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DESCRIPTION:SF Rally-Speak Out At Japanese Consulate-Defend the Families And Children 
 of Fukushima, Stop Nuclear Power, Militarization and Attacks On 'Comfort 
 Women' And the Real History of the 2nd WW\n\nRally and Speak Out At 
 Japanese Consulate On Monday January 11, 2015 at 3:00\nJapanese 
 Consulate\n275 Battery St. San Francisco\n\nThe Abe Government despite the 
 dangers of continuing radiation leaks from the Fukushima continues to 
 demand that the children and families return to the area.\nThey also are 
 pushing to re-open additional nuclear plants in Japan despite the continued 
 risk of another Fukushima. The passage of a "secrecy law" and effort to 
 eliminate Article 9 of the Japanese constitution forbidding offensive war 
 continues. Reporters and investigators face potential prosecution if they 
 report on serious breaches of health and safety protection by the nuclear 
 industry and cover-up by Japanese regulatory agencies.\nThe latest effort 
 of the Abe government is to reach a so called agreement about the issue of 
 the 'comfort women' with the Korean government. The agreement which was 
 made without consultations of the 'Comfort Women' themselves is not a 
 formal apology from the Japanese Parliament and does not provide financial 
 compensation. The US government and Congress issued a formal apology and 
 financial compensation to all Japanese Americans who were incarcerated in 
 concentration camps during the 2nd WW and this event is now recognized as a 
 crime against the Japanese Americans.\nThe Abe government as it seeks to 
 tell the Japanese people that they can overcome radiation and decontaminate 
 Fukushima is now saying the issue of the 'Comfort Women' has been resolved 
 and is over. This is the same line they are taking at Fukushima telling the 
 Japanese people the dangers and contamination is over. In fact The Abe 
 administration told the Olympic Committee that this was not longer an issue 
 to be concerned about in Japan in order to get the Olympics in Japan. Can 
 we or any person believe this government?\nAt the same time, the Abe 
 government is seeking to stop memorials to the 'Comfort Women' in San 
 Francisco and around the world as well as seeking to stop US publishers 
 from including the history of the 'Comfort Women' in US education 
 textbooks. The Japanese Foreign Minister is spending $500 million around 
 the world in a propaganda campaign to justify the role of the Japanese 
 Imperial Army in Asia. The remilitarization of Asia through new bases in 
 Okinawa and in Jeju, Korea are not in the interests of people in Asia or 
 the United States which is now supporting this further 
 militarization.\n\nJoin the rally and speak out for defense of the 
 Fukushima families and children, against further restarting of Japanese 
 NUKE plants, the militarization of Japan and the cover-up of the role of 
 the Japanese Imperial Army in the subjugation of the 'comfort 
 women'.\n\nSponsored by No Nukes Action Committee And Additional 
 Endorsers\nhttp://nonukesaction.wordpress.com/  \nFor information call 
 (510) 495-5952  \n\nMoves to restart Takahama reactors have Fukushima 
 evacuees asking, 'What was 
 learned?'\nhttp://ajw.asahi.com/article/0311disaster/fukushima/AJ201512250049\nDecember 
 25, 2015\n\nTHE ASAHI SHIMBUN\nWith the Takahama nuclear power plant 
 getting the green light for a restart, evacuees from Fukushima Prefecture 
 are asking if anything was learned from their plight following the 2011 
 accident at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant.\n\n"I feel the 
 Fukushima accident has become something that lies totally in the past," 
 said Atsuko Fukushima, 43, who fled from Minami-Soma and now resides in 
 Kizugawa, Kyoto Prefecture.\n\nWork began on Dec. 25 to transport nuclear 
 fuel into the Takahama plant, operated by Kansai Electric Power Co.\n\nThe 
 move follows a court decision the previous day lifting an injunction 
 against restarting two nuclear reactors at the plant.\n\nIf everything 
 proceeds along the schedule set by Kansai Electric, one of the Takahama 
 reactors could resume operations in late January.\n\nFukushima referred to 
