Thread: WHY IS'NT MSM REPORTING ON THE escalating DANGERS of Radiation, UPDATED

NBC News: ‘Biblical devastation’ from Fukushima disaster, says former official — TV: “When I was mayor, I knew many people who died from heart attacks… many people in Fukushima died suddenly, even young people… Tepco employees also are dying, but everyone is keeping mum about it” (VIDEO)

Published: April 23rd, 2014 at 3:31 am ET By ENENews Email Article 112 comments

NBC News, Apr. 22, 2014 — Terry Tamminen, former secretary of the California Environmental Protection Agency: Chernobyl and Fukushima have demonstrated that although nuclear accidents are rare, when they do occur, the cost and devastation is biblical (according to the U.N., $235 billion for the former and as much as twice that for the latter). Moreover, we’ll live with the toxic waste, even from the power plants that function normally, for generations with no viable way to neutralize or safely store it, meaning we’re risking the lives of our kids and grandkids for “cheap” power today.
Katsutaka Idogawa, former mayor of Futaba in Fukushima Prefecture, April 21, 2014: “When I was mayor, I knew many people who died from heart attacks, and then there were many people in Fukushima who died suddenly, even among young people. [...] TEPCO employees also are dying. But everyone is keeping mum about it.”
Watch Idogawa’s interview here

Apr 23
Fukushima: U.S. sailors “came out cooked”




Three years after the Fukushima nuclear catastrophe in Japan, evidence is mounting that the United States is covering up a massive case of radiation exposure and sickness among the military men and women who responded to the 2011 earthquake and tsunami. This story has been brewing for months, but now journalist Karen Charman is giving us the most detailed account of how hundreds of American sailors on humanitarian missions — and others — were carelessly exposed to high levels of radiation when the storm-battered Fukushima plant failed — and how the government is now working to keep this crisis secret. She compares the case to other notorious episodes of the American military poisoning its troops with toxics, including Cold War-era nuclear testing and Agent Orange in Vietnam.
She writes:
At least 79 of those sailors now suffer serious health effects consistent with radiation exposure. Some of the sailors have filed a class action lawsuit against the Japanese power company, accusing it of hiding what it knew about the escaping radiation and seeking unspecified compensatory and punitive damages, as well as $1 billion for a fund to cover their medical monitoring and treatment. Some of them also blame the U.S. Navy, which denies that its sailors were exposed to harmful levels of radiation.
Paul Garner, the lead attorney on the case, told WhoWhatWhy that a much larger group of military personnel were exposed to radiation, and he expects the number signing on to the lawsuit to rise as more people develop symptoms. He reeled off a long list of alarming health complaints among the nearly 100 former Operation Tomodachi participants he’s interviewed. So far, about half have developed cancer—of the brain, eye, testes, thyroid, or blood (leukemia). “These kids were first responders,” Garner says. “They went in happily doing a humanitarian mission, and they came out cooked.”
The article notes that the Navy and other U.S. agencies never properly monitored the amounts of radiation that the troops were exposed to, which makes it harder today to determine exactly who is at risk, let alone the seriousness of the exposure. It also points out that considerable blame belongs to the Japanese utility company TEPCO, which never came clean in those critical days about the serious extent of the meltdown that was occurring in Fukushima. Not surprisingly, the personal stories of those who were exposed are heart-wrenching:
After two or three weeks, [Lindsay] Cooper says, people started getting sick. She witnessed crewmembers running and vomiting over the side of the flight deck, because they couldn’t wait in the long lines to go through decontamination before being allowed to get to the bathroom.
Nearly three years later, Cooper, 24, suffers from a severely dysfunctional menstrual cycle, a problem that began about a month after she arrived in Japan. She also regularly gains 40 to 50 pounds over the course of a month and then loses it. Veterans Administration doctors attribute her severe problems to nothing other than “stress.”
One of Cooper’s fellow sailors, Judy Goodwin, had her gall bladder taken out after returning home from the 2011 mission to Japan, and is experiencing liver problems as well, but the Veterans Administration also claims in her case that it cannot establish a connection to the radiation from Fukushima.
Yet the article quotes a recent report from a Temple University researcher , which includes” a transcribed telephone conversation Cleveland received from a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request, which reveals that monitors aboard the aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan picked up radiation levels 30 times higher than normal out at sea 100 miles from the reactors. The nuclear expert quoted in the transcript was surprised to detect anything at that distance and says radiation levels were high enough to damage people’s thyroids after ten hours of exposure.”
Yet despite this early evidence of widespread radioactivity, efforts at curbing exposure — limiting who could go on the deck of the carrier and for how long, or asking personnel to wear rubber boots over their regular footwear — were inadequate and poorly carried out. Other sailors interviewed for the piece complain of symptoms such as muscle weakness, headaches, nosebleeds, sensitivity to the sun, bladder problems, and more. Yet the government has failed to adequately monitor as many as 75,000 American personnel who were based in Japan or responded to the earthquake.
I want to repeat something I said previously — these sailors are going to need a good lawyer to receive any kind of justice for the pain they’ve experienced since 2011. For decades now, we’ve seen time and time again that Washington is more concerned about limiting its own liability than about doing what’s right for men and women who responded bravely in a crisis to offer humanitarian aid.
This is so typical of what I’ve seen in my own 25-year career as a radiation attorney, winning verdicts and fair settlements for workers and property owners exposed to radiation from the carelessness of the Big Oil giants. The only path for a fair outcome is the legal system. Hopefully, a jury of their peers will be able to cut through the official web of lies in the Fukushima debacle, and start to make things right for these American heroes.


