Nuclear Meltdown Watch

[seemslikeadream]

Climate change expert calls for nuclear power 'binge' to avert global warming
Peter Wadhams, professor of ocean physics at Cambridge University, warns CO2 levels are rising at a faster than exponential rate

Terry Macalister
guardian.co.uk, Sunday 9 September 2012 15.30 EDT

Professor Peter Wadhams pointed to evidence that Arctic sea ice cover had reached record low this summer. Photograph Christopher Debicki/Getty Images
A leading British academic has called for accelerated research into futuristic geo-engineering and a worldwide nuclear power station "binge" to avoid runaway global warming.

Peter Wadhams, professor of ocean physics at Cambridge University, said both potential solutions had inherent dangers but were now vital as time was running out.

"It is very, very depressing that politicians and the public are attuned to the threat of climate change even less than they were 20 years ago when Margaret Thatcher sounded the alarm. CO2 levels are rising at a faster than exponential rate, and yet politicians only want to take utterly trivial steps such as banning plastic bags and building a few windfarms," he said.

"I am very suspicious of using technology to solve problems created by technology, given that we have messed up so much in the past but having done almost nothing for two decades we need to adopt more desperate measures such as considering geo-engineering techniques as well as conducting a major nuclear programme."

Geo-engineering techniques such as whitening clouds by adding fine sprays of water vapour, or adding aerosols to the upper atmosphere have been ridiculed in some quarters but welcomed elsewhere. Wadhams proposes the use of thorium-fuelled reactors, being tested in India, which are said to be safer because they do not result in a proliferation of weapons-grade plutonium, experts say. Also, under certain circumstances, the waste from thorium reactors is less dangerous and remains radioactive for hundreds rather than thousands of years.

Wadhams, who is also head of the polar ocean physics group at Cambridge and has just returned from a field trip to Greenland, was reacting to evidence that Arctic sea ice cover had reached a record low this summer.

This latest rate of loss is 50% higher than most scenarios outlined by other polar scientists and coincide with alarming new reports about a "vast reservoir" of the potent greenhouse gas, methane, that could be released in Antarctica if the ice melts equally quickly there. Greenpeace said last night that it agreed with the academic's concerns but not with his solutions.

"Professor Wadhams is right that we're in a big hole and the recent record sea ice low in the Arctic is a clear warning that we need to act. But it would be cheaper, safer and easier to stop digging and drilling for more fossil fuels," said Ben Ayliffe, the group's senior polar campaigner.

"We already have the technologies, from ultra-efficient vehicles to state-of-the-art clean energy generation, to make the deep cuts in greenhouse gases that are needed to stave off the worst effects of climate change. Unfortunately, we're still lacking the political and business will to implement them," he added.

Wadhams, who has done pioneering work on polar ice thinning using British naval submarines from 1976 onwards, said these latest satellite findings confirmed his own dire predictions.

And they feed into the alarming scenarios that the Arctic Methane Emergency Group have been warning about.

"What we are now seeing is a fast collapse of the sea ice that means we could see a complete loss during the summer by 2015 - rather than the 20 to 30 years talked about by the UK Meteorological Office. This would speed up ocean warming and Greenland ice cap melt and increase global ocean levels considerably as well as warming the seabed and releasing more methane."

Asked whether the latest evidence made a ban on drilling for carbon-releasing oil and gas necessary as Greenpeace has contended, Wadhams said "philosophically" such exploration made little sense. "We have been conducting a global experiment with the burning of fossil fuels and the results are already disastrous and this would accelerate them," he argued saying that there were also practical worries because of the enormous difficulty of dealing with any spillage or a blowout under moving ice where oil would get trapped inside the ice in a kind of inaccessible "oil sandwich'.

But he said at least that companies such as Shell had shown some responsibility by carefully planning its expected exploration in the Chukotka Sea off Alaska and had shown a willingness to use ready-made containment domes that could cap off a well if anything went wrong. He was more fearful about drilling methods in the Russian Arctic where environmental concerns were lower down the agenda.

[hanshan]

...

^^^

Yeah, these nuke blokes are stone out of their minds


...

[StarmanSkye]

[Allegro]

Global help urged to avert reactor 4 pool fire
U.S. expert appalled by Tepco’s attitude over ‘sleeping dragon’ risk

By ERIC JOHNSTON
Staff writer

< snip from top>

Nuclear fuel rods are extremely thin and clad with zircaloy, a zirconium alloy that contains a tiny amount of tin and other metals. But zircaloy burns if it is exposed to air, as shown in a test conducted at the Sandia National Laboratory in New Mexico just two weeks before the Great East Japan Earthquake devastated the Tohoku region.

< snip to bottom>

^ Sonification of Tohoku Earthquake,
Sendai Coast, Japan, 2011/03/11

YOUTUBE NOTES. [Highlights mine.] Uploaded on Mar 20, 2011 | In this video you see the visualised seismic signal of registrations from three seismic stations in Japan (Matsushiro, MAJO, Erimo, ERM) and Russia (Yuzhno Sakhalinsk, YSS) before, during and after the Tohoku Earthquake in Japan. The flashes on the map correlate the signal magnitude at the three stations.

At the same time you can listen to the sonified seismic signal, made audible by an acceleration of factor 1440. This so called audification of the earth’s activity turns the ground motion of two days into an audio track of 120 sec.

The facilities of the IRIS Data Management System, and specifically the IRIS Data Management Center, were used for access to waveform and metadata required in this study. For the data sonification we used Sonifyer, a software tool developed at Bern University of the Arts (CH).

[cptmarginal]

I haven't been keeping up with the latest developments, but here's a couple of good articles from Japan Subculture Research Center:

http://www.japansubculture.com/the-nucl ... -in-japan/

The Nuclear Mafia Derails Democracy In Japan

By Richard Wilcox

Note: We’d like to thank Mr. Wilcox for his submission to the blog. While some of this material has appeared elsewhere, Mr. Wilcox has also found an abundance of interesting quotes and references that are enlightening and informative. Normally, I’d edit out the few nice things Mr. Wilcox has to say about me personally, but I’ve decided to print the article as is. Please pardon me. Also a per the course these days, the views expressed by Mr. Wilcox do not necessarily reflect the views and opinions of JSRC. It is an opinion piece that makes its point well.

Thank you for your understanding. –Jake and the JSRC team

The article was originally posted here: Activist Post: The Nuclear Mafia Derails Democracy in Japan

“End of the day, factory whistle cries, Men walk through these gates with death in their eyes” – Bruce Springsteen, Factory (1)

“Bring us the living dead. People no one will miss.” – Fukushima official’s request to Yakuza (2)

“TEPCO’s involvement with anti-social forces and their inability to filter them out of the work-place is a national security issue … Nuclear energy shouldn’t be in the hands of the yakuza. They’re gamblers and an intelligent person doesn’t want them to have atomic dice to play with.” – Japanese Senator (3)

The technological issue of nuclear energy is intertwined with the exploitation of human labor in a hierarchy of interests, and how human labor is expended is an economic and moral issue. The Grand Scientific Project from the time of Francis Bacon up to the Manhattan Project of Oppenheimer and Fermi has been a dangerous gamble for humanity even though the advertised purpose is that progress is good.

The exploitation of labor at nuclear plants depends on the tools of social engineering, of government, mass media and schools. This is the hidden and shameful side of today’s materialist society and belies our complicity in a criminalized culture.

Inefficient and corrupt employment practices at the Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant (FNPP) are prolonging the disaster. Tokyo Electric Power Company (Tepco) outsources 90 percent of the work to subcontractors, mainly utilizing Japan’s criminal syndicates, “the Yakuza.” Japan is still a middle class society and most people will not volunteer for nuclear work. Japan risks running out of workers who have not exceeded their legal radiation limits.

Considered to be “Japan’s largest organized crime group” — who are on the radar of the US Treasury Dept. (another big crime group) (4) — the Yakuza offer a service to society by sopping up its losers and giving them a dodgy occupation.

Journalist, Jake Adelstein, an expert on the Yakuza, risked his life as a reporter on the crime beat in Japan. Not because of shoot outs or knife fights, but because he had to take up smoking cigarettes in order to fit in with police and yakuza! These short video interviews offer a useful introduction into how the Yakuza operate (5; 6). Tepco’s relationship with the Yakuza is a cesspool of corruption from the highest to the lowest levels in its organization. “A senior National Police Agency officer, speaking on grounds of anonymity said, ‘TEPCO has a history of doing business with the yakuza that is far deeper than just using their labor’ ” (Op. cit. “The Yakuza and the Nuclear Mafia”).

