"Testimony of a Fukushima Mother" & Green Action's Petition to Protect Children from Radiation-induced Cancers

"Testimony of a Fukushima Mother" by Sachiko Sato, posted at Counterpunch and Green Action's "EMERGENCY petition to roll back reckless radiation limits and protect hundreds of thousands of Japanese children from a lifetime of cancer fear":

OUR PETITION

We ask the government of Japan to take these action, beginning immediately:

Withdraw the 20 mSv per year radiation standard issued April 19, 2011 for children and restore the 1 mSv per year dose limit for children.

Minimize children’s radiation exposure. Increase support for municipal agencies and civil society groups aiding Japan’s thousands of radiation refugees and undertaking urgent decontamination efforts.

In setting radiation exposure limits, take into account “internal” radiation exposure from contaminated food, dust and other sources.

To protect children, maintain official radiation monitoring after outdoor contamination falls below 3.8 microSv per hour, a radiation level still 6 times what triggers a “radiation-controlled” working condition.

To people outside Japan, these demands will sound like mere commonsense. But given the stress and influences on the Japanese government, our people desperately need help for commonsense to prevail and for our children to be protected. Changing public policy in Japan will have the most far-reaching results.

We thank you for your understanding and support.

Free the Kamagasaki 7: Homeless and migrant worker rights advocates unjustly arrested in Osaka- 4 remain in police custody

Labor unions and their supporters are criticizing Osaka city officials because they are denying the right to vote to migrant workers, many whom are risking their lives in earthquake and tsunami-stricken Fukushima.

In 2007, Osaka City invalidated the residency cards of 2,088 people in Kamagasaki, a neighborhood housing many homeless people who work as temporary, migrant day laborers. The reason:their addresses were not valid. Their cards were registered with the Kamagasaki Liberation Assembly Hall, Furusato no Ie, and NPO Kamagasaki, all homeless advocacy organizations. Without residency cards, the homeless are unable to vote, obtain driver's licenses and other official documents.

Since 2007, members of the Kamagasaki Seven have worked to lobby Osaka City to revalidate the residency cards of the homeless migrant workers.

In the beginning of April 2011, these homeless and workers’ rights advocates were arrested by Osaka police for "interfering with a public servant in the execution of his/her duties.” Among those arrested include documentary filmmaker Reo Sato. He was apprehended on April 10th outside of polling boxes in Kamagasaki after casting his vote in the local elections. Prior to voting he walked around the neighborhood with other rights advocates encouraging the homeless to cast their votes despite a lack of residency cards.

On the same day as the original arrests, the police also searched 14 different households, including Sato's. Sato was not home at the time. Police confiscated 250 DV tape recordings, including the entirety of the footage he had been taking of the movement to restore residency rights since 2007.

Police rummage through Leo Sato's documentary footage
(Courtesy of Free K!)

Three of the Kamagasaki 7 were released on April 25th, however four have remained in indefinite detention. Police denied bail requests without justification. Since the arrests, local organizations have been raising awareness of the situation while gathering petition signatures in order to pressure the police for their release. These organizations include the Organization Against the Repression of the Kamagasaki 7 , Free the Kamagasaki 7, Hatarakibito [Working People] , and Kamo Pato Action. A petition started by the 4/5 Kamagasaki Oppression Organization, gaining the support of around 50 organizations thus far, can be found here.

Among the homeless temporary migrant workers affected by the Osaka City decision include 400 laborers from Kamagasaki now working in Tohoku. They face nuclear radiation sickness and endure poor working conditions.

The issue of a requirement of a permanent address to vote affects more than those who live in Kamagasaki. Homeless people in Japan now number 30,000. Moreover, evacuees from the Tohoku region number 200,000. Japanese city officials need to reconsider the requirement of a permanent address to vote.

130 rally for the release of Kamagasaki 7 on April 16th (This and more photos at Hatarakibito)

- Posted by Jen Teeter

Amidst hopeful signs, activists continue impassioned efforts to stop nuclear power plant in gorgeous Seto Inland Sea

Movement supporters' kayaks lined up near site of the proposed Kaminoseki nuclear power plant, Yamaguchi Prefecture, March 2011

A movement to stop construction of a nuclear power plant near the town of Kaminoseki in Yamaguchi prefecture saw a hopeful development late last week when the governor announced that it was considering to refuse any further lease of the land for the plant’s construction. According to an article in The Japan Times:

The Yamaguchi Prefectural Government might invalidate Chugoku Electric Power Co.'s license to reclaim land in the Kaminoseki area for a nuclear power plant, Gov. Sekinari Nii said Thursday.

Nii also told reporters the prefecture will set its policy direction "while examining developments" related to the government's review of nuclear energy policy in light of the crisis at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant.

This news was welcomed with cautioned joy by a group of activists whom I met with in March after deciding to leave Tokyo during the initial bewildering days following the earthquake and tsunami, when the nuclear crisis in Fukushima was still unfolding. At this time, throngs of so-called genpatsu nanmin, or “nuclear power refugees”, headed westward from the greater Tokyo metropolitan area for safer climes when it appeared likely that a cloud of deadly radiation could be well on its way toward the Kanto region. At the invitation of a friend in Hiroshima, I boarded an early morning train—well aware of the irony given my destination—to seek refuge and also meet with local anti-nuclear activists, including those involved in trying to stop the Kaminoseki nuclear plant in neighboring Yamaguchi prefecture.

