New Study Points to Measurable and Significant Increase in Incidents of Thyroid Cancer
Director killed by terrorist lives on through 3/11 victims’ film: “Abandoned Land”
Gilles Laurent shoots a scene in Fukushima Prefecture.
The resilience of victims of the 2011 nuclear disaster inspired a Belgian sound engineer to direct his own film on them, but his chance to finish the documentary was stolen by a terrorist.
Gilles Laurent shot “La Terre Abandonnee” (Abandoned Land) in Fukushima Prefecture while he lived in Japan, and the film, which was completed posthumously, is now on show here. Sadly, the director is no longer with us, as he perished at age 46 in one of the terrorist attacks in Brussels on March 22, 2016.
Laurent’s family and people who appear in “La Terre Abandonnee” are hoping that many others will get the opportunity to watch the film, which has become part of Laurent’s lasting legacy.
The attacks on an airport and a subway station in Brussels resulted in 370 people killed or wounded. Laurent happened to be near a suicide attacker in the subway system and lost his life. He had been en route to a film-editing studio.
“I could never have imagined in the least that he would get caught in a terrorist attack,” said Toshiko Sato, 64, a resident of Minami-Soma, Fukushima Prefecture, who appears in the film. Sato was undergoing practical training as a guide-interpreter when she met Laurent.
Laurent had two daughters with Reiko Udo, his Japanese wife, and came to live in Japan in 2013. He decided to direct his film after he learned about the tough spirit of the residents of Fukushima Prefecture, who remained rooted in their own areas even after the nuclear disaster, and developed a desire to chronicle all that he saw on film.
Following the nuclear disaster, the central government issued an evacuation order to Minami-Soma’s Odaka district, where Sato lives. Sato met Laurent while she was preparing to return to her home.
“Media organizations overseas often report on areas of Fukushima Prefecture that are empty of people, but I want people to also learn about disaster survivors who are trying to be positive,” she said she told Laurent when she talked to him.
Laurent then asked to interview Sato. He went on to film her and her husband as they returned to their hometown to visit their family grave and had a gathering with friends at their home for the first time in quite a while.
“I sensed in him a will to report on the current state of Fukushima instead of making vocal calls of some sort or the other,” Sato said.
Laurent’s film crew took over the editing of footage after the director’s death and completed the film that would eventually be titled “La Terre Abandonnee.”
Alice, Laurent’s 42-year-old sister, who lives in Belgium, said she thinks about the feelings of nuclear disaster survivors through the prism of her own sorrow over the loss of her brother to terrorism.
Sylvie, 52, another sister of Laurent, said the film betrays the affectionate sensibilities of Gilles, who was a great nature lover, and added she wants the movie to be watched by many Japanese viewers.
“La Terre Abandonnee” is expected to be released to theaters across Japan.
Fukushima-linked bullying survey reveals hundreds more cases
Survey on Fukushima-linked bullying reveals hundreds more cases
TOKYO (Kyodo) — A government survey prompted by the bullying of a boy from Fukushima Prefecture has unveiled hundreds more cases in which evacuees from areas hit by the nuclear crisis were targeted, data released Tuesday showed.
The first nationwide survey on bullying of children who evacuated Fukushima Prefecture due to meltdowns at the Fukushima Daiichi power plant in 2011 showed there were 129 cases in fiscal 2016 ended this March and 199 more cases in previous years.
Among the total, 13 had apparent links to the nuclear disaster or the major earthquake and tsunami that triggered it.
Education minister Hirokazu Matsuno indicated there could be other cases that may have gone undetected, saying, “It is difficult to conduct a survey that covers them all.”
“We will consider our response in light of the possibility that (some) bullying has not surfaced,” said Matsuno.
The latest survey targeting roughly 12,000 evacuees showed some of those who were bullied in relation to the nuclear crisis were told to go back to Fukushima or stay away, as they would contaminate others with radiation.
The incidents included the highlighted case in which classmates of a boy who relocated to Yokohama in Kanagawa Prefecture demanded he give them cash, and called him a “germ.”
After the case in Yokohama surfaced in November, a slew of similar incidents were brought to light in other parts of the country, prompting the government to request schools that accept evacuees check whether they have been bullied or not through interviews and other means.
http://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20170411/p2g/00m/0dm/063000c
Survey: 204 bullying cases of Fukushima evacuees
A survey by Japan’s education ministry has found more than 200 cases of bullying involving children who fled Fukushima Prefecture after the nuclear disaster in March 2011. But the survey attributes fewer than 10 percent of these cases to the accident, prompting the education minister to admit the need for further studies.
The ministry surveyed more than 11,800 school-age evacuees through regional education boards in March.
The results show 204 cases of bullying occurred since April 2011. One pupil was told to go back to Fukushima soon after entering elementary school. Classmates also told a junior high school student to stay away because radiation is contagious. But the ministry’s survey linked only 13 of the bullying cases to the nuclear accident.
In comparison, a recent NHK survey of more than 740 families showed that at least 54 children were bullied because they were “nuclear accident evacuees.”
Education Minister Hirokazu Matsuno said on Tuesday that the ministry will consider additional studies to bring hidden cases to light. He said that if children were bullied because they were nuclear evacuees, they might have found it difficult to respond to the survey.
Professor Naoki Ogi of Hosei University said the failure of teachers to take the effect of the nuclear accident sufficiently into account has resulted in an extremely superficial appraisal of the problem.