Adelstein notes that the Yakuza has 86,000 members in Japan, of the 22 major organizations the “Yamaguchi” has almost half of all members. The Yakuza are:

“[c]riminal trade associations legally recognized by the Japanese government … They exist out in the open. The Japanese government regulates them and there are laws restricting their behavior but as criminal organizations themselves they are not banned. It is very difficult for the police to do an investigation that goes all the way up to the top. It’s problems within the Japanese law itself. There’s no plea bargaining, very limited wire tapping, no witness protection program … no undercover work allowed. The Japanese police are never able to destroy the Yakuza” (Op. cit. interviews).

“[T]he nuclear business-industrial-political and media complex in Japan known as the ‘nuclear mafia’ … [the nuclear industry] is a black hole of criminal malfeasance, incompetence, and corruption’ …. The government tacitly recognises their existence, and they are classified, designated and regulated. Yakuza make their money from extortion, blackmail, construction, real estate, collection services, financial market manipulation, protection rackets, fraud and a labyrinth of front companies including labour dispatch services and private detective agencies. They do the work that no one else will do or find the workers for jobs no one wants …. The Fukushima plant is located in the turf of the Sumiyoshi-kai, which is the second largest yakuza group in Japan with roughly 12,000 members” (Op. cit. “How the Yakuza went Nuclear”; “The Yakuza”).

Without the dregs of society to do the dirty work, modern society could not exist its present, most hypocritical form. Most people do not want to get dirt under their fingernails and prefer to apply nail polish or chat on their iPhones.

Working in nuclear power plants in Japan is not considered an honorable and elegant trade, like cabinet making or industrial design, but a brutal, labor intensive experience. While the Yakuza organization itself is an evil, the workers themselves can be considered heroes. The amount of excruciating heat, hard work, physical and mental stress and radiation they endure is inhuman. Even working at a normally functioning reactor is not easy or safe work but the FNPP is highly radioactive.

Fearless Reporter Tells All

Adelstein reviews an astounding new book, “The Yakuza and the Nuclear Industry,” by undercover Japanese reporter, Tomohiko Suzuki (Op. cit. “The Yakuza”). Suzuki truly risked his life, due to radiation exposure and possible threats, to bring us the details from the Nuclear Hell Zone. The book reveals scandalous information such as that mentally handicapped people are recruited to work in the nuke plants by the Yakuza. Suzuki compares the Yakuza with Tepco:

“Yakuza may be a plague on society … but they don’t ruin the lives of hundreds of thousands of people and irradiate the planet out of sheer greed and incompetence.”

Having lived in Tokyo for many years, I concur. I am not a fan of Yakuza culture and can see in my daily experience that the Yakuza have a degrading effect on society. But as long as you don’t mess with them– they won’t mess with you. In this way, the streets of Tokyo remain fairly safe.

Suzuki points out that “Japan’s nuclear mafia … [is a] conglomeration of corrupt politicians and bureaucrats, the shady nuclear industry, their lobbyists” with the Yakuza at the center. Is Suzuki implying that the Yakuza run the Nuclear Mafia? It is certainly true that Tepco could not fulfill a nuclear workforce without them. According to Adelstein:

“As the scale of the catastrophe at Fukushima became apparent, many workers fled the scene. To contain the nuclear meltdown, a handful of workers stayed behind, being exposed to large amounts of radiation: the so-called ‘Fukushima Fifty.’ Among this heroic group, according to Suzuki, were several members of the yakuza …. ‘Almost all nuclear power plants that are built in Japan are built taking the risk that the workers may well be exposed to large amounts of radiation …. That they will get sick, they will die early, or they will die on the job. And the people bringing the workers to the plants and also doing the construction are often yakuza’ (Op. cit. “How the Yakuza”).

The very workers who are attempting to shore up the situation at FNPP, many of whom are Yakuza, are being blamed by local people in Fukushima for the disaster. A recent survey reported that 30 percent of 1,495 workers at the site suffer from severe mental health issues. The survey does not even include the most exploited workers at the site (7).

Nuclear Situation Deteriorating

Akio Matsumura is a renowned Japanese diplomat and “founder and Secretary General of the Global Forum of Spiritual and Parliamentary Leaders on Human Survival.” He sounds like the right man for the job to tackle the Fukushima nuclear disaster. Unfortunately, his warnings are falling on deaf ears. In a recent column he reported that the “Skilled Veterans Corps for Fukushima, along with 700 members, want to help clean up” the FNPP. Most of the volunteers are in their older years so getting cancer is not as great of a threat, whereas younger workers could die prematurely. The group’s representative, Mr. Yamada, “doesn’t believe TEPCO has the technological capabilities to deal with the long term issues. TEPCO, he says, doesn’t believe this either. TEPCO’s plan, according to Yamada, is to contain the radiation in the next 40 years. He estimates they will need 50 years or perhaps much longer.”

Matsumura thinks more aggressive actions won’t be taken:

“Regrettably I do not expect much of an outcome. After 17 months, the situation is worsening and unless Japan requests the independent assessment team and guarantees a huge budget to carry out the team’s technical advice, the US government will not step in” to help (8).

US nuclear policy is equally dangerous, thus, a safe and speedy resolution to what appears to be an insurmountable problem is not on the horizon. Tony Boys worked as an interpreter for nuclear expert, Dr. Chris Busby, on his visit to Japan last year. Boys told me:

“They may be ‘rebuilding’ at the FNPP, but I don’t think that solves the fundamental problem. You know how the Japanese love to do something cosmetic to make things look good because they don’t know how to really do it properly, but have to do ‘something’ ? Well, I think that’s largely what is going on at the site.”

Radio host, Jeff Rense, whose website has studiously reported on the nuclear catastrophe and all of Japan’s botched policies, told me that “everything they do is horrendous.” For example, Japan’s decision to ship contaminated Fukushima soil all the way across the country is truly stupefying (9).

Prime Minister Noda recently rejected protester’s requests to shut down the nuclear reactors. As the Metropolitan Coalition Against Nukes told Noda in a face to face meeting, “[w]e the people do not believe you” regarding his empty promises to phase out nukes in the future. The Nuclear Mafia are restarting reactors even though they are unnecessary for electricity production. An overwhelming majority of people want to abolish nuclear power (10; 11; 12). Having contaminated the world with quadrillions of becquerels of radiation (petabecquerels), Tepco is under a pseudo nationalization process that funnels tax money into their pockets yet maintains their autonomy (13).

Worker Shortage

A common practice among workers in nuclear plants is to hide their real exposure rate of radiation. Because there are legal limits of radiation exposure, workers will take off their dosimeters, or cover them with lead. In normal times in Japan workers could also migrate from one plant to the other without indicating previous work experience, and work “under the table.” How long it takes to get sick and or die from such a practice is anyone’s guess.

If the “living dead,” the people “no one will miss” and the dregs of society can’t be coerced into sacrificing themselves, how about top Tepco executives or pro nuclear professors from Tokyo University for a helping hand? Good idea! But first you will have to chase them down on the golf course. NHK reports that:

“[M]any workers crucial to the effort are reaching the limit for radiation exposure …. University of Tokyo Professor Kazumitsu Nawata warns of the consequences of losing nuclear plant workers with necessary expertise. He says young workers must be trained due to the need for massive manpower to fully bring the Daiichi plant under control.”

Is Professor Nawata volunteering other’s children for this dirty job, or maybe his own children would prefer to work in the High Sievert Zone? Tokyo University bears a heavy responsibility for the current catastrophe for its role in legitimizing the Nuclear Mafia.

A notable percentage of workers are leaving once they have reached the legal radiation limits. Of the 3,000 daily workers, “[s]ome of the firms have adopted stricter exposure standards … so that they do not breach the limit and become unemployable” (14).

A number of recent incidents have highlighted the scandal over worker safety, including:

* Over 140 workers have been found to have used fake names when getting jobs doing reconstruction work and are presently unaccounted for (Op. cit., “The Yakuza”).

* Workers have purposely left integral dosimeter off their person while at work. “Tepco is pushing the responsibility to their sub-contract companies but has no solution for the shortage of nuclear workers” which indicates “major staffing problems” at the plant (15; 16).