After spending several days and nights in an internet café glued to the news in order to try and make sense of the crisis, one of the first organizers I ventured out to speak with was Shoji Kihara, the author of a book called Nuclear Scandal, which outs the entire system whereby payouts are made to bribe people into supporting nuclear power despite its dangers. At the time, Kihara’s sense was that the Yamaguchi prefectural government would indeed eventually prohibit the plant from being built.

“It is a tragic irony, but in a sense the Fukushima accident probably had to happen in order to wake people up regarding the need for nuclear power policies to change,” he told me. “Electric power companies presently allocate nearly their entire energy budget toward nuclear power, with close to nothing at all for any sort of alternative energies. If the industry had not been so intent upon pushing nuclear power, what happened in Fukushima could have been avoided altogether. But now, people living near the Fukushima plant will experience the same cycle of worry, anxiety and fear that hibakusha have had to endure for more than 65 years, whether in Hiroshima, Nagasaki or Chernobyl.”

Several days later, I had an opportunity to chat with several more anti-nuclear activists while visiting the Hiroshima Center for Nonviolence and Peace, headed by Dr. Mitsuo Okamoto—a professor of Peace Studies under whom I studied while an exchange student in Hiroshima nearly twenty years ago. The professor's wife Tamayo is a committed campaigner against nuclear power, and through her introduction, I received an opportunity to actually visit the proposed plant site together with another dedicated member of the 'Stop Kaminoseki' movement, who travels to the site at least once every week to support the locals in their struggle.

Masahiro Watarida, my host for the day, picked me up several days later in the early morning for the three-hour drive to the plant, located at the tip of a peninsula facing the gorgeous Seto Inland Sea. An extremely kind and soft-spoken man, Watarida retired early from his nearly twenty-year career in the organic produce distribution industry in order to spend a year in the United States learning English and studying food security issues before returning to Hiroshima to become a full-time activist. He was extremely generous with his knowledge regarding the workings of the nuclear power industry and it's effects upon ordinary peoples' lives.

He told me that since the plant site was not in direct view of residents in the town of Kaminoseki, it was easier for the Chugoku Electric Power Company to buy them off and keep them quiet about nuclear power's potential dangers. “The fishermen’s cooperative from Kaminoseki sold their fishing rights around the plant site for hundreds of millions of yen, and the people have also gotten quite used to the cushy arrangement whereby the power company hands out huge subsidies for road repairs and other local projects,” he explained.

Watarida told me that the town of Kaminoseki and its environs are a “hotspot for biodiversity”, rich in seaweed and aquatic creatures such as the sunameri (finless black porpoise), and featuring one of the last pristine untouched spots in the entire Seto Inland Sea. “This was an extremely important area from around the 17th to the 19th centuries in terms of communication and transportation, so there is also enormous potential here in terms of tourism and history,” he explained. “We still have hopes that the local community here will wake up to these possibilities and stop being so dependent upon corporate handouts.”


The story was a completely different one, however, Watarida said, for those living on the nearby island of Iwaishima (mostly fishermen, and their wives), who literally find the proposed nuclear power plant site staring them directly in the face. He said that they had been loudly protesting the plant—which sits a mere four kilometers away from their island—since its inception some thirty years ago. Its fishing cooperative members staunchly refused to sell their rights to the electric power company, choosing instead to put up an impassioned fight to protect their natural way of life.

“Since the islanders of Iwaishima do not have many employment opportunities other than fishing due to being separated from the mainland, many men have gone on assignments to work in nuclear power plants in Shikoku or other parts of Japan,” Watarida explained. “They know the dirty truth of the industry firsthand, and in fact, a majority of these men have already died from cancer.”

After winding our way to the end of the peninsula, we parked the car and headed to an impressively constructed log house that a group of activists had built as their headquarters of sorts. Almost immediately, we came across a friendly looking man who was cutting down some bamboo trees. Watarida told me he was a fisherman from Iwaishima who was helping to lead the movement against the plant. When he heard I was a journalist, he remarked, “tell those people in the big cities if they need so much electricity, they can take this ugly nuclear plant and put it in their own backyard!”

In addition to the fishermen and their wives from Iwaishima, I learned that the movement had also recently gotten a fresh infusion of energy from a cadre of young kayakers concerned with environmental destruction, who began coming in from all around the country to lend their voices and support. Several of them were inside the log house when we arrived, and invited us in to chat over steaming cups of organic biwa (loquat) tea harvested from Iwaishima island—one of the local, small-scale sustainable industries that the islanders were trying to emphasize in their fight against the plant.

One of the youth, I was told, was a twenty year-old who spearheaded a ten-day hunger strike two months earlier with four other young activists in an effort to try and stop construction of the plant. The young man, whose name was Naoya Okamoto but was known mostly by the nickname "Kin", told me that he knew absolutely nothing at all about nuclear power until a year prior; but after learning about it from a friend who had heard a speaker on the issue, he knew he had to act. “Radiation affects young people the worst, but most youth have no idea about this issue,” Kin said. “I wanted to do something to try and change the world before I turned twenty, and I figured that a hunger strike might work in terms of shocking people into paying attention to this critical problem.”