Japan’s nuclear technology faces extinction
Evaporating demand and few new projects spell trouble for technical know-how
A semicylindrical structure has been built to cover a reactor containment vessel at J-Power’s Oma nuclear power plant in Aomori Prefecture, where construction work has been suspended since the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster.
TOKYO — Japan’s nuclear power industry is at the most critical juncture in its history. Demand for new reactors has dried up at home following the Fukushima nuclear disaster and dismal prospects for export are dual menaces threatening the fate of the country’s nuclear technology.
No domestic construction on a new reactor has begun for the past eight years. The catastrophic accident at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in 2011 blew a hole in the industry’s plans. The picture for exports of Japanese nuclear power technology looks just as gloomy.
Japanese reactor manufacturers and suppliers of key components are now facing the possible loss of their technological viability.
Shutdown
Warning signs for the nation’s nuclear power industry are visible in many parts of the country, including Oma, a fishing town in Aomori Prefecture on the northernmost tip of the main island of Honshu.
In that coastal town, Electric Power Development, a wholesale electric utility known as J-Power, has been building a new nuclear power plant.
At the construction site stands a huge semicylindrical-shaped structure bearing the Hitachi logo. It is actually a cover to protect what is inside: a reactor containment vessel, the core equipment of a nuclear plant, from the salty sea winds.
The humidity inside the structure is kept at 50% to prevent pipes and other parts of the vessel from rusting, according to an official in charge of the construction.
J-Power started construction of its first nuclear power plant in Oma in 2008. By the time the devastating earthquakes and tsunami in 2011 triggered reactor meltdowns at the Fukushima plant, 38% of the Oma project had been completed.
But the disaster brought construction to a halt as new, stricter safety standards have been introduced, forcing the company to make necessary adjustments to the plan and design of the plant. The plant was originally envisioned to start operation in 2014, but there is no prospect for quick resumption of full-scale construction.
http://asia.nikkei.com/Tech-Science/Tech/Japan-s-nuclear-technology-faces-extinction
“Half Life in Fukushima” documents life in the red zone five years after the nuclear disaster
“Half-life in Fukushima” is a documentary feature in competition at the 60th San Francisco International Film Festival. It represents a Switzerland and France collaboration, with co-directors Mark Olexa and Francesca Scalisi at the helm. While the production represents a European origin, the subject matter had gained world-wide attention no less than Chernobyl in 1986.
The 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami in Japan directly set off the Fukushima Nuclear Plant disaster. The town surrounding the Plant was evacuated due to radioactive fallout. Filmmakers Olexa and Scalisi entered the Fukushima red zone five years later and documented a resident still living there, a farmer named Naoto Matsumura.
How Naoto was given permission to stay there is not explained in the film. Actually, Naoto was not alone. He remains in Fukushima with his elderly father, the two striving on a life of self-sufficiency. There is no water from the tap, and radioactive fallouts render everything poisonous, including the mushrooms Naoto had been picking for years in the forest at the back of his home. Only the boisterous ocean remains a powerful reminder of what life was like before disaster hit.
The directors capture their subject with quiet sensitivity and empathy. At first devastated by the loss of everything, but now five years later Naoto is resigned to accept a solitary existence in the ghost town. There are nuclear cleanup crews still working during the day, but all in protective suits and masks. We see Naoto wearing ordinary clothes, feeding his cattle, wandering the streets alone, reminiscing by the ocean, or going into the forest just to look at the trees.
In the opening shot, we see the definition of the term “half-life”. It refers to the time it takes for one-half of the atoms of a radioactive material to disintegrate. It is also an apt metaphor describing the remnants of a life in Naoto. In many scenes, a stationary camera allows us to experience Naoto’s coming and going in real time. One of such moments is when the camera stays with Naoto from a distance as he stops his truck at an intersection when the traffic lights turn red. We stop with him, the scene motionless and silent for about a minute until the green lights come on. Such a vicarious moment into a life on hold is eerily poignant.
One might be surprised to see traffic lights still function and Naoto still obeys them when he is the only one driving in town. It is heart-wrenching to see one man try to maintain normalcy despite all loss, attempting to carve out a life in the midst of desolation. What more, we see Naoto playing a round of golf in an abandoned driving range and singing Karaoke on his own. The film ends with this scene. We hear Naoto sing a song of lost love, a life he can never go back to. After that, we hear the ocean roar as the screen fades to black.
Nuclear Reactor Design Chosen – Not Because It Was Safe – But Because It Worked On Navy Submarines
From June 20, 2011
Virtually all of the nuclear reactors in the U.S. are of the same archaic design as those at Fukushima (Indeed, MSNBC notes that there are 23 U.S. reactors which are more or less identical to those at Fukushima.)
Called “light-water reactors”, this design was not chosen for safety reasons. Rather, it was chosen because it worked in Navy submarines.
Specifically, as the Atlantic reported in March:
In the early years of atomic power, as recounted by Alvin Weinberg, head of Oak Ridge National Laboratory in his book The First Nuclear Era, there was intense competition to come up with the cheapest, safest, best nuclear reactor design.
Every variable in building an immensely complex industrial plant was up for grabs: the nature of the radioactive fuel and other substances that form the reactor’s core, the safety systems, the containment buildings, the construction substances, and everything else that might go into building an immensely complex industrial plant. The light water reactor became the technological victor, but no one is quite sure whether that was a good idea.
