Office of the Prosecutor, Iwaki Branch, Fukushima Japan:
Support Mari Takenouchi and Radiation Protection
“Perhaps because everyone believes people telling them on television that everything is fine, they don’t seem so worried,” 281 Antinuke told Reuters.“I hope by leaving my art I can remind people that we’re not safe at all … and that they will do something to protect themselves.”
“We don’t know what will happen in the future, whether children will get cancer or leukemia,” he said. “So I want to keep making noise and making a fuss.”
Mari is facing charges stemming from speaking out on radiation in Japan and advocacy for families relocating children out of the areas contaminated by radioactivity from the damaged Fukushima Daiichi reactor site, operated by TEPCO. Radioactivity continues to leave that site. It is well established that while lower levels of exposure to radioactivity lowers risk, the greatest hazard from radiation comes when children are exposed, raising the risk of cancer manifold over their entire lives.
The group ETHOS in Japan supports the decision by some to stay and live in contaminated areas. Sadly, some of these families feel they have no choice due to economics and other factors. Certainly young children have no choice. ETHOS advocates monitoring radioactivity, but well established science supports Mari’s views that there is no safe dose of radiation and that children need to be protected. We support open discussion, access to information and free choice. We ask the Prosecutor to agree that writing and speaking about these issues are not a crime.
Please Stand With Mari as she stands for precaution, protection and the rights of children to a healthy future. THANK YOU.
“Hiroshi Hoshi and Leo Hoshi were arrested on January 28th 2013 and are still in custody at the Futaba Police station. They are under arrest for “allegedly” breaking laws. We believe that that they are being targeted and unjustly detained due to their animal rescue of Fukushima animals. They have actively rescued, cared for, vetted and adopted out over 200 animals left to die inside the Nuclear Zone by the Government of Japan.” Source 2013
Your Honorable Mr. Sakai:
On behalf of the Hachiko Animal Federation, Inc, a non-profit organization in the United States we humbly request that you release the Hoshi Family, Hiroshi and Leo on their own merit and without any bail.The Hoshi’s have actively rescued, cared for and placed animals in adoptive families for almost two years. Because of the unforeseen disasters in Japan, unfortunately, many of these animals were sadly left behind in the Fukushima Exclusion Zone, or Nuclear Zone. It appears that there were no plans in place to deal with such drastic human circumstances and much less to include the animals that were people’s household pets. The Hoshi’s have actively rescued over 200 animals on their own with very limited monetary resources. The Hoshi Family is a humanitarian group and their sole mission has always been and remains one of altruism; to help reunite animals with their families or to find new families for animals in need.
The Hachiko Animal Federation was formed to honor your national treasure and our mascot, Hachiko, the loyal Akita dog. Our mission was and remains to assist animal shelters in Japan as well as animal rescue groups and volunteers who received little or no aid from the Japanese government. Our group will continue to assist Fukushima animals and animals around the world.
Published: March 2nd, 2014 at 4:02 pm ET
By ENENews
Asahi Shimbun, Feb. 25, 2014: CAPTION: Radioactive cesium of mind-boggling 370,000 becquerels per kilogram of soil has been detected in the mud of the Myotoishi reservoir in Motomiya, Fukushima Prefecture [55 km from Fukushima Daiichi]. The reservoir is ringed by homes and a community center. – Very high levels of accumulated radioactive cesium have been detected in the mud of hundreds of reservoirs used to irrigate farmland in Fukushima Prefecture […] 576 reservoirs [of 1,939 surveyed]. […] many of which are located in residential areas […] and still supplying water to rice paddies and other farmland. […] Environment Ministry says it has no plans to dredge the reservoirs to remove the contaminated mud. […] Kiyoshi Ishii, 71 […] was unable to hide his anger.
Japan Times, Mar. 1, 2014: […] despite the government and [Tepco’s] claims that things are under control, the disaster continues to threaten the lives and well-being of people […] much of the problem stems from the government’s poor handling of the after-effects of the disaster and Tepco’s continuing inept handling of the cleanup at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant. […] the health ministry is in denial about the existence of problems […]
Interview with Setsuko Kuroda, from documentary ‘Women of Fukushima’, Yoshihiro Kaneda, Feb. 25, 2014: Fukushima seems to be suppressed by the skillful manipulation. They force us to forget everything like the accident never happened. […] they can influence a lot of people […] If the person has a good title or is famous, people want to hear him or her. They give you a solution that you will be safe if you care about radiation. It happens everywhere […] Q: Is a manipulator the national, prefectural, or city government? A: All. There are many ways to do it. For example, they use citizens’ groups and individuals. The public information in the Koriyama City is terrible because their evidences of the radiation levels in the city are complete fictions. They announce it proudly with using tax. Their way to do that is from experiences of Chernobyl and they repeat in Japan. […] The mass media is the biggest criminal. (She stared at me fixedly.) They don’t say truth. No media is good. The media is worse than TEPCO […] exception is Tokyo Shinbun. But we cannot buy a copy in Fukushima. Who can allow this children’s environment and the situation of workers for Fukushima Daiichi? […]
After three years of bad news, investors in loss-making uranium miner Paladin Energy have witnessed a number of developments over the past six weeks to give them hope the company can survive.