Right to left: Kin,Watarida, and another young movement supporter
After finishing our tea, we made our way down a steep path to the plant site at the peninsula’s tip. Although a moratorium was called on further construction at the Kaminoseki site following the disaster at the Fukushima plant, the Chugoku Electric Power Company tried to find a loophole by sending a crew to the site to conduct “research”, which consisted of blasting dynamite into the ground and then clearing the rubble. “Clearly, this is not ‘research’; it is construction,” Watarida observed. “Just one more of the company’s lies.”

Ignoring both the posted signs and the periodic loudspeaker outbursts telling non-workers to stay away, we proceeded to the water’s edge. Coming down the path, we held on to bamboo railings that had been crafted by the man we ran into earlier, whose name I learned was Yoshito Kanata. We found him sitting on the edge of a kayak, drinking a beer.

“The people who are supporting this plant have been completely brainwashed by money, and are now totally dependent on it,“ he told us after motioning us over. “On Iwaishima, we fish for our own dinner, because nothing tastes better than something you have worked for and gotten through your own sweat and hard work.” He snorted with laughter, raising his beer into the air, but then grew serious again. “If this plant is built and something goes wrong, the entire Seto Inland Sea will be completely destroyed.”

Watarida told me later that Kanata once worked at a nuclear power plant on nearby Shikoku Island, but found the conditions so horrifying there that he lasted only one month, and never returned.

We sat for awhile, watching a bora fish arcing across the bay in a series of graceful, energetic leaps. “These islanders know how to live in harmony with nature, and we need to learn from them,” Watarida finally said slowly, looking off into the distance. “The seashore—it’s a part of the commons.”

Masahiro Watarida points toward Iwaishima from the proposed plant site

Yoshito Kanata standing next to construction clearly underway

Back at the log house, another activist named Yota Nakayama was busy e-mailing and making telephone calls. He said that after the Fukushima accident, he had been contacting the Chugoku Electric Power Company and the Ministry of the Economy every day to demand that construction at the Kaminoseki plant be stopped immediately.

When I told him that I was from Arizona, he told me he had been to the Hopi and Navajo reservations several times as a participant in the Longest Walk, an event organized to raise awareness and facilitate social action regarding various issues facing Native Americans. He was in touch with friends who were on the walk, and told me that when they learned of the disaster in Japan, they had just arrived onto the Hopi reservation.

We both noted that the timing of this was an interesting convergence in light of the Hopi Prophecy, which is a message passed down through several generations that tribal elders decided to release publicly after being horrified to learn that plutonium and uranium taken forcibly from their land (an act that they described as “carving out the earth’s vital organs”) were used to create the atomic bombs that destroyed Hiroshima and Nagasaki—themselves actions that were part of the prophecy.

Their message described how humankind had come to stand at the crossroads of two possible futures, depending on which actions were taken: either peaceful sustainability or total annihilation. I had learned about this from a 1986 documentary film titled Hopi no yogen (The Hopi Prophecy), a classic among social activists in Japan that I had seen the previous year at an arts festival. Unsurprisingly, some were now saying that the recent disaster in Japan was further evidence of the world now having arrived at this moment of truth.

After chatting a bit more with the group, Watarida and I made the drive back to Hiroshima—stopping first on the waterfront in Kaminoseki, where a young man called Nobu—a long-haired musician who was one of the core activists from the log house—had gone to play his guitar and sing in the hopes of reaching out to locals with his message. Although he rarely attracted an audience, he said, still he continued going to sing in the town every day in the hopes that even one local would be touched by his music and consider joining the movement.


Nobu singing for the cause in Kaminoseki
Nobu's melodies were hauntingly beautiful, and while we listened—each of us sitting apart from each other along the dock with our own thoughts, and yet very much together—I felt an incredible sense of oneness with this group and its purpose. I wanted to stop time to keep the feeling, to explore the region further, to go deeper with the connections I had begun to forge. I knew, however, that the time was approaching for me return to Tokyo in order to move on with life—in whatever direction that would turn out to be.

This post was excerpted from 'Finding Hope in Hiroshima,' a photo-essay presently awaiting publication. Kimberly Hughes is a Tokyo-based writer, freelance translator, and university educator. Her writings may be found at http://kimmiesunshine.wordpress.com.

Live streaming of Greenpeace Japan's report on nuclear contaminated waters around Fukushima- May 26 (Sign petition please!)

See you later nuclear power!

The nuclear disaster in Japan continues to unfold as Tokyo Electric Company (TEPCO) has also confirmed meltdowns in reactors 2 and 3, after just releasing information on May 15th that reactor 1 of the Fukushima power plant had indeed experienced a meltdown as early as 16 hours after the earthquake.

Koichi Nakano, a political scientist at Sophia University in Tokyo, told Reuters, "In the early stages of the crisis TEPCO may have wanted to avoid panic. Now people are used to the situation … nothing is resolved, but normal business has resumed in places like Tokyo."