Few of these alternatives were seriously investigated after light water reactors were selected for Navy submarines by Admiral Hyman Rickover. Once light water reactors gained government backing and the many advantages that conferred, other designs could not break into the market, even though commercial nuclear power wouldn’t explode for years after Rickover’s decision. “There were lots and lots of ideas floating around, and they essentially lost when light water came to dominate,” University of Strasbourg professor Robin Cowan told the Boston Globe in an excellent article on “technological lock-in” in the nuclear industry.
As it turned out, there were real political and corporate imperatives to commercialize nuclear power with whatever designs were already to hand. It was geopolitically useful for the United States to show they could offer civilian nuclear facilities to its allies and the companies who built the plants (mainly GE and Westinghouse) did not want to lose the competitive advantage they’d gained as the contractors on the Manhattan Project. Those companies stood to make much more money on nuclear plants than traditional fossil fuel-based plants, and they had less competitors. The invention and use of the atomic bomb weighed heavily on the minds of nuclear scientists. Widespread nuclear power was about the only thing that could redeem their role in the creation of the first weapon with which it was possible to destroy life on earth. In other words, the most powerful interest groups surrounding the nuclear question all wanted to settle on a power plant design and start building.
***
President Lyndon Johnson and his administration sent the message that we were going to use nuclear power, and it would be largely through the reactor designs that already existed, regardless of whether they had the best safety characteristics that could be imagined. [Nixon also fired the main government scientist developing safer types of reactors, because he was focused on safety instead of sticking with Nixon’s favored reactors.] We learned in later years that boiling water reactors like Fukushima are subject to certain types of failure under very unusual circumstances, but we probably would have discovered such problems if we’d explored the technical designs for longer before trying to start building large numbers of nuclear plants.
The Atomic Energy Commission’s first general manager – MIT professor Carroll Wilson – confirmed in 1979:
The pressurized water reactor was peculiarly suitable and necessary for a submarine power plant where limitations of space and wieght were extreme. So as interest in the civilian use of nuclear power began to grow, it was natural to consider a system that had already proven reliable in submarines. This was further encouraged by the fact that the Atomic Energy Commission provided funds to build the first civilian nuclear power plant … using essentially the same system as the submarine power plant. Thus it was that a pressurized light water system became the standard model for the world. Although other kinds of reactors were under development in different countries, there was a rapid scale-up of of the pressurized water reactor and a variant called the boiling water reactor developed by General Electric. These became the standard types for civilian power plants. in the United States and were licensed to be built in France, Germany, Japan and elsewhere.
If one had started to design a civilian electric power plant without the constraints of weight and space as required by the submarine, quite different criteria would apply.
(Wilson also notes that the engineers who built the original reactors didn’t really think about the waste or other basic parts of the plants’ life cycle.)
Ambrose Evans-Pritchard argues that there was another reason why all safer alternative designs – including thorium reactors – were abandoned:
The plans were shelved because thorium does not produce plutonium for bombs.
As Boing Boing notes:
Reactors like this [are] flawed in some ways that would be almost comical, were it not for the risk those flaws impart. Maybe you’ve wondered over the past couple of weeks why anyone would design a nuclear reactor that relied on external generators to power the pumps for it’s emergency cooling system. In a real emergency, isn’t there a decent chance that the backup generators would be compromised, as well?
It’s a good question. In fact, modern reactor designs have solved that very problem, by feeding water through the emergency cooling system using gravity, rather than powered pumps. Newer designs are much safer, and more reliable. But we haven’t built any of them in the United States …
Not the Navy’s Fault
This is in no way a criticism of the U.S. Navy or its submarine reactors. As a reader comments:
There are some things to know about Navy reactors:
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They don’t store thirty years worth of used, spent fuel rods next to the reactor.
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They don’t continue to operate a reactor that had a design life of 25 years for 60 years.
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The spent fuel pool is back on land on a base somewhere.
(In addition, the reactors on subs are much smaller than commercial reactors, and so have almost no consequences for the civilian population if they meltdown. And if an accident were to happen on a nuclear sub, the sub would likely sink or at least flood, presumably keeping the reactor from melting down in the first place.)
There Are No Independent Regulators and No Real Safety Standards
But at least the government compensates for the inherently unsafe design of these reactors by requiring high safety and maintenance standards.
Unfortunately, no …
As AP notes today:
Federal regulators have been working closely with the nuclear power industry to keep the nation’s aging reactors operating within safety standards by repeatedly weakening those standards or simply failing to enforce them.
***
Examples abound. When valves leaked, more leakage was allowed — up to 20 times the original limit. When rampant cracking caused radioactive leaks from steam generator tubing, an easier test of the tubes was devised so plants could meet standards.
***
Records show a recurring pattern: reactor parts or systems fall out of compliance with the rules; studies are conducted by the industry and government; and all agree that existing standards are “unnecessarily conservative.’’
Regulations are loosened, and the reactors are back in compliance.
Of course, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission – like all nuclear “agencies” worldwide – is 100% captured and not an independent agency, and the NRC has never denied a request for relicensing old, unsafe nuclear plants.
Indeed, Senator Sanders says that the NRC pressured the Department of Justice to sue the state of Vermont after the state and its people rejected relicensing of the Vermont Yankee plant, siding with the nuclear operator instead. The Nation notes:
Aileen Mioko Smith, director of Green Action Kyoto, met Fukushima plant and government officials in August 2010. “At the plant they seemed to dismiss our concerns about spent fuel pools,” said Mioko Smith. “At the prefecture, they were very worried but had no plan for how to deal with it.”
