My Own Private 3/11 Anniversary

Yesterday, I was in Osaka to commemorate Japan Meltdown Day, March 11. My plan was to join one of the protest events organized that day and which none of the English language newspapers mentioned. If you looked up Osaka in the news, you would probably hit some story about sumo. Some Japanese newspapers started to report more accurately the disastrous situation in which Japan is getting deeper everyday. However, their focus remains the No Man’s Land, i.e. Tokyo and North-East Japan, which incidentally is the raison d’etre of SurvivalJapan. Besides, this defiant attitude costs them to lose access to the government press club and a Japanese journalist friend of mine told me that this particular newspaper was on the verge of bankruptcy. This is Japan, not Singapore, but the press is not free to speak. It is a concern if the only newspaper that tries to speak out is about to shut down.

So I arrived late for events in Osaka yesterday and missed them. Ten thousands people were to gather in the morning at the large hall of the City Hall on Nakanoshima isle. In the afternoon, protesters marched along one of three different paths converging towards KEPCO headquarters, Midosuji and Nishi-Umeda. A foreign friend of mine who attended told me that the crowd was lively and angry at the government and utilities yet very friendly and enjoying themselves. Japanese information on this “Bye Bye Gempatsu (Nuclear Power) 3/11 Kansai 10,000 Protesters Event” is available on this website. I walked alone from Umeda to Nakanoshima Park and all trace of the meeting of 10,000 had disappeared.

I was hoping to catch up with the “humanError national 100,000 participants parade” after the incredibly spot-on recording by the Frying Dutchman near Kamogawa river and Sanjo St. in Kyoto, a group of Japanese artists. They show that not every Japanese youth is self-centered and disconnected from reality, they are the future of Japan if this country solidifies again – and if yakuza don’t kill them. Frying Dutchman sees right through the enemies of Japan and their non-violent message is ultimately about love. They were touring in Okinawa yesterday but were followed all over the country. Their website is available in English here and you can watch their video with English subtitles. Frying Dutchman’s message resonates so strongly in our hearts that it is impossible to watch without tears in our eyes, for us who live through this never-ending disaster. The video has been seen by more than 150,000 viewers on YouTube alone as of writing and is fast becoming viral. I am sad because I know that most people who have not experienced living in melted down Japan will not understand. Actually most of the foreigners still living in Japan chose to close their eyes and ears to their environment: it is so easy to ignore the evil spirit which now inhabits every bit of Japan. It will take the same human error again and again, in each country, like blind earthworms hit the electric wire time and again without understanding, until we are all burnt and eventually get a hint.

Bye Bye Nuclear Power March In Kyoto

A march of citizens against nuclear power and incineration of radioactive waste takes place today, 2012 March 10, in Kyoto. Japanese and foreign residents remain highly motivated as the Japanese government is renewing their efforts to promote the widespread burning and dumping of hazardous debris which contains, besides radioactive elements from the fallout, chemicals such asbestos from buildings swept away by the tsunami. It was revealed last week that plutonium was among the radionuclides found at mid-distance between Fukushima melted reactors and Tokyo.

Bye Bye "Gembatsu" (Nuclear Power) Kyoto - 2012 March 10

Renowned Professor Hiroaki Koide (小出裕章) gave a kick-off speech at 14 h. For those who, like me, missed it, or who read his name for the first time, please check him out on the Internet. On YouTube, for instance, we can see him testifying in the Diet, with this introduction :

“Koide Hiroaki:
[An assistant professor of “Kyoto University Research Reactor Institute”, a famous scholar of nuclear engineering. Graduated from Tohoku University, school of engineering in 1972 ]

Mr. Koide Hiroaki is a “Samurai” in the nuclear world. He has been struggling with gigantic nuclear conglomerate, for 40 years. Because of his anti nuclear activities, he has been ignored by government, scholars of nuclear, and industries. But after Fukushima, he became a symbol of Japanese conscience.
This video is an official document of his testimony at the Diet, concerning nuclear policies of Japan. He criticized national policies from the viewpoint of scientist. I attached English subtitles for announcing this to whole world.
Miki Shunji / Chief executive of MCRC “

In the following Asahi TV interview aired two days ago in “Morning Bird” programme, he explains with scientific authority to reporter Toru Tamakawa nothing less but the end of Tokyo in case a slight tremor shakes again reactor 4 in Fukushima nuclear plant, one time too many.