http://www.stuarthsmith.com/fukushima-u-s-sailors-came-out-cooked/

Clean Up “America’s Secret Fukushima”, The US Abandoned Uranium Mines (AUMs)

Posted on April 23, 2014 by E.O.R


Red Shirt Village, Oglala Lakota Nation (SOUTH DAKOTA) – Organizations from throughout the United States held an Earth Day ceremony to launch a nation-wide campaign to clean up hazardous abandoned uranium mines (AUMs). Clean Up The Mines! calls for effective and complete eradication of the contamination caused by the estimated 10,000 abandoned uranium mines that are silently poisoning extensive areas of the U.S.
Clean Up The Mines! volunteers from across the country toured abandoned mines this week. They donned hazardous materials suits at Mount Rushmore and carried a large banner to raise awareness of the 169 AUMs in the Southwestern Black Hills near Edgemont. There are another 103 AUMS in the Northwest corner near Buffalo. The Northern Great Plains Region of Colorado, Montana, Wyoming, North and South Dakota contains more than 3,000 AUMs.
In Riley Pass, one of the largest AUMs in South Dakota, the deadly effect of the mine was apparent. As the group approached the bluff, the tree line ended abruptly at the edge of the mine. At Ludlow, the group measured radioactivity with a Geiger counter at an elementary school playground that was 44 microrems/hour. This is the equivalent of more than 150 Counts Per Minute (CPM), over the 100 CPM threshold, which means it cannot be attributed to background radiation. During the tour, people from every community spoke of health problems related to uranium exposure and their high level of concern over the lack of information about the AUMs and action to remediate them.
Today, dozens from the community joined with members of organizations including Defenders of Black Hills, Clean Water Alliance, Dakota Rural Action, Peace Pagoda, Veterans for Peace, and Popular Resistance at the Cheyenne River Bridge. They posted signs stating “Warning, Radioactive River” to raise awareness of the radioactive contamination of the Cheyenne River caused by AUMs.
Afterwards, a rally was held in the nearby community of Red Shirt Village where residents cannot drink local water due to uranium and arsenic contamination. Robert Two Bulls, a local spiritual leader, initiated the campaign launch in prayer.
Charmaine White Face, a scientist and coordinator of Defenders of the Black Hills, facilitated the event. “For the American public to be exposed to radioactive pollution and not be warned by federal and state governments is unconscionable,” stated White Face. “Shame on the American federal and state governments for allowing their citizens to be placed in such danger for more than 50 years and not stopping the source of the danger. It is a national travesty.” She noted that thyroid cancer rates are ten times higher than the national average in Western South Dakota. Uranium exposure also causes birth defects, kidney disease and numerous other serious health conditions.
“The mines are a silent health threat. Millions of people are at risk of breathing or ingesting radioactive particles that travel through the air and water and settle in soil where they enter our food system.” Margaret Flowers M.D., an organizer with Popular Resistance. “From speaking to community members and taking our own measurements, we find enough evidence to say there should be more investigation and serious efforts to protect the people. That’s why this campaign to clean up the mines is so important.”
Sandra Cuny Buffington, from the Red Shirt community, a rancher with cattle in the Bad Lands, lived at the river until it wasn’t possible anymore because of contamination. She spoke of high rates of cancer in the area. “We know we are contaminated but where are we going to go? I don’t know of any other life than the one that I have lived. As crazy as it sounds, you learn how to live with it.”