Remarkably, that is the norm—both in Japan and in the United States. Spent fuel pools at Fukushima are not equipped with backup water-circulation systems or backup generators for the water-circulation system they do have.
The exact same design flaw is in place at Vermont Yankee, a nuclear plant of the same GE design as the Fukushima reactors. At Fukushima each reactor has between 60 and 83 tons of spent fuel rods stored next to them. Vermont Yankee has a staggering 690 tons of spent fuel rods on site.
Nuclear safety activists in the United States have long known of these problems and have sought repeatedly to have them addressed. At least get backup generators for the pools, they implored. But at every turn the industry has pushed back, and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) has consistently ruled in favor of plant owners over local communities.
After 9/11 the issue of spent fuel rods again had momentary traction. Numerous citizen groups petitioned and pressured the NRC for enhanced protections of the pools. But the NRC deemed “the possibility of a terrorist attack…speculative and simply too far removed from the natural or expected consequences of agency action.” So nothing was done—not even the provision of backup water-circulation systems or emergency power-generation systems.
As an example of how dangerous American nuclear reactors are, AP noted in a report Friday that 75 percent of all U.S. nuclear sites have leaked radioactive tritium.
Indeed, because of poor design, horrible safety practices, and no real regulation, a U.S. nuclear accident could be a lot worse than Fukushima.
Robots expected to play key role in Fukushima decommissioning, but challenges remain
As decommissioning work at Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO)’s Fukushima No. 1 Nuclear Power Plant continues, remote control robots are expected to play an important role in the decommissioning process. However, it is impossible to ignore the fact that the development of these robots faces huge challenges, such as high levels of radiation within the nuclear reactors, as well as a lack of information.
Among the robots that have been designed to carry out decommissioning work is the “muscle robot.” Developed by Hitachi-GE Nuclear Energy, Ltd., the body and limbs of the muscle robot can be controlled with a device that one might typically find attached to a video game console. Another type of robot acts like a crab with claws that can be used to grasp metallic pipes and snap them using a blade positioned on one of its claws. These robots are also able to smash concrete, using a special drill that can be placed at the end of the arm — like something out of a Hollywood movie.
Looking ahead, the government and TEPCO are aiming to start removing the melted nuclear fuel inside the No. 1 to No. 3 reactors at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant in 2021, after announcing exactly how they plan to do so over the summer. Although knowledge regarding the matter is limited, it seems that the melted nuclear fuel in the reactors has cooled and solidified, and the prototypes of the robots have been produced based on the assumption that the devices need to break down and remove such hardened fuel.
The robots’ parts are connected together with springs, and are driven using hydraulic power. One of the main advantages of this system is that they are hardly affected by radiation. There are six types of robot in total, such as the “spider-style” robot which has six arms and legs (length 2.8 meters, width 2 meters, weight 50 kilograms), as well as a “tank-style” robot (length 4.35 meters, width 63 centimeters, weight 700 kilograms), which runs on a conveyor belt. The tank-style robot is capable of lifting objects weighing up to 50 kilograms. A representative from Hitachi-GE Nuclear Energy states determinedly, “I want the muscle robots to remove the melted nuclear fuel.”
However, the process will not be plain sailing. While the bodies of these robots are resistant to radiation, their cameras are somewhat vulnerable. It has been found that the electronic hardware in the cameras breaks easily after being exposed to radiation. For example, when a “cleaning robot” was sent into the No. 2 reactor on Feb. 9, 2017, the camera broke after about two hours after being exposed up to an estimated 650 sieverts per hour of radiation. The camera part of the robot is essential because without it, images cannot be transmitted back to the control room.
To solve this problem, ideas such as placing a metallic plate near the camera that would block out radiation have been discussed, but it is feared that this would make the robot heavier and interfere with its operations. As a Hitachi representative states, “If one were to use an analogy to describe the current development stage in human terms, then we have entered elementary school. We’d like to continue our work, believing we can develop usable robots.” It is clear that a trial-and-error process is very much underway, as the robot developers try their best to achieve perfection.
It will not be an easy road though. Hajime Asama, professor at the University of Tokyo and a member of the Technology Advisory Committee of the International Research Institute for Nuclear Decommissioning (IRID), states, “Robots are usually developed based on confirmation of what exactly lies in the reactors. However, in the case of the No. 1 power plant, no matter how hard you try to predict what is in there, there are often unexpected elements waiting.”
In the No. 2 reactor, a “scorpion-style robot” was sent in on Feb. 16, as a follow-up to the cleaning robot but it got trapped by deposits on the conveyor belt, and came to a halt. The presence of these kinds of deposits was unexpected at the stage when the robot was being designed. Too much is still unknown about the situation inside the reactors, making robot design difficult. Later this month, a “wakasagi ice fishing-type robot” is expected to be placed inside the No. 1 reactor, but it is feared that the same problems that were experienced in the No. 2 reactor will emerge once again.
