Japan Officially Orders Censorship Of Truth About Fukushima

[NNN0LHI]

http://japanfocus.org/-Makiko-Segawa/3516

Fukushima Residents Seek Answers Amid Mixed Signals From Media, TEPCO and Government.

Report from the Radiation Exclusion Zone

Makiko SEGAWA in Fukushima

Mistrust of the media has surged among the people of Fukushima Prefecture. In part this is due to reports filed by mainstream journalists who are unwilling to visit the area near the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. But above all it is the result of contradictory reportsreleased by the media, TEPCO and the government.

On the one hand, many local officials and residents in Fukushima insist that the situation is safe and that the media, in fanning unwarranted fears, are damaging the economy of the region.By contrast, many freelance journalists in Tokyo report that the central government is downplaying the fact that radiation leakage has been massive and that the threat to public health has been woefully underestimated. While the government long hewed to its original definition of a 20 kilometer exclusion zone, following the April 12 announcement that the Fukushima radiation severity level has been raised from a level 5 event (as with Three Mile Island) to a level 7 event (as with Chernobyl), the government also extended the radiation exclusion zone from 20 kilometers to at least five communities in the 30-50 kilometer range.

In recent weeks, many Fukushima residents who fled in the first week of the nuclear crisis have begun returning home and attempting to resume normal activities. For example, some local people in Iwaki city, 40-50 km from the Fukushima Daiichi reactor, are convinced that it is now safe to return despite the high radiation levels recorded. Here is one example.

School Entrance Ceremony Amid Radiation Fear in an Exclusion Zone Near the Fukushima Daiichi Reactor

[Art_from_Ark]

1. Actually, radiation levels in Iwaki have been going down

According to Fukushima Prefecture measurements, some parts of the city are near normal, while other parts, especially the Tabito branch office of Iwate City Hall, are still a few times higher than normal. Scroll down to the very bottom of the page of the pdf file in the link below. You can see recent measurements for Iwaki taken from 8 different locations around the city (the Iwaki measurements are the 8 columns closest to the right side of the page).

http://www.pref.fukushima.jp/j/zenken54.pdf

[NNN0LHI]

2. I do not believe anything that comes from the Kan government?

Or the toadies like Edano wearing their durable, light blue work jackets.

[Generic Other]

6. The jackets are kinda creepy...

like totalitarian conformity but the last style I would expect. No goosestepping fascistic looking uniforms. Pastel windbreakers and baseball caps. That is what the uniform of the future looks like. Makes me shudder a bit at its banal ordinariness. Stepford Workerish!

[Bonobo]

4. Art, how did you escape??

I heard the government was holding anyone that tried to talk about Fukushima in an air-tight cell beneath Mount Fuji!

Or...did they get to you? That's it, isn't it! They are forcing you to spread pro-nuclear false information! My god!

I'll get you out of there! I swear it! If it's the last thing I do...

I'LL GET YOU OUTTA THERE, PAL!!! HANG ON!!!!

[Generic Other]

5. They need to level with us Art, and I get the feeling they are too afraid

of setting off a panic. That in itself worries me more than just getting an honest assessment of the damage. I want to know what the future holds for Japan and the rest of the world. I want to hear from a panel of the world's most eminent scientists what the hell the situation is. Not just TEPCOs corporate-supported voices.

Additionally, my memory of Chernobyl was that the Soviets acted far more quickly to contain the disaster. They sought world co-operation, and it seemed more aid was forthcoming. The work seemed to progress at rapid speed. TEPCO has at times seemed to handle the disaster like a 9-5 shift. When the clock hit quitting time, they all go home. They work with a skeleton crew when one is certain there must be many more thousands of workers available worldwide who have skills and willingness to help. If not, then the entire nuclear industry should turn off the power and close down all the reactors now. Because ALL workers in the nuclear industry should be responsible for containing any reactor that is melting down. It is their industry. And they all guaranteed its safety repeatedly. They have no right to stand by and do nothing as the greatest catastrophe of all time unfolds.

