Sendai nuclear plant to restart as early as Aug.10
The operator of the Sendai nuclear power plant in southern Japan submitted an application on Friday to the country’s regulator to get final approval for putting one of its reactors online.
Kyushu Electric Power Company is hoping to turn on the reactor as early as August 10th.
The utility has completed the assembly of the reactor core after loading nearly 160 fuel rod assemblies into the plant’s No.1 reactor in early July.
It has also finished checking a water level gauge system for the containment vessel and confirmed that it is working normally.
Kyushu Electric Power will also conduct a drill starting from Monday to train for a possible severe accident. The exercise is mandated by the government’s new regulations to be performed before a reactor is restarted.
If no problems are found, the No. 1 reactor will go online as early as August 10th.
Last year the plant cleared the government’s new regulations introduced after the accident at the Fukushima Daiichi plant. It was the first nuclear facility in Japan to do so
Source NHK
http://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/english/news/20150725_15.html
CEO of Toshiba took loyalty to the company too far – resigns over doctored accounts
CEO of Japan’s Toshiba resigns over doctored books By YURI KAGEYAMA Jul. 21, 2015 TOKYO (AP) — Toshiba’s CEO and eight other executives resigned Tuesday to take responsibility for doctored books that inflated profits at the Japanese technology manufacturer by 152 billion yen ($1.2 billion) over several years.
Toshiba Corp. acknowledged a systematic cover-up, which began in 2008. Various parts of the Japanese company’s sprawling business including computer chips and personal computers were struggling financially, but top managers set unrealistic earnings targets under the banner of “challenge,” and subordinates faked results.
On top of its struggles in electronics, Tokyo-based Toshiba’s prospects in nuclear power, one of its core businesses, were shaken after the 2011 Fukushima disaster set off public fears about reactor safety, making new nuclear plants unlikely in Japan. All 48 of the nation’s working reactors are now offline.
Bowing deeply before flashing cameras at a news conference, CEO Hisao Tanaka kept his head lowered for nearly half a minute in a gesture meant to convey deep shame and contrition. Tanaka’s predecessors, Norio Sasaki, now a vice chairman, and Atsutoshi Nishida, an adviser, also gave up their posts along with six other executives……….
The scandal highlights how Japan is still struggling to improve corporate governance despite recent steps to increase independent oversight of companies……….http://bigstory.ap.org/article/ca7df49d7b09428cace05165d8e41249/ceo-japans-toshiba-resign-over-doctored-books
How Toshiba cooked the nuclear books
Toshiba cooked books to tune of ¥160 billion after nuclear disaster decimated profit targets: panel http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2015/07/19/business/corporate-business/toshiba-cooked-books-to-tune-of-%C2%A5160-billion-after-nuclear-disaster-decimated-profit-targets-panel/#.VbFdnaSqpHx The total amount of operating profits Toshiba Corp. booked through inappropriate accounting in the five years through March 2014 is believed to have reached around ¥160 billion, sources have said.
The third-party panel investigating the electronic giant’s accounting scandal discovered that the padded amount is more than three times the ¥50 billion initially uncovered via Toshiba’s internal probe, but less than the rumored ¥200 billion.
The panel has confirmed that Toshiba President Hisao Tanaka and his direct predecessor, Norio Sasaki, now Toshiba vice chairman, effectively allowed losses to be carried over, as the company set ambitious profit targets for its mainstay businesses, including the infrastructure construction, semiconductor and personal computer divisions, the sources said Saturday.
The panel believes Toshiba cooked its books partly because of clouded prospects for its nuclear power business after the March 2011 disasters sparked a triple meltdown crisis at Tokyo Electric Power Co.’s Fukushima No. 1 atomic plant.
The nuclear crisis eventually forced all of the nation’s 48 commercial reactors offline.
Toshiba had hoped to foster the nuclear power business into a key profit driver.
In addition, Toshiba has also found it difficult to achieve its profit goals due to surges in labor and material costs following the 2011 earthquake and tsunami.
The panel, led by lawyer Koichi Ueda, a former chief prosecutor at the Tokyo High Public Prosecutors Office, will report its findings to Toshiba on Monday.
In its report, the panel is expected to propose that Toshiba appoint lawyers and certified public accountants as outside board members in order to prevent similar accounting irregularities from happening again.