KIEV (Reuters) – Ukraine’s parliament called for international monitors to help protect its nuclear power plants on Sunday as tension mounted with Russia.
Hryhoriy Nemyria, a member of parliament, said the assembly appealed to the signatories of a 1994 nuclear treaty that guaranteed Ukraine’s safety — including the United States, the United Kingdom and Russia.
(Reporting by Sabina Zawadzki, Editing by Timothy Heritage)
Published: March 2nd, 2014 at 4:35 am ET
By ENENews
Seattle Times, Feb. 28, 2014 (emphasis added): ‘Serious problem’: 65-foot crack found in Columbia River dam — A massive crack in a major Columbia River dam poses enough of a risk of dam failure that Grant County authorities have activated an emergency-response plan. […] “At this point we already know there’s a serious problem,” said Thomas Stredwick, spokesman for the Grant County Public Utility District (PUD). “We want to make sure the spillway is stable enough that inspectors are safe when inspecting it. […] This is a situation that’s really changing as more information becomes available” […]
Seattle Times, Feb. 28, 2014: There’s no immediate threat to public safety from the crack in the Wanapum Dam […] Stredwick said […] officials analyzed the divers’ data and decided Friday that the failure risk was sufficiently high that they should notify other government agencies […]
Columbia Basin Herald, Mar. 1, 2014: [T]his large of a crack has never been found on a Grant PUD dam. […] engineers noticed something unusual on the water level […] the crack, which spans the entire length of the dam, had formed about 70 feet under water.
Oregon Public Radio: Worst-case scenario is if the spillway was to topple. But Stredwick thinks other sections of the dam would hold on and downstream communities should be safe.
NBC News, Mar. 1, 2014: [NOAA’s] National Weather Service issued a flash flood watch for Grant County through the weekend as the water is drawn down because “the potential exists for a rapid increase in flows from Wanapum Dam.”
Eugene Weekly, Nov. 27, 2013: Dam failure was also examined, [David Swank, assistant VP at Columbia Generating Station] says, using flood maps provided by the Army Corps of Engineers […] “Flood level would not get to the plant,” Swank says, providing nothing has changed in the 30 years since the mapping was done. […] “It’s always tough to say with certainly that a facility is 100 percent prepared for an unknown disaster,” says Geoff Tyree of the Department of Energy. He says the DOE has looked at the possibility of the worst-case scenario where the Grand Coulee Dam partially fails on the Columbia River. He says that flooding could result in the release of radioactive material from portions of Hanford into the water, but he says that same water would dilute the radiation to a very low level off site […]
COLUMBIA GENERATING STATION FINAL SAFETY ANALYSIS REPORT (pdf), Dec. 2011: Grand Coulee Dam is ~250 river miles upstream from the CGS nuclear reactor, while the Wanapum Dam is ~60 river miles from the reactor and ~30 river miles from the Hanford Nuclear Reservation.
The report added: “The strong indications that people have intentionally substituted horsemeat for beef leads us to conclude that British consumers have been cynically and systematically duped in pursuit of profit by elements within the food industry.”
If you could close your eyes and let your imagination transport you to anywhere in the world, I bet you wouldn’t chose your local Tesco.
But bear with me a moment and let’s imagine ourselves walking down the tinned tuna aisle. Even though the tins all look pretty similar, there’s a huge difference in what’s inside. So we’re telling Tesco to pull dodgy tuna off their shelves.
If you were walking through this tinned tuna aisle a few years ago, you would have seen a different picture. Back then, we’d just won huge commitments from all major supermarkets on their own-brand tinned tuna. But now it looks like unsustainability is back on the shelves, dressed up in a different coloured can. A new brand called Oriental and Pacific, which is fished with destructive methods that kill turtles, sharks and rays alongside the tuna, has been spotted in Tesco shops all across the UK.
If supermarkets begin to replace sustainable brands on their shelves with cheap, dodgy tuna, then the commitments aren’t worth the paper they’re printed on.