In recent years, the use of artificial intelligence has been expected to play a key role but a number of unexpected problems have made progress in this area difficult. What is needed is technology that can be controlled remotely by people with flexible judgment. However, professor Asama believes that, “The reactors inside the No. 1 plant are full of unknown challenges. We have no choice but to use our available knowledge to create robots that can deal with these problems.”
https://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20170408/p2a/00m/0na/023000c
Abe apologizes over minister’s remarks on Fukushima evacuees
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe (C) operates a drone in Minamisoma, Fukushima Prefecture, during his visit to see the area’s reconstruction from the March 2011 earthquake, tsunami and ensuing nuclear disaster, on Saturday. At right is Masahiro Imamura, disaster reconstruction minister
TOKYO — Prime Minister Shinzo Abe apologized Saturday over controversial remarks recently made by his disaster reconstruction minister, who implied that Fukushima nuclear crisis evacuees from areas where the government deems safe should fend for themselves.
“The minister has already apologized himself but I want to straightforwardly express my apology,” Abe told reporters in the city of Minamisoma, Fukushima Prefecture, during his visit to see the area’s reconstruction from the March 2011 earthquake, tsunami and ensuing nuclear disaster. The minister, Masahiro Imamura, was accompanying Abe.
Opposition parties have been calling for the resignation of Imamura, who told reporters Tuesday that the decision by people to remain evacuated from the areas outside the government-designated zones around the Fukushima Daiichi plant is their “own responsibility, their own choice.”
The government halted housing subsidies for such voluntary evacuees last month. But many are still unable to return home amid doubts over the government’s safety rhetoric and concerns over possible health risks.
Imamura was being asked by reporters about the government’s responsibility for supporting evacuees. He then told one of the reporters who kept asking questions to “shut up.”
Imamura later apologized and retracted his comment.
On Saturday, Abe underscored that rebuilding the disaster-hit areas is one of the priorities for his administration and apparently took his latest Fukushima visit as an opportunity to deliver his apology.
“Nothing has changed in my administration’s policy to promote reconstruction by standing by the people in Fukushima and those affected by the disaster,” Abe said. “Without Fukushima’s reconstruction, there is no reconstruction of the Tohoku region. Without Tohoku’s reconstruction, Japan’s regeneration is impossible.”
Abe also visited a ranch in the town of Naraha which has resumed operations following temporary closure in the wake of the disaster. After drinking fresh milk there, he said, “I want to help remove damaging rumors and expand their sales route.”
Russia’s Rosatom Discusses Projects on Fukushima Disaster Cleanup With Japan
During the visit to Japan, Russia’s Rosatom State Nuclear Energy Corporation’s delegation discussed with Japanese partners possible projects on elimination of consequences of Fukushima nuclear power plant (NPP) disaster, Rosatom said Saturday.
MOSCOW (Sputnik) — Rosatom’s delegation headed by CEO Alexey Likhachev visited Japan on April 4-7 to discuss the Japanese-Russian memorandum on cooperation in the field of peaceful use of nuclear energy, which was signed in December 2016.
“Special attention was paid to the cooperation in overcoming the consequences of the Fukushima accident with the use of Russian technologies in terms of handling nuclear waste and pulling nuclear facilities out of operation…. In particular, opportunities for implementation of projects concerning the problem of melted fuel extraction and rehabilitation of polluted territories were discussed with Japanese partners,” the statement on Rosatom’s website read.
According to the statement, the delegation also visited Fukushima NPP to get acquainted with the current situation and the work on recovery from the accident.
In March 2011, a 9.0-magnitude offshore earthquake triggered a tsunami that hit Fukushima NPP, leading to the leakage of radioactive materials and the shutdown of the plant. The accident is considered to be the world’s worst nuclear disaster since the Chernobyl accident that took place in the Soviet Ukraine in 1986.
Earlier in the year, it was announced that Japan’s research institution Mitsubishi chose two Rosatom subsidiaries, RosRAO and Techsnabexport to take part in the efforts to eliminate the consequences of the 2011 Fukushima nuclear accident.
https://sputniknews.com/environment/201704081052446822-russia-japan-fukushima-cleanup/
Anomalies in wildlife and the ecosystem around Chernobyl and Fukushima
Dr. Timothy Mousseau, Professor of Biological Sciences, University of South Carolina. Mousseau discussed his many studies on the health impacts on wildlife and biota around Chernobyl and Fukushima which soundly debunk the notion that animals there are “thriving.”
KMT vows to challenge Japan food imports with referendum
Taipei, April 6 (CNA) Opposition Kuomintang (KMT) Vice Chairman Hau Lung-bin (郝龍斌) said on Thursday he will officially submit a proposal for the holding of a national referendum on food safety if the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) administration lifts a ban on the import of food products from radiation-affected prefectures in Japan.
The proposal has obtained more than 120,000 signatures, Hau said.
In addition, if the DPP government opens Taiwan’s market to ractopamine-containing pork from the United States, the KMT will mobilize the public to protest at customs offices, he said.
Under the Referendum Act, the authorization of a referendum requires that no less than 0.5 percent of the total electorate at the last presidential election sign a petition.
Because there were 18.78 million eligible voters at the last election on Jan. 16, 2016, Hau’s proposal needs to be supported by at least 93,900 signatures and then approved by the Referendum Review Committee.
Taiwan has banned imports of food products from five prefectures in Japan – Fukushima, Gunma, Chiba, Ibaraki and Tochigi – that were contaminated by radiation following the meltdown of the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant in March 2011, a catastrophe triggered by a massive earthquake and tsunami.
Taiwan’s government is now considering lifting the ban on food from all the prefectures except Fukushima, but has run into virulent public opposition.
http://focustaiwan.tw/news/aipl/201704060017.aspx#.WOhNDdKzEuk.facebook
Revised law enables surprise inspection of nuclear plants
The Diet passed on Friday a sweeping reform of nuclear inspections to allow regulators to conduct unannounced inspections of nuclear plants and give them unlimited access to needed data.