“Abandoned uranium mines are devastating to the health of local populations,” explained Dr. Jill Stein, former Green Party presidential candidate, “The mines threaten not only our health but our economies and ecosystems as well. We’re here to insist on cleaning up the mines and transitioning to a clean renewable energy system. This transition can put American back to work while vastly improving our health. The health savings alone will pay for the costs of this transition.”
“Desecration of the land, the water, the very air we breathe. We see lack of concern for living beings, placing profit before people, before the living earth,” said Tarak Kauff, Board of Directors, Veterans for Peace. “The radiation affects more than just the first nation people living in close proximity. The wind and water carry cancer-causing substances much further. It up to us, an awakened public, ordinary black, brown, white and red people working together to demand, to insure that these toxic highly radioactive abandoned mines be cleaned up – for us and for future generations.”
“From mining, in-situ leaching (similar to fracking), milling, processing, nuclear bomb and energy, depleted uranium weapons to the waste products that have no grave, the only safe place for uranium is in the ground. Uranium and other radioactive materials have been poisoning our environment in increasing amounts since the 1940s,” said Helen Jaccard, volunteer with Clean Up The Mines. “Exploitative corporations and negligent government agencies walked away from their responsibilities.”
“If we don’t defend our sacred water it will be the end of us all,” added Dennis Yellow Thunder, Natural Resources Technician for the Oglala Sioux Tribe Natural Resources Regulatory Resources Agency. “We must support this campaign to clean up the mines. We need to protect this land, our water and the sacred Black Hills. We need to do it from our heart.”

White Face concluded,

“Currently no laws require clean up of these dangerous abandoned Uranium mines. We are letting Congress know: It is time to clean up the mines! We value persistence. We will employ a variety of tactics including legislative and judicial avenues to hold the government and corporations accountable for their negligence and community-based actions to raise awareness and clean up the mines.”

Clean Up The Mines (www.cleanupthemines.org) is a campaign to pass legislation through Congress to ensure clean up of hazardous abandoned uranium and other radioactive materials mines throughout the United States.
Defenders of the Black Hills (www.defendblackhills.org) is a group of volunteers without racial or tribal boundaries whose mission is to preserve, protect, and restore the environment in the Area of the 1851 and 1868 Treaties made between the United States and the Great Sioux Nation.–
Margaret Flowers M.D.

http://eyesopenreport.com/clean-up-a...um-mines-aums/

Nuclear Japan Series: ‘Fukushima: Memories of the Lost Landscape’