 the Dec. 24 ruling in Fukui District Court that overturned the injunction 
 against the Takahama plant restart issued by the same court, but a 
 different presiding judge, only eight months earlier.\n\n"I cannot 
 understand why there was a divergence in the decisions made by the judicial 
 system," she said. "If the courts approve reactor restarts and those orders 
 are carried out, there is the possibility of new victims appearing who have 
 to go through what we did."\n\nFukushima is one of a group of plaintiffs 
 that filed lawsuits in Kyoto District Court seeking compensation for 
 evacuees from the nuclear accident as well as to order an injunction 
 against the Oi nuclear power plant, also operated by Kansai Electric in 
 Fukui Prefecture.\n\nIn Preparation to Join US Wars, Japan Dismantles 
 Freedom of the 
 Press\nhttp://www.truth-out.org/news/item/34085-in-preparation-to-join-us-wars-japan-dismantles-freedom-of-the-press\nThursday, 
 17 December 2015 00:00\nBy Jon Mitchell, Freedom of the Press Foundation | 
 News Analysis \n\n\nTwo Okinawan women demonstrate against the construction 
 of a new US Marine Corps base in Henoko district. (Photo: Jon 
 Mitchell)\n\nIn 2010, Japan was ranked #11 in Reporters Without Borders' 
 global Press Freedom Index. By February 2015, that number had plummeted to 
 #61 - and next year it will likely fall further.\n\nSince coming to power 
 in 2012, PM Shinzo Abe and his Liberal Democratic Party have embarked upon 
 a war of attrition against press freedoms in Japan.\n\nAssaults have 
 included: embedding neo-nationalists in key positions at state broadcaster, 
 NHK; issuing veiled threats to TV networks that coverage critical of the 
 government might cost them their broadcast licenses; and accusing a German 
 journalist - who'd written about PM Abe's historical revisionism - of 
 accepting a bribe from China.\n\nThis week, David Kaye, UN Special 
 Rapporteur on the freedom of opinion and expression, was scheduled to visit 
 Tokyo - a trip which would have brought international attention to the 
 Japanese government's suppression of the media. But at the last moment, 
 officials canceled his trip claiming they were too busy to meet him.\n\nThe 
 LDP is particularly keen to avoid scrutiny of the State Secrets Law which 
 it rushed through parliament in late 2013.\n\nThe law gives the Japanese 
 government free rein to classify as a state secret any information related 
 to security and diplomacy - with zero independent oversight. Information 
 can be kept classified for an indefinite period, including reports related 
 to the triple meltdowns at Fukushima's nuclear power plant.\n\nUnder the 
 new law, government whistleblowers can be jailed for 10 years while members 
 of the media publishing leaked information face 5 years imprisonment; 
 foreign journalists - like me - will probably be deported.\n\nRealizing the 
 future of their free press was at stake, the Japanese public - 
 approximately 80% of whom oppose the act - organized some of the largest 
 demonstrations seen here in decades. Newspaper editors, journalists, 
 publishers and lawyers slammed the law as an attack on Japan's 
 constitutionally-protected freedom of the press.\n\nReporters Without 
 Borders said:\n\n"… parliament is making investigative journalism 
 illegal, and is trampling on the fundamental principles of the 
 confidentiality of journalists' sources and 'public interest'."\nOpposition 
 to the State Secrets Act was unanimous - with one exception: the 
 US.\n\nShortly after the act was passed, US Ambassador to Japan, Caroline 
 Kennedy, voiced Washington's approval:\n\n"We support the evolution of 
 Japan's security policies, as they create a new national security strategy, 
 establish a National Security Council, and take steps to protect national 
 security secrets."\nFor many years, Washington's Japan-handlers have 
 pressed Tokyo to introduce repressive legislation to protect secrets 
 concerning the US-Japan security alliance. Most notably Richard Armitage 
 and Joseph Nye include these laws on their wish-list in the 2012 CSIS 
 report The US-Japan Alliance.\n\nSuch US government interference in 