* Some workers themselves think the only solution to shoring up the plant will be “human wave tactics” as were employed at Chernobyl (17). If that is the case, where will the necessary workforce come from? In order combat the dwindling labor force, Tepco and subcontractors are knowingly telling workers to fake their radiation data. The practice is “believed to be part of a widespread practice at the plant” (18; 19; 20).

Former General Electric nuclear plant inspector, a whistle blower who previously exposed dangers at the Fukushima plant–that were ignored–Kei Sugaoka, admitted that he had heard of young workers in the Taiwan nuclear industry dying from cancer due to radiation. When he worked in Taiwan he says “[t]hey made us wear lead vests to falsify radiation exposure … All the lead did was cover our dosimeters” (21).

Despite the need to quickly resolve the situation, workers are given weekends off, but are also being recruited for decontamination in the 20 km zone. Speculation is that restart of other reactors in Japan will worsen the worker shortage. Japan seems to be going in too many directions at once (22; 23; 24).

The Nuclear Workforce

French sociologist, Paul Jobin, “began research on Japanese and Taiwanese nuclear plant workers in 2002, mainly at Fukushima Daiichi,” and he did follow up interviews after the Fukushima disaster in 2011.

Jobin notes that:

* Subcontracting labor at nuclear plants in Japan began shortly after their creation, in the mid-1970s. “In France, this trend would develop after 1988, reaching a rate of 80% by 1992.”

* “According to NISA’s data, in 2009, Japan’s nuclear industry recruited more than 80,000 contract workers against 10,000 regular employees.”

* Part time employment is carried out in order to limit labor costs “whether in France or Japan, the nuclear industry nurtures a heavy culture of secrecy concerning the number of irradiated workers.”

* Before the Fukushima disaster, “only 9 former workers received compensation for an occupational cancer linked to their intervention in nuclear plants.” This number is probably far lower than the real number of those who suffered from working at NPPs.

* “[S]tatistics from TEPCO (dated November 30, 2011) reported 3,745 workers on the site in March (about 1700 TEPCO employees and 2,000 subcontractors), and 14,000 for the time from April to October. The overwhelming majority … were subcontractors.” But even these figures may not include many low level but highly irradiated workers.

* Radiation exposure depends on one’s status in the hierarchy. Tepco executives and high or mid level engineers are spared exposure, while “there is systematic camouflage of the collective radiation of the most exposed front line workers.”

* Since March 11, 2011, Jobin estimates “that around 30,000 workers have been exposed to significant levels of radiation, some for a few days, many for more than one month” (25; 26). How many of these workers are desperate or “mentally handicapped” to begin with? No wonder they are being used by the Nuclear Mafia as disposable work-bots. Hiroaki Koide, nuclear reactor specialist at Kyoto University says “[t]he truth of the matter is that the subcontract workers don’t really know the dangers of radiation and they don’t know how to protect themselves.” For example, wearing protective masks are so uncomfortable that many workers remove them during their work shift (27). How many health issues have been caused as a direct result of the work? In one case, the worker had been exposed in less than a year to levels far beyond what is considered normal lifetime background radiation. He suffered a heart attack (28).

Worker Rights Advocates Fight For Social Justice

Hifumi Okunuki is an expert in labor law and spends much of her time fighting for the rights of Fukushima’s forgotten heroes. She notes that “the working conditions at Fukushima No. 1 are an emergency within an emergency” and that “special laws should be promulgated to guarantee the safety and fair treatment of the workers.”

“Japan’s Labor Standards Office has thus far recognized only 10 cases of radiation sickness caused by working conditions due to the inherent difficulty in proving causation in individual cases …. Management faces quite serious, possibly criminal, liability if while understanding the risk radiation exposure poses, they endanger those working on-site through a complicated web of outsourcing. Article 87 of the Labor Standards Law holds firms that outsource responsible for workplace safety and sanitation for workers employed by their subcontractor …. Illnesses caused by radiation exposure from nuclear power plants are covered by Japan’s Act on Compensation for Nuclear Damage.”

Unsurprisingly, the Japanese justice system which plays an integral role in siding with the Nuclear Mafia has “yet to see a major court case over radiation-related deaths” (29).

A new report from the venerable non governmental organization, Citizens Nuclear Information Center (CNIC), in Tokyo, highlights the FNPP worker issue. One whistle blower reported that in years past:

“Worker accidents are usually covered up inside the nuclear plant. Even if workers suddenly fall ill, they are not allowed to call an ambulance. In my case, after having been left unattended for three hours, I was taken to hospital in a colleague’s car. I therefore suffered aftereffects later and became physically handicapped. Of all accidents occurring in the nuclear power station, 90% were concealed.”

However, thanks to growing international attention, some of the conditions at FNPP have slightly improved. “Currently, ambulances are allowed to come into the nuclear power station and there is a doctor onsite 24 hrs a day“ (30).

Tepco’s Blind Eye

According to CNIC (Ibid.), the system for employing nuclear workers relies on an economically pyramid shaped, “multi-layered structure” of contractors and subcontractors which makes profits for executives and employees. Investigations have revealed the “[p]resence of subcontractors affiliated with crime syndicates and their employees.” In the year 2000 it was known that “350 companies were involved” at the FNPP and that many of the Yakuza employees or subcontractors are presently involved in the clean up operations.

* “Under the utility, there are plant makers, subsidiaries of TEPCO and the plant makers, large, medium- and small-sized construction and repair companies, independent master carpenters and plumbers.”

* The Yakuza enforce a severe hierarchy “between the group leader and the members” which is akin to the military and effective for getting dangerous work accomplished.

* “[I]n 2006, TEPCO reportedly attempted to drive the gangsters … out of the plant.” The Yakuza said: “Do it if you think you can.” Tepco blinked.

* ‘[P]olice arrested leading members of a gangster group affiliated with the Sumiyoshi-kai crime syndicate based in Nihonmatsu, Fukushima Prefecture’ who were ‘charged with violation of the Temporary Staffing Services Law.’ A president of a local company who ‘was deeply involved in the staffing of the nuclear power station and was the president of the local chamber of commerce and industry, as well as a member of the Fukushima Prefecture Nuclear Power Plant Town Information Council’ was arrested on suspicion of ‘illegally possessing a gun.’

* “Workers hired by the lowest-level subcontractors were paid only around 5,000 yen [$60] per day, and were not covered by social insurance or employment insurance …. the current average daily wage is said to be 8,000 yen, although TEPCO pays 60,000-70,000 yen per capita to the principal subcontractor.” Everyone in between ‘takes a cut from the worker’s wages.’

In other words, it’s an economic racket. Although an “effective” system, “[i]llegal acts, such as the forgery of health reports … and not allowing workers to subscribe to health insurance and employees’ pension plans, are rampant,” but are tolerated by Tepco. This draws into question how effective such workers can be given the intimidation of violence from Yakuza bosses and the poor working conditions. The “problem is still beyond TEPCO’s control because the subcontractor system is deeply multi-layered and complex, and because the yakuza are so deeply entrenched in the system.”

Destroying Democracy

The 1995 documentary film, Nuclear Ginza, is valuable for its historical perspective on nuclear workers in Japan (31). Corruption, payoffs and coverups were the norm, then and now. As one worker whose health was damaged said,

“The big companies treat workers like objects or tools to be thrown away when no longer needed. Japan is considered a rich advanced and democratic country but its just an illusion I think.”

A Buddhist monk, Mr. Nakajima, who had worked for years to help the plight of workers noted that “[u]nfortunately in Japan, the sad reality is that democracy has been destroyed in the areas where nuclear power exists.”

Streets Of Fire

Adelstein and Suzuki (Op. cit.) supply additional information of a particularly lurid and grim nature:

* Yakuza have a saying: “When a man has to survive doing something, it’s the nuclear industry; for a woman, it’s the sex industry.”

* One mid-level executive in the organization even defends the role of his members in the Fukushima disaster. “The accident isn’t our fault,” he said. “It’s TEPCO’s fault. We’ve always been a necessary evil in the work process. In fact, if some of our men hadn’t stayed to fight the meltdown, the situation would have been much worse. TEPCO employees and the Nuclear Industry Safety Agency inspectors mostly fled; we stood our ground.”

* “Organized crime groups from Kyushu are bringing workers as well. Many of the workers are homeless people, debtors to yakuza loan sharks, or former yakuza who have been expelled from their group.”