April 23, 2014 Arts & Entertainment, Film & TV 1 Comment
Gilberto Flores
Staff Writer
On March 11, 2011, a 9.0 magnitude earthquake hit Japan just off the coast of the Tohoku region and triggered a massive tsunami that washed away more than 20,000 people living on the coastline. The tsunami also caused three reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant complex to melt down, essentially creating the world’s worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl.
Presenting Japan’s confrontation and reaction to this disaster, the Carsey-Wolf Center’s film series, “Nuclear Japan: Japanese Cinema Before and After Fukushima,” began with the 2011 film “Fukushima: Memories of the Lost Landscape” at Pollock Theater on Tuesday, April 15, 2014. The three-part film series is sponsored by the Carsey-Wolf Center, the Department of Film and Media Studies, and the Department of East Asian Languages and Cultural Studies.
“Fukushima: Memories of the Lost Landscape” is director Matsubayashi Yojyu’s third film and first feature documentary following the 2011 catastrophe. The film follows a small community of evacuees from the town of Minamisoma in Fukushima Prefecture, Japan, which lies within the 20 kilometers exclusion site of the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant. Immediately following the tsunami and nuclear meltdown, Matsubayashi hurried to the site to provide victims with relief goods; there, he met city councilor Tanaka Kyoko and her neighbors. Matsubayashi follows and lives with the evacuees, and it is at this moment that he begins filming his documentary.
Matsubayashi captures the intimate and challenging moment in the lives of the local people, such as the times they sleep in the school classrooms (designated as temporary living areas) and when they are allowed to momentarily return to their homes to gather any possessions left unaffected. The film paints an intimate picture of a rich local culture that was washed away by tragedy.
After the screening, there was a discussion and Q&A with event moderator Naoki Yamamoto, assistant professor at UCSB’s Film and Media Studies department and organizer of the “Nuclear Japan” film series, and David Novak, an associate professor in UCSB’s Music department. Complications with Novak’s flight from Portland, Ore., could not keep him from joining the audience at Pollock Theater, and he joined via Skype.
Novak is a musicologist with a specialty in Japanese noise music. In the film, music plays a significant role, and Matsubayushi documents several protests in which Japanese musicians take to the streets to protest against nuclear power. Currently, Novak is working on a new project on the ongoing disaster in Japan, especially in relation to the Japanese musicians and their commitment to the anti-nuclear movements.
“When this triple disaster happened in 2011, I was not in Japan, but [attending a conference] in New Orleans,” said Yamamoto. “Needless to say, I was really shocked by the news. But at the same time I wasn’t able to embrace what was happening in Japan as my own experience.”
Yamamoto tried to keep himself updated on the events in Japan, but avoided watching TV news and Internet videos. Yamamoto’s intentional detachment from the disasters in Japan left him with a sense of guilt.
“As a Japanese native, I just thought it would be ethically incorrect to talk about Japanese people suffering from the position of an outsider,” he said.
It wasn’t until moving to Santa Barbara last September that Yamamoto’s opinion on this changed. Yamamoto said that he quickly began seeing the triple catastrophe in Japan as a global issue that affects everyone, not just the region. He cites three reasons for this change. The first being Santa Barbara’s coastal location facing the Pacific Ocean, where the contaminated water from Fukushima drastically disrupted the ecological system of marine life. The second is California’s familiarity with earthquakes, resulting from constantly shifting fault lines. And the third is Santa Barbara’s vulnerability to the constant threat of nuclear disaster, given its proximity to the Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Plant near Avila Beach in San Luis Obispo County, which is built directly above an active fault line.

“Taken together, the specific situation of Santa Barbara allows me to rethink the ongoing disaster in Fukushima, not simply as [a Japanese] problem, but also as our own problem,” said Yamamoto. “So this is why I came to the idea of organizing this film series on the nuclear disaster in Japan.”
The “Nuclear Japan” film series continues with “Odayaka” on April 22 and “Ashes to Honey” on April 29. Check out Carsey-Wolf Center’s website (http://www.carseywolf.ucsb.edu/) for more details.

http://thebottomline.as.ucsb.edu/201...lost-landscape

Journal: “Fukushima has an Ongoing Melt-Out” — “Is this not the worst possible outcome?” — “Nuclear fuel mixing with groundwater and leaking into sea” — “Disaster never seen in human history and imagined only in movies” — Tokyo Newspaper: “A situation in which massive accidents occur daily”

Published: April 24th, 2014 at 1:04 pm ET By ENENews Email Article 37 comments

Syndic Literary Journal No. 10, by poet Taki Yuriko and translated by John Saxon, Dec. 2013:
Excerpts from ‘Fukushima has an Ongoing Melt-Out’