The firm is scheduled to announce the outline of the panel report Monday evening. Tanaka is expected to hold a news conference Tuesday afternoon to explain the wrongdoing and announce his resignation.
In addition to the ¥160 billion in padded profits, Toshiba is likely to be forced to book impairment losses of tens of billions of yen in its semiconductor and other businesses, sources said. Overall, Toshiba’s operating profits are expected to be revised down by some ¥200 billion, the sources added.
As Areva Goes Belly Up, Modi’s French Nuclear Plans May Start Unravelling
Why is India bent on joining the sinking French nuclear ship?, DiaNuke.org, Vaiju Naravane | The Wire, 24 July 15 The ink had yet to dry on two separate agreements signed by France’s Areva with Larsen & Toubro and the Nuclear Power Corporation of India Limited for the French-designed 1650 MWe EPR reactor in Jaitapur, Maharashtra, when the French nuclear giant went into meltdown.
The agreements were signed with great fanfare during Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to France on 10th April 2015 despite the fact that question marks on Areva’s future as a viable nuclear player had been piling up thick and fast.
In May, mere weeks after Modi’s visit, Areva announced colossal losses amounting to 4.8 billion euros (well above its capital base) and in June the French government, which owns 87% of the company, announced that Areva would be broken up, with its nuclear power arm, Areva NP, (including engineering, construction and design) being sold to another French energy giant, EDF. The French state has an 84.5% stake in EDF.
Politically driven
Why then did India persist in signing MoUs with a sinking ship? Surely Indian decision-makers were not unaware of Areva’s problems? And why is India insisting on buying nuclear technology that may be quietly buried in the near future, technology that has trebled in cost while providing no proof of performance, cost or economics of operation so far? What will be the fate of the agreements signed between Areva and L&T and Areva and NPCIL? Will they be automatically transferred to EDF and if so at what price?
Could India not have waited for clarity over Areva’s future instead of rushing into signing agreements with a company on the verge of dismemberment? Or is it that the MoUs were hurriedly pushed through so that Modi would have a big ticket announcement to make during his first European tour?……..
The hurry to enter into these agreements is baffling since it is unclear what the long-term future of the expensive flagship EPR will be once EDF takes full charge of Areva. Energy experts say the EPR’s design issues and costs dragged down Areva and EDF is unlikely to want a similar fate for itself………. http://www.dianuke.org/why-is-india-bent-on-joining-the-sinking-french-nuclear-ship/
Russia to supply credit to sell untested nuclear reactors to Bangladesh
Rosatom eager to sign three more accords with BAEC http://www.observerbd.com/2015/07/22/100629.php#sthash.jdS4D1ks.USjrUblf.dpuf Shahnaj Begum, 22 July, 2015, The Russian state-owned nuclear power agency, Rosatom, is eager to sign three separate deals with Bangladesh Atomic Energy Commission (BAEC) before signing the general contract to install the country’s first nuclear power plant at Rooppur on the north-west part of the country.
According to the official one deal will be signed to arrange the fuel to run the plant and another one for the “back end” for taking away the waste of the plant, and another one is for the operational purpose (maintenance), he added.
Bangladesh formed three separate teams to discuss the issue.
“We are yet to know about the technology, but we want to procure a reactor which will have SSE (safe shut acceleration) and capacity to handle minimum peak ground acceleration value of 0.38g (which means it would be all right against earthquake of 9 on the Richter scale),” a BAEC official said.
This is a follow-up to another visit by a high-powered technical committee to Russia last month.
This visit is necessary for selecting the right thing for Bangladesh and ensure a block allocation from the Russian Federation to implement the dream project, first of its kind in the country,” Yeafesh Osman said.
Moscow financed the technical study of the RNPP. Under the deal Bangladesh would borrow an amount of $569 million with an interest rate of not less than 5 per cent from Russia.
The government is going to build two nuclear plants with the capacity of 1,000 MW each at Rooppur with the latest ‘third generation’ technology from Russia where five-layer security measures would be installed, according to officials.