* Tepco refuses “to name the companies they use for outsourcing labor, background security checks, and general security at the nuclear power plants.” Recall Tepco’s feigned ignorance about government investigator’s accusations against them for “collusion.” Such bland dismissals on the part of Tepco are curious in light of the voluminous evidence to the contrary. The Tepco president’s denials of any collusion is an obvious lie (32; 33).

* “Suzuki discovered evidence of Tepco subcontractors paying yakuza front companies to obtain lucrative construction contracts; of money destined for construction work flying into yakuza accounts; and of politicians and media being paid to look the other way.”

* “His fellow workers, found Suzuki, were a motley crew of homeless, chronically unemployed Japanese men, former yakuza, debtors who owed money to the yakuza, and the mentally handicapped.”

* “Suzuki claims the regular employees at the plant were often given better radiation suits than the yakuza recruits. ‘Almost every day a worker would keel over with heat exhaustion and be carried out; they would invariably return to work the next day. Going to the bathroom was virtually impossible, so workers were simply told to ‘hold it.’ ’ ”

* “According to Suzuki, the temperature monitors in the plant weren’t even working, and were ignored. Removing the mask during work was against the rules; no matter how thirsty workers became, they could not drink water.”

* “The risk of radiation exposure was 100 per cent. The masks, if their filters were cleaned regularly, which they were not, could only remove 60 per cent of the radioactive particles in the air.”

* “Suzuki found people who’d been threatened into working at Fukushima, but others who’d volunteered. Why? ‘Of course, if it was a matter of dying today or tomorrow they wouldn’t work there,’ he explains. ‘It’s because it could take 10 years or more for someone to possibly die of radiation excess. It’s like Russian roulette. If you owe enough money to the yakuza, working at a nuclear plant is a safer bet. Wouldn’t you rather take a chance at dying 10 years later than being stabbed to death now?’ ”

Conclusion

Faced with an ongoing radioactive nightmare which is contaminating Japan’s food and water supply, what should be done? The Nuclear Mafia’s ethos is silken sewn into the socio-political Kabuki theater of a post modern Japanese society, which seems helpless to save itself. Maybe Ambassador Matsumura, with his international political connections of good will, and the Skilled Veterans for Fukushima would be good people to turn to for advice.

References

1. Factory
http://www.springsteenlyrics.com/lyrics/f/factory.php

2. How the Yakuza went nuclear http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldne ... clear.html

3. The Yakuza and the Nuclear Mafia
http://www.theatlanticwire.com/global/2 ... pco/46803/
4. U.S. Treasury Dept. Penalizes Japan’s Largest Organized-Crime Group
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/25/world ... akuza.html

5. Jake Adelstein
http://wheelercentre.com/videos/video/jake-adelstein/

6. Jake Adelstein on Tokyo’s yakuza
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d0uz0z_NH4U

7. No. 1 workers’ stress, stigma jeopardizing motivation
http://www.japantimes.co.jp/text/nn20120816a5.html

8. Fukushima Needs a Hero
http://akiomatsumura.com/2012/08/862.html

9. Kagoshima to be the final disposal site of nuclear waste
http://fukushima-diary.com/2012/08/kago ... ear-waste/

10. Noda unswayed by talks with rally leaders
http://www.japantimes.co.jp/text/nn20120823a1.html

11. Power use falls; reactors unneeded
http://www.japantimes.co.jp/text/nn20120822a3.html

12. Antinuclear Japan: Nearly 90% of Public Comments on National Energy Policy Are “Zero Nuke”
http://ex-skf.blogspot.jp/2012/08/antin ... ublic.html

13. Mismanaging Risk and the Fukushima Nuclear Crisis
http://www.japanfocus.org/-Jeff-Kingston/3724

14. Fukushima nuclear workers reaching exposure limit
http://www3.nhk.or.jp/daily/english/20120824_29.html

15. Worker left integral dosimeter in the bus on purpose
http://fukushima-diary.com/2012/08/nuke ... n-purpose/

16. WSJ: Experts say manipulated radiation readingshttp://blogs.wsj.com/japanrealt ... did-it-go/

17. Fukushima worker “Human-wave tactics will be needed, problem is if they can collect human workers”
http://fukushima-diary.com/2012/07/fuku ... n-workers/

18. Tepco knew lead shields were made to cover dosimeters of Fukushima workers
http://enenews.com/tepco-knew-lead-shie ... ion-alarms

19. TEPCO subcontractor used lead to fake dosimeter readings at Fukushima plant
http://ajw.asahi.com/article/0311disast ... 1207210069
20. ‘Growing concern’ over worker shortages at Fukushima Daiichi by gov’thttp://online.wsj.com/article/SB10000872396390443570904577542400362861824.html

21. Nuclear Worker: There’s been some people dying, young guys, of some weird cancers
http://enenews.com/nuclear-worker-young-people-dying

22. Worker confirms Tepco taking weekends off at Fukushima Daiichi
http://enenews.com/tepco-weekends-fukus ... ant-worker

23. Recruit for decontamination worker in 20km area
http://fukushima-diary.com/2012/07/recr ... 20km-area/

24. Fukushima worker “Restart of nuclear plants will cause shortage of Fukushima workers”
http://fukushima-diary.com/2012/07/fuku ... a-workers/

25. Dying for TEPCO? Fukushima’s Nuclear Contract Workers
http://www.globalresearch.ca/PrintArtic ... leId=24543

26. Fukushima One Year On: Nuclear workers and citizens at risk
http://www.japanfocus.org/-Paul-Jobin/3729

27. Japan Nuclear Professor – Atomic Age Symposium II
http://enenews.com/japan-nuclear-profes ... asis-video

28. Fukushima Plant Worker Suffers Cardiac Arrest
http://jen.jiji.com/jc/eng?g=eco&k=2012082200902

29. Tepco liable for contract workers’ safety in Fukushima
http://www.japantimes.co.jp/text/fl2012 ... ories%2529

30. Clean-up operation at the nuclear accident site at Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station.
http://www.cnic.jp/english/newsletter/n ... an-up.html

31. Nuclear Ginza – Part 1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CNq0qyQJ5xs
Part 2
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t7okfjwy ... ure=relmfu

32. Radioactive Rats, Nuclear Techno Geeks
And Life In The Damage Control Continuum
http://rense.com/general95/radioactive-rats.html

33. Japan’s Tepco baffled by criticism of its role in nuclear disaster
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/07/ ... S020120719

http://www.japansubculture.com/the-tria ... ear-mafia/

The Trial Of Minoru Tanaka: The high cost of investigative journalism in Japan & “the nuclear mafia”

An article which appeared last year in the December 16 issue of “Kinyobi” weekly written by Minoru Tanaka, resulted in a punitive lawsuit against him. The article called the head of a group of nuclear industry related companies, Shiro Shirakawa, a “fixer.”

In Japan a “fixer” is said to be “a behind-the-scenes person who gets paid for mediating with anti-social forces or covering up scandals, or arranging profitable business deals with dubious methods.” It has a generally negative connotation.

According to Mr. Tanaka and other sources, this year, Mr. Shirakawa sued Tanaka for libel. He sued Tanaka only, not the publisher. Shirakawa demanded Tanaka 50M yen in damages and 7.5M yen of attorney fees as well as placing apology ads in morning editions of three major papers: “Asahi Shimbun”, “Mainichi Shimbun”, and “Yomiuri Shimbun.” The total amount demanded was 67M yen including the payment for the ads.

Mr. Shirakawa has been referred to as “a fixer” in many publications and Mr. Tanaka and Reporters Without Borders believe that the lawsuit is a SLAPP (strategic lawsuit against public participation) and threatens press freedom in Japan. See RSF press release.

The next proceeding is scheduled on September 3 starting at 10:45 am in the Tokyo District Court room No. 615.

The article written by Minoru Tanaka asserts the following:

Mr. Shirakawa has connections with key figures of nuclear businesses, such as Hiroshi Arakawa, the former chairman of TEPCO. Mr. Shirakawa himself operates multiple nuclear-related corporations that offer security service for nuclear plants, leasing, and construction business. In the past he was reported to be suspected of asking gangsters to stop publication of materials, as well as diverting to politicians part of huge profits gained by land transactions. Furthermore, Nishimatsu Construction “gave a loan” to New Tech which is deeply connected to Mr. Shirakawa, using Mr. Shirakawa’s home and land as collateral. A year and a half later, the loan had been cleared.