Protesters gathered in Maruyama park are good-natured citizens who dress up for the occasion. A majority of union members are there, together with professors, artists, concerned parents with their children and some odd Raelians cultists dressed in cosplay. It is not clear why the latter are against nuclear power, but there is a lot of human misery and anxiety in Japan in the wake of the political crisis of the government bent on mass murder with nuclear waste and 1933 Germany reminiscent tactics, and dangerous cults prey on lost souls.

Friendly dressed up protesters in Maruyama Koen

Stop Nuclear Power ("Genpatsu") in Maruyama Park

Nuclear Incident in Kyushu December Update 4

The last nuclear power plant reactor in Kyushu was taken off-line towards the end of December 2011, leaving the Japanese southern island free of nuclear produced-electricity. Off-line reactors are not necessarily safe in case of earthquake, tsunami or human error, all of which are far too common in Japan to allow such utilities to be but ticking bombs.

It is however a first step towards a nuclear-free island, which produces most of the domestic food, including beef (the famous so-called “Kobe beef” is raised in Miyazaki, Kyushu) now that Hokkaido is contaminated. Besides nuclear fallout, the town of Tomakomai in Hokkaido decided to incinerate nuclear waste against the will of citizens, as reported in Tomakomai Minpo on 2011 December 8. The translated and commented article is available on Ex-SKF blog here. Tomakomai is located on the southern shore, about 50 km / 30 miles away from Sapporo, with a mostly residential / industrial plain between these cities (agricultural products come mainly from Tokachi plain on the east coast which has been under nuclear fallout most of spring and summer 2011).

Politicians and executives will likely get away with public opinion manipulation and other scandals in Kyushu as articles below show: a mere salary cut whereas in some more democratic countries, they might have been jailed. Besides, the Nishinippon Shimbun newspaper cancelled the publication of an anti-nuclear book due to pression from the same utility, which shows that public opinion manipulation is deeply rooted in Kyushu Electric Power Co. and Kyushu political institutions. Indeed, Saga Gov. Yasushi Furukawa is assured to get a highly paid sinecure in Kyushu Electric Power Co. after he “retires”.

Kyushu is the last large clean food producer in Japan and it has not accepted any nuclear waste for incineration yet: it may as well become the future of Japan.

Hereafter are reproduced several articles found in Japanese news in December 2011, as original articles might become unavailable soon:

Safe Food Scarcity

Safe food is getting scarcer in Japan, even out of the no man’s land, in what I call the monitored land. Surviving in Japan supposes boycotting any food from areas northeastern of Nagoya included and of course any sea product from the North Pacific Ocean. This strict rule makes shopping complicated but nowhere as eating out. The end of the year brings a new threat in traditional food gifts that Japanese offer, i.e. “oseibo” (in Japanese 「お歳暮」. It is hard to be always on one’s guard and make rational choices as to what to eat and it is socially a burden when one constantly has to ask for the source of ingredients of any food in shops and restaurants. Furthermore, when the temptation is from one’s relatives and friends, it is almost impossible for anyone to resist and discard the gift, like Snow White could not decline the shiny red apple for the gentle old, poor woman who actually was intent on killing her.

Concerned Mothers Make Declaration Against Radioactive Waste Incineration At Osaka Prefecture

Concerned mothers made a formal declaration and held a press conference at Osaka Prefecture Main Building (Osaka-fu-cho, in Japanese 「大阪府庁」) on Friday, December 16th at 10:00 am. A panel of three mothers read a declaration stating that the plan of Osaka Mayor, M. Hashimoto, to accept radioactive waste from Iwate prefecture for incineration, is harmful for children. The declaration was received by three prefecture representatives, one who asked genuine questions, another who seemed condescending and the third who kept quiet. The most visible news team was ABC News. The room was small and supporters, mostly standing up, numbered about 50. There were only three Western foreigners present including myself.

