Japanese govt’s new ideas on Oi nuclear plant defy common sense

Though only a small number of Japanese protest in the streets, opinions polls cited in recent Japanese news reports show a majority of Japanese want a move away from nuclear power.

And indeed the ideas being floated by Noda’s regime at the moment do resemble the sort of looney ideas one would expect from people committed to making others laugh. Prime Minister Noda excels at nonsense but is empty on substance.

In his government’s latest desperate attempt to force a restart of the Oi nuclear plant, the government have proposed “to have senior vice minister or other senior political officials stationed in Fukui.” What a politician would do in an emergency remains to be seen, though if said individual is like other incompetent Japanese officials in the past then one can be assured he – for women are never appointed in a land that loves to preach human rights to the rest of Asia – will only get in the way or simply be irrelevant. In either case this is just smoke and mirrors.

In fact some of these very same people complained ad nauseum  that former Prime Minister Naoto Kan, far senior to a vice minister, was just another politician who got in the way (it is not known for sure if Kan kept Tepco from abandoning the Fukushima plant and making things worse as he states, and there are many unanswered questions about the events on those days). Is having a politician present on-site sensible? Is it a substitute for nuclear regulatory agency that does not yet exist? The Japanese government say it is, but these are the same people who think all of Japan should eat radioactive food because it is harmless.

It gets better.

“In the event of an emergency, we will link the Oi nuclear power plant, Kansai Electric, the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency, and prime minister’s office via a videoconference system.”

What the Mainichi newspaper does not say is that the government had a multimillion dollar video conference system in place. They just failed to use it. That is correct. On March 11, 2011 and the days and weeks following the world’s worst nuclear disaster – mislabelled “accident” – the Japanese government did not take advantage of the tools at its disposal. Not only did they fail with the video conferencing system, one could argue it would have made absolutely no difference whatsoever.

This week Kan went to parliament and testified that his personal visit to the Fukushima plant on March 15 and his demand that the Tecpo not withdraw personnel from the plant were necessary because “We could hardly get information” and  “We couldn’t do anything” due to the failure of Tepco to provide the government with timely data. What difference would using the video conferencing system have made? Kan said “he and his key ministers were not adequately briefed about the plant’s situation in the first few days” (here).

Either Kan is misrepresenting what occurred and/or Tepco simply refused to provide information to the government about three full meltdowns some experts say they would have known about at that time.

Noda’s idea to put a politician at the Oi reactor also raises another question: If Oi is so potentially dangerous why not just shut it down? Also, if Oi needs a politician on such high rank, what about all the other reactors? With this logic every reactor in Japan (there are 54) should have a senior vice minister on standby and satellite hookup on call to beam to the prime minister’s office. Really what is the point? These people would not be nuclear engineers or safety personnel. The necessary technicians are already employed at the plant reactors. Japan’s best experts are already on standby. And they too will be powerless to stop another meltdown when a large earthquake or tsunami swamps the walls that do not exist (only the Fukushima plant has completed seawalls and they were 100% ineffective against the tsunami).

Noda is misleading the public by saying he will make a decision in future about the restart of the Oi plant. His decision was made the to support nuclear power the day he assumed office. This is nothing more than the shameless game the Japanese government have been playing for years. The latest cowardly announcement by the Union of Kansai Governments  “We will accept the government’s decision.” It also released a statement saying “On the assumption that the government’s safety judgment is provisional, we call on it to make a definitive judgment.” This rubber stamping of the central government’s dictatorial policy is the opposite of democracy. The opinions of a few governors matters not. It is the majority of the Japanese people who are opposed to the restarts, and the Japanese government does not care what they think.

For those in the anti-nuclear camp or those simply opposed to restarts or nuclear power until a thorough investigation of the Fukushima disaster is completed and new standards and procedures are in place, they are stuck relying on their fake opponent of nuclear power, Toru Hashimoto, mayor of Osaka, who is manipulating them for his own anti-democratic political goals. They are mistaken if they see an ally in him. Hashimoto is not opposed to the restarts. He even floated the idea of supporting temporary restarts to prevent power outages. As soon as his party gets more power it will turn on those voters, which is to be expected.