Effects of Fukushima radiation on pale grass blue butterfly
The biological impacts of the Fukushima nuclear accident on the pale grass blue butterfly / 福島原子力発電所事故のヤマトシジミへの生物学的影響 http://csrp.jp/posts/654
Atsuki Hiyama, Chiyo Nohara, Seira Kinjo, Wataru Taira, Shinichi Gima, Akira Tanahara & Joji M. Otaki
AffiliationsContributionsCorresponding author
Scientific Reports 2, Article number: 570 doi:10.1038/srep00570
Received 06 June 2012 Accepted 24 July 2012 Published 09 August 2012 Updated online 06 August 2013
Corrigendum (August, 2013)
The collapse of the Fukushima Dai-ichi Nuclear Power Plant caused a massive release of radioactive materials to the environment. A prompt and reliable system for evaluating the biological impacts of this accident on animals has not been available. Here we show that the accident caused physiological and genetic damage to the pale grass blue Zizeeria maha, a common lycaenid butterfly in Japan. We collected the first-voltine adults in the Fukushima area in May 2011, some of which showed relatively mild abnormalities. The F1 offspring from the first-voltine females showed more severe abnormalities, which were inherited by the F2 generation. Adult butterflies collected in September 2011 showed more severe abnormalities than those collected in May. Similar abnormalities were experimentally reproduced in individuals from a non-contaminated area by external and internal low-dose exposures. We conclude that artificial radionuclides from the Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant caused physiological and genetic damage to this species.
http://www.nature.com/srep/2012/120809/srep00570/full/srep00570.html
Hiyama A, Nohara C, Kinjo S, Taira W, Gima S, Tanahara A, Otaki JM. (2012)
The biological impacts of the Fukushima nuclear accident on the pale grass blue
butterfly. Scientific Reports 2: 570. DOI: 10.1038/srep00570
Published on 9 August 2012
要旨
福島第一原子力発電所の崩壊は環境への放射性物質の大規模な放出を引き起こした。この事故の動物への生物学的影響を評価する迅速で信頼に足る実験系は現在のところ報告されていない。我々はここに、この事故が日本で普通に見られる鱗翅目シジミチョウ科ヤマトシジミへの生理的・遺伝的損傷の原因となっていることを示した。第一化の成虫を福島地域で 2011 年 5 月に採集したところ、そのうちいくつかは比較的軽度の異常を示した。第一化の雌から産まれた F1 には親世代より高い異常が観察された。この異常は次世代 F2 に遺伝した。2011 年 9 月に採集した成虫の蝶には 5 月に採集されたものに比べ、より過酷な異常が観察された。同様の異常は、非汚染地域の個体において、外部および内部の低線量被曝により、実験的に再現された。我々は、福島原子力発電所由来の人工放射性核種がこの生物種に生理的・遺伝的損傷を引き起こしたと結論する。
http://w3.u-ryukyu.ac.jp/bcphunit/Hiyama_et_al_2012_verJP.pdf
Fukushima baby milk formula seized in central China
Fukushima cattle producer’s beef with TEPCO, government leads to lawsuit
Kazuo Ueno points to a large pile of manure on his ranch in Tamura, Fukushima Prefecture, on July 14.
KORIYAMA, Fukushima Prefecture–A local cattle producer has sued Tokyo Electric Power Co. and the government to recover 500 million yen ($4 million) in losses it says it suffered as a result of the 2011 nuclear disaster.
In the suit filed with the Koriyama branch of the Fukushima District Court on July 16, the plaintiff, Ueno Bokujo, cited a drop in beef cattle prices. It also contends that it has been forced to spend more on the disposal of manure produced by its herds due to declining sales following the accident at TEPCO’s Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant.
The company, which raises nearly 2,900 heads of cattle on its ranches in Koriyama and Tamura, is one of the largest such producers in Fukushima Prefecture.
Ueno Bokujo says TEPCO has failed to pay it the 200 million yen that it says it lost due to a drop in beef cattle prices in fiscal 2014.
According to an arrangement made after the accident, TEPCO was to compensate farmers for losses incurred if they made a claim.
The cattle producer estimates it will cost 2 billion yen to dispose of the 17,000 tons of manure that have accumulated on its farms.
The suit is the first to seek compensation for lost sales of compost, according to the Fukushima Prefectural Central Union Agricultural Cooperatives.
“We will respond sincerely after listening carefully to what the plaintiff has to say in court,” a TEPCO official said.
A government official declined to comment, saying a written complaint has not yet been delivered.
Source : Asahi Shimbun
http://ajw.asahi.com/article/0311disaster/fukushima/AJ201507240084
Are Fukushima’s mutant daisies a wonder or a warning?