After the loan was seemingly repaid, according to the registration certificate, the company New Tech received a loan of 700M yen from Shinginko Tokyo bank last October with the same collateral and paid back shortly.

Mr. Shirakawa, according to the article, is connected to Diet Member Kamei Shizuka, as well as a former high-ranking police officer, and his network of connections has allowed him to become a huge profiteer in the nuclear industry using dubious methods.

RSF (Reporters Sans Frontières) or RWB (Reporters Without Borders) reaffirmed its support for Minoru Tanaka and condemned the judicial harassment against him. “It is clear from the exorbitant amount of damages demanded by the plaintiff that the lawsuit’s aim is to silence Minoru Tanaka by crushing him morally and financially.” RSF’s statement says.

The History of Shukan Kinyoubi/週刊金曜日 Weekly

The Shukan Kinyoubi began publication in 1993. It has taken the stance of criticizing the powers that be and taking on the authorities. It is left of center. Therefore long before the Fukushima accident, the publishers have taken a firm stance against the nuclear industry and the so-called “nuclear village.” The nuclear village aka The nuclear mafia refers to the intertwined nuclear industrial complex made up of power companies, politicians, bureaucrats, gangsters and fixers.

Its publisher, Mr. Hajime Kitamura, spoke at the press conference last Friday. Among the 29 staff members of the publication, half of them are involved in editing, and most of the content of the publication are provided by outside contributors who write for the magazine. “We expected Shirakawa to sue the magazine for writing a story about him.” However, to the surprise of the publisher, he just sued the writer, Mr. Tanaka, and not the magazine.

“This is completely unforgivable” Kitamura said, “because when an individual writer is sued, they have to hire a lawyer, pay the lawyer fees themselves, and since they have to prepare for a trial and the legal proceedings, they lose the precious time they could spend doing their job. This is clearly a vicious law suit, and a SLAPP case, if the magazine was sued, of course we have our own lawyers that we could use.”

Shukan Kinyoubi （週刊金曜日） has been sued three previous times, once by the consumer finance company Takefuji, and won the case. In Japan’s civil code, it is possible to sue an individual journalist. Hiro Ugaya, was the first case of a journalist sued individually, not for the article he wrote, but for the comments he gave in a article on a company called Oricon, about 3 years ago. There is no union of journalists or newspapers in Japan, and there is no insurance to protect the reporters neither, unlike in Germany, for example. In Germany, it is not possible to sue a reporter for the content of his/her article, because somebody in the newspaper is already designated to be responsible judicially.

"This lawsuit is not about one article, it’s about a much broader thing, it’s about the state of journalism and the way journalism is conducted in Japan." Hajime Kitamura, publisher of the Shukan Kinyoubi

“If this kind of thing continues to spread, individual writers will all refrain from writing anything being problematic. And it will be a huge minus for magazines like our own, which take on the authorities and the powers leading this country.”

Hajime Kitamura, publisher of Shukan Kinyoubi (Friday Weekly)

After 3.11, some of the magazines have been very critical of the nuclear industry. They ran stories in which they called the people of the industry “war criminals,” and they haven’t been sued, because the Japanese mainstream media, up to now, has been criticizing the surface of the nuclear invested interests, but Tanaka’s article is more in depth, and gets behind the scene, and seemingly names the people who have made profits from their unsavory ties to the nuclear-industrial complex.

Mr. Hajime Kitamura, the publisher of Shukan Kinyoubi, used to write in the national news department of the Mainichi Newspaper. He said that the major newspapers in Japan now tend to avoid problematic topics. ”If there are some risks of being sued in court, then they won’t touch the story. I’m not saying that the reporters on the ground level are bad, but the reality is that the people in upper management are basically telling the reporters not to write anything that can get the newspaper sued, and that stops and frustrates the young reporters from writing about certain topics.”

According to Minoru Tanaka, currently, Nihon Television is the most pro-nuclear broadcaster and Fuji TV is also doing similar pro nuclear broadcasting. Shirakawa’s older brother used to be a Fuji TV board member, he stated.

Japanese politicians’ ties with the nuclear industry

Minoru Tanaka said that Mr. Yoshito Sengoku, the number two in the (JDP) Japan Democratic party’s political strategy, went to Fukui prefecture and gathered together all the DPJ politicians. He told them that they needed to support the restart of the Oi nuclear reactors, and at a press conference, he said that “stopping Japan’s nuclear generators would be an act of suicide.” Mr. Sengoku used to be a member of Japan’s Socialist party but he became close to Japan’s nuclear industry.

Minoru Tanaka said that there is an entire nuclear tribe of politicians feeding off the nuclear industry, it is not just limited to the LDP, also includes the Koumeito, (also known as the Clean Government Party, a political league, which is supported by the religion group, Sokagakkai), and the DPJ as well.

The state of Japanese journalism

“Up until the 1980’s, I felt that the reporters on the ground level were really making efforts to get controversial stories into print. Rather than becoming weak in dealing with the political powers, I think they became weak in dealing with the public powers and the authorities. And part of the reason for this is that reporting became more a business model than about communicating facts,” says Mr. Kitamura.

He also said that, until the 1980′s, if journalists were writing about a big advertiser like TEPCO, and people at the top said “don’t complicate things,” there was opposition to that kind of interference in reporting, but this resistance has continued to weaken. He added, “When middle management loses its nerves, there is a sort of self-restraint imposed within the newspapers not to handle articles that criticize corporations.” However, it depends on which media, which television etc. He said that he still believes that the Mainichi and Chunichi/Tokyo Newspaper are doing solid investigative journalism.

TEPCO has an advertising budget of about twenty-three or four billion yen ($230 to 240 million) a year. A lot of that was to keep the media under control. For example, the rubble problem was featured in a two pages color advertisement in the Asahi shinbun. That probably cost forty to fifty million yen, according to Mr. Hajime Kitamura. “Usually the newspapers should refuse that kind of advertisement from a company, but they become tempted and attracted by the advertising money.”

The “Yoshiwara Bento” and the honey traps for the journalists

According to Mr. Kitamura, TEPCO entertained clients at Soapland, the sexual service parlors in Japan. The term of “Yoshiwara Bento” (Yoshiwara being the Edo period’s red light district and Bento, being the word for “lunch box”) is a crude term to explain the practice that certain Japanese businessmen have to take their clients to a fancy club, for dinner and drinks and then take them to Soapland. The power companies and allegedly even The Nuclear Safety Agency and other associations involved in the nuclear industry have a long a history of wining and dining people in the media to make sure that the myth of nuclear safety is properly communicated to the public.

According to Hajime Kitamura, there are two ways they deal with the media: once a month, the association of electric power providers gives a press conference with the general press. They use “honey traps” or get the reporters involved with other scandals to make sure that they stay under control. The other thing they do is to use DENTSU, Japan’s largest advertising agency, to indirectly threaten the publishers by saying “if you want TEPCO’s advertising, can’t you do something about this article?”

The mainstream media does not support individual victims of SLAPP

“I do not think that this is a lawsuit about the facts, because almost the entire content is based on public publically available information. The attack made by Shirakawa is on the term ‘fixer.’ It is a very vague attack. I believe that Shirakawa has launched this lawsuit to make me suffer as much economic damages as he can,” Minoru Tanaka stated at the conference.

There are a growing number of people supporting Tanaka today, because it is not only his problem, but the problem of freedom of press in Japan. Many reporters think that there should be some kind of laws put in place to limit or suppress these kinds of SLAPP (Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation). Right now, large corporations and religious groups are able to make these frivolous lawsuits at will with no constraints. He added that one of the reasons that the support for him is not widening at a rapid pace is because of the existence of the press club or the Japanese Kisha Kurabu system. “The major media outlets that are part of the press club system do not welcome freelance or individual writers because they want to monopolize information for themselves. They are not very supportive of individual journalists,” Minoru Tanaka elaborated.

*The editors at Japansubculture Research Center in an effort to avoid giant lawsuits would like to reiterate that the statements and opinions in this article are those of third parties and do not represent the opinions or assertions of this slightly meek and poorly funded project.

[cptmarginal]

Plus here's two newer articles I just noticed on there:

Japan’s Media, Mega-Ad Agencies, & Nuclear Industry: A Lethal Combination?

Japan’s Nuclear Industry Bludgeons Reporters Into Silence With The Gavel

[hanshan]

...

from last year; quite good




...

[hanshan]

...

from NukePro, last Fall:
( the graphs don't copy so check the link)

http://nukeprofessional.blogspot.com/2012/10/radiation-continues-spreading-and.html

Radiation Continues Spreading and Spiking Across USA
Oct 10, 2012 reporting from Honolulu

We noted in a prior post that "Something Happened around September 17" and radiation spiked high in a number of US cities, but especially the Pacific Northwest.

These are the areas that were the hardest hit by Fukushima the first time around, as the jet stream usually makes a beeline for them.

I was hoping that would be a week or so spike, and then back to normal, but that is not the case, and the radiation continues to spread east and south. Disturbingly, over half of the Radnet data has gone black, especially in the bigger cities. Your tinfoil hat won't protect you from this radiation fallout, no matter how thick.

This is time to alert your friends and neighbors, anything over 100 Clicks Per Minute (CPM) is time to get concerned, and now there are MANY places up over 100, some at 500. Exposure to 100CPM for a year gives you a significantly increased chance of cancer....and that is just from getting hit externally with the radiation. If you breath it in, it can be 20 times worse. Exposure to 500 CPM for 90 days gives you a significantly increased chance of cancer.

Please review this handy Cheat Sheet on radiation. Nuke Pro blog made this summary sheet in order to send a Geiger to Japan for local testing by Japanese families.

http://nukeprofessional.blogspot.com/20 ... ation.html

Source data for the charts is here, check it out, see how many have gone black

http://blog.alexanderhiggins.com/net2/S ... Graph.aspx



...

[hanshan]

...



AP: U.S. Senator wants probe after reading confidential
report on sickly California nuke plant —
Shows they knew about San Onofre problems beforehand


Published: February 6th, 2013 at 6:11 pm ET
By ENENews

http://tinyurl.com/aza8l6z

http://www.fairewinds.com/content/sen-boxer-believes-san-onofre-knew-about-problems-years-earlier

Boxer wants probe at sickly San Onofre nuke plant

California Sen. Barbara Boxer is pressing federal regulators to open a probe into equipment problems at the shuttered San Onofre nuclear power plant. [...]

A statement says the Democrat wants the NRC to investigate what she calls new information that shows Edison and the company that built the plant’s ailing steam generators were aware of design problems before the equipment was installed. [...]

LA Times:

Southern California Edison was aware of problems with replacement steam generators at the San Onofre nuclear power but chose not to make fixes, U.S. Sen. Barbara Boxer charged Wednesday.

Boxer’s office cited a leaked report from Mitsubishi Heavy Industries — the manufacturer of the steam generators — obtained by her office. It is the first indication from government officials that Edison and Mitsubishi knew the now-shuttered system had problems before it was installed.

Boxer and U.S. Rep. Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.) wrote to Nuclear Regulatory Commission Chairwoman Allison Macfarlane on Wednesday and said the Mitsubishi report “indicates that Southern California Edison (SCE) and MHI were aware of serious problems with the design of San Onofre nuclear power plant’s replacement steam generators before they were installed” and “rejected enhanced safety modifications and avoided triggering a more rigorous license amendment and safety review process.” [...]

Reuters:

“This newly-obtained information concerns us greatly,” Boxer and Markey wrote in the letter.

The report is confidential and Reuters was not able to review it.

edited to add link

...

[hanshan]

...



Gundersen: U.S. gov’t to allow highly radioactive
material from nuclear plants into silverware, other items? (AUDIO)

http://tinyurl.com/b4mggdy

From 13:15 – 20:15

Arnie examines a new proposal by the Department of Energy to melt radioactive scrap metal and reuse it in consumer goods like knives and forks.

14:15 Radioactive material from inside a nuclear plant
14:20 Turn radioactive vessels from liability to asset
15:30 Pots, pans, forks, knives, spoons
16:30 Highly radioactive steam generators to be used?
17:15 Reused material can remain in radioactive lumps
19:45 It’s not helping the consumer here to get any radioactive material in their baby spoons
Full program here

[hanshan]

...

zerohedge has a good summary overview:

http://www.zerohedge.com/contributed/2012-12-27/tokyo-almost-irradiated-fukushima

Tokyo Almost As Irradiated As Fukushima


Submitted by George Washington on 12/27/2012 02:07 -0400



Tokyo Almost As Irradiated As Fukushima We’ve documented the spread of radiation from Fukushima to Tokyo for a year and a half. See this, this, this, this, this and this. Unfortunately, as the following recent headlines from Ene News show, things are only getting worse:

Tokyo area turned out to be as contaminated as Fukushima -Kyoto Professor

Tokyo Bay cesium even higher than levels reported off Fukushima — Nearly entire sea floor contaminated by 2014

Tokyo getting 5 times more radioactive fallout than prefectures closer to Fukushima

Japan Times: Time bomb in Tokyo metropolitan area — Experts warn of accumulating Fukushima contamination — Potential disaster at Japan’s 2nd largest lake

Tokyo soil so hot it should be sent to nuclear waste dump — Really severe releases hit city

Japanese Legal Expert: “Even residents of Tokyo are evacuating” — More and more people fleeing Fukushima
People from Tokyo area report thyroid cysts and nodules — Japanese doctors laughing at patients
Japan Scientists: Radiation dose has been “significantly increased” around Tokyo metropolitan area after Fukushima

And we’ve previously noted that the radiation will spread worldwide (by water and air). For example:

California Slammed With Fukushima Radiation

“Absolutely Every One” – 15 Out of 15 – Bluefin Tuna Tested In California Waters Contaminated with Fukushima Radiation

Fukushima Radiation: Japan Irradiates the West Coast of North America

A new study says that the West Coast will get slammed with radioactive cesium starting in 2015 American Sailors Sue Tepco for Lying about Fukushima Preface: Before you get too mad at the Japanese, remember that the U.S. government and nuclear industry are just as bad. And America is largely dictating Japanese nuclear policy. Courthouse News Service reports: Eight crew members of the U.S.S. Ronald Reagan, whose home port is San Diego, sued the Tokyo Electric Power Co. in Federal Court. They claim the utility company, “a wholly owned public benefit subsidiary of the government of Japan,” misrepresented radiation levels to lull the U.S. Navy “into a false sense of security.” Lead plaintiff Lindsay R. Cooper claims Tokyo Electric (TEPCO) intentionally concealed the dangerous levels of radiation in the environment from U.S. Navy rescue crews working off the coast of Japan after the March 10, 2011 earthquake and tsunami set off the nuclear disaster. “TEPCO pursued a policy to cause rescuers, including the plaintiffs, to rush into an unsafe area which was too close to the FNPP [Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant] that had been damaged. Relying upon the misrepresentations regarding health and safety made by TEPCO … the U.S. Navy was lulled into a false sense of security,” the complaint states. *** Six of the eight plaintiffs worked on the flight deck of the aircraft carrier; two worked in air contamination or the “air department.” One sued also on behalf of her infant daughter. Japan called the relief effort Operation Tomadachi. The complaint states: “Defendant TEPCO and the government of Japan, conspired and acted in concert, among other things, to create an illusory impression, that the extent of the radiation that had leaked from the site of the FNPP was at levels that would not pose a threat to the plaintiffs in order to promote its interests and those of the government of Japan, knowing that the information it disseminated was defective, incomplete and untrue, while omitting to disclose the extraordinary risks posed to the plaintiffs who were carrying out their assigned duties aboard the U.S.S. Ronald Reagan.” [Even an official Japanese inquiry found "collusion between the government, the regulators and Tepco"] It adds: “Defendant represented and warranted that the levels of contamination to which the plaintiffs would be exposed were less than harmful to them and that their presence during ‘Operation Tomadachi’ would not cause any different or greater harm to them than they may have experienced on missions in the past. … “At all times relevant times, the defendant, TEPCO, was aware that exposure to even a low dose of radiation creates a danger to one’s health [that's true] and that it is important to accurately report actual levels. *** And, they say: “Defendants had actual and/or constructive knowledge of the properties of radiation that would ensure that, once released into the environment, radiation would spread further and in concentrations that would cause injury to the plaintiffs.” The plaintiffs claim the government deliberately misled them: “the Japanese government kept representing that there was no danger of radiation contamination to the U.S.S. Reagan … and/or its crew, that ‘everything is under control,’ ‘all is OK, you can trust us,’ and there is ‘no immediate danger’ or threat to human life, all the while lying through their teeth about the reactor meltdowns at FNPP. [While the Japanese government hid radiation from its own people, it purportedly did share it with the U.S. military.] “Such reports were widely circulated with the defendant, TEPCO’s, organization at the time it was published, despite the fact that the defendant knew that higher levels of radiation existed within the area whereat the plaintiffs and their vessel would be and were operating.” *** “According to then-existing data uniquely known to the defendant at the time, the plaintiffs’ consequent exposure to radiation within their zone of operation, then indicated that radiation levels had already reached levels exceeding the levels of exposure to which those living the same distance from Chernobyl experienced who subsequently developed cancer,” the complaint states. [Yup.] *** The sailors say they “face additional and irreparable harm to their life expectancy, which has been shortened and cannot be restored to its prior condition.” But surely the Japanese government and Tepco are on top of things now … Not exactly:

CNN notes that experts call Japan cleanup effort meaningless … an endless task that’s simply spreading around radiation

Tepco has taken extraordinary steps to hide radiation by blocking radiation monitors with thick metal and other foreign objects.
And see this
Officials have made use of contaminated Fukushima rice in school lunches mandatory


...