If Japan and the Japanese people are truly concerned about global warming, developing and harnessing alternative forms of renewable energy, the time to invest in the technology is now before the Germans and Chinese get leap years ahead in the technology. Even the number of businesses would support move in this direction, despite Keidanren’s lobbying, numbers around 75% according to recent Japanese press reports. The future is here and if Japan is going to compete on the energy battlefield it will need a renewable arsenal. Prime Minister Noda’s ideas are sinking Japan’s chances to levels in-line with the unelected dictator’s – he is demanding a restart to nuclear plants with no electoral mandate – approval ratings. So much for democracy in Japan.

This is an op-ed piece submitted to Civis Journal by Commodus Diop. The views expressed therein do not necessarily reflect those of the editors or staff at Civis Journal.

Radiation is not the farmers’ biggest problem

With a still damaged plant nearby nothing is “safe” in Fukushima. AP/Tepco

At least that is the conclusion a person attributing the government’s decision to allow farmers to consider selling rice from highly contaminated areas would be. The Japan Today describes a “challenge”

producing safe-to-eat rice in contaminated soil.

“Safe” is not yet defined. The equipment the government has is capable of detecting “the tiniest speck of radiation” the Japan Today says. “Safe” includes up to 100 Bq/kg of caesium-137, to say nothing of caesium-134 or the numerous other isotopes that are not screened for or entirely ignored in other foods. If the rice tests follow the same sort of testing there is little chance people will know what is in it. It is little matter, then, which equipment is used. Will there be strontium, plutonium or other harmful substances present? The closer the proximity to the Fukushima Daiichi plant the greater the possibility of greater concentrations of radiation other than caesium.

It appears that all rice this year from the farms “right next to the no-go zone, in Minami-Soma” will be destroyed, but farmers are participating with the government in the hope that they will be allowed sell their rice next year. The government is sowing false hope – to them and the public. It is extremely unlikely anything produced 12 miles away from the world’s worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl will be “safe” unless “safe” includes radioactive food. The fact is the government cannot claim radioactive food – even with low levels (say under 100 Bq/kg) is “safe” because there is little scientific data to support it. It might be safe and it might not be. Consistent exposure – especially internal – to radiation below a certain threshold is a sort of grey area. No problem. There are plenty of human guinea pigs in Japan just waiting to gobble up the samples – and farmers all too eager to sell them their fix.

“Fukushima farmers pray for radiation-free rice” Pray? To whom? Maybe the great deities in Tepco or the Japanese parliament will wave a magic wand and make their rice “safe.” In fact, maybe that same deity will go to Chernobyl and make all the radiation there disappear too. Radiation is just going to go away. It is kind of irrelevant if the rice produced has low levels of radiation anyway. Growing rice in radioactive soil is akin to growing food in a sewer, testing it and saying “there is no sewage in it.” It is an unethical, dirty and disgraceful way to bamboozle the public into buying something that people have no business eating period. The same could be said about growing food in radioactive toxic waste zones like those around the Fukushima plant.

“The balance that the government is now trying to strike is between allowing people to stay in the Fukushima area and recover their lives, and keeping the rest of Japan happy about buying food,” said the Japan Times. This illustrates the governments deception: the people in the immediate vicinity of the plant will never “recover their lives” and live the way they used to. What the tsunami and earthquake left, the radiation destroyed. They are lying to the people. “Radiation is expected to decline year by year.” Who expects this? Caesium-137, for example, has a half-life of 30 years. It is not going anywhere for hundreds of years. Plutonium? Thousands. Yes caesium-134 will go more quickly, but the land will hardly be “safe” to grow food in during anyone’s lifetime. Telling people otherwise is sowing false hope and selling food from there is possibly putting people’s lives at risk.

Why? So that some farmers can earn a living off the land? So that Japan does not have to change its unfair trading practices an import foreign foods in greater quantity? The government is not helping the farmers in the Fukushima area by trying to sell their poison. It is hurting them by not admitting the fact their plight is hopeless. It is also forcing these people to live in zones too dangerous for humans. It is joining Tepco by refusing to properly compensate these people, providing a new and safer place to live elsewhere in Japan. The farmers biggest enemy is not Tepco or radiation. It is their own government.

This is an op-ed piece submitted that does not necessarily reflect the opinions or positions of the editorial staff.