• On March 11, 2011, Pandora’s Box was opened.
• TEPCO reports, “1000 tons of groundwater Flow daily into the reactor structure. Half the contaminated water is Pumped into land tanks, but Half leaks out to sea”
• In short, Melted nuclear fuel has accumulated In the reactor bottom – Meltdown.
• But now it has breached the reactor bottom, Leaking out of the containment vessel – Melt-through.
• Containment vessels have at least two openings, An entrance for ground water and An exit for contaminated water. Nuclear fuel mixing With the ground water and Leaking into the sea – Melt-out!
• Is this not The worst possible outcome?
• But they deliberately hide the danger, Removing key terms from their reports.
• With the kind of disaster Never seen in human history and Imagined only in movies, Why is there no clear admission?
• The Japanese government says it can retire these plants within forty years. But only if robots can be developed in ten years To replace the human workers And determine where the problem is Inside the highly radioactive reactor. “Where the problem is?!”
• It’s the “hole” through which the Melted nuclear fuel is leaking! Why don’t they SAY THAT?!

Tokyo Shinbun editorial (pdf), Aug. 22, 2013: “After the massive accident at Fukushima, we are now in a situation in which massive accidents occur daily.”
Japan Times, Commentary by Prof. Christopher Hobson of Waseda University: Apr. 24, 2014: [...] many serious challenges lie ahead. There will be more leaks and problems at the No. 1 plant. There will also have to be the controlled release of contaminated water into the ocean. Public support and understanding will be needed through these difficult processes. For this to happen, Tepco needs to begin to rebuild its credibility with the public [...] Tepco’s regaining the trust of Japan’s public is just as difficult a task as resolving the technical challenges in decommissioning the plant. The only way this might happen is [...] to be more honest and transparent about the problems in Fukushima.
View the complete poem by Taki Yuriko here

http://enenews.com/journal-fukushima...-human-history

PBS Reporter Miles O’Brien: “No one likes to see ocean filled with cesium and strontium and so forth” — It’s arriving on West Coast of U.S. as we speak — “Nobody likes the idea of eating cesium from Fukushima” — “Tainted water dumped into Pacific as we speak” (AUDIO)

Published: April 25th, 2014 at 7:41 pm ET By ENENews Email Article 61 comments

Fukushima revisited with Miles O’Brien, BURN: An Energy Journal, March 2014:

• At 5:00 in – Alex Chadwick, host: There are traces of this water approaching the West Coast of the US, is this a cause for worry?
• At 5:05 - Miles O’Brien, journalist: Well, no one likes to see the ocean filled with cesium-134 and -137 and strontium and so forth… The truth of the matter is that this plume, once it arrives at the West Coast of the US — which is really happening as we speak — once it arrives, it is so diluted that it really is far, far below… drinking water standards.
• At 7:45 – O’Brien: Nobody likes the idea of eating cesium from Fukushima.
• At 10:00 -O’Brien: It’s very difficult to get a handle on all the leaks that they have and of course as a result there is tainted water that is being dumped into the Pacific as we speak. The actual impact on the ocean appears to be fairly well limited to the harbor around the Fukushima plant.

Ocean far below drinking water standards on West Coast? See Seafood off N. American coast predicted to exceed gov’t radioactivity limit — “High priority looming threat” to global ocean from Fukushima releases — Radiation levels ‘well above’ 1,000 Bq/kg according to model
Limited to man-made harbor/port/bay around plant? See Japan Times: Prime Minister telling "outright lie"? -- Experts: Nuclear material "has kept gushing into Pacific far beyond man-made bay" -- Fukushima fisherman: "He must be kidding... he doesn't know what's going"
Full interview available here

Professors: Seafood off N. American coast predicted to exceed gov’t radioactivity limit — “High priority looming threat” to global ocean from Fukushima releases — Radiation levels ‘well above’ 1,000 Bq/kg according to model

Published: April 6th, 2014 at 12:39 pm ET By ENENews Email Article 115 comments

‘Environmental Radiation: What Do We Know and What Should We Know for Assessing Risks’
Event: SETAC North America 32nd Annual Meeting, October 4, 2011
Title: Modeling Bioaccumulation Potential of Cs137 in Marine Food Web of NW Pacific, Canada
Authors: Prof. Frank Gobas, Simon Fraser Univ.; Prof. Juan Alava, SFU

