Generalcomments

Dear all,

Thank you all for visiting, reading and sharing the news with me on the Fukushima Appeal Blog. I’ve kept it running since February 2012. Unfortunately, I will need some break now to attend to some of my health issues.

I would like to thank this blog and its supporters for giving me an opportunity to become a part of the slowly awakening global community during this very important time of global change. I had zero knowledge of nuclear before the Fukushima disaster, and was and still am a just normal citizen. It’s been hard to see Japan becoming a criminal, immoral and authoritarian country since the Fukushima Disaster. So it’s been a huge awakening and healing process to have a platform to speak out instead of feeling powerless, angry and sad about it. With the new secret law that is going to be introduced in Japan soon, Japanese people will need more help than at any other time in its history from foreign bloggers, doctors and scientists. Please remember Fukushima. I hope that the more difficulties we may encounter, the stronger and connected we will become to fight against injustice and be able to act from our heart space. (Mia)

日本の皆さん、がんばってください。 再稼動反対、子供を守れ! 1mSv/yの約束を守れ!

For more Fukushima update go to: www.nuclear-news.net, http://fukushima-diary.com/, https://www.facebook.com/fukushima311watchdog, http://enenews.com/, http://www.fukuleaks.org/web/, http://www.nuclearhotseat.com/ http://ex-skf.blogspot.co.uk/

Petition: Support Mari Takenouchi and Radiation Protection

日 本の皆様へ、個人的な感情面から、竹ノ内真理さんのことを批判したい方は、すでにそうしたのだから、これからは、その時間とエネルギーをエートス批判に向 けるべきではないでしょうか? そしてボランテイアで、海外に向けて、英語発信する真理さんは、海外の情報源にとって、貴重な存在だと思います。 (Mia)

(English) https://secure.avaaz.org/en/petition/Office_of_the_Prosecutor_Iwaki_Branch_Fukushima_Japan_Support_Mari_Takenouchi_and_Radiation_Protection/?pv=4

(Japanese) https://secure.avaaz.org/en/petition/Fu_Dao_Xian_Jian_Cha_Ting_Dian_ziyanarisutonoZhu_Ye_Nei_Zhen_Li_Shi_Save_Kids_JapanwoQi_Su_sinaidekudasai/?pv=8

Urgent Petition: ttp://www.change.org/en-GB/petitions/ask-japanese-government-promise-for-necessary-aid-for-children-who-are-still-exposed-radiation-more-than-1msv-year-3


National Parents Network to Protect Children from Radiation

I hope that every child in Japan is given comprehensive thyroid blood testing including at the minimum TSH, Free T4, Free T3 and thyroid antibodies. Their thyroid function should be regularly tested on an ongoing basis. “ By Dana Trentini http://fukushimaappeal.blogspot.co.uk/2013/11/thyroid-testing-for-japanese-children.html

*latest Fukushima Thyroid examination results released on Nov 12. (Complete English translation) (Source) http://fukushimavoice-eng2.blogspot.co.uk/2013/11/thirteenth-prefectural-oversight.html
National Parents Network to Protect Children from Radiation

*Fuel Removal From Fukushima's Reactor 4 Threatens 'Apocalyptic' Scenario In November, TEPCO set to begin to remove fuel rods whose radiation matches the fallout of 14,000 Hiroshima bombs

http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2013/10/24-3

*Kashiwazaki Nuclear Plant: Fukushima Governor stands in the way to stop restarting! 柏崎原発:再稼動させないよう立ちはだかる新潟県知事泉田氏 http://fukushimaappeal.blogspot.co.uk/2013/11/kashiwazaki-nuclear-plant-fukushima.html

*Statement: Japanese civil society requests that the reports of the United Nations Scientific Committee on Fukushima be revised 日本の64の市民団体が福島事故に関しての国連科学の報告内容を改訂するよう要請 www.http://hrn.or.jp/eng/a tivity/area/worldwide/japanese-civil-society-requests-that-the-reports-of-the-united-nations-scientific-committee-on-fukus/

Anand Grover, Esq., UN Special Rapporteur on the right to health, criticizes UNSCEAR report on Fukushima -10/24/2013 (1 of 4)国連「健康に対する権利」の特別報告者のアナンド・グローバー氏: 国連科学の報告を批判 Video - http://vimeo.com/78483070 October 24, 2013 (NYC, NY)

*Medical experts criticize UNSCEAR report for playing down consequences of Fukushima nuclear accident ドイツの専門家が国連科学の報告書を、「福島事故の影響を過小評価している」と批判! http://www.save-children-from-radiation.org/2013/11/05/medical-experts-criticize-unscear-report-for-playing-down-consequences-of-fukushima-nuclear-accident/

*Frightening Report from the UNSCEAR (The United nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation UNSCEAR-国連科学委員会による、恐るべき報告http://fukushimaappeal.blogspot.co.uk/2013/05/frightening-report-from-unsear-united.html

*Heavily Criticized Recent WHO Report on Health Risk Assessment from the Fukushima Disaster 厳しく批判された最近の福島事故による健康被害についてのWHO報告 http://fukushimaappeal.blogspot.co.uk/2013/03/who-report-on-health-risk-assessment.html

*UN Report – Japanese Delegation to The UN Spreads Lies and Deception! 国連報告書2013年4月  国連への日本政府代表団のうそとごまかし! 抗議締め切り517日! http://fukushimaappeal.blogspot.co.uk/2013/05/un-report-japanese-delegation-to-un.html

*まとめ:国連報告書2013年4月  国連への日本政府代表団のうそとごまかし! 抗議締め切り517http://fukushimaappeal.blogspot.co.uk/2013/05/un-report-japanese-delegation-to-un.html

*A letter to all young athletes who dream of coming to Tokyo in 2020 東京オリンピックを目指している若い選手の方々へ Some Facts You Should Know About Fukushima 0.086Bq/kg was normal amount of ionizing radiation in fish before the Fukushima accident. Now it is 100Bq/kg 1160times more radioactive. http://fukushimaappeal.blogspot.co.uk/2013/10/a-letter-to-all-young-athletes-who.html

Fukushima Petitions ☢ Please Sign and Share! Japan needs Worldwide Help NOW! Stop Fukushima Radiation – UN Action Needed

https://secure.avaaz.org/en/petition/STOP_FUKUSHIMA_RADIATION_UN_ACTION_NEEDED/

Mobilize the U.N. Security Council to declare Fukushima a global emergency;
http://petitions.moveon.org/sign/mobilize-the-un-security

*Tokyo radiation is worse than Gomel - Mika Noro’s speech on the impact of radiation in Japan http://fukushimaappeal.blogspot.co.uk/2013/07/tokyo-radiation-is-worse-than-gomel.html

*Police arrest animal rescuers inside Fukushima evacuation zone — “They cannot be contacted and are being charged with crimes” http://fukushimaappeal.blogspot.co.uk/2013/02/police-arrest-animal-rescuers-inside.html

Resistance posted by Ian Thomas Ash, a director of Fukushima Documantary Film "A2-B-C"

As one does not train with weight that is too light,….. And as I write this, I realize something for the first time: the more I embrace the resistance, the more I am becoming it. http://ianthomasash.blogspot.jp/2013/11/resistance.html

*福島原発で働く皆さんへ、世界からの暖かいメッセージ http://nuclear-news.net/2013/12/01/to-the-fukushima-workers-we-support-you-address-to-j-village-supplied/

(Japanese translation)http://goo.gl/re5822

*Fukushima Farmers negotiate with Japanese Government/Tepco 福島農家の若者、政府と東電に対して勇気ある発言 http://fukushimaappeal.blogspot.co.uk/2013/09/fukushima-farmers-negotiate-with.html The current government limit is 100Bq/kg... 0.1Bq/kg for cesium in rice before the Fukushima disaster. … We feel guilty about growing it and selling it...

*Atomic bombs survivors received fair compensation, not so in Fukushima!

広島・長崎の被爆者援護法:追加1ミリ被曝で被曝者認定、福島事故被害者にも認定を、するべき

The Japanese Gov recognizes radiation related illnesses! http://fukushimaappeal.blogspot.co.uk/2013/05/atomic-bombs-survivors-received-fair.html


Thursday 5 September 2013

Fukushima fishermen losing hope as trial operations postponed



THE ASAHI SHIMBUN (JAPAN)
September 04, 2013
SOMA, Fukushima Prefecture–With a series of leaks of radioactive water at the crippled Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant, fishermen such as Yoshinori Yamazaki are feeling frustrated after being forced to postpone trial operations scheduled to start in September.
Yamazaki, 45, who lives in Soma, about 40 kilometers north of the plant, said time is being wasted as he cannot go to sea with his father Matsuo, 71, and his 23-year-old eldest son.
Before the Great East Japan Earthquake struck in March 2011, the three generations of his family went fishing together.
Matsuo had been excited about his grandson joining in the family tradition.
“We (the family) were doing as well as anyone else,” Yamazaki said. “How many valuable years do we have to lose?”
The city’s Matsukawaura Port had boasted one of the largest fisheries hauls in the Tohoku region before the disaster. For many working at the port, fishing is a family business, with a number of teenagers and those in their 20s deciding to take up the trade each year.
Throughout the season, more than 100 species are caught in the waters off the port. In the morning, the fish market was crowded with the wives of fishermen helping sort the day’s catch.
But the port was devastated by the tsunami, which followed the earthquake on March 11, 2011, and killed 101 members of the Soma-Futaba fishing cooperative association.
In an effort to bounce back from the earthquake and the Fukushima nuclear plant accident, the association started test operations in June 2012 for “mizudako” (North Pacific giant octopus) and two other species.
Conducting monitoring inspections, the association repeatedly checked samples to confirm safety of the catches.
Association members originally planned to triple the fishing grounds and increase the catch to 16 varieties when the trial operation resumed in September.
Yamazaki was well prepared for fishing for whitebait, a new species that was scheduled to be added in September. The fish, which brings high prices, is a lucrative catch for fishermen.
Fish detectors were showing large schools of whitebait, which have increased in number during the past years of suspension of fishing operations.
Yamazaki bought new fishing equipment, costing about 2 million yen ($20,000), to replace the gear that had been washed away in the tsunami.
The announcement by Tokyo Electric Power Co., the operator of the Fukushima nuclear power plant, that highly radioactive water has been leaking at the Fukushima No. 1 plant came during such preparation.
Following the March 2011 earthquake, his son obtained a license as a heavy truck driver and a heavy machinery operator. Yamazaki has told him to wait “until things get better.”
“I cannot keep him from leaving home forever,” Yamazaki said. “This coast will be no more if young people are gone.”
His mother, then 65, who supported the family’s fishing operations, was killed in the tsunami while Matsuo piloted his boat to safety in waters off Soma immediately after the earthquake.
“Even three years after the disaster, I cannot operate the boat I had protected in exchange for my wife’s life,” Matsuo lamented. “It doesn’t seem right that I saved the boat.”
Nobuo Shishido, president of the Soma-based supermarket Super Shishido, has also been discouraged by lagging sales apparently due to media coverage about the contaminated water leaking into the ocean.
“Last summer, 10 times more octopus, caught during the trial fishing period, were sold than this year,” Shishido said. “Even if I want to sell, consumers do not respond.”
Of about 200 kilograms of octopus caught in Fukushima waters and stocked in early August, half have been left unsold.
According to the Soma-Futaba fishing cooperative association, octopus caught during the trial fishing period had been shipped to Tokyo and Nagoya. But wholesalers in Nagoya stopped accepting the octopus in late July, a week after TEPCO announced a leak of radioactive water.
Hiroyuki Sato, who heads the association, has also felt frustrated.
“Products we monitored and found to be safe have been given the cold shoulder (by our customers),” Sato, 57, said. “We have done many things until now, but we are right back where we started.”
Fukushima Prefecture has been monitoring radiation levels of fish since April 2011. The levels have shown recovery from the measurements taken immediately after the accident.
The prefecture measures weekly radiation levels of about 150 fish samples at about 40 locations in the waters off Fukushima Prefecture, except the area within a 5-km radius of the wrecked Fukushima nuclear power plant.
In recent months, radiation levels have been at less than the detection limit of around 16 becquerels per kilogram for most species, such as flatfish, marbled flounder and whitebait.
According to the prefecture’s marine products division, the fisheries haul in coastal waters totaled only 122 tons in 2012, when Soma-Futaba started the trial operation, compared with about 26,000 tons, worth about 9 billion yen, each year before the 2011 disaster.
This year saw improvement, with a total of 386 tons of fish caught during trial operations while the concentration of cesium did not exceed the safety limit at many locations off the prefecture.
Aside from the Soma-Futaba fisheries cooperative association, the Iwaki fisheries cooperative, based in Iwaki, Fukushima Prefecture, south of the Fukushima No. 1 plant, planned to launch a test operation in September for the first time since the 2011 earthquake and tsunami.

(This article was compiled from reports by Takayuki Kihara, Takemichi Nishibori and Shinichi Fujiwara.)
THE ASAHI SHIMBUN

(Editor’s note:  Like so many of us including me weren’t aware of the danger of nuclear energy till the Fukushima disaster.  Tepco now admitted that leaking of the radioactive water has been happening right after the disaster.  It is truly devastating situation for these fishermen.  It will only get worse as one of the ionizing radiation Strontium90 would accumulate in the seafood, especially in fishes that are on the top of the food chain such as tuna through biological concentration.  Food authorities in the world only check Iodine and Cesium in food but not Str90 including Tritium and many others…. I hope those in the fishing industry would keep fighting back against the Japanese government and Tepco for their right.  Also I hope that spreading their voices to the rest of the world would make others be aware of how devastated situation that the nuclear fallout could bring to us all and to our environment.)

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