Japan Today article here.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Is selling radioactive food ethical?

Farmers protest outside Tepco in Tokyo. Source: Telegraph.

Part I of a special report

The effects of the nuclear disaster have created moral problems for farmers in the Fukushima area. They, like most people, need to earn a living, and in their case such comes from bringing food to market, some of which is now radioactive. Since the Japanese government have not increased the evacuation zone (actually they decreased it from 30km to 20km see here), many of the farmers can expect little to no compensation anytime soon. Relocation to a different part of Japan to begin a new farm, therefore, is not a possibility. Those who grow food in affected areas are doing so in radioactive soil. Ito Toshihiko, an organic food supplier in Fukushima, worries about selling food in future. “How can I continue to sell my product if I’m not willing to eat it myself?,” he said to Al Jazeera. “We must protect our neighbours, our children. We can’t trust the information that we are being given [by the government]” (see here).

That leaves farmers and suppliers in zones where harvesting is allowed in a difficult position. Not only must they test food, an expensive and time-consuming process, but have to deal with the decreased marketability of their products. The burden falls on them, and they had nothing to do with the nuclear accident, they argue. Many residents of Japan no longer trust the food from areas hit by radiation. The Japanese government have been blaming “baseless rumors” or “the foreign media” for the farmers’ inability to sell radioactive food instead of looking at the cause of the real problem: radiation in the soil.

Areas like Ibaraki, which are situated close to Tokyo, have measurable levels of caesium in the rice. In August 2011 the New York Times reported at least one rice sample that had “52 becquerels per kilogram,” which was below the then 500 Bq/kg limit set by Tokyo (today’s limit is 100 here), but still had radiation. Whilst there is a lot of complacency among Japanese in general, there is a significant numbers who oppose radiation in the food. Some have begun to test food grown near Fukushima like Ichio Muto, as reported in the NY Times (here).  A smaller number shun it completely, especially foreigners and mothers with young children.

An American ex-pat David Moore and his Japanese wife “spent more than $5,000” on equipment to test soil and food, and only feed their son “purified water…and food they are certain is safe.” Mr. Moore told PBS that it is necessary to “cut the food from the market 100% until we can guarantee a certain amount of stability” (here). Mr. Moore is cognizant of the difficulties Japanese farmers face, and feels the best approach would be for the Japanese government to compensate them so that they would not be forced to choose between selling radioactive food or bankruptcy.

To be continued in part II

Civis Journal

Japanese government wants you to eat radioactive food: Part V

Standards for radiation have been changing a lot, and there are many unanswered questions about the health effects of low dose radiation in food. Source: AP.

This is part of a special on Japanese food. For part IV click here.

The Japanese government, shortly after, reversed its decision and eased restrictions on some foods (here), like rice and beef – and the problems have not gone away. It also changed the standards for radiation allowed in food and water, though this is a rather unknown story. In the case of water, it was done overnight, and allowed the government to claim that water, which would be considered unsafe on Thursday, was suddenly safe the next Monday. They simply increased the amount of allowable contaminants in the water supply from the older standards by 30-fold, in the case of iodine (10 Bq/lr to 300 Bq/lr; see this report for a detailed English explanation & here). This was was apparently done on March 17th. If this information is correct, it would mean the high radiation found in Tokyo’s water supply (reported en masse on March 23rd), would have failed the old standard because it had just been changed. CBS reports that one test showed “210 becquerels of iodine-131 per liter,” which they classified as “twice the recommended limit” for children,” but still below the 300 Bq/lr standard for adults. If this is correct, then the only reason the water limit was deemed safe was due to manipulation of the safety levels (here). A cynic might say the Japanese knew the water levels would rise and adjusted the safety limits in anticipation of it.

Be that as it may, the case of food is magnitudes worse (iodine in water is no longer a concern as it is an early byproduct with short half-life). In July it was reported that large amounts of beef with levels of caesium above the government’s safety standard had entered into the food chain (here). Apparently farmers had fed their cows radioactive grain, and their cows had slipped through an inadequate food screening process, ending up on the plates of people all over Japan. Some was even fed to elementary school children in their lunches (here). Though the beef scare is old news, little has improved for food in general, reports Bloomberg, which says that the current checks on Japanese food “nationwide so far are only 1 percent of what Belarus checked in the past year” (here). The government’s position at the time is that even those levels posed no short-term safety risk (yes, they usually avoided saying long-term).