• Abstract: The Fukushima nuclear emergency [...] emerged as a high priority looming threat due to the risk of radioactive contamination in the global ocean and biodiversity. [...] we assessed the bioaccumulation potential of 137Cs by testing steady state and time-dependent bioaccumulation models in an offshore food web that included fish-eating, resident killer whales (Orcinus orca) as one of the major top predators of the marine ecosystems in British Columbia, Canada.
• Steady State Bioaccumulation Model: “Concentrations of 137Cs predicted in the male killer whale were approximately three orders of magnitude higher relative to its major prey, Chinook salmon, and > 13,000 times higher compared to phytoplankton.”
• Time-Dependent Bioaccumulation Model: “After 30 days of radioactive spillage, the 137Cs concentrations accumulate gradually over time in high trophic level organisms (salmon and killer whales), which exhibited low concentrations likely driven by slow intake rates, while it bioaccumulates at faster uptake rates in low trophic level, gill ventilating organisms (phytoplankton, zooplankton, benthic invertebrates and planktivorous fish), exhibiting concentration about one to two orders of magnitude greater than that in killer whales. At 9125 days (25 years), the predicted concentrations of 137Cs accumulate in a higher degree in killer whales, being >2 orders of magnitude greater than that predicted in Chinook salmon and 10,000 times higher relative to phytoplankton. The levels of 137Cs predicted in biota (shellfish and fish) exceeded well above the 137Cs action level for commercial food/beverage of 1000 Bq/kg established by the Canadian Guidelines for Consumption following a Nuclear Emergency (emphasis added).”

Full conference presentation here (Account Required)

http://enenews.com/canadian-experts-...iority-looming

TV: Official in Fukushima during 3/11 now suffering many health problems as consequence of nuclear catastrophe — “There’s no place I could go for help… hospital refused to treat me” — I asked for blood test since I’m exposed, but they denied it (VIDEO)

Published: April 25th, 2014 at 5:43 pm ET By ENENews Email Article 49 comments

Katsutaka Idogawa, former mayor of Futaba in Fukushima Prefecture, RT, April 21, 2014 (at 26:00 in):

• Sophie Shevardnadze, host: Have you personally felt the consequences of the catastrophe? Has your health been affected?
• Katsutaka Idogawa, former mayor of Futaba: I now get exhausted quickly, it’s harder to speak, I often get colds. My eyesight worsened. I have a cataract. My stomach hurts. My skin is very dry. I have muscular weakness in different parts of my body. These are the consequences.
• Shevardnadze: Do you receive any treatment as a victim?
• Idogawa: No, I’m not getting any treatment right now. Actually, there’s no place I could go for help. I now live in Saitama. The nearest hospital refused to treat me. So I’m trying to restore my health through nutrition.

Mayor Idogawa, 2012: I’m losing my hair and have nosebleed everyday. The other day, I asked for blood test at a hospital in Tokyo because I’m exposed but they refused it.
Watch Idogawa’s interview here

NY Times in Fukushima: “It’s all lies” from gov’t about radiation — They are forcing us to come back and live 10 miles from leaking nuclear plant — “This is inhumane” — “I want to run away, but… we have no more money” — Radiation still 300% previous levels

Published: April 28th, 2014 at 10:08 am ET By ENENews

New York Times, Apr. 27, 2014: Ever since they were forced to evacuate during [...] Kim Eunja and her husband have refused to return [...] for fear of radiation. But now they say they may have no choice. [...] government and national news media have trumpeted the reopening of Miyakoji as a happy milestone [...] many residents tell a darker story. [...] [Fukushima Daiichi] is still leaking radiation [...] The government has declared that the stipends [...] will end next March, when temporary housing will also begin to be closed. Villagers who move back before then will receive a $9,000 bonus from Tepco [...] Experts [...] say the evacuees will feel increasing pressure to go back from a government that wants [...] to limit criticism of the powerful nuclear industry. [...] Tepco refused to comment, beyond saying that it had so far paid out $36 billion [...] the government says that Miyakoji is safe. [...] On a recent trip here, radiation measured up to 0.23 microsieverts per hour, about three times preaccident levels [...] Experts admit that they know little about the health effects of long-term exposure to low-dose radiation.**
Yukei Tomitsuka, mayor of Tamura (administers Miyakoji): “Tepco is being so stupidly unfair [...] We are the victims. Should we have to go hat in hand to Tepco to ask for more money?”
Teruhisa Maruyama, lawyer, Support Group for Victims of the Nuclear Accident: “This’s inhumane and irresponsible [...] The national government knows that full compensation could add up to big money, enough to raise public doubts about the wisdom of using nuclear power in Japan.”
Kim Eunja, operator of area restaurant: “The government and the media say the radiation has been cleaned up, but it’s all lies [...] I want to run away, but I cannot. We have no more money.”
Satoshi Mizuochi, who helps his wife Kim at restaurant: “They want to say that everything is back to normal so they can keep their nuclear plants [...] Failing to compensate us for our losses is a way of pressuring us to go back.”
Yoshikuni Munakata, retired Daiichi worker: “Compensation payments force us to come back.”
** Lyman, Fairewinds

