Rally-Speak Out At SF Japan Consulate-Abe Government Stop Restarting NUKE Plants

10/11 Rally-Speak Out At SF Japan Consulate-Abe Government Stop Restarting NUKE Plants and Defend the Children and Families of Fukushima

Rally Speak Out
Wed October 11, 2017
San Francisco Japanese Consulate
275 Battery St. near California St.
San Francisco

On Wednesday October 11, 2017 at the San Francisco Japanese consulate at 3PM people will join together to call for the halt of the restarting of Japanese nuclear plants. The Abe government despite mass opposition of the majority of people in Japan continues to push to restarting of nuclear plants. They also continue to demand that refugee children and families return to Fukushima despite the continue dangers of contamination from a contaminated nuclear plant and thousands of tons of radioactive water tanks surround the plant. Another major earthquake could lead to the immediate release in the ocean of this contaminated water. The government which also controls TEPCO is also allowing the gangster Yakuza to subcontract the repair work at the Fukushima plant. These workers who are day laborers and migrant workers have not had proper education or training and after their use they are dumped by the government.
It is important that people in the United States also continue to join the Japanese people who are also organizing against these Abe policies
The government has also passed a “secrecy law” and “conspiracy law” that threatens the rights of journalists and citizens to release information about the continuing danger of nuclear was. The government is also seeking to repeal Article 9 which prohibits offensive war. The militarization of Japan is a threat to all people of Asia and the world.

Make sure your voice be heard.


Speak Out and Rally initiated by
No Nukes Action Committee
http://nonukesaction.wordpress.com/



Japan Tepco again ordered to pay damages over nuclear disaster but claims against state dismissed
https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2017/09/22/national/crime-legal/tepco-ordered-pay-damages-nuclear-disaster-claims-state-dismissed/#.WcXbCxTD2-Q
KYODO
SEP 22, 2017
CHIBA – Chiba District Court on Friday ordered Tokyo Electric to pay damages over the Fukushima nuclear disaster but dismissed claims against the state.
It is the second time a court has ruled against Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings Inc. in a suit filed by residents forced to abandon their homes when three reactor cores melted following the deadly 2011 earthquake and tsunami, which knocked out their cooling systems.
The triple meltdown spewed massive amounts of radioactive material into the air.
The Chiba District Court awarded ¥376 million to 42 of the 45 plaintiffs who fled Fukushima Prefecture for Chiba Prefecture and filed the suit in March 2013, seeking around ¥2.8 billion in damages from the government and Tepco.
The focal point of the Chiba case was whether the government and Tepco were able to foresee the huge tsunami that hit the seaside plant on March 11, 2011, and take preventive measures beforehand. Conflicting claims were made by the parties regarding the government’s long-term earthquake assessment, which was made public in 2002.
The assessment, made by the earthquake research promotion unit, predicted a 20 percent chance of a magnitude 8 earthquake occurring along the Japan Trench in the Pacific Ocean, including the area off Fukushima, within 30 years.
Based on the assessment, the plaintiffs argued that, with the plant standing on ground roughly 10 meters above sea level, a tsunami higher than that level striking the plant could have been predicted.
They claimed the disaster was therefore preventable by placing emergency generators on higher ground, and that the government should have made Tepco take such measures by exercising its regulatory powers.
The government and Tepco, for their part, claimed the assessment was not established knowledge, and that even if they had foreseen a tsunami higher than the elevation of the plant and taken measures against it, they cannot be held liable as the actual tsunami was much higher, at around 15.5 meters.
The government also argued that it obtained regulatory powers to force Tepco to take anti-flooding measures only after a legislative change following the disaster.
In Friday’s ruling, the court found the state not liable, saying that while the government indeed has such powers, not exercising them was not too unreasonable.
The Chiba case is among around 30 similar lawsuits brought by groups of people forced to evacuate by the nuclear disaster.
In March, the Maebashi District Court in Gunma recognized negligence on the part of not just Tepco, but also the government, saying they were able to foresee a tsunami high enough to inundate the plant.
At the time, it was the first such ruling issued among around 30 similar suits and the first to rule in favor of plaintiffs.
The Maebashi court acknowledged the state had regulatory authority over Tepco even before 3/11, noting that “failing to exercise it is strikingly irrational and illegal.”
But because the court awarded to 62 of 137 plaintiffs a total of ¥38.55 million in damages — far less than the ¥1.5 billion sought in total — many of the plaintiffs have appealed the district court decision.
In the Chiba suit, the 45 plaintiffs, including four who evacuated voluntarily, sought ¥20 million each in compensation for their evacuations and the loss of their hometowns, jobs and personal relationships because their lives were uprooted.
The magnitude 9.0 earthquake and ensuing tsunami struck northeastern Japan on March 11, 2011, causing multiple meltdowns and hydrogen blasts at the nuclear plant.
As of the end of August 2017, around 55,000 people who lived in Fukushima Prefecture at the time of the disaster remained at the locations where they evacuated, both within and outside the prefecture.