The Japanese themselves have admitted to having inadequate testing equipment and personnel needed to ensure large-scale checks. The Yomiuri newspaper wrote on August 11th that “Many local governments complain they do not have time to inspect rice crops.” In Akita Prefecture, “The maximum number of food samples that can be checked a day is 10,” and the 30 private labs were inundated with other work. Yomiuri puts the numbers into perspective: of all the untold numbers of products from March 11th to the writing of the article on August 11, Fukushima Prefecture is cited as checking a total of “more than 4,000 inspections.” That number accounts for “80 vegetables…10 different fruits…90 kinds of seafood, as well as meat and eggs.” That means there were 4,000 checks for roughly 200 foods, or roughly 5 tests per food. Checking beef or cabbage on average 5 times in 6 months can hardly be expected to raise consumer confidence. As the Yomiuri points out, the checks on those foods were likely to decrease even further, as the meager resources available had to be put towards checking rice. In short, the government does not have the ability (or desire) to inspect the food thoroughly. Might this have something to do with foreign nations and their refusal to buy Fukushima affected food?

To be continued in part VI

Civis Journal

Japanese Try to Stop Free Speech in New York

Survivor Gil Won Ok was one of the up to 200,000 women who suffered at the hands of the Japanese army, and continue to suffer by the Japanese refusal to deal with its war crimes. The Japanese cited in this article take the position that she and others are lying, a position for which there is no evidence. Source: Amnesty International.

The New York Times owned company, the International Herald Tribune, posted a recent story called Comfort Women Controversy Comes to New York (see here). There are two issues at play here. The first is the Japanese denial of the use of forced sexual slavery by the Japanese army in WWII. The second is the right of Koreans – or any other – to protest those actions by using a memorial as a symbol of free speech. Its reporting calls into question its commitment to objectivity.

It is historical fact that the Japanese armies not only forced Korean, Filipino and Chinese women to have sex with Japanese soldiers, but that the Japanese in some cases executed the female victims after being raped repeatedly by upwards of dozens of soldiers – sometimes in just one day. The number of female sex slaves may be disputed, but the actions of the Japanese are not – except by apologists. The number of victims is as high as 200,000, and “the majority of women were under the age of 20 and some were girls as young as 12,” said Amnesty International, a human rights organisation that has written about this problem in the past. These were horrendous crimes by any standard (see here).

The IHT gave voice to a war crimes denier when it published the following words without comment: ““the term ‘comfort women’ refers simply to prostitutes in wartime.” This sort of slander by the Japanese supporter not only denies the Japanese atrocities, but actually calls them “prostitutes,” saying it was they and not the Japanese who sought sex. There may have been a small number of real prostitutes, but to claim the majority or even all the Koreans willing had sex with hundreds of Japanese men for money is a gross misrepresentation of the facts.

“Those who posit that all of the comfort women were happily complicit and acting of their own accord simply do not understand the meaning of the word rape,” said Tom Lantos to the BBC in an article published in 2007, then chairman of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs. Rape is rape. Not according to certain deniers in Japan who are trying to force their warped view of history on Americans with their nonsense propaganda. Why did the IHT not address the historical denials properly? The BBC did in a 2007 article, and it was not alone (see here).

The IHT went further when its article appeared to misrepresent the facts surrounding the Japanese apology: “while Japan has apologized for any mistreatment the women suffered…” What apology? One can understand (but not excuse) why the Japanese have historical amnesia, but the IHT? Even as late as 2007 the US House of Representatives passed a resolution asking for the Japanese to issue a formal apology for its war crimes it committed against up to 200,000 civilian women and girls. There has been a lot of pressure to get Japan to admit to and really apologise for its crimes.

One is at a loss to know what apology the IHT referred to. Perhaps it alluded to the 1993 apology that only acknowledged “its involvement managing the brothels” but “was never approved by parliament.” Some apology that was. Or perhaps it referred to the words of former prime ministers. If so it is nothing more than a word game of “regrettable” or “sympathy” or other comments that never acknowledged Japan’s full role in the sex slavery business or its legal responsibility to the victims (see here). Such word games only insult the victims and create resentment against the Japanese, but they explain why there are still protests to this day, almost 70 years after the end of the war.