Yet instead of bringing the reactors under control as quickly as possible with the co-operation of the world scientific and economic community, the government of Japan wastes time censoring information others in the world could use to help them. That leaves the people of the world to imagine our own worst case scenarios. Maybe I am wrong to accuse TEPCO of caring more about damage control over information leaks than they are about actual radiation leaks that are rapidly spinning out of control. It does not inspire confidence when the CEO of TEPCO offers a tepid resignation, or when the Japanese and the IAEA blandly say for a month that things are rapidly improving as new disaster after new disaster unfolds daily. Since April 6, on the International Atomic Energy Agency's webpage they have said this about Fukushima:

1. Current Situation

Overall, the situation at the Fukushima Daiichi plant remains very serious although there are early signs of recovery in some functions such as electrical power and instrumentation.


For almost a month, that is the update we get? While there's further meltdowns, increasing radiation, threats of imminent explosions...I am just a layman here, but I can tell when all hell has broken loose somewhere.

Perhaps it is the difference between Japanese management styles and our own, but I expect officials to address my concerns in the event of an emergency with honest information. That's what governments are for. Not to be corporate mouthpieces.

Sorry, for the soapbox rant, Art. But I am feeling frustrated.

[AndyTiedye]

7. Then Why Do They Now Set the Exposure LImits for Schools the Same as for Nuke Workers?

On April 19, the Japanese government sharply ramped up its radiation exposure limit to 2,000 millirem per year (20 mSv/y) for schools and playgrounds in Fukushima prefecture. Japanese children are now permitted to be exposed to an hourly dose rate 165 times above normal background radiation and 133 times more than levels the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency allows for the American public. Japanese school children will be allowed to be exposed to same level recommended by the International Commission on Radiation Protection for nuclear workers. Unlike workers, however, children won’t have a choice as to whether they can be so exposed.

http://news.sciencemag.org/scienceinsider/2011/04/government-adviser-quits-post-to.html?ref=hp

[Kurovski]

3. K&R. (nt)

[Cetacea]

8. This story is telling:

http://www.agi.it/english-version/world/elenco-notizie/201104041204-cro-ren1034-japan_second_greenpeace_team_of_experts_to_fukushima


(AGI) Rome - Greenpeace has sent a second team of radiation protection experts to Fukushima to investigate fallout. Their investigation will take in the areas surrounding the plant and will include tests on milk and agricultural products as well as on environmental contamination. Last week, the first Greenpeace team found sufficient levels of contamination to justify the evacuation of an area 40 kilometres from the plant. The Japanese government has accused Greenpeace of disseminating false data, but the results were subsequently coonfirmed by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). . .


More recently the Japanese Government turned away a Greenpeace vessel whose mission was to collect ocean samples...

[proverbialwisdom]

9. That's old. More written by whistleblowers, all, including articles recently published in Japan.

Unlike here, I might add. See Nader article.

http://english.kyodonews.jp/news/2011/04/85736.html
OPINION: How to minimize consequences of the Fukushima catastrophe
By Alexey V. Yablokov
MOSCOW, April 15, Kyodo

BACKGROUND:
http://counterpunch.org/nader04272011.html
April 27, 2011
Concealing the Consequences
Chernobyl 25 Years Later
By RALPH NADER
"...I call for an open rigorous public scientific-medical debate on the findings and casualty estimates of the Yablokov report, to determine its usefulness for necessary programs of compensation, quarantine, accelerated protective entombment of the still dangerous reactor, and expanded studies of the past and continuing ravages issuing from this catastrophe and its recycling of radioactivity through the soil, air, water and food of the exposed regions. Such a public review is what the science adviser to the President and the National Academy of Sciences should have done already and should do now.

The continuing expansion of the Fukushima disaster in Japan provides additional urgency for this open scientific review."

http://www.amazon.com/Chernobyl-Consequences-Catastrophe-Environment-ebook/dp/B004X8DOQC/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1304183378&sr=8-4
$2.99 ebook published 4/19/11 (previously new $150, used $600-705)

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http://english.kyodonews.jp/news/2011/04/87835.html
OPINION: Children of Fukushima need our protection
By Tilman Ruff
MELBOURNE, April 26, Kyodo

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/04/29-7?print
Published on Friday, April 29, 2011 by Institute for Policy Studies
Japan's Nuclear Catastrophe Leaves Little to Celebrate on Children's Day
A recent government decision callously put thousands of kids in harm's way.
by Robert Alvarez