Speak Out Against Nukes In Japan And For Evacuation of Families and Children of Fukushima

4/11 Rally-Speak Out Against Nukes In Japan And For Evacuation of Families and Children of Fukushima
Monday April 11, 2016 3:00 PM
275 Battery St./California St.
San Francisco

On Monday April 11, people will speak out at the San Francisco Japanese consulate against the restart of over 40 nuclear plants in Japan. Despite the fact that Fukushima continues to leak radioactive water and material the Japanese Abe government is pushing ahead along with Tokyo Electric Power Company and other utilities in Japan to restart the dangerous nuclear plants. They are also telling the people of Japan, the US and the world that they have solved the problems of Fukushima and it has been "decontaminated" so people can move back. They are also launching a PR campaign called "Return To Normalcy". This government corporate propaganda campaign is to assure the people of Japan and the world that everything is back to normal in Fukushima. They are pushing tourists to come despite the continued high levels of radiation and the danger for children, families and animals.
Additionally thousands of nuclear plant clean up workers have been contaminated and the government has allowed sub sub contractors including the Yakuza to recruit homeless and day laborers to work in the plant without proper health and safety instructions and protection.
We will speak out for the children and families of Fukushima and also oppose the growing militarization and secrecy laws which the government passed against mass opposition. The people of Japan by a vast majority do not want the nuclear plants running, the remilitarization of Japan and more bases including in Okinawa. The government has now admitted that US nuclear weapons were on board ships in Okinawa although this was against the US-Japan Security Agreement and put the people of Okinawa in jeopardy.
The people of Japan, the US and the entire world cannot afford another Fukushima.
Join US

Speak Out and Rally initiated by
No Nukes Action Committee
http://nonukesaction.wordpress.com/
For more information
(510) 495-5952

Japan TEPCO draws fire after apologizing to Niigata panel “It is out of the question for TEPCO to seek to restart its reactors, given its corporate culture.”
http://ajw.asahi.com/article/behind_news/social_affairs/AJ201603240072
March 24, 2016

THE ASAHI SHIMBUN
NIIGATA--Even when they apologize, executives of Tokyo Electric Power Co. can still manage to draw additional criticism.

The executives, who hope to restart one of the largest nuclear power plants in the world in Niigata Prefecture, held talks here March 23 with a nuclear technology committee set up at the prefectural government.

Takafumi Anegawa, chief nuclear officer of TEPCO, offered an apology for the utility’s misleading responses to the committee’s repeated inquiries about the meltdowns at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant.

Specifically, Anegawa acknowledged that TEPCO could have declared the triple meltdown at the plant a few days after the crisis unfolded following the Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami on March 11, 2011, instead of two months later.

TEPCO said late last month that it had found a passage detailing the criteria of a meltdown in its emergency response manual. Had the company known about that passage when the accident started, TEPCO said, it could have declared the meltdowns earlier.

When pressed by the Niigata committee on March 23 on why it took five years to find such an important passage in the emergency manual, the TEPCO executives did not give an explanation, saying the matter was still under investigation.

Committee members voiced their displeasure.

“Why did TEPCO turn it up now?” asked Masaaki Tateishi, professor emeritus of sedimentology at Niigata University. “It is out of the question for TEPCO to seek to restart its reactors, given its corporate culture.”

Mitsuhiko Tanaka, a journalist covering nuclear technology and a committee member, said TEPCO has again shown its slipshod approach toward dealing with an accident.

“TEPCO must have produced the manual but did not read it,” he said. “What it comes down to is that (its employees) had not been well trained.”

TEPCO plans to bring online two of the seven reactors at the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa nuclear plant in Niigata Prefecture and has submitted a safety screening application to the Nuclear Regulation Authority.

The Kashiwazaki-Kariwa plant has a capacity of 8.21 gigawatts.

However, Niigata Governor Hirohiko Izumida remains cautious toward restarting the nuclear plant, even if the reactors meet the NRA’s stricter safety regulations that were set following the Fukushima nuclear disaster.

The governor believes the full picture of the Fukushima disaster has not been unveiled.

The Niigata nuclear technology committee has been looking into what went wrong at the Fukushima plant, even after the Diet and the government wrapped up their investigations into the nation’s worst nuclear accident.