“A 1998 report by the U.N. Human Rights Committee on this issue noted that although Japan has made individual apologies the Japanese Government denies legal liability for the creation and maintenance of the system of ‘comfort stations’ and comfort women used during World War II,” said Amnesty (see here). That was in 2009. Women are still waiting for a real apology that accepts legal responsibility. Japan has no intention of doing it. Instead Japan has rejected most compensation claims, saying they were settled by treaties.” The victims do not agree the matter was settled at all. These women want justice.

The IHT article barely touched on the dwindling number of women, now in the eighties, hoping to receive a real apology before they die. The IHT said: “In December, two Korean women who said they were forced into prostitution by Japan visited the monument” (my emphasis). Look at the wording. Could not the IHT verify if the women were telling the truth? Yes, they “said” they had been raped by Japanese soldiers, but is there any reason to doubt their claims? There are ways to verify the women’s claims, as there are lists of survivors.

What the IHT also did, interestingly enough, was to say: “One Japanese opponent of the proposed New York monument wrote in a letter… (my emphasis).” Yes, the Korean women “said” (possibly implying they were not telling the truth) and the Japanese man “wrote” the women were “prostitutes” (which could be construed to say the IHT questioned his claims, but could also be read to say they did not). Why are the two being given equal weight sort of balanced against each other? This is a cut and dry case. The Japanese systemically used hundreds of thousands of women as sex slaves. The surviving Koreans are not all unknown. The IHT has the resources to assign a reporter to know if the women it interviewed were victims , does it not?

At least 63 Korea survivors were alive in January 2012, and of that number 2 – named  Gil Won-ok and Kim Bok-dong – demonstrate outside the Japanese embassy in Seoul as often as they can to demand recognition for the crimes the Japanese committed against them (see article here). The Korean Times was able to verify those women had been raped, for it stated: “The two were among 63 surviving Korean women who were forced into sexual servitude at frontline Japanese brothels during World War II” (my emphasis). “Who were forced” does not imply the women’s story lacks accuracy. The Korean Times did its job. Why could the IHT not state definitively if the women it interviewed were really victims or not?

Is this just lazy reporting on the IHT’s part of something more sinister? Well, the IHT chose to publish the comments of a Japanese who considers the victims “prostitutes” – a direct quote. The Japanese man in entitled to his opinion, but  it was not qualified. Can the IHT editors really claim this article is objective reporting?

To the question of free speech. Just as the Japanese have decided to hide their war guilt by denying and covering over the facts (which is protected by free speech), Koreans in New York are choosing to highlight the past by taking advantage of free speech to tell the truth by renaming a street sign that acknowledges the suffering of female victims of Japanese aggression. Why would anyone in Japan protest this? The Japanese routinely deny their crimes against all the Asian nations they conquered; it is nothing new.

The Japanese writer claimed Peter Koo, New York City Councilman, was misrepresenting the facts about Japan just to be reelected. Regardless of his or the other council members reasons for wanting a new memorial in New York, it ignores the fact there are Koreans and Chinese (Koo is from Hong Kong, not Korea) who want the truth to be told, and that there are Japanese who are actively trying to stop Americans right to free speech. The IHT article essentially said four officials in the Japanese LDP party tried to  bribe the Koreans into shutting their mouths. They offered “to fund youth programs, donate books on Japanese culture and plant cherry blossom trees in the town, if the [current] monument were removed [from Palisades Park, N.J.]”

These Japanese – and not all Japanese deny the historical facts; there are some brave filmmakers, historians and politicians who do speak the truth – want to remove the current monument and prevent a new one from being installed. If German Holocaust deniers protested Holocaust memorials and demanded German propaganda in its place, how would the IHT report on that? The IHT would no doubt denounce them for what they are. No one is saying the Korean sex slavery was the same as the German crimes, but the point is that it shows how extreme these Japanese are. Why did the IHT not directly call a spade a spade on these Japanese?

And extreme is not sufficiently strong to express the Japanese position. These four officials denied historical fact by saying “there is no proof sex slaves existed” and claimed the monument “portrayed historical inaccuracies.” How is the monument inaccurate? One could be sure those “youth programs” would do absolutely nothing to expose the truth about Japanese war crimes, and might serve as a propaganda tool similar to what is used in Japanese schools to erase the past. A monument to victims of Japanese aggression would become a direct insult to them. Can anyone wonder why the Chinese and Koreans protest the Japanese every time they play games with their “apologies?” This is some mystery the American newspapers might get around to solving one day.

One might remember how often the Japanese demand an apology from the US over the bombings in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, which were unique and terrible atrocities for which US should consider apologising. But it is not a little bit hypocritical to ask for an apology and be, at the same time, unable to give one for the millions of victims of Japan’s wars of aggression in which historians, including Herbert Bix, a Harvard, Pulitzer prize winning historian, put a conservative estimate of the numbers of Chinese murdered (civilians) by the Japanese Imperial Army at between 10 to 13 million.The message is clear: Japan is special and should be treated differently.

The women cited in this article are not liars and have nothing to gain by standing outside and protesting for decades. The Japanese have something to gain, and it has to do with saving face and money. Why do newspapers like IHT not call the Japanese Holocaust deniers out for what they are? Might it be thery are cowards? There is evidence to suggest this is the case, a question which will be considered in part II.

Civis Journal

Daily News article on topic here

Japanese government wants you to eat radioactive food: Part IV

A whale being hunted by the Japanese. This is conducted under the guise of “research,” but the meat ends up on dinner tables all over Japan. Source: The Guardian

This is part IV of a special series of articles. For part III click here.

The Japanese government did not ban all radioactive food, just food over certain limits (500 Bq/kg which is now revised to 100 Bq/kg as of April 1, 2012). This means that food with measurable levels of radiation was sold in untold quantities to an infinite number of people. As the scandals erupted one after the other, the average Japanese began to wonder if the food was safe. This is probably the biggest reason for the collapse in consumer confidence, not “foreign media” or other conspiracy theory nonsense pedaled as fact by a government and media eager to shift the blame for their failures on non-Japanese.

In June 2011, for example, the Japanese caught 17 whales. When they looked at 6 of them, they found “31 becquerels and 24.3 becquerels of radioactive caesium per kilogram in the two whales” (see here). They were caught off the island of Hokkaido, 650 km away from the Fukushima plant. This is not exactly good news. It shows the Japanese justification for whaling (labelled “research”) is a pretty poor one. Why test only 6 of 17 whales if the research is needed? Those other whales might have had radiation in them too. At 31 Bq/kg, they would have passed both the old and new standards on food safety. Did people eat that radioactive meat?

The problem is not isolated to mammals, but is in fish. The Japanese only report figures for caesuim-137 and iodine (which is not present anyway) in the fish tests they conduct. But that does not mean there is no strontium-90. If serious studies were done on fish by the Japanese government, the results might not be good. Even the highly criticised and clearly inadequate studies they are carrying out only serve to show that the majority of fish & sea life tested contain measurable levels of radiation. Fish may not have iodine, but do they have strontium? This is not fear mongering. It is asking a question that must be answered for consumer safety and to restore confidence in the food system.

To be continued in Part V.

Civis Journal

 

Japanese government wants you to eat radioactive food: Part III

This is employee uses a Geiger counter to test for radiation, which is not a very efficient way to measure radiation in food. Source: AP.

This is part III of a special report. Part II is available here.

This is not to say foreign food is unavailable. It is. But in many cases it is prohibitively expensive or extremely difficult to find. This is due in part to the desire to protect domestic industry from having to compete with foreigners on some of the same food items. So while it is easy to purchase foreign wines, Japan cannot restrict them too much because their own domestic production cannot supply demand. When it comes to rice, a product grown in abundance in Japan, it is virtually impossible to find foreign produced rice in Japanese supermarkets. This is not limited to food, and nations have complained about these practices for years (see here & here). As an example one might recall the dispute between the Clinton Administration and Japan with regard to the difficulty American car manufacturers had in accessing the Japanese market (see here).