The slow pace at which information is being released is hindering efforts to contain radiation and ensure that residents living in reach of contamination are evacuated to safe locations. Citizens across Japan and the world have been raising their voices against the continued use of nuclear power and the concealment of information (See photo essay on demonstrations against the proposed Kaminoseki nuclear plant in Seto Island, and Ten Thousand Things posts on marches in Jeju Island (Korea), Kyoto, Osaka, Shizuoka, and Tokyo (April 10th and May 7th ).

In response, Greenpeace asked the Japanese government for permission to conduct a survey of the radiation in the coasts surrounding Fukushima.The government only permitted them to survey the ocean 22 kilometers from the shore from May 3rd through 6th. With the help of local fishing cooperatives in Fukushima Prefecture and Miyagi prefecture, Greenpeace examined the levels of radioactive contamination present in marine life.

Here is a video of their activities near the Fukushima coast:

"We are talking here about long lived radioactive materials that might accumulate in the food chain and cause threats to the health of the Japanese people for the coming decades...Although the Japanese government gave us only very limited permission to do our marine research, we did find radioactive seaweed with alarming high levels of contamination." - Female Greenpeace Researcher

"We demand that the Japanese government conduct more serious investigations of the levels of contamination in the ocean" - Male Greenpeace Researcher (Translation of Japanese)

The results will be reported at a press conference on Thursday May 26, from 11:30-12:30 (Tokyo Time). For those unable to attend the press conference, it will be screened live at the following link: http://www.greenpeace.org/japan/ja/library/ustream/

Greenpeace is also collecting petition signatures online calling for:

• no more nuclear plants
• a permanent halt to the use of nuclear plants currently operating

The petition is in Japanese, but it is simple to add your name.

1. Click on orange button.
2. The first field is for your name, the second for your address, and the third for your email address.
3. Choose the second circle in the fourth column if you do not want to receive Greenpeace's mail magazine in Japanese.
4. Then click the orange button under that and you are done.

In order to prevent the next nuclear disaster, Greenpeace is also urging concerned individuals to email the boards of international banks that are funding the construction of a nuclear power plant in Jaitapur, India. These are some of their talking points found here:

* Since the Fukushima nuclear disaster countries such as Germany and China have put moratoriums on nuclear expansion, but India and South Africa announced plans to further develop their nuclear energy programmes. The most worrying of these is situated in a place called Jaitapur in India. Which if completed will be the world's largest nuclear power facility.

* Two of the world’s largest banks, HSBC and BNP Paribas, are part of a group of banks looking to invest in this project.

* The proposed reactors would be built on a high risk earthquake zone on the coast - leaving it vulnerable to earthquakes and potential Tsunamis and flooding.

* The project faces very strong local opposition, as it would have huge impacts on the local environment and economy, affecting more then 20.000 farmers and fisherman.

* HSBC's climate investment update has show that nuclear power is considerably more expensive then renewable solutions, like wind power.

* By removing nuclear power from their investment portfolios, these two banks can be leaders in the clean, safe energy future. We need them to only invest in renewable and energy efficiency technologies.

* For those of you who are clients of the banks you can communicate that you do not want your savings to be used in financing dangerous nuclear projects like Jaitapur, you want your bank to support clean, safe and sustainable energy.

Germany, China, and Italy have laid to rest plans to build new nuclear plants. Toshiba has recently announced that they will turn the focus of their kaleidoscope away from nuclear energy and instead concentrate on renewables. However, Prime Minister Kan and Japanese bureaucrats ignore the tell-tale signs that nuclear power is morally, functionally, and ethically extinct, and instead continue to insist that nuclear power can be used safely in the future.

The funding currently being channeled into nuclear in Japan, can be shifted to renewables like photovoltaic and wind energy instead. This will allow Japan to realize its proposal to equip all new buildings with solar panels by 2030, even sooner. Plus, the loss of more lives and the destruction of livelihoods can be prevented.

- Posted by Jen Teeter

The Asia-Pacific Journal: "What Price the Fukushima Meltdown? Comparing Chernobyl and Fukushima"

(A joint survey conducted by the Japanese and U.S. governments has produced a detailed map of ground surface radioactive contamination within an 80-kilometer radius of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant.))

Tokyo Electric Power Company, TEPCO, has now acknowledged the early meltdown of at least three reactors in the first multiple meltdown in nuclear history. Matthew Penney and Mark Selden have organized and assessed the contentious literature comparing Chernobyl and Fukushima in their recent article, "What Price the Fukushima Meltdown? Comparing Chernobyl and Fukushima," published at The Asia-Pacific Journal and republished at Truthout and Znet.

Along with Greenpeace on Twitter (gpjen) and Fukushima Update, Kyoto-based Green Action's blog, The Asia-Pacific Journal has been the best source of comprehensive in-depth investigative English-language reporting and analysis of the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant failure, attempted cover-ups, and radiation risks. APJ editors and contributors recognized early on the seriousness of the accident and radiation risks The online journal has published some fifty articles on Japan's 3.11 earthquake/tsunami/nuclear power disaster in the last three months and several more must-read pieces are in the works.