In autumn 2013, the committee set up an investigative panel to determine why TEPCO’s official acknowledgment of the meltdowns was delayed.

The panel demanded explanations from the company. TEPCO said in a reply in November 2015 that what constitutes a meltdown “had not been defined” within the company.

The panel kept pressing TEPCO, and in late February, TEPCO admitted that the manual used at the time of the Fukushima disaster had a passage defining a meltdown.

Anegawa told the committee on March 23 that the passage was uncovered during an investigation conducted “with the utmost care” to determine whether the delay in reporting to the government the meltdowns and other aspects of the Fukushima accident violated the law.

However, he declined to discuss details of how the company came across the passage, saying a third-party panel comprising lawyers and other experts were studying the issue.

After the meeting, Anegawa told reporters that he regretted the company’s probe “was not thorough.” He did not say when the third-party panel will release its findings.

Committee chief Ken Nakajima, professor of reactor safety at Kyoto University’s Research Reactor Institute, said the committee will continue to demand explanations from TEPCO.

“Humans are the ones who must ensure the safety (of nuclear facilities),” he told reporters. “Trust in TEPCO has been eroding. We cannot move ahead unless we are convinced of the veracity of what the company says.”

Governor Izumida, who has long questioned TEPCO’s credibility, declined an offer from TEPCO President Naomi Hirose in January to collaborate in drawing up an evacuation plan for a possible emergency at the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa plant.

“We cannot evacuate if you hide a meltdown,” the governor told Hirose during the meeting at the prefectural government building.

Izumida’s distrust of the utility runs deep.

After the Fukushima accident unfolded, Izumida confronted TEPCO officials over their previous denials over the phone that meltdowns had occurred at the plant.

The governor insisted that nuclear fuel rods must have melted, but the TEPCO officials repeated their denials by drawing a diagram of the reactors.

(This article was compiled from reports by Yuko Matsuura, Kyota Tanaka, Jin Nishikawa and Tomoyoshi Otsu.)

THE ASAHI SHIMBUN

Fukushima town remains empty, but nuclear slogan disappears
http://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20160327/p2g/00m/0dm/034000c

March 27, 2016 (Mainichi Japan)

FUTABA, Fukushima (Kyodo) -- The clock at a train station here still points to 2:46 p.m., the time when the massive earthquake occurred on March 11, 2011, triggering devastating tsunami.

The town, which is home to part of Tokyo Electric Power Co.'s radiation-leaking Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, remains empty as all residents had to evacuate due to high levels of radiation following the nuclear accident triggered by the natural disaster five years ago.

At a gymnasium in Futaba, fallen ceiling panels were left without being cleared. Everything is covered with dust.

Just outside the gymnasium, there used to be a slogan which appeared frequently in media reports in the past five years. The signboard reading "Nuclear power: the energy for a bright future," has turned into an ironic reminder of how Japan had blindly worshipped nuclear energy's safety.

In December last year, the slogan was removed from the signboard by town authorities. The town explained that the signs had become "decrepit" and they could fall, according to Yuji Onuma, a Futaba resident who has evacuated to Ibaraki Prefecture near Tokyo.

Onuma, 40, is the one who created the slogan in 1988 when he was in the sixth grade. Back then, he was commended by the town mayor and felt "proud." Onuma recalls that he used to pass under the signboard every day on his commute to work.

But since the disaster and ensuing nuclear crisis, he started to feel "ashamed." Every time TV footage showed the slogan and the abandoned town as its background, Onuma says the conflicted feelings got worse.

Onuma then thought that he had to "deal with it once and for all." He asked the town to keep the signboard as it is to remember the nuclear accident, even though the request could see him face ridicule in the community.

On March 17 last year, however, the town assembly decided to remove it. Earlier in the month, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe visited Futaba. Town officials trimmed grown tree branches to welcome the premier, which made the sign even more visible.

Onuma opposed the removal, collecting some 7,000 signatures for his cause. In June, Mayor Shiro Izawa decided to keep the removed signboard at the town hall, but Onuma's request that it remain in its original position was denied. The signboard itself was taken away on March 4 this year.