 Japanese domestic politics is nothing new; the CIA funneled money to the 
 LDP throughout the 1950s and '60s to ensure a subservient ally in the 
 region. In recent years, this pressure has increased with Washington 
 repeatedly urging Japan to allow members of its Self-Defense Forces to join 
 America's endless wars in the Middle East.\n\nLast month, Donald Rumsfeld - 
 who once referred to Japan's SDF as "boy-scouts" - was given one of Japan's 
 highest honors, the Order of the Rising Sun. Armitage and Nye are 
 recipients of the same award.\n\nIn PM Abe's government, the Pentagon has 
 found a sympathetic ear for the remilitarization of Japan. Motivated by 
 revisionist nostalgia for Japan's pre-1945 Empire and a misguided hope that 
 war munitions might save the nation's stagnant industrial sector, this year 
 the LDP moved to re-interpret the nation's peace constitution - the key 
 obstacle to the remilitarization of Japan.\n\nIn the summer, the government 
 rammed through parliament its bills on collective self-defense - popularly 
 known as the War Bills.\n\nWorded purposefully vague, the laws allow Japan 
 to send military forces to fight overseas for the first time since World 
 War Two. These troops will fight alongside - or more likely under the 
 command of - the US.\n\nThe US reacted to the passage of the bills with 
 enthusiastic support.\n\nThe State Department said:\n\n"We welcome Japan's 
 ongoing efforts to strengthen the alliance and play a more active role in 
 regional and international security activities, as reflected in Japan's new 
 security legislation."\nOnce again, US support was at odds with popular 
 sentiment in Japan. Many people here likened the rushed passage of the bill 
 as a coup d'etat. Punch-ups between lawmakers broke out in the 
 parliamentary chamber. Tens of thousands of protesters took to the streets 
 - including, for the first time in a generation, many university 
 students.\n\nState broadcaster NHK gave scant coverage to these 
 demonstrations - nor did it report about the man who set himself ablaze 
 atop a Tokyo bridge to protest the war bills.\n\nIn Japan's southernmost 
 prefecture, Okinawa, heckles of "Warmonger" and "Go home!" met PM Abe when 
 he gave a speech in June to commemorate the anniversary of the end of World 
 War Two fighting there. Again, NHK ignored the news - as it does other 
 ongoing human rights violations on the island.\n\nGiven their experiences 
 of World War Two, Okinawans are painfully aware of the dangers posed by PM 
 Abe's resurgent militarism. More than a quarter of the island's population 
 died in the spring of 1945 - sacrificed by Tokyo to delay a US invasion of 
 the mainland. Between 1945 and 1972, the island was a US military colony 
 and the storehouse of perhaps the planet's largest concentration of weapons 
 of mass destruction - approximately 1200 nuclear warheads, thousands of 
 tons of nerve gas and Agent Orange.\n\nToday, Okinawans are still dealing 
 with the consequences of the 27-year US occupation - dioxin contamination, 
 underdeveloped civilian infrastructure and US bases which continue to take 
 up almost 20% of the island, hobbling economic growth.\n\nLocal residents 
 must also contend with close ties between Japanese neo-nationalist groups 
 and the US Marine Corps who leak surveillance videos to extremist 
 websitesin order to discredit the island's peace movement.\n\nFortunately 
 for Okinawans, their two daily newspapers - Ryukyu Shimpo and Okinawa Times 
 - work fearlessly to hold the US and Japan to account for their abuses on 
 the island.\n\nThis has put both newspapers in the LDP's line of 
 fire.\n\nOn June 25, two days after PM Abe's humiliation at the Battle of 
 Okinawa ceremony, the LDP held a study group in Tokyo to discuss the 
 nation's media. At the meeting, Naoki Hyakuta - a former NHK governor 
 appointed by the LDP - gave a speech calling for the destruction of 
 Okinawa's two dailies.\n\nAnother speaker suggested the Japanese government 
 should pressure advertisers to cut their funding to the 
 newspapers.\n\nPublic outrage at these comments was so great that PM Abe 
 was forced to dismiss the study group's organizer from his position - but 
 not from the LDP.\n\nIn the coming years, as Japan prepares to send troops 
 to fight in American wars, attacks on press freedoms in Japan are sure to 
 worsen. And Washington will likely encourage the Japanese government in 
 these assaults - just as it dismantles First Amendment rights at 
 home.\n\nTEPCO confronts new problem of radioactive water at Fukushima 
 plant\n\nhttp://ajw.asahi.com/article/0311disaster/fukushima/AJ201512260045\n\nTEPCO 
 confronts new problem of radioactive water at Fukushima plant\n\nDecember 
 26, 2015\n\nBy HIROMI KUMAGAI/ Staff Writer\n\nTokyo Electric Power Co. has 
 unexpectedly been forced to deal with an increasingly large amount 
 radioactive water accumulating at the crippled Fukushima No. 1 nuclear 
 power plant after seaside walls to block the flow of groundwater were 
 constructed in October.\n\nTEPCO completed the walls on Oct. 26 to block 
 contaminated groundwater from flowing into sea. The utility began pumping 
 up groundwater from five wells dug between the walls and the plant's 
 reactor buildings. The plan called for releasing the less contaminated 
 water into the sea after a purification process, but TEPCO discovered that 
 the water had larger amounts of radiation than it had expected.\n\nTEPCO 
 officials said the situation has left the utility with no option but to 
 transfer 200 to 300 tons of groundwater each day into highly contaminated 
 reactor buildings since November, a move that could further contaminate the 
 water.\n\nComprised of numerous cylindrical steel pipes measuring 30 meters 
 tall, the seaside walls were installed on the coastal side of the No. 1 to 
 No. 4 reactor buildings to block contaminated groundwater flowing out of 
 the highly contaminated buildings from reaching the ocean.\n\nTo control 
 groundwater levels, TEPCO planned to release the less contaminated 
 groundwater from the five wells into sea after a purification 
 process.\n\nHowever, the water from four of the wells was discovered to 
 have high levels of tritium--a radioactive substance that is hard to 
 remove--at levels higher than 1,500 becquerels per liter, which means the 
 water cannot be released into sea.\n\nTo compound the problem, the seaside 
 walls have also significantly raised groundwater levels, forcing the 
 utility to pump a lot more groundwater than it originally planned.\n\nTEPCO 
 has been forced to temporarily transfer large amounts of the groundwater 
 into highly contaminated reactor buildings, where it could become 
 contaminated to an even further degree by being exposed to melted nuclear 
 fuel.\n\nThe utility said it suspects the high levels of radiation found in 
 the groundwater from the wells is due to the water being exposed to highly 
 contaminated soil near the plant’s coastal embankment.\n\nTo reduce the 
 amount of contaminated water at the plant, TEPCO began operations in 
 September to pump up the groundwater in wells constructed around the 
 reactor buildings to release it into the sea after a purification 
 process.\n\nThe company initially announced that the project had reduced 
 the amount of groundwater flowing into the contaminated reactor buildings 
 from 300 tons to 200 tons a day.\n\nThe increasing amount of contaminated 
 water has been stored in tanks constructed in the plant’s compound after 
 going through operations to reduce contamination.\n\nTEPCO plans to 
 increase the amount of water it pumps from wells located elsewhere on the 
 plant site to help reduce the amount of contaminated groundwater 
 accumulating in the seaside wells.\n\nCompany officials admitted they are 
 not sure when it can turn things around and reduce the amount of 
 contaminated water at the Fukushima plant.\n\nBy HIROMI KUMAGAI/ Staff 
 Writer\n https://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2016/01/04/18781485.php
SUMMARY:SF Rally-Speak Out At Japanese Consulate-Defend the Families And Children of Fukushima, St
LOCATION:San Francisco Japanese Consulate\n275 Battery St/California St.\nSan 
 Francisco\nNear Embarcadero BART Station
URL:https://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2016/01/04/18781485.php
DTSTART:20160111T230000Z
DTEND:20160112T000000Z
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