It’s vital that we keep a close watch on any slippery supermarkets trying to undermine their promises to help protect the oceans. We know that the big supermarkets lead the way. And as soon as one slips, the rest follow right behind. Tell Tesco to pull Oriental and Pacific off their shelves.
With all my thanks
Victoria and the Greenpeace tuna team
Some extra information here
CBS Video – Cousteau warns Californians about Fukushima plume: It could be dangerous, keeping eye on reports; I’m not touching bluefin tuna, I’m done due to pollution — Leaders “worried about radiation… personally reluctant to eat fish”; Calling for systematic tests in Pacific
Published: February 16th, 2014 at 8:27 pm ET
By ENENews
Georgia Straight, Feb. 15, 2014: First Nations want radiation testing of fish – Caption: Reuben George is one of several First Nations leaders worried about radiation levels in salmon. […] North Shore News has reported that several First Nations leaders—including Union of B.C. Indian Chiefs president Grand Chief Stewart Phillip and Tahlton Central Council president Annita McPhee—want the federal government to conduct systematic tests of radiation levels in fish from the Pacific Ocean. Reuben George, a well-known member of the Tsleil-Waututh Nation, told the paper that he’s personally reluctant to eat fish.
KPIX: Now at 6:30, the teachings from a famous ocean explorer about radiation risks […] one of the foremost experts on the world’s oceans no longer eats certain kinds of fish.
Jean-Michel Cousteau: We’re using the ocean as a garbage can — a universal sewer.
KPIX: And the ocean’s affecting us. Cousteau’s keeping an eye on reports of radiation from the Fukushima disaster reaching California shoreline, but he chooses his words carefully.
Cousteau: The concentration of radioactivity, it is overblown. Does that mean it’s not potentially dangerous? It is.
KPIX: It’s overall pollution which has him swearing off some ocean fish like bluefin tuna.
ADVOCATES, campaigners, journalists and researchers gathered at New Zealand’s AUT University today to honour past campaigns for the Nuclear-Free and Independent Pacific Movement (NFIP) and to strategise for the future. And a forthcoming book on NFIP and the media was announced.
Panel presentations ranged from the US Castle Bravo nuclear test on Bikini Atoll in 1954 – today, March 1, was the 60th anniversary – to the Rongelap Atoll evacuation by Greenpeace in May 1985, the protests against French nuclear testing, the ICAN campaign to abolish all nuclear weapons, the “forgotten struggle” in West Papua, and to the future self-determination vote in Kanaky.
David Robie has been committed to developing quality journalism in the Pacific, and especially in developing a “Pacific brand” of journalism.
Kalafi Moala, Pasifika Media Association (PASIMA)
A timely media revisitation of the bloody conflicts and atrocities that have plagued this vulnerable Pacific region. An invaluable resource for journalists and journalism students.
Shailendra Singh, University of the South Pacific
David Robie has been an impassioned chronicler of Pacific currents for decades … from the bloody independence struggles of the 1980s to the attempts to chart a nuclear-free course.
Mark Revington, editor of Te Karaka, the voice of Ngai Tahu
An excellent sweep through the recent history of the Pacific and elsewhere constructed around the story of the author’s life.
Professor Stewart Firth, Australian National University
Don’t Spoil My Beautiful Face introduces readers to reportage of major Asia-Pacific socio-political and environmental issues over three decades by an independent journalist and media educator. It examines contemporary media concepts such as critical development journalism, conflict-sensitive journalism and deliberative journalism.
And it argues for a more comprehensive, reflective and in-depth media response to the region’s challenges from Tahiti Nui and Polynesian nations in the east to Papua New Guinea, Indonesia, the Philippines, Timor-Leste and West Papua in the west.
The author reported on the conflict between France and Kanak activists in New Caledonia that almost ended in civil war. He was harassed by French secret service agents and arrested at gunpoint. He was on board the original Rainbow Warrior on her last voyage that ended with the bombing by state terrorists in 1985.
He has reported on coups in Fiji and the Philippines, and was a media educator in Suva in 2000 when his students provided award-winning coverage of an attempted coup.
“Both the Congress and BJP are in favour of the plant, and if Narendra Modi comes to power, he might even try to crush the protest. This is an attempt to take the anti-nuclear protest to the next level,” he said.
Gopu Mohan | Chennai | Updated: Mar 01 2014, 12:38 IST
SummaryS P Udayakumar, the leader of the KNPP protest in Tamil Nadu, has joined the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) on Friday along with a section of protesters.
S P Udayakumar, the leader of the protest against the Koodankulam Nuclear Power Project in Tamil Nadu, joined the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) on Friday along with a section of protesters who have been agitating against the plant for over 1,000 days.
He is expected to contest from Kanyakumari in the Lok Sabha elections. Two others from among the protesters are expected to contest from nearby constituencies, Thirunelveli and Thoothukudi. The three constituencies have a sizeable population of fishermen.
However, another senior member of the protest committee, M Pushparayan, has refused to be part of the political fight, though his name was doing the rounds for Thoothukudi. There are indications that he is unhappy about the turn of events.
There are “significant construction flaws” in some newer, double-walled storage tanks at Washington state’s Hanford nuclear waste complex, which could lead to additional leaks, according to documents obtained by The Associated Press.
Those tanks hold some of the worst radioactive waste at the nation’s most contaminated nuclear site.
One of the 28 giant underground tanks was found to be leaking in 2012. But subsequent surveys of other double-walled tanks performed for the U.S. Department of Energy by one of its Hanford contractors found at least six shared defects with the leaking tank that could lead to future leaks, the documents said.
Thirteen additional tanks also might be compromised, according to the documents.Questions about the storage tanks jeopardize efforts to clean up radioactive waste at the southeastern Washington site. Those efforts already cost taxpayers about $2 billion a year.
“It is time for the Department (of Energy) to stop hiding the ball and pretending that the situation at Hanford is being effectively managed,” Sen.
(MENAFN – Kuwait News Agency (KUNA)) French nuclear entity Areva on Thursday reported a net 2013 loss of USD 678 million dollars (Euros 494 million) after heavy provisions for work underway in Finland and renewable energy losses.
In 2012, Areva had reported a net loss of just under USD 135 million, calculated at today’s exchange rates.
The company said in a statement that sales had reached Euros 9.24 billion, up over 6.4 percent on a comparable structure basis over the previous year. Areva stock plunged by almost 12 percent on the Paris Stock Exchange after the release of the results and shares were trading at 19.56 Euros and heading downward.
At one point, Areva has lost over 17 percent of its value on the Paris Stock Exchange.
Areva said that “despite the uncertain short-term environment” the outlook was good for positive free operating cash-flow this year and it predicted a significant cash-flow increase in 2015-2016.
Areva is a French government-controlled entity, with some minority outside investors on board. Kuwait Investment Authority (KIA) has a 4.8 percent stake in Areva for several years now.
More information here
“In 1986, the KIA’s London based subsidiary, the Kuwait Investment Office (KIO), bought control of Torras Hostench, a Spanish paper maker. Torras subsequently took over a number of other companies to become Grupo Torras in June 1988. KIO invested about $2.5 billion in building up the company and another $1.8 billion to shore it up after the end of Spain’s 1980s economic boom and the annexation of Kuwait by Iraq. However in December 1992 Grupo Torras entered receivership among accusations of fraud, and Kuwait’s investment was a total loss. One of its projects was the Gate of Europe twin towers in Madrid, which was still incomplete when the company collapsed.[4]“
More than a half, or 54 per cent, of Lithuanians have a negative attitude towards nuclear energy, the latest poll by the market and public opinion researcher ‘Baltijos Tyrimai’ has shown.
Some 17 per cent of the polled are very negative about nuclear energy, and another 37 per cent are rather negative than positive. One tenth of the respondents said they had no opinion on the issue.
At the same time, 36 per cent of the polled have a positive attitude towards nuclear energy, of which five per cent are very positive about this type of energy and 31 per cent are rather positive than negative. 🙂
MAJURO: Marshall Islands President Christopher Loeak called on the United States Saturday to resolve the “unfinished business” of its nuclear testing legacy in the western Pacific nation.
Compensation provided by Washington “does not provide a fair and just settlement” for the damage caused, he told a ceremony in Majuro marking the 60th anniversary of the devastating hydrogen bomb test at Bikini Atoll which contaminated many islands with radioactive fallout.
“We remain the closest of friends with the United States, but there is unfinished business relating to the nuclear weapons testing that must be addressed.”Loeak said the unfinished business not only affected the four atolls that the United States acknowledged as exposed, but also many other islands throughout the country.
In 1983, 29 years after the March 1, 1954 explosion, a compensation agreement was reached in which Washington provided the Marshall Islands with $150 million to settle all nuclear test claims.
But more than 10 years later, during then president Bill Clinton’s administration, formerly secret documents about the nuclear tests were released and confirmed dozens of islands were exposed to the fallout.
Loeak called this “dramatic new information” that had not been revealed to Marshall Islands negotiators.
“It is abundantly clear that the agreement was not negotiated in good faith and does not provide a fair and just settlement of the damages caused,” he said.