It is all a question of the quantity of such occuring….But as they also measured the ground around those daisies which was found to be contaminated 0.5 µSv there is a good chance that it is mutation caused indeed by radiation and just NOT fasciation, fact which is omitted in the Christian Science Monitor article but which is mentioned in the original article of Fukushima Diary on July 7, 2015.
http://fukushima-diary.com/2015/07/photo-deformed-shasta-daisy-in-nasushiobara-city-0-5-%CE%BCsvh-at-1m-above-the-ground/
This is the original picture of the Fukushima Diary article
Which was somehow omitted and substituted by the Christian Science monitor for this one
The Christian Monitor Science article:
Flowers near Japan’s Fukushima nuclear power plant, which suffered a meltdown four years ago, are producing some strangely wonderful blossoms.
Should you be more worried about environmental toxins when your garden’s daisies look like they’ve been run through a trippy Dreamscope inceptionist image filter, or if your tulip trees have stippled leaves?
Residents of Japan’s Nasushiobara City have been posting images of the deformed daisies that some believe may be linked to the 2011 meltdown of the Fukushima nuclear power plant.
Trees and flowers can act as Mother Nature’s version of a canary in a coal mine, an alarm system giving off warnings – ia size, shape, color, splitting, or stacking – that toxins are present in our immediate environment.
Or they could just have a hormone imbalance, says Todd Forrest, the New York Botanical Garden’s vice president for horticulture, says in an interview. The fairly common deformities showing up near Fukushima could easily have been caused by a random mutation, insects, diseases, or even physical injury to the plant, he says.
In other words, doubled flower heads are no reason to call the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), according to Mr. Forrest.
“Fasciation is a relatively common occurrence in the garden world,” he says. Fasciation is the technical term for banding or bundling, and can result in a flower stem that looks flattened, splayed, or fused – ranging from the grotesque to the sublimely interesting.
“Radiation being present in the environment is a plausible explanation,” says Forrest, “but not necessarily the only explanation for the phenomenon.”
Many of the daisy images are coming from& Fukushima Diary, a popular site on Pinterest showing images of doubled daisies, roses and sunflowers.
Sources:
The Christian Science Monitor
Fukushima Diary
[Photo] Deformed “Shasta daisy” in Nasushiobara City / 0.5 μSv/h at 1m above the ground
Fukushima nuclear disaster: ‘Radiation will wash down from mountains, forests into other lands’
It’s impossible to even slightly decontaminate the area damaged by the Fukushima nuclear disaster because of the mountains and dense forests in that region, says Mycle Schneider, independent analyst on energy and nuclear policy.
Tokyo’s preparing to declare some parts of the evacuation zone around the crippled Fukushima nuclear plant, a safe place to live. However environmentalists warn many areas still show radiation levels 20 times the globally accepted limit.
RT: Do you think people will take the advice of the Japanese government and move back to the area? Do you personally think its safe?
Mycle Schneider: A number of opinion polls, surveys have shown that the percentage that is decided to go back might be around a fifth of all people evacuated, many people are still undecided and about half decided not to go back. People have to imagine – besides the radiation situation – what are they going back to. We should not forget that many of the homes in Japan are made of wood and they are basically in extremely bad shape and would have to be completely redone. There is not much to go back to and on top of it there is the radiation issue. There is also the issue of going back to their homes but what about their neighbors, what about collectivity, what about the services? So there are all kinds of other social issues besides the pure health issue.
RT: What could be the potential consequences of returning to the area? How long does it take to actually clean the area from nuclear contamination?
MS: I don’t think it is possible to clean up in the real sense of the word, meaning that you take away the added radioactivity that has been contaminating the soil, the roofs, everything. It’s impossible. So what you can do is you can reduce the radioactive contamination in some of the areas. You can take off soil; you can decontaminate what has been done by water sprayed. But keep in mind that 80 percent of Japan is mountains and in this area as well there is a lot of mountains, there is a lot of dense forest, there is absolutely no way even to slightly decontaminate that region. So you will not have a stable situation of contamination but it will move all the time and a new radiation will wash down from the mountains and forests into the other lands.
RT: Why do you think Tokyo wants people back in the area?
MS: It’s not very complicated. According to a partial estimate – there is no total public estimate of the cost of Fukushima disaster so far – but a partial estimate says it’s about $100 billion. Sixty percent of that has been spent for compensation measures. So compensating people for their loss of land and jobs is very expensive to the government and since the government has bailed out the company that ran the Fukushima reactors it’s basically now the government that is liable. So it’s a matter of reducing the overall cost of the disaster.
