Anti-nuclear protesters march through Tokyo’s Shibuya distric (Oct. 1)

Chants of ‘No Nukes’ Echo in Streets of Tokyo’s Shibuya and Harajuku Districts

(earthfirstjournal.org) With an eye to getting their message out to young people, demonstrators calling for a departure from nuclear power on Sept. 29 changed course from their usual venue and took to the streets in Tokyo’s trendy Shibuya and Harajuku districts.

Protesters shouted slogans such as “We’ve got enough electric power” and “No nuke reactors on earthquake-prone islands” as they marched past Marui City Shibuya and other fashionable commercial establishments packed with trend-conscious youths.

Read more: http://earthfirstjournal.org/newswire/2013/10/01/chants-of-no-nukes-echo-in-streets-of-tokyos-shibuya-and-harajuku-districts/

Sayonara atomic energy: Biggest anti-nuclear rally hits Tokyo (PHOTOS)

More @ RT : http://www.rt.com/news/tokyo-anti-nuclear-rally-283/

Tokyo – Protest against Fukushima reactor restart – Live Video

Watch it live: http://www.ustream.tv/channel/iwakamiyasumi

Escobar on Fukushima email leak: ‘Deleting data a cover-up’

(RussiaToday) on Mar 23, 2012 It’s emerged that at the height of Japan’s nuclear crisis last March, the authorities in Fukushima concealed radiation data vital to safely evacuate people from that area. Japan has a computer system designed to predict the spread of radioactive releases. But local media reports say the prefecture’s government deleted the e-mails detailing it. RT talks to Asia Times correspondent Pepe Escobar.

Official found dead, head covered with plastic bag after measuring radiation in Tokyo park

(endthelie.com) According to a Japanese news outlet, Iza, on July 1st, 2011 63-year-old Mr. Takashi Kabayama was found dead with a plastic bag over his head in his home office.

Kabayama was a member of the Tokyo Metropolitan Assembly for the Liberal Democratic Party and had been measuring radiation in an assortment of locations throughout Tokyo.

He would then upload his findings to his blog for the world to read and on the day before he died (June 30, 2011) he measured 0.25 microSv/h in Mizumoto Park in the Katsushika ward located in Tokyo.

Fukushima Diary reported on February 22, 2012 via Gendai that ludicrously high levels of cesium contamination were discovered, also in Mizumoto Park.

These levels were so high that they “turned out to be the same level of [the] ‘off-limits zone’ in Chernobyl.”

It is strange that this hasn’t been brought to the public’s attention sooner, because the fact that he was found at 3 AM July 1, 2011, meaning just a short while after he posted his update, is quite unusual.

Why would someone be taking radiation readings and updating their website the day that they were planning to kill themselves?

According to Fukushima Diary, none of his blog posts suggested that he might be suicidal and “he sounded motivated to measure around Tokyo,” something which hardly seems befitting of someone on the verge of taking their own life.

This is not the only anti-nuclear official who has died in recent history. In fact, it was reported on January 3, 2012 that 64-year-old Uemura Yasuhiro, town councilor of Kowaura Minamiise Machi Mie was found dead in his car with a shotgun wound to the chest.

Yasuhiro was reportedly taking his shotgun to his farm to keep away crows. Police thought it was suicide or a gun accident, even though the shotgun was reportedly placed outside of the car.

He was an outspoken opponent of the construction of the Ashihama nuclear plant of Chubu Electric Power and after the Fukushima incident he began traveling around Japan lecturing about the dangers of nuclear power.

If only one official who came out against the horrors of Fukushima had perished in mysterious circumstances I would be more ready to discount the possibility of foul play.

However, when multiple bodies start piling up, all of which are connected to bringing the dangers of nuclear power into the sphere of public debate, I have to start wondering.

I don’t know how it is in Japan, but here in the United States we have what I call a “dual justice system” which treats certain sectors of society completely differently than others.

On one side there is the ludicrously wealthy along with police, most politicians, most so-called officials, etc. and on the other side is the rest of us.

This allows for police to literally get away with murdering innocent tourists and brutally assault elderly people (with dementia no less) for no apparent reason only to get a written reprimand among other horrors.

Hopefully Japan is a little different and proper investigations into these mysterious incidents can be launched.

Source: http://endthelie.com/2012/02/24/official-found-dead-head-covered-with-plastic-bag-after-measuring-radiation-in-tokyo-park/#axzz1nFhpVvnr

The Truth About Nuclear Power: Japanese Nuclear Engineer Calls for Abolition

(japanfocus.org) Koide Hiroaki began his career as a nuclear engineer forty years ago drawn to the promise of nuclear power. Quickly, however, he recognized the flaws in Japan’s nuclear power program and emerged as among the best informed of Japan’s nuclear power critic. His cogent public critique of the nuclear village earned him an honourable form of purgatory as a permanent assistant professor at Kyoto University. Koide would pay a price in career terms, continuing his painstaking research on radio nuclide measurement at Kyoto University’s Research Reactor Institute (KURRI) in the shadows. Until 3.11.

Since the earthquake tsunami and nuclear meltdown at Fukushima Daiichi, he has emerged as a powerful voice and a central figure in charting Japan’s future energy course in the wake of disaster: in scores of well attended public lectures, in daily media consultations and interviews, in his widely read posts and in three books that have helped to redefine public consciousness and official debate.