[seemslikeadream]

thanks hanshan

something tells me there's a reason Japan is so obsessed with "other...not so contaminated" islands these days

Senkaku/Diaoyu islands: Japan may release China radar data

[seemslikeadream]

Fukushima radiation spread to residential areas hours before venting
Radioactive material from the damaged Fukushima No. 1 Nuclear Power Plant spread to residential areas hours before workers vented the containment vessel of the plant's No. 1 reactor on March 12, 2011, to release pressure, it has emerged.

In one area, the level of radiation had surged to more than 700 times the normal level, indicating that many local residents were exposed to high levels of radiation before they evacuated.

The Fukushima Prefectural Government operated 25 monitoring posts around the nuclear power plant before it was crippled by the March 11, 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami. Five monitoring posts were swept away by the tsunami, and 20 couldn't send data because the quake caused power cuts. Accordingly, officials were unable to put the data to use when evacuating residents.

Over the period up until September last year, the prefectural government collected and analyzed data from the 20 monitoring posts that survived the disaster. Results of its analysis were published on the prefectural government's website and the prefecture notified local bodies. However, it was not revealed that radiation had spread before the plant's operator, Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO), commenced venting operations -- and neither the Diet nor the government's nuclear accident investigation committees were aware of the fact.

Workers are believed to have first tried opening a vent at the plant at 10:17 a.m. on March 12, 2011. TEPCO reported success after a fourth venting operation at about 2:30 p.m. the same day.

However, data at four monitoring posts in the Koriyama, Yamada, Kamihatori and Shinzan districts in the Fukushima Prefecture town of Futaba indicated that radiation levels had risen hours before TEPCO starting opening the vents.

Radiation dosages in the four areas before the disaster ranged between 0.04 and 0.05 microsieverts per hour, but as of 5 a.m. the level in the Koriyama district, located about 2.5 kilometers north of the plant, had swelled to 0.48 microsieverts per hour and at 6 a.m. it stood at 2.94 microsieverts per hour. By 9 a.m., roughly one hour before officials started opening the vent, the hourly radiation level had surged to 7.8 microsieverts. In the Yamada district 5.5 kilometers west of the power plant, the radiation level at 10 a.m. had increased to 32.47 microsieverts per hour -- roughly 720 times the normal figure.

The average radiation dosage permitted by the government under normal conditions works out at 0.23 microsieverts per hour. The data obtained from the monitoring posts shows that radiation levels shot up rapidly over a short period of time. Officials believe that the radiation levels were affected by changes in the wind direction.

A final report by the Diet's independent commission to investigate the Fukushima disaster concluded that the core of the No. 1 reactor at the Fukushima plant melted down between the evening of March 11, 2011 and the predawn hours of March 12 due to a total loss of power. Officials believe that the reactor's pressure container and other equipment were damaged, leading to a leak of radioactive material.

The Fukushima Prefectural Government ordered residents within a two-kilometer radius of the plant to evacuate at 8:50 p.m. on March 11. At 9:23 p.m. the central government expanded the scope of the evacuation zone to three kilometers around the plant. The following morning at 5:44 a.m. the central government ordered residents within a 10 kilometer radius to evacuate on the presumption that reactor vents would be opened. However, it was not until 8 a.m. on March 12 that many of the roughly 50,000 residents within the zone started evacuating. It is believed that radiation spread over a wide area after the fourth venting operation, as well as after a hydrogen explosion at 3:36 p.m. Thirty minutes after the fourth venting operation, the radiation level in the Kamihatori district stood at 1,591 microsieverts.

Kunikazu Noguchi, an expert on radiological protection at Nihon University, commented that the levels of radiation before venting were not high enough to immediately affect people's health, with the dosage from one hour of exposure being less than that received during a chest X-ray. However, he added, "We have to investigate how the radioactive materials spread and how much radiation residents were exposed to."

Mitsuhiko Tanaka, who served as a member of the National Diet of Japan Fukushima Accident Independent Investigation Committee, expressed surprise at the quick proliferation of radiation. He said it is assumed that radioactive substances leaked from the reactor judging from pressure changed inside the reactor, and it has been confirmed that radiation levels rose on the premises of the nuclear plant. However, he added there were issues that had yet to be solved.

"We haven't yet been able to identify the location within the reactor containment vessel from which radioactive materials leaked," he said. "There's a mountain of issues that should be examined before we start talking about restarting nuclear reactors."

The prefectural government did not finish analyzing data from the monitoring posts until after the government and Diet compiled their final reports on the Fukushima disaster, and the data is not reflected in heath checks currently performed on Fukushima Prefectural residents.

"If the prefectural government was thinking firstly about the health of its residents, then it would have considered the data vital information that needed to be analyzed quickly," said Reiko Hachisuka, who represented Fukushima Prefecture at the Diet's Fukushima accident investigation committee. "As a prefectural resident, I find the Fukushima Prefectural Government's response shameful."

[seemslikeadream]

Japanese Blogger’s Troubling Insight into the Psyche of Post-Disaster Fukushima Residents
yesterday by Philip Kendall

In just 10 days’ time, two years will have passed since the magnitude-9.03 earthquake off the coast of Northeastern Japan shook the country to its core. The resulting tsunami killed thousands of people living in coastal areas and knocked out power to cooling systems at the now infamous Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant, which ultimately led to the incident that has been cited by many as the worse nuclear disaster since Chernobyl. People living nearby were ordered to evacuate, and thousands more from surrounding areas fled for fear of being exposed to radiation. Many have never returned.

Despite some areas of Fukushima remaining unsafe to enter, with a population of nearly 2 million, life goes on in the troubled prefecture. Kids go to school; parents go to work; people are doing their best to get back to normal.

According to one former Fukushima resident, however, there is something very much amiss in the prefecture. An uncomfortable air of forced self-assurance pervades many towns, and the general message of “all is well” is repeated ad nauseam, with those who go against the grain met with disdain and reproach.


In an article published by influential social commentary website Blogos, Satoshi Nakajima, a computer engineer whose credentials include having worked for Japan’s own NTT Communications and being the chief architect on Microsoft’s Windows 95 and 98 operating systems, recently discussed the state of things in Fukushima Prefecture two years after the disaster.

Quoting a message posted to Kodomofukushima, a support group for those with young children and have been affected by the events at Fukushima Daiichi, Nakajima points to worrying trends in the region, suggesting that it is falling into a “wartime-like” state where people must join the general consensus or risk being seen as potentially harmful to society.

A translation of the message Nakajima quotes is as follows:

“Despite evacuating Fukushima in the summer and coming to live in Yamagata Prefecture, I make occasional trips back to the area. I have come to be feel quite alarmed by the way of thinking and the overall feeling in the air within Fukushima, and I feel that these attitudes have become more and more common in recent times. From doctors and hospital staff to schools and city officials, the message being repeated over and over is that Fukushima is safe, so much so that I have come to feel that, if I didn’t go along with it and join in this way of thinking, then I would simply not be welcome there.

“The message being passed around is that worrying too much about radiation and the safety of our children actually has a negative effect on them, and that by removing their children from the area mothers run the risk of breaking up their families. People have begun saying ‘For the sake of my child’s health, I’m not going to think about radiation any more.’

“Those who have questions or doubts regarding the information given to them by the government and local authorities come to be thought of as intentionally going against the system. Meanwhile, the people who dare to speak of moving away for their own safety are often considered to be selfish, egotistical beings who are doing little more than abandoning their home towns. I feel like we are all being led in one, incredibly restrictive, direction. We find ourselves in the bizarre situation where those who – without bias or intent – simply want to know more about the current situation and what will happen next, or to learn from the events of the past and go forward, are seen as individuals to be wary of. Thinking independently, experiencing things first-hand, raising issues or making suggestions that go against the grain; it almost feels like all of these things have come to be prohibited.”

Although this may not reflect the thoughts and opinions of the entire population of Fukushima, it is worrying to think even one individual has come to feel this way. In his article, Nakajima likens the situation that of an almost totalitarian state, wherein one either adheres to the commonly held belief set or is seen as a potential threat:

“The government has created an environment wherein people are going about their daily lives, all the time wondering whether their child will develop cancer or leukemia, yet conditioned not to breathe a word about it. It’s like living in wartime Japan again.”



Pointing to the government’s failure to take full responsibility for the nuclear disaster, Nakajima tells of how officials have changed their definitions for what is “safe” when it comes to exposure to radiation, saying: ”We cannot put our faith in a government that is telling us ‘there is no immediate harm,’ when, prior to the accident, entry into areas with the same amount of radiation would have been prohibited.”

With hundreds of people still existing in a state of limbo and only just coming to terms with the fact that it may not be possible to return to the homes that they initially thought they would be leaving only temporarily, it would be impossible to suggest that the Fukushima disaster is even close to over. Despite this situation, many members of the Japanese parliament continue to stress the need to restart idling reactors elsewhere in the country, something that Nakajima among others is far from on board with.

“The accident has already happened. At this time, people ought to be told, ‘Those living in areas with yearly radiation levels of five millisieverts or more must evacuate, and those in areas with one millisievert or more may choose to leave if they wish.’ The government (TEPCO) should accept responsibility and buy the land that these people once called home, and help them to find jobs and settle elsewhere. A government that cannot fulfill these basic responsibilities is not qualified to restart nuclear reactors.”

As someone who called the region home for five years between July 2006 and 2011, this writer will always have a special place in his heart for Fukushima. So to think that this beautiful prefecture’s people may be – as the above ex-resident suggests in her message to the support group – feeling pressured to conform to the view that all is well and to gradually convince themselves of that fact is saddening to say the very least. But with friends, family and jobs in the region and no desire to leave everything they have worked to build up behind, what choice do these people have other than to assure themselves that everything is under control and that they are quite safe within Fukushima? After all, what quality of life can a person hope to have if they spend their every waking hour fearing for their physical wellbeing?

But if there is even an ounce of truth to the above account and it is the case that those who simply ask questions and demand more of their leaders come close to being ostracized, then I would hope that, as we approach the two-year anniversary of the worst crisis that Japan has seen since World War II, the world will once again return its attention to Fukushima and ask what is being done to help its surviving residents, and to consider how the effects of the nuclear disaster linger even today.

the plague what moves throughout this land


tomorrow's child is the only child

Cancer Risk From Fukushima Found in Japanese Infants

[hanshan]

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http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/may/28/who-nuclear-power-chernobyl/print

Toxic link: the WHO and the IAEA

A 50-year-old agreement with the IAEA has effectively
gagged the WHO from telling the truth about the health risks of radiation

Oliver Tickell
guardian.co.uk, Thursday 28 May 2009 03.00 EDT


Fifty years ago, on 28 May 1959, the World Health Organisation's assembly voted into force an obscure but important agreement with the International Atomic Energy Agency – the United Nations "Atoms for Peace" organisation, founded just two years before in 1957. The effect of this agreement has been to give the IAEA an effective veto on any actions by the WHO that relate in any way to nuclear power – and so prevent the WHO from playing its proper role in investigating and warning of the dangers of nuclear radiation on human health.

The WHO's objective is to promote "the attainment by all peoples of the highest possible level of health", while the IAEA's mission is to "accelerate and enlarge the contribution of atomic energy to peace, health and prosperity throughout the world". Although best known for its work to restrict nuclear proliferation, the IAEA's main role has been to promote the interests of the nuclear power industry worldwide, and it has used the agreement to suppress the growing body of scientific information on the real health risks of nuclear radiation.

Under the agreement, whenever either organisation wants to do anything in which the other may have an interest, it "shall consult the other with a view to adjusting the matter by mutual agreement". The two agencies must "keep each other fully informed concerning all projected activities and all programs of work which may be of interest to both parties". And in the realm of statistics – a key area in the epidemiology of nuclear risk – the two undertake "to consult with each other on the most efficient use of information, resources, and technical personnel in the field of statistics and in regard to all statistical projects dealing with matters of common interest".

The language appears to be evenhanded, but the effect has been one-sided. For example, investigations into the health impacts of the Chernobyl nuclear accident in Ukraine on 26 April 1986 have been effectively taken over by IAEA and dissenting information has been suppressed. The health effects of the accident were the subject of two major conferences, in Geneva in 1995, and in Kiev in 2001. But the full proceedings of those conferences remain unpublished – despite claims to the contrary by a senior WHO spokesman reported in Le Monde Diplomatique.

Meanwhile, the 2005 report of the IAEA-dominated Chernobyl Forum, which estimates a total death toll from the accident of only several thousand, is widely regarded as a whitewash as it ignores a host of peer-reviewed epidemiological studies indicating far higher mortality and widespread genomic damage. Many of these studies were presented at the Geneva and Kiev conferences but they, and the ensuing learned discussions, have yet to see the light of day thanks to the non-publication of the proceedings.

The British radiation biologist Keith Baverstock is another casualty of the agreement, and of the mindset it has created in the WHO. He served as a radiation scientist and regional adviser at the WHO's European Office from 1991 to 2003, when he was sacked after expressing concern to his senior managers that new epidemiological evidence from nuclear test veterans and from soldiers exposed to depleted uranium indicated that current risk models for nuclear radiation were understating the real hazards.

Now a professor at the University of Kuopio, Finland, Baverstock finally published his paper in the peer-reviewed journal Medicine, Conflict and Survival in April 2005. He concluded by calling for "reform from within the profession" and stressing "the political imperative for freely independent scientific institutions" – a clear reference to the non-independence of his former employer, the WHO, which had so long ignored his concerns.

Since the 21st anniversary of the Chernobyl disaster in April 2007, a daily "Hippocratic vigil" has taken place at the WHO's offices in Geneva, organised by Independent WHO to persuade the WHO to abandon its the WHO-IAEA Agreement. The protest has continued through the WHO's 62nd World Health Assembly, which ended yesterday, and will endure through the executive board meeting that begins today. The group has struggled to win support from WHO's member states. But the scientific case against the agreement is building up, most recently when the European Committee on Radiation Risk (ECRR) called for its abandonment at its conference earlier this month in Lesvos, Greece.

At the conference, research was presented indicating that as many as a million children across Europe and Asia may have died in the womb as a result of radiation from Chernobyl, as well as hundreds of thousands of others exposed to radiation fallout, backing up earlier findings published by the ECRR in Chernobyl 20 Years On: Health Effects of the Chernobyl Accident. Delegates heard that the standard risk models for radiation risk published by the International Committee on Radiological Protection (ICRP), and accepted by WHO, underestimate the health impacts of low levels of internal radiation by between 100 and 1,000 times – consistent with the ECRR's own 2003 model of radiological risk (The Health Effects of Ionising Radiation Exposure at Low Doses and Low Dose Rates for Radiation Protection Purposes: Regulators' Edition). According to Chris Busby, the ECRR's scientific secretary and visiting professor at the University of Ulster's school of biomedical sciences:

"The subordination of the WHO to IAEA is a key part of the systematic falsification of nuclear risk which has been under way ever since Hiroshima, the agreement creates an unacceptable conflict of interest in which the UN organisation concerned with promoting our health has been made subservient to those whose main interest is the expansion of nuclear power. Dissolving the WHO-IAEA agreement is a necessary first step to restoring the WHO's independence to research the true health impacts of ionising radiation and publish its findings."

Some birthdays deserve celebration – but not this one. After five decades, it is time the WHO regained the freedom to impart independent, objective advice on the health risks of radiation.

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