of God,” as Tepco (Tokyo Electric Power Company) originally claimed. Japanese authorities were “putting off safety measures” from 2009 to 2016, and so “the nuclear power plant was not well-guarded against accidents.”
These simple yet stunning statements were the conclusions of 18 young professionals who were engaged by the Japanese government to produce the Diet Report of NAICC (Nuclear Accident Independent Investigation Commission). This independent panel of determined professionals, lawyers, scientists, journalists and university students took part in a unique-to-Japan project to help the general public understand what had happened in March 2011 in Fukushima.
The National Diet’s executive report also blamed “Japanese culture for the fundamental causes of the disaster.” (The National Diet or “Kokkai” is Japan’s bicameral legislature.)
To incite open discussions on the disaster’s lessons, this independent group had compiled a 592-page report in July 2012 in which they outlined their investigation of the Fukushima nuclear crisis, which continues to this day. Unfortunately, because that report was originally in Japanese, very few had read the full account. Because it was very technical, even fewer understand its full impact.
For the very first time, this NAICC panel has released six short video clips explaining the lengthy report in simple language for easy consumption by the general public. These videos have hit the Internet. Starting today, English versions have been made available on the Internet.
One week we learn the stricken Fukushima nuclear plant has contaminated the entire North Pacific with via the daily discharge of 300 tons of radioactive water into the ocean. The following week we learn that Britain has approved the first new, “totally safe” nuclear power plant in 35 years, at Hinkley Point in Somerset. The snow job being perpetrated on the British and American public is that nuclear energy creates electricity without emitting carbon dioxide and that it’s cheaper than renewable energy. Neither is true.
Nuclear energy only looks cheap and carbon neutral if you take plant construction and nuclear waste disposal out of the equation. The US, British, French, Chinese and other governments driving the current nuclear renaissance don’t want you to think about nuclear waste disposal. This is because the technology required to safely neutralize and store spent plutonium that remains radioactive for 10,000 years has yet to be invented. Finland has come the closest, with the launch of a $3 billion excavation of an underground depository at Onkalo. Since the US site at Yucca Mountain was defunded in 2010, most countries have been leaving their spent fuel rods lying around in containment pools. At Fukushima, the spent rods were on the roof of the stricken reactors – before they melted down and spewed immeasurable amounts of radiation into the air and groundwater. In Britain, most nuclear “decommissioning” happens at a former nuclear weapons site called Sellafield. Despite a government allocation of more than ₤67 billion to the facility, the spent rods are still lying around in open pools. No one can figure out what to do with them.
Nuclear Affordability Depends on Massive Subsidies
A Japanese lawmaker handed Emperor Akihito a letter on Thursday expressing fear about the health impact of the Fukushima nuclear disaster, breaking a taboo by trying to involve the emperor in politics.
Taro Yamamoto, who is also an anti-nuclear activist, gave Akihito the letter during a garden party, setting off a storm of protest on the Internet from critics shocked at his action.
“I wanted to directly tell the emperor of the current situation,” Yamamoto told reporters, referring to the crisis at the Fukushima nuclear plant north of Tokyo, which has been leaking radioactivity since it was battered by an earthquake and tsunami on March 11, 2011.
“I wanted him to know about the children who have been contaminated by radiation. If this goes on, there will be serious health impacts.”
Akihito inclined his head as he took the letter in his hand, but then handed it to a nearby chamberlain. Yamamoto said he made no comment.
About 150,000 people were moved from around the plant, which suffered a series of explosions and meltdowns. A large area of surrounding land is off-limits due to high radiation.
United Nations scientists said this year that the evacuation helped prevent rising cancer rates and other health problems. Traces of radioactive contamination have been found in rice and far out in the Pacific Ocean.
Akihito, who turns 80 in December, fills a purely ceremonial role and remains above the political fray.
He has striven to draw the imperial family closer to the people. Conservative Japanese revere him, while many others feel a fond affection toward him. Some Japanese see the family as irrelevant.
Some Internet critics called on Yamamoto to resign from parliament. “This was really low,” one critic wrote in a Web forum.
Chief cabinet secretary Yasuhide Suga also expressed disapproval, telling a news conference: “There is a line for appropriate behavior at such an occasion.”
…The people who can really make a choice will win, get out and start a new life somewhere in the country, or in other cities. Especially if they have parents in the countryside, they should go back, and start a new life…
You were interviewed previously for Kyoto Journal following the Tokaimura nuclear accident in the summer of 1999, when you lived in California. You said that you had come to Japan to help empower people, especially women, in response to the government’s negligence in handling the issue. Then, at the turn of the millennium, you moved from California to Hawai’i. That seems to have marked a turning point in your life…
Until 1999 I had really tried to focus my work to let people know the dangers of having nuclear [power plants] on earthquake faults. I couldn’t convince them. I already saw the possibilities of disaster. I thought it would be in Tokai, or Hamaoka, near Tokyo. I was terribly, terribly worried. I had worked nearly nine years in the antinuclear movement. I was very discouraged that Japan was not really responding to the danger.
I was just very tired, and I felt like I had to rebuild a new life. So I chose Hawai’i to do sustainable living, making a farm, to show people that there’s another way to live. I felt like somebody had to be doing this — not just thinking about the possibility, but practicing it. Hawai’i taught me to live with aloha, within an island. In 2000 I bought the farm [Ginger Hill Farm and Retreat, in Kealakekua, meaning the Path of God], and for eleven years I have worked on it. I have probably educated about two hundred young people, just to live hopefully sustainably through farming, through eating the right things, making medicines, cleansing, healing oneself with herbs and the things that we grow.
I just finished painting a six-panel screen of mostly women marching towards Amaterasu the Sun Goddess — I painted about forty women, with a few men. They are all practitioners of my Goddess Academy, marching from the life they lived, to a more nature-based life, symbolized by Amaterasu — marching from an oil-based economy towards a solar-based economy…
…I painted a Sotatsu screen of the Gods of Wind and Thunder turned into females to bring more of the feminine into culture, especially Japanese culture, which really needs more feminine. Traditional culture has it, but somehow this modern culture in Japan became so Westernized that we gave up a lot of that stuff.
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