On May 23, 2011, the Government Oversight Committee of the House of Councillors (the Upper House) invited four guests to address members of the Diet – Koide, Ishibashi Katsuhiko, a seismologist who has long warned of the reactors’ vulnerability to quakes, Goto Masashi, a former Toshiba nuclear engineer who now defies the industry, and Son Masayoshi, President of telecommunication giant Softbank and, since 3.11, an outspoken proponent of renewable energy. The unprecedented government effort to seek advice from staunch critics of nuclear power policy is indicative of fresh winds blowing at a time when the government is calling for a sharp increase in renewable energy and curbing of nuclear power and the nuclear power giants and their supporters in the bureaucracy are fighting back.

Thousands across the nation and overseas watched Koide’s criticism of the government being webcast, sharing through Twitter the excitement of seeing their best kept secret being unveiled in a grey business suit, at the centre of Japanese politics – the very centre he has exposed throughout his career. At the same time, a human chain was being formed around the building of the Ministry of Education, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT) where Fukushima parents and their supporters rallied to protest against the ministry’s decision to raise the allowable radiation exposure level.² Viewers of the two simultaneous events had one eye on the relentless Koide, and the other on teary and angry Fukushima parents.

Read more, watch the lectures: http://japanfocus.org/-Koide-Hiroaki/3582

Japan Passes Law To Cleanse Internet Of “Bad” Fukushima Radiation News

(examiner.com) Japan has passed a law that will enable the police and contractors to monitor internet activity without restriction to “cleanse” the Internet of any “bad” Fukushima radiation news.

As I previous reported, Japan has officially ordered the censorship of any reporting of the truth about the Fukushima nuclear radiation fallout by  ordering telecommunications companies and web masters to scrub any stories negative stories from the about the disaster.

Continue reading on Examiner.com Japan Passes Law To Cleanse Internet Of “Bad” Fukushima Radiation News – Jersey City Civil Rights | Examiner.com http://www.examiner.com/civil-rights-in-jersey-city/japan-passes-law-to-cleanse-internet-of-bad-fukushima-radiation-news#ixzz1TAYrjoTg

Japan: Scale of nuclear disaster, cover-up exposed

(greenleft.org.au) Three months after the earthquake and tsunami that triggered a nuclear disaster in Japan, new radiation “hot spots” may require the evacuation of more areas further from the damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power facility.

Japan’s Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency has now admitted for the first time that full nuclear meltdowns occurred at three of the plant’s reactors, and more than doubled its estimate for the amount of radiation that leaked from the plant in the first week of the disaster in March.

Quake reconstruction panel member says Fukushima should abandon nuclear power

(mainichi.jp) A member of a panel advising the government on reconstruction plans in the wake of the Great East Japan Earthquake told the Mainichi in an interview that he wants Fukushima Prefecture to abandon nuclear power generation.

“I want Fukushima to make the decision to abandon nuclear power, independent from government policy discussion,” the 57-year-old panel member, Norio Akasaka, told the Mainichi.

Akasaka, who also serves as curator of the Fukushima Museum, said that the prefecture has been left behind in efforts to recover from the March 11 quake and tsunami as it struggles with the continuing crisis at the Fukushima No. 1 Nuclear Power Plant.

“The wounds inflicted by the nuclear power plant accident have left us a problem on a completely different level from that of the natural disasters,” he said.

Akasaka quoted an acquaintance working at a shelter in the Fukushima Prefecture city of Minami-Soma, which lies near the damaged Fukushima nuclear plant, as telling him, “To us, the idea of restoration to the old Fukushima seems very wrong. If we have anything, it will be a rebirth into a new Fukushima.”

Akasaka said the nuclear plant crisis had inflicted a damaging blow on the prefecture, but measures could be taken to turn the situation around.

“The agriculture, forestry and fisheries industries and the manufacturing industry have been hit at their roots. Prefectural residents have been the victims of discriminatory rumors while living in fear of radiation contamination. But only responding to that with criticism will cause a negative atmosphere to set in, and it takes time to clear that away.

“Instead, we can take a more positive approach, establishing research facilities to collect data related to radiation decontamination and people’s health over the long-term and to come up with practical responses to our problems. Furthermore, by positively investing in renewable energy research facilities for power and hospitals that specialize in radiation treatment as we work heal the wounds that the nuclear power plant inflicted, we will surely receive the world’s support, and others will help us.

“The Tohoku region has continued to serve as a base supplying Tokyo with food, human resources and electricity, but from now on we need to switch to a more independent model, and the people of the Tohoku region need to consider what kind of picture will be painted for the future.”

Source: http://mdn.mainichi.jp/mdnnews/news/20110430p2a00m0na003000c.html

Expert: Despite Japanese Gov’t Claims of Decreasing Radiation, Fukushima a “Ticking Time Bomb”

(Democracy Now!) The Japanese government is trying to calm fears about radiation levels and food safety in the region around the heavily damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power facility, even as it has raised the severity rating of the crisis to the highest possible level. “Radiation is continuing to leak out of the reactors. The situation is not stable at all,” says Dr. Michio Kaku, professor of theoretical physics at the City University of New York and the City College of New York. “The slightest disturbance could set off a full-scale meltdown at three nuclear power stations, far beyond what we saw at Chernobyl.”

Watch video here: http://www.democracynow.org/2011/4/13/expert_despite_japanese_govt_claims_of