http://enenews.com/ny-times-in-fukus...but-we-have-no

NY Times Reporter: Untold story of Fukushima is the radiation issue, gov’t doesn’t want us talking about it; A lot going on that’s never reported by media — Afraid of being imprisoned under Japan’s new secrecy law; All officials have to do is say the info is secret (AUDIO)

Published: April 25th, 2014 at 7:03 am ET By ENENews

Foreign Correspondents’ Club of Japan — “The Correspondents’ Table” podcast, March 2014:

• At 52:00 — Host: Is there an untold story about Tohoku that you… believe should be told?
• Martin Fackler of the New York Times Pulitzer-Prize nominated reporting team: Yeah… it’s so hard in Japan to talk about the radiation issue, like how bad is it really… There is a sense that if you even talk about these issues, you’re hurting the poor people of Fuksuhima. Therefore, we shouldn’t talk about it. That’s just not right… The folks who don’t want us to talk about it are the government, because they don’t want to pay compensation… I feel like there is a lot going on in Fukushima that just doesn’t get talked about in the local media, not necessarily for government cover-up sort of issues, but self restraint or self censorship. Even papers that are pretty strong in their reporting on Tepco in some ways, like the Tokyo Shimbun, won’t talk about these issues because they’re afraid that somehow its unpatriotic to talk about radiation. There’s a lot of questions and issues that are not being talked about, and I think they should be talked and if there is damage to the people of Fukushima that’s the responsibility of Tepco…
• Host: Are you at all afraid of this new secrecy law affecting your sources, for example, on the nuclear issues?
• Fackler: Yeah, I am — the government gives us reassurances… My biggest concern is none of these protections of journalism that bureaucrats give you, these verbal reassurances that journalists won’t be affected by the law, none of them are in writing. The law itself doesn’t contain any of these reassurances, so we get these verbal reassurances: “It’s not aimed at journalists; it’s not aimed at journalism; it’s not aimed at transparency and public discourse.” But if you look at the law, none of that is in there. The law actually leaves a lot of leeway, that if somebody else were to interpret that a different way, you actually could throw people in prison. All the government has to do is say this is a secret and your source gets put into prison and perhaps you as well. It does worry me that the language is so broad and so vague that it could be taken a different way very easily.

Full interview available here

Published: April 25th, 2014 at 7:03 am ET

Related Posts

1. Gundersen: Deformities, stillbirths not being reported after Fukushima — Officials withholding truth about health effects — Gov’t suppressing studies on deformed animals (AUDIO) October 3, 2013
2. Japan Times: People “fed up with the shroud of secrecy” in Fukushima — Starting to smuggle in journalists — Must rely on media for help November 8, 2011
3. Media now exposing Fukushima cover-up: “So many terrible things are not being reported” — Official radiation figures cannot be trusted — Regulator suspects Tepco giving false data — Problems much worse than officials claim August 22, 2013
4. Feds keeping sinkhole info secret — State Rep: They’re doing detailed monitoring right now and just not telling us about it — US Gov’t hasn’t taken over yet because it’s about revenue (VIDEO) November 14, 2012
5. Nuclear Expert: Fukushima citizens urged to make reports of deformities or still births — “I don’t believe the Japanese gov’t wants that info out there” (AUDIO) April 7, 2012

http://enenews.com/n-y-times-reporte...talked-about-i