Lawsuit filed over kidney disease patient’s death blamed on nuclear accident
https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2017/10/03/national/crime-legal/lawsuit-filed-kidney-disease-patients-death-blamed-nuclear-accident/#.WdRaoRTD2-Q
JIJI
OCT 3, 2017


The daughter of a man who died of kidney disease after the March 2011 meltdowns at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant filed a lawsuit Tuesday seeking ¥31 million in damages from Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings Inc.
The 69-year-old female plaintiff claims that the accident prevented her 88-year-old father, a resident of Hirono, Fukushima Prefecture, from getting proper treatment for his disease.
“My father would have lived longer without the accident,” the daughter, Emiko Endo, told a news conference.
The father, Makoto, was forced to evacuate to Tokyo from his hospital in the Fukushima city of Iwaki so he could continue his dialysis treatments, according to her complaint filed with the Tokyo District Court.
He died in April 2011 after his health condition deteriorated.
Tepco said it will respond to the matter sincerely.

Japan NRA approves safety measures at TEPCO plant in Niigata
http://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/AJ201710040031.html
By MASANOBU HIGASHIYAMA/ Staff Writer
October 4, 2017 at 16:10 JST

Japan’s nuclear watchdog on Oct. 4 approved Tokyo Electric Power Co.’s safety measures taken to restart two reactors in Niigata Prefecture, the first such approval for the company since the Fukushima nuclear disaster unfolded.

The Nuclear Regulation Authority confirmed the results of its screening on the technological aspects of the No. 6 and No. 7 reactors that TEPCO wants to bring online at its Kashiwazaki-Kariwa nuclear plant.

It was also the first time for the NRA to conclude that boiling-water reactors, the same type as those at TEPCO’s crippled Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant, met the new safety standards adopted after the meltdowns at the plant in 2011.

The NRA plans to hear opinions from the public about its judgment for 30 days before deciding on whether to make the approval official. It will also solicit the views of the minister of economy, trade and industry.

As one condition for official approval, the NRA is requiring the industry minister to oversee the utility’s management policy concerning its initiative and responsibility for work to decommission the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant.

From now, the NRA will check equipment designs and security regulations, including how TEPCO will guarantee its promise that its priority is on safety, not economic benefits.

The NRA’s screening process at the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa nuclear plant went beyond checking technological aspects of TEPCO’s safety measures. Given TEPCO’s history of mistakes and blunders, NRA members also discussed whether the utility was even eligible to operate nuclear power plants.

In response to the NRA’s demands that TEPCO take full responsibility for decommissioning the Fukushima No. 1 plant, the utility in late August stressed that its stance of putting importance on safety is “a promise to the people.”

The NRA then approved TEPCO’s eligibility but attached some conditions.

In late September, however, it came to light that workers at the Fukushima No. 1 plant were erroneously setting water gauges to measure groundwater levels of wells around reactor buildings, which could cause leaks of highly contaminated water to the outside water.

Inspectors will face a formidable challenge in judging individual issues facing TEPCO based on security regulations.

However, even if TEPCO passes all of the screenings, it must win the consent of local governments to restart the reactors at the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa nuclear plant.

Niigata Governor Ryuichi Yoneyama has said that he will wait for three or four years to make decision on the restarts, until his prefectural government completes its own investigation into the cause of the 2011 nuclear disaster at the Fukushima No. 1 plant.



Corrupt Abe Government Used Yakuza In Fukushima Decontamination Racket
Japanese Yakuza arrested in Fukushima decontamination work racket
http://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/AJ201709280045.html
By KENTA YASUMI/ Staff Writer
September 28, 2017 at 18:40 JST

Bags containing debris from decontamination work are piled up in a tentative storing site in Naraha, Fukushima Prefecture. The location pictured is not where the workers in the article were operating. (Asahi Shimbuin file photo)
Three men, including a yakuza gang boss affiliated with Yamaguchi-gumi, Japan’s largest crime syndicate, have been arrested on suspicion of illegally supplying workers for government-commissioned decontamination work related to the 2011 Fukushima nuclear power plant accident.

The three are yakuza group leader Hidenobu Maruta, 48, of Tokyo’s Katsushika Ward, construction company executive Shigeki Yamamura, 59, of Koriyama, Fukushima Prefecture, and Akio Kitano, 51, an unemployed resident of Saitama, Tokyo police announced Sept. 27.

All three deny the allegations of employment brokering without a license, a violation of the Employment Security Law, and intermediate exploitation, which is banned under the Labor Standards Law.

Maruta and Yamamura are accused of supplying two workers from January 2015 to March 2016 to a sub-subcontractor who carries out decontamination operations for the government project, and receiving 160,000 yen ($1,430) together in commission without consent from the labor ministry.

The cleanup work was conducted in Tomioka, Fukushima Prefecture.

Maruta and Kitano are suspected of taking commission amounting to about 920,000 yen from the wages of those two workers, according to the police department in charge of organized crime.

The three suspects are said to have shared cut of 2,000 yen to 3,000 yen from each of the workers’ 16,000-yen daily wage.

Further to the exploitation of the aforementioned two workers, the suspects are believed to have received about 10 million yen collectively through brokering about 10 other workers to the sub-subcontractor.3