Butter In Japan

Butter in Japan mainly comes from its northern island Hokkaido, along with many dairy products such as milk, which is at the center of the latest radioactive food scandal.

The east coast of Hokkaido was visited by radioactive fallout from Fukushima most Spring and Summer days. Fishermen bring in their catch from radioactive Pacific Ocean close to Fukushima so that fish can be sold nationwide as products “from Hokkaido”. It is rumored to arrive at night in Nagoya for distribution throughout Japan. Domestic fish has become a major public health hazard in Japan and is exported worldwide.

There might be some safe areas left in Hokkaido but the prefecture lost all my trust for allowing various food scams to support contaminated regions. Besides it’s impossible to tell where in Hokkaido butter comes from, much less which milk and cream were used as ingredients.

A popular butter in Japan is the Snow Brand Hokkaido Butter, from the company that poisoned 15000 Japanese in 2000 and secretly recycled old milk to make other products – not to be trusted in these trying times.

Nuclear Ginza Neighboring Prefecture Denied Nuclear Simulation Data

The coast of the Sea of Japan is illuminated by a string of nuclear power plant reactors which is locally known as the Nuclear Ginza, after the name of a dazzling international shopping area in Tokyo. Three months ago, in our post Shiga Nuclear Disaster Simulation Pulled Off NHK News, SurvivalJapan introduced the attempt by Shiga prefecture to simulate the effects of a nuclear disaster in one of these reactors, for instance the troubled Mihama where a water leak occured just last week as reported in Mihama Reactor Shutdown Update 1 on SurvivalJapan.

Shiga is on the eastern border of the monitored land, i.e. the safer part of Japan where anything might happen and which needs to be carefully monitored, as explained in Japan Livability Map September 2011 and in our later posts. Shiga capital city is Otsu, at the southernmost tip of the Lake Biwa (or Biwako) which provides the region with tap water, including neighboring Kyoto city. Maps of Shiga and of the nuclear fallout which would result from a disaster at Mihama are available in Another Troubled Nuclear Reactor Shuts Down on SurvivalJapan.

Asahi Shimbun just published an article of difficulties that Shiga prefecture faces in getting access to the nationwide SPEEDI nuclear simulation data – the system which results were ignored by the government in the aftermath of March 11, as then Prime Minister M. Naoto Kan chose to apply an unsophisticated geometrical circle rule around Fukushima ground zero instead. It is telling that a prefecture cannot have access to some SPEEDI data but that pro-nuclear Yomiuri Shimbun could – and quickly at that – and used it to calculate some radiation dose in the wake of Fukushima disaster, as reported in their March 27 article titled Radiation doses spread unequally / Experts say govt should give more detail in designating evacuation zones.

The article is reproduced below and illustrates that although the Japanese population gives some signs of changing its opinion and that some prefectures get the clue of this political shift, the Japanese government has yet to feel it and adapt. Also it is a reminder that a technologically advanced country such as Japan may have everything it needs to simulate and forecast issues; monitor radiation and efficiently communicate about it; display unique humanoid robots and rescue teleoperation machines; move seamlessly people around and quickly build housings – it is all for nothing without proper political leadership.

Last, it is made clear that the concern of the Japanese government, more specifically of its MEXT and METI ministries, is not to avert another Fukushima-style disaster but to keep the nuclear energy sector afloat. As mentioned in earlier posts, the CIA has been pushing for this since the fifties through Yomiuri Shimbun (actually much more than just a newspaper) and the main Japanese nuclear companies are joint ventures with American companies (GE Hitachi Nuclear Energy and Toshiba Westinghouse). This blog engine being American, SurvivalJapan should remain quite safe if certain industrial interests are not discussed here, even though they are in the public domain. Most blogs about Fukushima nuclear disaster hosted in Japan have been pulled off-line so I will simply invite the interested reader to Google it up for herself (some extra keywords: Gregory Jaczko, Matsutaro Shoriki, Bill Magwood and why not a recent article by Yomiuri Shimbun itself titled U.S. to restart construction of N-reactors / Toshiba arm to deliver new model to better understand why there are almost no report of nuclear fallout from Fukushima in the US – enough said).