Penney and Selden conclude that Fukushima radiation exposure to school children is at the center of the debate; challenging the Japanese government's failure to "respond effectively to critics of policies that pose long-term risks to the nation’s children."

For updates, consider subscribing to APJ's free Weekly Newsletter announcing new articles, and visiting them on Facebook and Twitter.

Photo Highlights of ALL WEEK LONG "No to Nuclear" Rallies in Kyoto, Japan- Last walk today 2pm

Students, workers, Tokyo and Tohoku evacuees, hundreds of people have come from far and wide to raise their voices against nuclear power EVERY DAY in Kyoto all this week. The daily walk through downtown Kyoto is not organized just for the sake of protesting. Participants are coming together to learn, exchange ideas, build networks, and formulate proposals to create a nuclear-free Japan.

Come today to Sanjo Ohashi to join in the final demo for the week.

• Meet at 2pm
• March at 3pm

Organized by: Organization to Stop Kansai Electric Nuclear Power Plants

Organization contact info: genpatsu.tomeru@gmail.com/090-9860-9860
http://genpatsumoumuri.seesaa.net/
http://ooburoshiki.tumblr.com/
https://twitter.com/#!/oooburoshiki

Here are some photo highlights from the week. More to come!

Day 1- Hundreds proclaim "No Nukes" in the heart of downtown Kyoto

A variety of appeals to put an end to nuclear power

Day 2- "We are against nuclear power too"- Queers against nukes

Day 3- Japanese citizens are outraged at government regulations have increased the radioactive load for children to 20 mSv/year.

Day 4- Ibaraki Parliament member Keiki Yamashita will run throughout his constituency carrying this flag "Let's get rid of nuclear power"!

Day 5- Yuki designs clothing to support the anti-nuclear power movement

Day 6- 250 people met at the riverside to join in the march

Will you be in the picture on day 7? Hope to see you there!

- Posted by Jen Teeter

"Stop the Monju" global appeal to close decrepit breeder reactor

(The governor of Fukui prefecture allowed the fast experimental breeder nuclear reactor Monju to resume operation after a suspension of more than 14 years. It was shut down after its malfunctioning coolant system caused a fire. The problematic, decrepit reactor (ironically named after the Buddhist bodhisattva of wisdom) in Tsuruga, Fukui Prefecture, in western Japan, was activated on May 6. 2010.)

Two months after the tsunami and the explosion at Fukushima, the situation in Japan is still very dangerous, even if the corporate media is not reporting this. All over the country, earthquakes are still taking place, some of great intensity. Japanese people are very worried because of the radioactive contamination of air, ocean, potable water and agricultural soil. The ruined Fukushima Dai-Ichi nuclear plant will continue emitting this radiation for an indeterminable period.

This is why several groups have initiated a renewed campaign against nuclear energy: the first step towards definitive change on a worldwide scale. We are all connected by invisible links and share a common fate. Nuclear power is not only injurious, but also deadly. The people of Japan are asking for help to collect signatures from all over the world to convince their government to close all of Japan's nuclear plants.

During the past weeks, people worldwide signed a petition supporting the Japanese people's demand for the closure of Hamaoka nuclear plant which is located directly on a faultline manifesting seismic activity. On the sea, the plant is near the renowned geographical symbol of Japan: Mount Fuji. The petition cited the imminent risk of a nuclear explosion that could destroy the centre of Japan, including Tokyo.

On May 6th, Prime Minister Naoto Kan, announced that he requested the closure the Hamaoka plant. His administration also announced their decision to focus on the development of natural energy, rather than nuclear power.

However there are still more than fifty nuclear plants in Japan, some are at extreme risk. People in Japan say they must demonstrate the international support of their campaigns to close them, to be successful.

This website (mainly in Japanese) contains online petitions (in English, Spanish, French, and Russian) demanding the closure of other nuclear plants, starting with Monju, the most dangerous: http://www.page.sannet.ne.jp/stopthemonju/.

"Stop the Monju" has been working for many years to close the Monju nuclear plant in Fukui Prefecture. Here is their latest appeal:

Appeal To Everyone Around the World,

Now we are walking on the brink of an unfathomable catastrophe and we do not know what tomorrow will bring. This is because of the potential of the catastrophe at the Fukushima nuclear power plant and impending subsequent disaster. Already, a massive amount of radiation (several hundred thousand terabecquerel) has been released, and many people, including young children, have been exposed to radiation.

Fearing the coming of this day, many people throughout Japan have been working desperately, but despite these efforts, the tragedy at Fukushima was not prevented. It is truly disappointing.

At the same time, we feel outraged toward those who make the excuse that it was “unexpected”, and continue to promote nuclear power without reflecting at all, even with the reality that is in front of us. From now, radiation will contaminate the food, and the health of all citizens throughout Japan will be threatened whether we like it or not. In addition, it will also cause major losses in the economic world.

If an earthquake directly strikes the Hamaoka nuclear power plant, Monju, or the nuclear fuel reprocessing plant in Aomori Prefecture, it will be the end of this country. Everyone, shouldn’t we at least prevent that catastrophe from happening? It is not too late now. If we remain silent, for certain, the day of disaster comes closer. The energy will not be a problem without nuclear power.

Let us make the voice of “no nuclear power” into a big shape, and seek a change in policy. Please help to gather signatures so that we will never again expose more people to dangerous radiation leaks from nuclear plant accidents.

For more on Monju, please see:

• May 6, 2010 post: Monju resumes operation after 14 years; Citizens' Nuclear Information Center calls this playing "Russian Roulette"

• 2009 post: "Nuclear Industry Status Report 2009: The renaissance of nuclear energy is much exaggerated (with the possible exception of Monju)"

(The post pays tribute to the late Jinzaburo Takagi, founder of Tokyo-based Citizen's Nuclear Information Center (CNIC). The visionary activist and other Japanese citizens were able to temporarily compel the closure of the problematic Monju reactor after a notorious nuclear accident and attempted cover-up. Takagi also worked to legitimize the plight of Chernobyl victims who developed cancer, following an International Atomic Energy Association (IAEA )1991 report that claimed "radiation from the Chernobyl accident had almost no effect on the local population.")

• "FAQs on Japan's prototype fast breeder reactor MONJU, May 29, 2005 (Revised)", Green Action

Anniversary of Okinawa Reversion: Locals attach 100 protest banners to fence surrounding land the U.S. Marines have earmarked for new base

(Photo courtesy of the Okinawa Times)

This morning on the anniversary of the reversion of Okinawa, 150 people in protest attached 100 banners on the U.S. military fence towering over Henoko Bay surrounding the land earmarked for the "relocation" of Futenma Air Base. May 15th marks the 39th anniversary of the "return" of Okinawa to Japan, yet Okinawa remains in a de facto state of occupation as policy-makers in Tokyo and Washington, D.C. continue to ignore citizen cries to remove bases from Okinawa and to end the ceaseless co-option of pristine forest and sea-side for relocation of U.S. bases.

It has recently been brought to my attention, that when discussing the construction of the new base, military and governmental officials use the term "relocation," which gives the false impression that once Futenma is no longer used as an air base, the land Futenma is on will magically return to how it was before; that the destruction the base has caused on the ecosystem and on the Okinawan people will magically disappear. "Relocation" is used to hide the fact that Washington and Tokyo officials, at the expense of Okinawan people, are adding yet another military base to the list of over 800 U.S. bases around the world. As US for Okinawa expresses in a February 2011 press release, "To us, the promise being made to Okinawa sounds like telling a man you will give him back an arm you have cut off only as long as you can remove his leg."

Click here, Ryukyu Asahi News clip, to view footage of citizens in action. A translation follows below:

Next is Okinawa Prefecture news. The U.S. military has finished erecting a fence at the seaside along Henoko Bay in Nago City. Today, civil organizations and fellow citizens participating in 5.15 Peace Walk, attached banners to the fence to protest the construction of a military base at the site.

The fence, which reaches as much as 4 meters-high, was completed on the beach which connects Henoko Bay to Camp Schwab. Citizens and local groups engaged in a sit-in on the 14th protesting the construction of a new base there, were joined on the 15th by more citizen groups and protesters participating in the Peace Walk to hang banners on the fence saying "NO" to bases in Okinawa.

Ashitomi Hiroshi, joint-representative of the Anti-helipad Construction Cooperative Group stated, "(Our action at this fence) is a good way to show everyone that the plan to relocate Futenma to Henoko will be a failure."

A similar Asahi News clip may be viewed here.

This is the 34th annual Okinawa Peace Walk. According to the Okinawan Times, participants started marching at 9am from Ginowan City Hall. They separated into two groups, one going to the north, one to the south, so as to surround Futenma Air Field. Around 2000 marchers will meet at 12:30 in Ginowan Beach Park to demand that the "Host Support Fund" being paid to the United States to occupy Okinawa be transferred to reconstruction efforts in Tohoku and that bases be removed from Okinawa. This is the first year that organizations outside of Okinawa were not invited to take part in the march. Organizers want to prioritize earthquake relief and show solidarity with earthquake and tsunami survivors whose suffering has been compounded by the nuclear disaster in Fukushima. The event which usually spans over three days, was shrunken to one this year

Today, solidarity demonstrations and actions will be taking place all across Japan to appeal to remove bases from Okinawa and terminate plans to construct helipads for the V-22 Osprey aircraft, which have already taken the lives of 30 people in the U.S. and 4 in Afghanistan.

In Kyoto, citizens are meeting at Sanjo Ohashi at 3pm, and in Osaka, people are meeting at the Taisho Okinawa Kaikan at 2pm.

-Posted by Jen Teeter

Masahide Ota on Peace Boat's 73rd Voyage: Just as people of Japan are working together to recover, people of the world must work together for peace

Former Okinawa Governor Ota Masahide's speech is interpreted by Peace Boat staff member Julia Malecky.
Masahide Ota joined Peace Boat's 73rd voyage, his first on the peacebuilding NGO's ship, leaving Yokohama on April 24.

The president of Peace Boat's Global University and former governor of Okinawa shared an Okinawan maxim:

In Okinawa we have a motto: "Peace, independence and co-existence."

The visionary scholar and leader suggested just as the people of Japan are working together to recover from natural disaster and nuclear catastrophe, the people of the world must work together to build peaceful societies.

More about Masahide Ota, his scholarship and peacebuilding:

• Extensive interview by Satoko Norimatsu published at The Asia-Pacific Journal: "The World is beginning to know Okinawa": Ota Masahide Reflects on his Life from the Battle of Okinawa to the Struggle for Okinawa

• In this essay, Ota cites the 5,200 Okinawans who have been victims of crimes perpetrated by U.S. soldiers, still uncollected unexploded bombs and bodily remains of Okinawans from the Battle of Okinawa, and ongoing collective post-traumatic stress, in a plea for peace and the end the militarization of Okinawa:

Thus the war is still going on for the people in Okinawa. Why shall we start preparing for a new war, while the old war is not over yet?

"The war is still going on for the people of Okinawa" was published in Magazine 9 in 2007.

• "Supreme Court of Japan Testimony on U.S. Troop Presence," given by Masahide Ota when he was governor of Okinawa, published at JRPI Critique in 1997.

若者たち、渋谷に集まる－5.7 反原発デモYoung Crowd Gathers In Front of NHK, Shibuya - Another Large Anti-Nuclear Power Demonstration in Tokyo

Moms and Children - a poster that depicts how all organs of a baby are susceptible to radiation
Satoko Norimatsu's report (with video and photos) on the Shibuya demonstration for non-lethal forms of energy production:

５月７日２時渋谷区役所前集合、脱原発デモに行ってきました。どれだけ報道されるかが楽しみです。ＮＨＫも目の前でやったのでさすがに無視できないのではないかと期待しています。講演での集会やコンサートは盛り上がっていましたが、行進は警察に管理されながらなかなか進めない、エネルギーも落ちてしまうような不自由なものでした。写真とビデオを紹介します。

I just came back from the anti-nuclear power demonstration held in Shibuya, Tokyo. Last time a large demonstration of 15,000 people was held in Koenji, Tokyo, much of the media ignored it, but this time the demo was right in front of NHK in Shibuya, so they have no excuse not to report it.

Following massive citizen action throughout Japan, Chubu Electric announces Hamaoka nuclear plant shutdown

After widespread citizen protests throughout Japan, Chubu Electric Power Co. plans to stop all reactors at its Hamaoka nuclear plant in central Japan according to The Mainichi Daily News:

Chubu Electric Power Co. plans to stop all reactors at its Hamaoka nuclear plant in central Japan following Prime Minister Naoto Kan's request to do so for security reasons, company sources said Friday.

The decision was learned of shortly after Kan said at a hastily arranged news conference in the evening that all operations at the plant in Shizuoka Prefecture must be suspended due to concerns that a powerful earthquake could trigger yet another serious nuclear crisis.

"It's a decision made after thinking about people's safety," Kan said in announcing the request, referring to the science ministry's prediction of an 87 percent chance of a magnitude-8.0 quake hitting the Tokai region within the next 30 years.

Read the entire article here.

Nuclear watchdog groups: Washington should rethink plans for multi-billion dollar plutonium complex after discovery of seismic risk in New Mexico

"Nuclear watchdog groups slam New Mexico plan":

The U.S. government should rethink plans for a multi-billion dollar plutonium complex at Los Alamos after the recent nuclear catastrophe in Japan and the discovery of increased seismic risk in New Mexico, nuclear watchdog groups said.

A hearing began on Wednesday in U.S. District Court in Albuquerque on a lawsuit filed by the Los Alamos Study Group seeking to block any further design, construction or funding of the proposed Chemical and Metallurgy Research Replacement Nuclear Facility until adequate studies of environmental impact and alternatives are complete. Arguments are expected to continue on Monday.

"The real question is whether Los Alamos and the country need this facility at all," asked Greg Mello, executive director of the Los Alamos Study Group. "Between now and 2023, this facility will generate nothing but cost to national security, to the environment, and to the taxpayer, no matter what design they choose. So the point is: Why build it?"

Learn more at the Los Alamos Study Group website.

Moms to Save Children from Radiation: "Please Help!"

Moms to Save Children from Radiation, a new Japanese NGO, is pleading for support:

"Please help!" press release in English

Please help!
Children in Fukushima are at risk!

The area within 20 km radius of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant was designated as a “caution zone”, where people are prohibited by law from setting foot. There is however no evacuation instruction yet issued for the areas near this zone, so that children go to school every day just as before.

Recently, the Ministry of Education announced the following statement for 13 schools in the cities of Fukushima, Koriyama and Date:

1) When air dose rate on their schoolyard and playground is below 20mSv / year or 3.8μSv / hour, outdoor activities are "safe" so that the facilities can be used as usual.

2) For the facilities exposed to the dose rate exceeding the level set as above, outdoor activities should be limited to one hour per day and kindergartens and daycare centers should not allow their children to play in the sandbox..

The threshold established by the Ministry of Education for children is higher than for the area currently subject to planned evacuation and six times higher than for the "radiation controlled area". Besides, this threshold of 20msv/year was found to be equal to the upper limit of exposure rate for nuclear power plant workers in Germany.