If anyone has a history of restricting foreign imports it is Japan. Even if the Japanese are correct, they will be seen as hypocritical in the extreme for going to the WTO to lodge a complaint. Unlike some of the other disputes, radiation is a serious problem. Shortly after the Fukushima disaster the IAEA warned about risks associated with iodine. There was also the WHO spokesman who warned that “it’s a lot more serious than anybody thought in the early days when we thought this kind of problem can be limited to 20 or 30 kilometers.”  The WHO specifically warned people to avoid affected foods like meat, eggs and leafy vegetables near the Fukushima plant. “Eating foods containing radioactive materials could increase the risk of certain types of cancers in the future,” remarked Ben Embarek, a food safety expert with the WHO. Iodine is not a problem today, but caesium-134, 137 and a whole host of other isotopes like strontium, plutonium etc – the majority of which are not even being checked for – are. When it comes to fish, for example, the Japanese only report figures for caesuim-137 and iodine (iodine is not present anymore anyway). But that does not mean there is no strontium-90. If serious studies were done on fish by the Japanese government, the results might not be so savoury. Even the highly criticised and clearly inadequate studies they are carrying out only serve to show that the majority of fish & sea life tested contain measurable levels of radiation.

In the big picture, it was not just foreigners who stopped shipments of Japanese food. It was the Japanese government itself, though in case after case only after it was unable to hide the results of beef, spinach or other embarrassing results. In other words, the Japanese had to restrict radioactive foods to their own domestic market for the very same health concerns foreigners had (here). Then Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano told the public, “The vegetables will cause no immediate health problems even if temporarily eaten now.” Look at the phrase “immediate health problems.” What does it suggest? If the affects are not “immediate” then they are either non-existent or long-term.  Those who eat them will one day find the answer –  they are the guinea pigs.

To be continued in Part IV

Civis Journal

Japanese government wants you to eat radioactive food: part II

Consumers now have to deal with the reality that a lot of their food is contaminated, even if it is below the government’s standards.

This is part II of a special report. Part I is available here.

The data say 1) there was an unspecified drop of in foreign and domestic purchases of Fukushima area food; and 2) there was a significant increase of imported food into Japan which far exceeded the amount of food the Japanese farmers did not sell. There is simply no comparison. In the absence of data on the types of food, volume or specific cost, these are several possibilities. The most logical is the Japanese themselves are responsible for the majority of losses in revenue. The second is that the people who are buying foreign food are shunning areas outside of the Fukushima affected zones (or that the affected crop is much wider than admitted). If this is correct, it would indicate that the Japanese have lost a considerable degree of confidence in the safety of their own food. This can be deduced from looking at the total amount of food produced in Fukushima, which only comes out to about 2.3 billion yen, according to Bloomberg.

This is important because the raw figures might give the impression the farmers’ loss of revenue is due to foreigners practising discrimination (with some number of Japanese at home believing “harmful/baseless rumors” perpetrated by foreigners). In either case the data can be easily used to scapegoat both groups as opposed to dealing with the possibility that there are legitimate health concerns among foreigners, their governments and Japanese residents. The terminology used in the Japanese press and government show a dismissive attitude towards concerns of radiation. They are referred to as “fears,” not “concerns.” The reality is that a good amount of food in the Fukushima affected areas contain measurable levels of radiation. Further, there is an utter lack of resources to check the levels of radiation. This is not an exaggeration. Some prefectures only have a dozen or so people checking these things. The result is that even in Fukushima only a small fraction of the items are checked, as has been discussed in the Yomiuri and other Japanese newspapers.

The Japanese government is eager to convince people to purchase food from Fukushima, but the farmers complain the government are not helping or doing enough with regard to ensuring farmers have the support and directions needed to grow food in the area (for the FT report here). Be that as it may, there are reasons why governments and citizens refuse to purchase certain Japanese food.

There is a historical precedent for closing markets to Japanese goods. Some nations closed off parts of their markets to the Japanese during the 1930s and; there was also an oil embargo by the U.S. in the context of Japan’s aggression in Asia. That had an impact on Japan’s economy as well as the war. One could understand why Japan might have argued unfair practices then, but in 2011/2012? Are the nations that imposed bans really going to benefit from closing their markets to Japanese foods? Maybe. But this is largely irrelevant when one considers that Japan has kept its markets virtually closed to foreign nations with its restrictions on foreign foods with markups, tariffs or taxes.

To be continued in part III.

Civis Journal

Japan to be Nuclear Free

Oi is scheduled to go offline on May 5. Source AJW.

As of May 5, Japan will have achieved a milestone by shutting down all 54 of its commercial reactors, and setting itself up for a test the nuclear industry is desperate to avoid – the one that may very well show Japan can survive and even thrive without nuclear power.

That, of course, is not how it is being portrayed by some in the media. The propaganda war is in full force, with some predicting dire economic consequences of factory closings, economic decline and the collapse of some parts of industry. Those exaggerations are not all that different from the rhetoric that accompanied the summer of 2011. There were numerous warnings of electricity shortages, but with savings and reduction of consumption – including changing work hours – significant energy savings were achieved. The world’s leader in energy consumption, in reality, pulled a rabbit out of its hat and shaved ore than 20% its already low rates )in comparison to other nations). This achievement has been largely ignored. And with good reason. Those terrible shortages did not arrive.

Japan does not need to go another with few to no plants online. Its achievement last year already demonstrated that the majority of nuclear power plants were not needed. As if there were a memory lapse, as soon as the summer of 2011 ended, the media campaign of electric shortage warnings picked up again in the winter. Again, the terrible power shortages predicted never materialised. Not to worry. The public cannot recall this. The trick has to be repeated, and the warnings have to be sounded again. This time, the message is something like ‘Japan will collapse without nuclear power.’

And the media touts it, giving credence to these false ideas. Some sources, like the New York Times, mention them but do not qualify them. Fackler, for instance, in his article highlights the rising cost of using oil and gas and the trade deficits it is causing (here). This is hardly a doomsday scenario, and does not pose a serious threat to the Japanese economy. The extra costs of using fossil fuel will in some part be absorbed by consumers in slight electric rate increases (which are incredibly low in comparison to American households). It will also serve as an impetus to force the development of renewable energy – an absolute necessity.

With the increased capacity to generate electricity, some people are calling their bluff. And that is key: after a summer of successful electric use with no nuclear plants, the Japanese will firmly understand that there is no need for plants that exist. The only ones left complaining will be big companies that lose some profit, but then the fig leaf will have been removed and it is unlikely people will put up with the potential of nuclear fallout solely so that some factory or nuclear power companies’ executives will get large bonuses.

Civis Journal

Radioactive soil leads researcher to issue an appeal

A researcher and science lover who dedicates much time to educating the public on the facts surrounding radiation issued an appeal to the people of Japan after revealing the results of soil analysis conducted on samples he received from several locations in Japan.

Thomas Watson, operator of anti-proton.com, is known for his scientific approach to the topic of radiation and Japan. In his videos he always shows extreme caution and a healthy degree of skepticism when some embers of the public express concern over the radioactive fallout and its effects from the Fukushima Daiichi plant. This is not to say he in any way supported the government’s claims over science; rather it means he has always put the facts that he has had available at the forefront of his discussions. His new video and report, though different from some of his earlier, is no exception to the rule.

Watson made clear that several members of the public residing in Japan sent him soil samples sometime in the past few months for him to have analysed. Though he has chosen not to reveal the identities of the people responsible, he did provide a lot of information about the soil, its analysis and the results for those who visited his website. In other words, he says he is interested in transparency, and the evidence to date indicates he is acting in accord with that statement.

The findings of the soil analysis he posted are disconcerting, to say the least. In the sample from Kashiwa, located close to Tokyo, it showed at least 97,590 Bq/kg of caesium. It is from a drain located at someone’s house, and that person is constantly being exposed to such high rates on a daily basis. In the same area there was a soil sample from a children’s playground. Its levels were over 51,668 Bq/kg. Watson says that it is an active playground in which there are children at play on a regular basis. The other samples come from Shiga and Saga prefectures, and due to the absence of caesium-134 in some of the samples, cannot conclusively be linked to Fukushima fallout at this time.

It is, with the levels in the playground in mind, this which influenced Watson to send an appeal to the Japanese to do something to clean the radioactive fallout out of the areas where these children play in Chiba. This research was funded mostly through funds he came up with, and required an enormous amount of work for a small group of people who would not normally do such things.

Civis Journal

Copy of report here

Watson’s website here