RT: Are there other cases where people have returned to the region of a nuclear disaster?
MS: Not really. Everybody knows about the Chernobyl disaster and the 30-kilometer exclusion zone remains. There are people that have returned to that zone, but without authorization. So it wasn’t a government measure of massively allowing people to go back. There are other areas that have been touched by nuclear disasters, but there is nothing really comparable of a densely populated area like in Japan.
Source: RT
http://www.rt.com/op-edge/310595-fukushima-nuclear-radiation-area/#.VbFcSy3oBmA.facebook
Tepco finally admitted irregular sinking in Fukushima plant
On 7/21/2015, Tepco announced Fukushima plant area has irregularly sunk since 311.
It has been known that the reference point sank by 709 mm but Tepco has not reported the height above the sea level of each building.
The report reads Reactor 1 turbine building sank by 730 mm, Reactor 2 by 725 mm, Reactor 3 by 710 mm, Reactor 4 by 712 mm.
However the readings of reactor buildings were not published for some reason.
The buildings can be inclining due to this irregular sinking but the inclining degree has not been announced either.
http://www.tepco.co.jp/nu/fukushima-np/handouts/2015/images/handouts_150721_08-j.pdf
Source: Fukushima Diary
Fukushima scrub-down aims to make villages safe, although woods may remain no-go zones
All in vain. The next wind, the next rain, coming from those woods will carry accumulated radionuclides from there to re-contaminate those “decontaminated villages.
In the past years, some villages have been decontaminated already up to times, each time always contamination in due time to return to the pre-decontamination levels.
IITATE, FUKUSHIMA PREF. – Sweating inside their plastic protection suits, thousands of men toil in Japan’s muggy early summer in a vast effort to scrub radiation from the villages around Fukushima.
The mission is to decontaminate hundreds of square kilometers that were polluted when reactors went into meltdown after huge tsunami struck the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant in March 2011.
No stone is left unturned: Diggers scrape away the top layer of earth in fields, school courtyards and around the buildings of villages, while houses, buildings, roads and parking lots are scrubbed clean.
At least 20,000 people are involved in the cleanup, according to the Environment Ministry. The workers wear the special gloves, masks and boots required for workers in the nuclear industry.
There are currently around 2.5 million black bags filled with contaminated soil, plants and leaves piled up at the sites or in one of the nearly 800 temporary outdoor storage facilities set up across the disaster zone.
The effort comes as the central government prepares to declare sections of the evacuation zone habitable again.
That will mean evacuees can return to the homes they abandoned more than four years ago. It will also mean, say campaigners, that some people will have no choice but to go back because it will trigger the end of some compensation payments.
Government-run decontamination efforts are underway in 11 cities where Tokyo says that at present, anyone living there would be exposed to radiation levels of more than 20 millisieverts (mSv) a year.
The globally accepted norm for radiation absorption is 1 mSv per year, although the International Atomic Energy Agency and others say anything up to 20 mSv per year poses no immediate danger to human health.
The town of Naraha, which lies just 20 km from the plant, is expected to be declared safe in September.
The government intends to lift many evacuation orders by March 2017, if decontamination progresses as it hopes.
Still, the area immediately surrounding the plant remains uninhabitable, and storage sites meant to last 30 years are being built in the villages closest to the complex.
For now, only residential areas are being cleaned in the short-term, and the worst-hit parts of the countryside are being omitted, as recommended by the IAEA.
But that strategy has troubled environmentalists, who fear that could lead to re-contamination as woodlands will act as radiation reservoirs, with pollutants washed out by rain.
In a report on decontamination in Iitate, a heavily forested area northwest of the plant, the environmental group Greenpeace says these selective efforts will effectively confine returnees to a relatively small area of their old hometowns.
“The Japanese government plans, if implemented, will create an open-air prison of confinement to ‘cleaned’ houses and roads … and the vast untouched radioactive forests continue to pose a significant risk of recontamination of these ‘decontaminated’ areas to even higher levels,” declares the report, published Tuesday.
Some 39 other municipalities that were not evacuated after the meltdowns, and which have radiation levels deemed safe for humans, are also being decontaminated by local authorities.