The enactment of the revised nuclear reactor regulation law comes after the International Atomic Energy Agency suggested Japan, which has been holding periodic inspections using checklists, needs a more flexible system.
The new inspection system, based on the U.S. system, will be implemented from fiscal 2020 after the Nuclear Regulation Authority sets specific rules.
Reconstruction minister unfit for his Position, 28,000 demand his resignation
Masahiro Imamura, minister in charge of rebuilding from the Fukushima nuclear disaster, waits for the start of a meeting of the Lower House’s Special Committee for Reconstruction after the Great East Japan Earthquake on April 6.
Rebuild minister says sorry as 28,000 demand his resignation
Under-fire minister Masahiro Imamura apologized and mostly retracted the remarks he made over so-called voluntary evacuees at a tense April 4 news conference in Tokyo, as thousands of protesters demanded his resignation.
Imamura, who is in charge of rebuilding from the Fukushima nuclear disaster, offered the late apology on April 6 after facing fierce criticism from Fukushima evacuees and political rivals.
The same day, four Fukushima evacuees’ groups and their supporters jointly submitted a petition with 28,127 signatures to the Reconstruction Agency in the capital, calling for Imamura’s resignation as the head of the agency.
When asked about the government’s responsibility for providing assistance to the voluntary evacuees at the news conference, Imamura had said: “They are responsible for their lives. They can file a lawsuit or do other things (if they disagree with the central government’s position).” He also shouted at a freelance journalist who pressed him on the issue
He apologized for his outburst to reporters on the evening of April 4, but did not retract his remarks, saying he had made an “objective statement.”
However, Imamura made a U-turn on the morning of April 6 and offered his “sincere apologies” for his words on voluntary evacuees at a meeting for the Lower House’s Special Committee for Reconstruction after the Great East Japan Earthquake.
Imamura asked permission to speak at the beginning of the meeting, and offered a further apology to the freelance journalist he had snapped at and for becoming “emotional” at the news conference, and then explained the other remarks that landed him in hot water.
“’Their own responsibility’ was not the right way of saying it,” the minister said. “I meant to say that they have made their own judgment (not to return).”
Addressing his remark suggesting that evacuees can take legal action if they are unhappy with the government’s decision on the matter, he explained that he was merely “generally speaking” that “asking a court’s decision is an option when an agreement cannot be reached (between two parties).”
Protests against Imamura by Fukushima evacuees began in front of the Reconstruction Agency building on April 5.
The letter accompanying the petition handed on April 6 read, “His remark suggested the nation is renouncing responsibility (to help evacuees), and trampled on evacuees’ feelings.”
Referring to a law passed to support all nuclear disaster victims, the letter continued, “As the minister of the agency responsible, we must question his quality.”
A law has been enacted to support the lives of children and other victims of the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant accident regardless of the decisions that victims make about their own futures, such as whether to move permanently or temporarily, or return to their homes in the affected area.
Asked by an opposition party member for his position on the resignation demand, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe gave Imamura his backing.
“I would like him to keep working hard for the speedy rebuilding of the disaster-hit area,” Abe said at the Lower House plenary session on April 6.
http://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/AJ201704070035.html
Reconstruction minister unfit for his position
The minister in charge of Japan’s recovery from the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake, tsunami and the ensuing nuclear disaster, is under fire for saying at an April 4 news conference that “voluntary evacuees” from the Fukushima nuclear disaster are “self-accountable” for their actions, as if to exonerate the government from its responsibility.
The gaffe by Reconstruction Minister Masahiro Imamura came in response to a reporter’s question about his views on the government’s responsibility for voluntary evacuees. He responded, “They are self-accountable (for their actions). It’s up to them.”
In the wake of the March 2011 nuclear meltdowns at the Fukushima No. 1 Nuclear Power Plant, more than 20,000 residents of Fukushima Prefecture voluntarily evacuated from their hometowns located outside government-designated no-go zones, according to a tally by the Fukushima Prefectural Government. Despite the high figure, the prefectural government terminated rent subsidies for voluntary evacuees as of the end of March.
Imamura’s remarks come in the face of a financial predicament for those who choose to stay away from areas affected by the nuclear catastrophe. It is only natural that protests over the minister’s insensible remarks and calls for his resignation have stormed the country.
The minister stated that evacuees’ decision on whether or not to return to their hometowns is up to them. When asked by a reporter whether the government was going to take responsibility for those who left their hometowns voluntarily, he replied that if they are dissatisfied, “they can go to court or whatever.” This nonchalant response appears to betray his honest feelings about the issue.
When the reporter continued his questions, Imamura lashed out, saying, “Get out,” and “Shut up.” Such an attitude from the minister, who doubles as minister in charge of Comprehensive Policy Coordination for Revival from the Nuclear Accident at Fukushima, is appalling.
Voluntary evacuees didn’t evacuate by choice; they are the victims of the country’s unprecedented nuclear catastrophe. The prefectural government insists that the termination of rent subsidies is aimed at promoting their return to their hometowns, but some evacuees cannot go home because they have landed new jobs elsewhere or because their children attend schools in those areas. Many households have a hard time making ends meet, and there are evacuees who remain concerned about radiation.
Overlooking this situation, Imamura talked about self-accountability with an air of indifference, as if to say it couldn’t be helped if evacuees “selfishly” evacuate and opt not to return. Who on earth could call him a minister who stands by disaster victims?