This number [201] is only the ones that have been publicly disclosed. If you include “hiyari hatto” [a Japanese word that means “an incident that almost became a more serious accident”) by all companies at the plant, the number would be over 1,000.
Prime Minister asks “Why?” He doesn’t seem to understand. But that’s because Prime Minister is not paying serious attention to the restoration [ongoing work] of Fukushima I NPP.
From what I’ve read since 2011, “Happy” seldom voices a direct criticism of politicians. This tweet is one of the rare cases.
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“Hiyari” – making one’s blood turn cold
“Hatto” – startled
FUKUSHIMA – The government Friday decided to postpone the estimated timing of lifting of an evacuation advisory by one year — until March 2015 — for two villages in Fukushima Prefecture due to delays in decontamination work following the March 2011 accident at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant.
The two villages are Iitate and Katsurao. It is the first time for the estimated timing to have been moved back. Such estimated timings to lift the evacuation advisory have also been set for three other Fukushima municipalities, including the city of Minamisoma and the town of Okuma.
The estimated timing was pushed back for parts of Iitate and Katsurao, where annual radiation doses stand between over 20 and 50 millisieverts, and areas where annual doses are 20 millisieverts or below, according to the government’s Fukushima headquarters for tackling the nuclear accident at the Tokyo Electric Power Co. plant damaged by the March 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami.
There is no change in the estimated timing for other areas of the two villages.
When it reviewed the evacuation area status for Iitate and Katsurao, the government set the estimated timing of lifting the advisory three to six years after the nuclear accident.
But the government said in December that the completion of decontamination work in the villages will be delayed by up to two to three years, citing difficulties securing places for temporary storage of radiation-tainted debris generated in the decontamination work.
Tokyo (AFP) – Hundreds rallied in Tokyo on Saturday to protest at Japanese prosecutors’ decision to drop charges over the Fukushima nuclear crisis, with no one yet punished nearly three years after the “man-made” disaster.
“There are many victims of the accident, but there is no (charged) assailant,” chief rally organiser Ruiko Muto, 61, told the protestors, displaying a photograph of Kawauchi village which was hit by the nuclear accident.
“We are determined to keep telling our experiences as victims to pursue the truth of the accident, and we want to avoid a repeat of the accident in the future,” she said.
In March 2011, a huge tsunami triggered by a 9.0-magnitude earthquake crashed into the Fukushima nuclear plant, swamping cooling systems and sparking meltdowns that spewed radiation over a wide area.
No one is officially recorded as having died as a direct result of the radiation released by the meltdowns, but some Fukushima residents committed suicide citing concerns over radiation, while others died during evacuation.
Tens of thousands of people are still unable to return to their homes around the plant, with scientists warning some areas may have to be abandoned.
“I used to grow organic rice… But I can’t do it anymore because of consumers’ worries over radioactive contamination,” Kazuo Nakamura, 45, a farmer from Koriyama city in Fukushima prefecture, told the rally.
“I want (Fukushima operator) TEPCO officials and bureaucrats of the central government to eat the Fukushima-made rice,” he shouted to applause.
A parliamentary report has said Fukushima was a man-made disaster caused by Japan’s culture of “reflexive obedience” and not just by the tsunami that crippled the plant.
Some 15,000 people whose homes or farms were hit by radiation from the stricken plant filed in 2012 a criminal complaint against the Japanese government and officials of plant operator Tokyo Electric Power (TEPCO).
However prosecutors in September decided not to charge any of them with negligence over the nuclear disaster.
Campaigners immediately appealed against the decision at the Committees for the Inquest of Prosecution, which has the power to order the defendants to be tried.
The committee members comprise 11 citizens who are randomly picked by lot.
But the appeal was made in Tokyo instead of Fukushima, a move campaigners say is “aimed at preventing us from filing a complaint against their decision in Fukushima, where many residents share our anger and grief”.
“We to share with many people in Tokyo our anger and sadness over the fact that no one has taken responsibility three years after the accident,” one of organisers Miwa Chiwaki told AFP.
“We pin our hopes on sound judgement by people in Tokyo,” Chiwaki said.
Campaigners allege that government officials and TEPCO executives failed to take necessary measures to shield the plant against the March 2011 tsunami.
It also held them responsible for a delay in announcing data predicting how radiation would spread from the facility in the aftermath of the accident.
But prosecutors decided to exempt all of them, saying that TEPCO and government officials could not predict an earthquake and tsunami of that size, and there was nothing wrong with their post-quake response under unexpected emergency situations.
nuclear-news 