Source: Japan Times
Japanese Government – aided by the IAEA – puts nuclear victims at risk with forced resettlement scheme
The worst nuclear disaster in a generation at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant – which began in March 2011 – is still very much an ongoing crisis that will not be solved for the foreseeable future. Most of the massive radioactive releases were carried out to the Pacific Ocean by the prevailing winds at that time of year. But, on the nights of March 15th and 16th, the winds turned carrying an enormous amount of radiation inland. Land, especially to the northwest of the crippled reactor site, was heavily contaminated.
Greenpeace investigations into areas where the Japanese government is intensively decontaminating with the intention of lifting evacuation orders by March 2017 have made a shocking discovery: in Iitate – one of the priority targets of the Abe Government’s plan – radiation dose levels are comparable to those in the 30km exclusion zone around Chernobyl. Even more surprising, this was true even around homes that had already been supposedly “decontaminated.”
What on earth would motivate the Japanese Government to do such a thing to the tens of thousands of nuclear victims and decontamination workers?
To answer that question, it is first important to understand a bit of background on Iitate: the region – referred to as Iitate Village – is actually a 200 km2 area of heavily forested hills, mountains, and lakes, interspersed with farm fields, and homes. It lies 28 – 47 km to the northwest of the destroyed Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, in the direct path of the heaviest on-land radioactive fallout.
Although the Abe Government has stated on its website that it is “decontaminating” Iitate – even going so far as to say on the Ministry of Environment website that 100% of the forest has already decontaminated – you have to dig through several different pages to discover that they are only referring to about a ¼ of the land area of Iitate.
In other words, of the 200 km2 of Iitate Village only 56 km2 are targeted for decontamination. Of that tiny fraction, the percentage comprised of the 10-20m into the forests along the roads and around people’s houses has been supposedly completed.
Except even that small amount of the forest isn’t finished. Decontamination efforts in these small bits of forests were still ongoing in July 2015.
And what strikes you when you see it is not just the swarms of people raking away at the woodland floor and trimming blades of grasses by hand in these first 10-20m of forest along the roads, but the enormity of the vast mountains upon mountains of dense, lush forest stretching out behind them as far as the eye can see.
You feel sorry for them. You also admire their intensive effort, meticulous work, and commitment. They are working in sweltering heat, in full radiation suits, boots, gloves and masks; not even their eyes are visible. And they are doing intense physical labor for almost no impact. Many of these workers are the residents of other impacted areas, like Minamisoma, who lost their jobs in farming, forestry, fishing or services due to the nuclear disaster. So they are working in the only growing industry in the region: radioactive decontamination.
It’s surreal. And it’s heartbreaking.
On 27 March, 2011, Greenpeace radiation investigations in Iitate had revealed extremely high levels of contamination, which led our organisation to urgently recommend to the Japanese government the immediate evacuation of the more than 6000 residents. Until that point, the residents of Iitate had been told that evacuation was not required. Evacuation did not begin until 22 April. And still, eight weeks after the start of the accident, in early June, over 1200 people remained in Iitate. As a result, the people of Iitate were the most exposed to radiation of all citizens of Fukushima prefecture.
Iitate has since become an iconic area within the story of Fukushima: a constant reminder to the Japanese public and the international community that a major nuclear disaster is not confined to a small “emergency planning” zone around the reactor site. The impacts are far reaching, destroy entire regions and communities, rip people from the fabric of their lives, and cannot be repaired.
Over four years after the triple reactor core meltdowns and exploded containment buildings at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, the majority of the Japanese public has remained opposed to any nuclear restart. The country has been completely nuclear-free for nearly two years, thanks in large part to significant public opposition, in spite of the massive pressure from nuclear utilities and the Abe government on local city governments.
However, these utilities are massively powerful and the Abe government is wholly in bed with them.
In an effort to reduce public opposition, Abe has been pushing the pro-nuclear agenda to normalize the Fukushima nuclear disaster. If the public can be convinced that mere years after the worst nuclear disaster in a generation, citizens can go home and return to life the way it was before the disaster – with no additional health risks – then that is a powerful argument against those opposed to nuclear restarts.
The effort to minimize the impact of the disaster on the nuclear industry has been aided by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), an agency charged with the promotion of nuclear energy in its charter. The IAEA has sought to downplay the radiological risks to the population since the early days in 2011. In fact, it produced two documents that can be said to have laid the primary foundation for Abe’s current policy of forced resettlement.