In a class action lawsuit brought by evacuees from Fukushima Prefecture, Gunma Prefecture and other areas, the Maebashi District Court recognized the government’s negligence in the nuclear disaster, but granted a far smaller amount of compensation to plaintiffs than they had demanded. In the meantime, some municipalities have decided to continue financially supporting voluntary evacuees from their own coffers. This could widen the economic gap among evacuees depending on where they live.
The very least the government must do is to address the situation and extend support to voluntary evacuees. Yet Imamura’s astonishing remarks give a wide impression that the government ultimately desires to cast aside nuclear evacuees as soon as possible.
The Cabinet of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe appears to have marginalized the post of reconstruction minister. At a government-held memorial ceremony for the victims of the Great East Japan Earthquake in March this year, Prime Minister Abe stopped short of referring to the “nuclear disaster” in his speech — which met a backlash from the Fukushima governor and others. The latest gaffe by Reconstruction Minister Imamura represents just how little weight the Abe government has placed on the ongoing nuclear crisis.
http://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20170407/p2a/00m/0na/012000c
Anti-Conspiracy Bill to Suppress Anti-Government Demonstrations
Rally participants protest the so-called “anti-conspiracy bill” at Hibiya Open-Air Concert Hall in Tokyo’s Chiyoda Ward on the evening of April 6, 2017.
Protesters say ‘anti-conspiracy’ bill aims to suppress anti-government demonstrations
Thousands of people gathered in Tokyo to protest the so-called “anti-conspiracy bill” hours after the government submitted the bill to the House of Representatives on April 6.
The group Kyobozai NO! Jikko Iinkai (Committee saying no to the anti-conspiracy bill) and multiple other civic organizations held a rally at Hibiya Open-Air Concert Hall, after which participants marched through the streets of Japan’s capital calling for the bill to be scrapped. According to event organizers, some 3,700 people took part.
“Suppression of protests against the government is the essence of this bill,” Yuichi Kaido, an attorney who has long been active in the movement against anti-conspiracy legislation, told the crowd. “Let us fight to kill this bill.”
Opposition lawmakers who participated in the event remarked, “The bill will turn the public into latent criminals,” “The bill is the modern-day version of the prewar Public Security Preservation Law” and “The prime minister said he would provide a careful explanation, but forcibly submitted the legislation.”
After the rally, participants marched in front of the Diet as they called out, “We don’t need anti-conspiracy legislation!” and “The bill has nothing to do with anti-terrorism,” while holding banners reading, “Simply having a discussion may become a crime!”
http://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20170407/p2a/00m/0na/002000c
An estimated 3,700 demonstrators rally against a bill that penalizes conspiracies to commit crimes in Tokyo’s Chiyoda Ward on April 6, saying it could lead to the extensive monitoring of citizens and the suppression of freedom of expression
Local councils, citizens raise red flag against new crime legislation
Almost 4,000 protesters marched in Tokyo on April 6 to voice their concern that a proposed law to enable punishment for planning crimes is one step toward an Orwellian society of surveillance.
“The purpose of the bill is to silence citizens opposing the government when these people haven’t actually posed any threat,” said protester Yuichi Kaito, a lawyer who serves as the deputy chief of the task force dealing with the anti-conspiracy legislation at the Japan Federation of Bar Associations.
A 44-year-old public servant from Kawasaki who attended the rally in Hibiya Park in central Tokyo chipped in with, “People who are involved in labor union activities are just ordinary people. If they were cracked down on, they would not be able to enjoy a normal life.”
The protesters marched to the Diet building to coincide with the bill being introduced for a debate at a Lower House plenary session in which the four major opposition parties have pledged to fight it.
A similar bill has been killed three times since it was first submitted to the Diet in 2003. It was criticized that it could be used to target ordinary citizens’ groups and labor unions as the law could be arbitrarily applied by the police and the government.
The government argues the legislation is required to fight terrorism by joining the U.N. Convention against Transnational Organized Crime.
It insists the new legislation is urgently needed as the capital prepares to host the 2020 Tokyo Olympics and Paralympics.
But many citizens fear the legislation could lead to the suppression of freedom of thought.
The country has already experienced suppression in the years leading up to World War II. In 1925, the public security preservation law was enacted with the initial purpose of reining in communism. But its application was expanded to encompass attacks on critics, journalists and activists.
The prefectural assemblies of Mie and Miyazaki, as well as 34 other local assemblies across Japan, had issued statements as of April 6 opposing the legislation or calling for a cautious Diet debate, according to the Lower House.
Nagano Prefecture appears to be particularly opposed to the bill. Thirteen municipal assemblies in the prefecture, prodded by alarmed citizens, have made it clear they oppose the legislation, the largest of any prefecture in Japan.
The backdrop to this is what is known as the Feb. 4 incident of 1933, in which about 600 people in the prefecture–many of them teachers–were arrested on suspicion of violating the public security preservation law. Those arrested were suspected of harboring communist sympathies.
Local residents in Nagano Prefecture see many parallels between the current bill and the pre-war legislation.
“In my appeal, I ask, ‘Is it all right to repeat history?” said Yukio Nunome, head of the secretariat of a federation of civic groups advocating the protection of the pacifist Japanese Constitution.
In Fukushima Prefecture, four local assemblies adopted a statement opposing the bill.