Currently, 75 percent of elementary and middle schools in Fukushima under survey is reported to be contaminated as highly as in the "radiation controlled area". Although children are not allowed to stay for longer than one hour in the playgrounds and parks with a 3.8μSv or higher level of contamination, this threshold level seems to be too high to protect them from radiation poisoning. Possible risks for children, who are several times more susceptible to radiation exposure than adults, thus remain ignored by the Japanese authorities.

What will happen to the children ten or twenty years later?

All the parents in Fukushima are in agony considering their future.

A lot of people are beginning to raise their voices to say: Things shouldn’t remain as they are, we must save children.

Faced with great authority of the Japanese government and TEPCO, however, they are yet unable to find any concrete solution.

We call for the following three actions from the government, Tepco and other authorities concerned.

1) Establish a lower exposure threshold for children;

2) Take as early action as possible to remove the contaminated soil from the schoolyards where a radiation level exceeding the set threshold is detected, or to allow the children at those schools to study at other schools outside the contaminated area;

3) When evacuation of children with or without their parents is necessary, ensure that they can find appropriate hosting facilities and are supplied with the sum of compensation enough to sustain their livelihood.

Since TEPCO sponsors a number of nation-wide mass media, major TV stations and newspaper companies in Japan are not positive about such actions. We therefore would like to appeal to you press people outside Japan for assistance.

Please report as much as possible on this problem. Please disseminate it to the world.

Please pursue the status quo of the children being exposed to radiation.

Please endeavor to save the future of children together with us.

Grace Lee Boggs calls for a revolution in cultural values: "What are we for, rather than what are we against?"

In this Democracy Now! interview, legendary peace & justice activist from Detroit, Grace Lee Boggs talks about the social and cultural openings unfolding in the wake of failures of our current economic system. Boggs, with DN!'s Juan Gonzalez, Harper'scolumnist Thomas Frank, and minister Jim Wallis, discuss the revolution in values Martin Luther King called for 50 years ago.

This Asia Pacific Forum (WBAI 99.5 FM) interview, "Making the World Anew," with Grace Lee Boggs and her co-author Scott Kurishige, focuses on their new book, The Next American Revolution: Sustainable Activism for the Twenty-first Century. The deep question the book addresses is "What are we for, rather than what are we against?"

The daughter of Chinese immigrants who lived in New York City, Boggs attended Barnard College on a scholarship, and received a PhD at Bryn Mawr, before embarking on a journey of lifelong advocacy of interconnected social justice and peace causes.

Her father ran a popular Chinese restaurant on Broadway, near Times Square. Despite all his success, in the 1920's, when he bought a house in Queens, he had to the put deed in the name of an Irish-American contractor because Asian-Americans were not allowed to own property.

Because of her experience with structural racism, Grace Lee Boggs came to identify with African American intellectuals and activists, the vanguard of all U.S. ethnic minority movements and leaders in global human rights and anti-colonial struggles during the 20th century.

In an interview with public broadcaster Bill Moyers in 2006, Boggs explained:

When I was growing up, Asians were so few and far between, they were almost invisible, so the idea of an Asian American movement was unthinkable. When I got my PhD in 1940, even department stores would come out and say, 'We don't hire Orientals, and so the idea of my getting a job teaching at a university was ridiculous.

Boggs tells us that we must remain aware our struggles for equality, dignity, justice and peace are part of an ancient humanistic tradition that is interconnected and global in scope. The philosopher-activist sees nonviolent grassroots social change as part of a "pilgrimage" that humans have undertaken for millennia.

Discussing her mentor, Dr. Martin Luther King, Boggs reminds us that King didn't just talk about civil rights. Similarly to Malcolm X and other anti-colonial activists of his time, King saw the American Civil Rights Movement as one piece of a global human rights movement challenging the violence and exploitation of hundreds of years of militarized colonialism. Boggs echoes King in telling us that our challenge is not one nation, but instead our challenge are the globally interconnected patterns of racism, materialism, violence, and militarism. As King emphasized, we can only address this dysfunctional and sick mindset by cultivating a "radical revolution of values" — spiritual, moral, creative, and human values — a revolution that begins inside ourselves.

Instead of despairing at what we're up against, Boggs sees hope for change by "bringing together small groups for a major cultural revolution" to address the monstrous growth of the military-industrial complex, the planetary environmental emergency, the plight of the marginalized and other related problems.

We must look for ways to "regain our humanity in little, practical ways." She recommends gardening, especially community gardening, as a means for us to remain connected with and become empowered by our beautiful, living, natural world.


(Grace & the late Jim Boggs. Image: Boggs Center)
Grace Lee Boggs reminds us to stay focused and gain strength from being effective in our personal worlds and finding alternative ways to regain and expand control over our lives:

Do something local...Do something real, however small...There was a time when we thought if we just received political power, we could change everything...

But we have to begin new practices... engender discussions...community...dialogue...

We have to change the way we think...I think we have to rethink the concept of "leader" because the idea of "leader" implies power...

We need to appropriate the idea that we are the leaders we've been waiting for.

More about Grace Lee Boggs and her affirmative philosophy at The Boggs Center website.