The reality is this myth making requires that the people of Fukushima prefecture – especially the people of Iitate – be the sacrificial lambs for the nuclear industry. This is not only wholly unjust, but is a violation of their human rights.
They have already been exposed to more radiation than any other population in the region. To deliberately force them back to areas where dose rates reach up to 20 millisieverts per year puts them at significant, unacceptable, and unnecessary risk.
After all, this is not the confusion that ensues after a nuclear disaster. This is a thought-out plan of forcing people back into their heavily contaminated former homes, no matter what the cost – both in wasteful, ineffective decontamination of these areas and in human health risks.
Compounding the gross injustice of the Abe Government’s forced resettlement policy, by focusing on creating a myth of a return to normalcy – and therefore investing vast amounts in expensive and futile decontamination – it is therefore utterly neglecting the contaminated areas that were never evacuated. Rather than addressing this urgent need to reduce the radiation risks to these populations, whom are currently living in contaminated areas, the government is more interested in deceiving the public in Japan and globally by creating illusions in places like Iitate.
What is clear is that the damage done to the people of Fukushima prefecture, and especially Iitate, is irreversible and irreparable. Their entire communities and way of life were destroyed by the nuclear disaster at Fukushima Daiichi, with no prospect for a safe return in the foreseeable future.
At minimum, we as Greenpeace, demand: 1) no lifting of the evacuation order in Iitate; 2) Exemptions and Government support for those determined to return after having full and accurate information regarding the risks; and, 3) full compensation for their loss of livelihood, property, community, mental distress, and health risks incurred, so that they may fully support themselves to move forward to pursue whatever life they so choose.
To keep the victims of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster in limbo, many crammed into tiny temporary housing cubicles, for nearly five years is inhumane. To force these citizens back into such heavily contaminated areas via the economic leverage the Government holds over them is a gross iniquity. And for the International Atomic Energy Agency to assist the Japanese Government in the propaganda war being waged on Fukushima victims not only undermines whatever credibility it may have, but amounts to it being an accomplice in a crime against the people of Japan.
Kendra Ulrich is Senior Global Energy Campaigner for Greenpeace Japan.
Source: Greenpeace
http://www.greenpeace.org/international/en/news/Blogs/nuclear-reaction/Fukushima-nuclear-victims-forced-resettlement-Iitate/blog/53584/
MOHW mulling change in ban on some food imports from Japan
Taipei, July 22 (CNA) The Ministry of Health and Welfare (MOHW) is still in discussions with several agencies on whether to lift a ban on food imports from regions in Japan affected by a nuclear meltdown in 2011, a Cabinet spokesman said Wednesday.
Responding to a report Tuesday that Taiwan will partially lift a ban on food imports from the restricted areas, spokesman Sun Lih-chyun (孫立群) said that no timetable has been set for resolving the matter and that the decision will be up to the MOHW.
The Food and Drug Administration under the MOHW said the ministry is still communicating with organizations in Taiwan and Japan and indicated that no decision has been made yet.
According to the United Daily News, Taiwan is expected to lift a ban on food imports from Ibaraki, Tochigi, Gunma and Chiba prefectures while the ban on food items from Fukushima prefecture will remain in place.
Taiwan imposed a ban on food originating from the five Japanese prefectures after a massive earthquake and tsunami hit Japan’s northeastern coast on March 11, 2011, and triggered a meltdown at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant.
The ban was issued to protect Taiwanese consumers amid fears that foods from these areas were contaminated by radioactive substances released during the nuclear meltdown.
After products originating from the five prefectures were found in March on store shelves in Taiwan with labels disguising their origins, Taiwan decided in mid-May to tighten requirements for Japanese food imports.
Japanese food exporters were asked to provide documents showing the origin of its products and obtain radiation inspection certificates for specific items.
Japan reacted angrily to the new measures. It insisted that the food items it was exporting to Taiwan were safe and threatened to take the case to the World Trade Organization.
Japanese parliamentarian Nobuo Kishi, a younger brother of Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, was one of several Japanese political heavyweights who visited Taiwan and called on the country to lift the food import ban as soon as possible.
The United Daily News reported, without citing any sources, that after lengthy discussions between Taiwan and Japan, the two sides have reached a consensus in which Taipei will lift a ban on food from all of the prefectures except for Fukushima, whose name remains sensitive to Taiwanese consumers.
Source: Focus Taiwan
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