“Since the Fukushima nuclear disaster, we have always protested against the central government,” said Kiyoshi Ishikawa, a Japanese Communist Party (JCP) member of the Kawamata town assembly. “It is only expected that opposition to the anti-conspiracy bill is spreading due to concerns that it could breach freedom of thought.”
In Tokyo, the Kunitachi municipal assembly condemned the legislation as potentially leading to a society where individuals are under constant surveillance and turned into informants for the authorities.
Miyako Owari, a JCP assemblywoman who drafted the protest statement, expressed concern that grass-roots activities could be targeted, such as weekly gatherings held in the city.
“The bill concerns each of us since if it is written into law, we may lose the atmosphere in which we can freely voice our opinions and express ourselves,” she said.
The government aims to pass the bill in the Lower House by early May so that officials can underscore Japan’s efforts to fight terrorism at the Group of Seven summit in Sicily, Italy, later the same month.
3 Schools Return From Nuclear Exile
Two generations of Fukushima children sacrificed in the name of political expediency…
Students from two elementary schools and a junior high school attend the joint opening ceremony for a new school building in the town of Naraha, Fukushima Prefecture, on Thursday. The schools moved to makeshift venues in 2011 to escape radioactive fallout during the Fukushima nuclear crisis.
Naraha sees three schools return from nuclear exile in Fukushima
FUKUSHIMA – Two elementary schools and a junior high school returned to their hometown in Fukushima Prefecture on Thursday six years after being forced to flee radiation spewed by the March 2011 nuclear disaster.
Around 90 students attended the joint opening ceremony at the new building housing the junior high school in Naraha, most of which is within a 20-km hot zone centered on the heavily damaged Fukushima No. 1 plant. The evacuation order for Naraha was lifted in September 2015.
“Our school life in Naraha, which we have long awaited, begins today. One day, I want to do something for my town,” 11-year-old Hina Moue of Naraha Minami Elementary School said at the ceremony.
The two elementary schools will hold their classes in the junior high school building for the time being.
Since January 2013, the students had been studying at a makeshift facility further south in a university in Iwaki.
The junior high school building was under construction when the 2011 mega-quake and tsunami triggered the man-made nuclear crisis.
Children are seen getting on a school bus at JR Hirono Station in Fukushima Prefecture on April 6, 2017, to attend classes in the town of Naraha.
Fukushima schools reopen for 1st time in 6 years after nuclear evacuation order lifted
NARAHA, Fukushima — All of the three public elementary and junior high schools here resumed classes on April 6 for the first time in six years since the Fukushima nuclear disaster broke out.
The whole town of Naraha was subject to an evacuation order in the wake of the disaster at the Fukushima No.1 Nuclear Power Plant. While the order was lifted in September 2015, only about 10 percent of local residents have returned to the town.
This is the first time schools reopened in a municipality that was subject to evacuation orders in its entirety.
Students of the two municipal elementary schools and one junior high school had been studying at a makeshift school in the Fukushima Prefecture city of Iwaki, where many Naraha townspeople evacuated. They will now attend classes held at the Naraha Junior High School building. In the meantime, only 105 students, or 20-plus percent of those who would be able to enroll in these three schools, will be going to school there.
There are a total of 22 children who are commuting from Iwaki, approximately 30 kilometers away from the town. On the day that Naraha schools reopened, some of these children took a 25-minute train ride from JR Joban Line’s Iwaki Station and got on a school bus at a station in the neighboring town of Hirono. Since Naraha remains fairly empty even after the evacuation order was lifted, almost all the 105 students will take school buses between the train station and their school out of safety concerns.
Mineo Yokota, 52, who owns a restaurant in Naraha and commutes to his workplace from Iwaki by car, decided he would send his eldest daughter, a second-year junior high school student, to the school in his family’s hometown. She had transferred school three times since the nuclear disaster, due to evacuation.
“I had planned to drive her to school, but my daughter decided on her own to commute by train after talking to some of the upperclassmen. I’m relieved to learn that the kids have made their own community,” Yokota said.
Naraha Mayor Yukiei Matsumoto said at the opening ceremony that the municipal government had prepared for this day “with the determination that ‘there is no future for a town without children'” even though reopening schools in Naraha “seemed impossible at one point.”
http://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20170406/p2a/00m/0na/015000c
1 This Month
26 April – Chernobyl: Inside the Meltdown airs on National Geographic on Sunday 26th April from 4pm
29 April – Nuclear Expert Webinar #1 – Radiation Impacts on Families with Mary Olson and Cindy Folkers
- 12:15 PM MT – 1:45 PM MT
- Location: Virtual – REGISTER TODAY
4 May -West Suburban Peace Coalition to discuss Iran war at May Educational Forum
Monday, May 4, 7:00 – 8:00 PM Central Standard Time
Title: : How Trump’s Narrative Tries to Shape the Reality of the War on Iran.
Contact Walt Zlotow, zlotow@hotmail.com 630 442 3045 for further information
14 May – online event From Bombs to Data Centres: the Face of Nuclear Colonialism
Pine Ridge Uranium is the real threat, not Tehran- Tell Burgum: Stop the Extraction.
Chernobyl: The Lost Tapes – A good documentary on Chernobyl on SBS available On Demand for the next 3 weeks– https://www.sbs.com.au/ondemand/tv-program/chernobyl-the-lost-tapes/2352741955560
To see nuclear-related stories in greater depth and intensity – go to https://nuclearinformation.wordpress.com
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