Fire And Water At Japanese Nuclear Power Plants

Not a day passes without news of fires and water leaks in various nuclear power plants in Japan: after Fukushima, Genkai, Mihama leaks last week (these are geographically as far as can be from each other in Japan), it is the turn of Tsuruga in Fukui prefecture to be on fire (again). Tsuruga is, along with other troubled Mihama and Monju reactors, situated on “Nuclear Ginza” coast of the Sea of Japan in Honshu, close enough to cities like Nagoya and Kyoto to cause a disaster in case of accident.

Nuclear Incident in Kyushu December Update 3

Mainichi Shimbun reported further issues at Genkai Nuclear Power Plant in Kyushu. The water leaks follow those at Mihama and Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant last week and a fire yesterday at Tsuruga Nuclear Power Plant (read about it in Fire And Water At Japanese Nuclear Power Plants on Survival Japan). Previous update is available here. It mentioned that there hadn’t been any radioactive material leak, which of course was inexact (although KEPCO tries hard to prove there is no causal link between the leaks and the radiation surge) – incidentally JAPC declared the same regarding Tsuruga today.

About Genkai, claims by the local government that radiation levels ″sometimes rises under natural conditions such as rain″ might be half-truths as radioactive rains are not natural conditions, but it is irrelevant nonetheless in the current nuclear power plant leak context. Besides, ″the usual range of 433 to 472 cpm″ is not harmless – it is about 10 times readings I measured elsewhere in Japan (Cf. Geiger Counter Case Study: Inspector Alert on SurvivalJapan – although results in the post are given in uS/h, in fact 40 cpm was a typical value).

Nuclear power plants in “normal operation” in the US leak a ″little″ amount of radioactivity which operators must report to the NRC. Japanese nuclear power plants are similar although I am not aware of any such reporting in Japan.

Mainichi Shimbun – Radiation rose slightly afterwater leak at Genkai plant

SAGA, Japan (Kyodo) — A radiation reading at Kyushu Electric Power Co.’s Genkai nuclear power plant in Saga Prefecture rose slightly above the usual range after coolant water leaked there Friday, the prefectural government said Sunday.

The reading at an outlet for seawater cooling the No. 3 reactor’s secondary cooling system was 473 counts per minute at 3 p.m. Friday, against the usual range of 433 to 472 cpm, not high enough to immediately impact human health, it said.

On Friday morning, 1.8 tons of primary coolant water containing radioactive materials leaked within the reactor’s purification system. The utility claimed the radiation reading is unrelated to that leak and said it will investigate the cause.

Water used in treating low-level radioactive waste is sometimes discharged from the outlet, but that was not the case Friday, the local government said, adding the reading sometimes rises under natural conditions such as rain.

(Mainichi Japan) December 12, 2011

Original article may still be available at this link.

Further updates with “not so slight levels” or such as “Yukio Edano ordered the last Genkai reactor to shut down” for instance are foreseeable.

Tokyo And Osaka Anti-Nuclear Rallies – Media Coverage

The only reporter I could spot at the Osaka protest (Cf. Protest Against Radioactive Waste In Osaka in SurvivalJapan) was from the Mainichi Shimbun. Yomiuri Shimbun is a pro-nuclear news and powerful lobby with links to the CIA since the 1950, with its head Matsutaro Shoriki, to promote and sustain nuclear energy (and possibly weapon technology?) in Japan so their coverage is less and more biased unfortunately. Asahi Shimbun reported about a petition signature campaign in both Tokyo and Osaka on the same day for a referendum to take place, as per their article reproduced below: