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DESCRIPTION:4/11 Rally-Speak Out Against Nukes In Japan And For Evacuation of Families 
 and Children of Fukushima\nMonday April 11, 2016 3:00 PM\n275 Battery 
 St./California St.\nSan Francisco\n\nOn Monday April 11, people will speak 
 out at the San Francisco Japanese consulate against the restart of over 40 
 nuclear plants in Japan. Despite the fact that Fukushima continues to leak 
 radioactive water and material the Japanese Abe government is pushing ahead 
 along with Tokyo Electric Power Company and other utilities in Japan to 
 restart the dangerous nuclear plants. They are also telling the people of 
 Japan, the US and the world that they have solved the problems of Fukushima 
 and it has been "decontaminated" so people can move back. They are also 
 launching a PR campaign called "Return To Normalcy". This government 
 corporate propaganda campaign is to assure the people of Japan and the 
 world that everything is back to normal in Fukushima. They are pushing 
 tourists to come despite the continued high levels of radiation and the 
 danger for children, families and animals.\nAdditionally thousands of 
 nuclear plant clean up workers have been contaminated and the government 
 has allowed sub sub contractors including the Yakuza to recruit homeless 
 and day laborers to work in the plant without proper health and safety 
 instructions and protection.\nWe will speak out for the children and 
 families of Fukushima and also oppose the growing militarization and 
 secrecy laws which the government passed against mass opposition. The 
 people of Japan by a vast majority do not want the nuclear plants running, 
 the remilitarization of Japan and more bases including in Okinawa. The 
 government has now admitted that US nuclear weapons were on board ships in 
 Okinawa although this was against the US-Japan Security Agreement and put 
 the people of Okinawa in jeopardy.\nThe people of Japan, the US and the 
 entire world cannot afford another Fukushima.\nJoin US\n\nSpeak Out and 
 Rally initiated by\nNo Nukes Action 
 Committee\nhttp://nonukesaction.wordpress.com/\nFor more information\n(510) 
 495-5952\n\nJapan TEPCO draws fire after apologizing to Niigata panel  
 “It is out of the question for TEPCO to seek to restart its reactors, 
 given its corporate 
 culture.”\nhttp://ajw.asahi.com/article/behind_news/social_affairs/AJ201603240072\nMarch 
 24, 2016\n\nTHE ASAHI SHIMBUN\nNIIGATA--Even when they apologize, 
 executives of Tokyo Electric Power Co. can still manage to draw additional 
 criticism.\n\nThe executives, who hope to restart one of the largest 
 nuclear power plants in the world in Niigata Prefecture, held talks here 
 March 23 with a nuclear technology committee set up at the prefectural 
 government.\n\nTakafumi Anegawa, chief nuclear officer of TEPCO, offered an 
 apology for the utility’s misleading responses to the committee’s 
 repeated inquiries about the meltdowns at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power 
 plant.\n\nSpecifically, Anegawa acknowledged that TEPCO could have declared 
 the triple meltdown at the plant a few days after the crisis unfolded 
 following the Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami on March 11, 2011, 
 instead of two months later.\n\nTEPCO said late last month that it had 
 found a passage detailing the criteria of a meltdown in its emergency 
 response manual. Had the company known about that passage when the accident 
 started, TEPCO said, it could have declared the meltdowns earlier.\n\nWhen 
 pressed by the Niigata committee on March 23 on why it took five years to 
 find such an important passage in the emergency manual, the TEPCO 
 executives did not give an explanation, saying the matter was still under 
 investigation.\n\nCommittee members voiced their displeasure.\n\n“Why did 
 TEPCO turn it up now?” asked Masaaki Tateishi, professor emeritus of 
 sedimentology at Niigata University. “It is out of the question for TEPCO 
 to seek to restart its reactors, given its corporate 
 culture.”\n\nMitsuhiko Tanaka, a journalist covering nuclear technology 
 and a committee member, said TEPCO has again shown its slipshod approach 
 toward dealing with an accident.\n\n“TEPCO must have produced the manual 
 but did not read it,” he said. “What it comes down to is that (its 
 employees) had not been well trained.”\n\nTEPCO plans to bring online two 
 of the seven reactors at the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa nuclear plant in Niigata 
 Prefecture and has submitted a safety screening application to the Nuclear 
 Regulation Authority.\n\nThe Kashiwazaki-Kariwa plant has a capacity of 
 8.21 gigawatts.\n\nHowever, Niigata Governor Hirohiko Izumida remains 
 cautious toward restarting the nuclear plant, even if the reactors meet the 
 NRA’s stricter safety regulations that were set following the Fukushima 
 nuclear disaster.\n\nThe governor believes the full picture of the 
 Fukushima disaster has not been unveiled.\n\nThe Niigata nuclear technology 
 committee has been looking into what went wrong at the Fukushima plant, 
 even after the Diet and the government wrapped up their investigations into 
 the nation’s worst nuclear accident.\n\nIn autumn 2013, the committee set 
 up an investigative panel to determine why TEPCO’s official 
 acknowledgment of the meltdowns was delayed.\n\nThe panel demanded 
 explanations from the company. TEPCO said in a reply in November 2015 that 
 what constitutes a meltdown “had not been defined” within the 
 company.\n\nThe panel kept pressing TEPCO, and in late February, TEPCO 
 admitted that the manual used at the time of the Fukushima disaster had a 
 passage defining a meltdown.\n\nAnegawa told the committee on March 23 that 
 the passage was uncovered during an investigation conducted “with the 
 utmost care” to determine whether the delay in reporting to the 
 government the meltdowns and other aspects of the Fukushima accident 
 violated the law.\n\nHowever, he declined to discuss details of how the 
 company came across the passage, saying a third-party panel comprising 
 lawyers and other experts were studying the issue.\n\nAfter the meeting, 
 Anegawa told reporters that he regretted the company’s probe “was not 
 thorough.” He did not say when the third-party panel will release its 
 findings.\n\nCommittee chief Ken Nakajima, professor of reactor safety at 
 Kyoto University’s Research Reactor Institute, said the committee will 
 continue to demand explanations from TEPCO.\n\n“Humans are the ones who 
 must ensure the safety (of nuclear facilities),” he told reporters. 
 “Trust in TEPCO has been eroding. We cannot move ahead unless we are 
 convinced of the veracity of what the company says.”\n\nGovernor Izumida, 
 who has long questioned TEPCO’s credibility, declined an offer from TEPCO 
 President Naomi Hirose in January to collaborate in drawing up an 
 evacuation plan for a possible emergency at the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa 
 plant.\n\n“We cannot evacuate if you hide a meltdown,” the governor 
 told Hirose during the meeting at the prefectural government 
 building.\n\nIzumida’s distrust of the utility runs deep.\n\nAfter the 
 Fukushima accident unfolded, Izumida confronted TEPCO officials over their 
 previous denials over the phone that meltdowns had occurred at the 
 plant.\n\nThe governor insisted that nuclear fuel rods must have melted, 
 but the TEPCO officials repeated their denials by drawing a diagram of the 
 reactors.\n\n(This article was compiled from reports by Yuko Matsuura, 
 Kyota Tanaka, Jin Nishikawa and Tomoyoshi Otsu.)\n\nTHE ASAHI 
 SHIMBUN\n\nFukushima town remains empty, but nuclear slogan 
 disappears\nhttp://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20160327/p2g/00m/0dm/034000c\n\nMarch 
 27, 2016 (Mainichi Japan)\n\nFUTABA, Fukushima (Kyodo) -- The clock at a 
 train station here still points to 2:46 p.m., the time when the massive 
 earthquake occurred on March 11, 2011, triggering devastating 
 tsunami.\n\nThe town, which is home to part of Tokyo Electric Power Co.'s 
 radiation-leaking Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, remains empty as 
 all residents had to evacuate due to high levels of radiation following the 
 nuclear accident triggered by the natural disaster five years ago.\n\nAt a 
 gymnasium in Futaba, fallen ceiling panels were left without being cleared. 
 Everything is covered with dust.\n\nJust outside the gymnasium, there used 
 to be a slogan which appeared frequently in media reports in the past five 
 years. The signboard reading "Nuclear power: the energy for a bright 
 future," has turned into an ironic reminder of how Japan had blindly 
 worshipped nuclear energy's safety.\n\nIn December last year, the slogan 
 was removed from the signboard by town authorities. The town explained that 
 the signs had become "decrepit" and they could fall, according to Yuji 
 Onuma, a Futaba resident who has evacuated to Ibaraki Prefecture near 
 Tokyo.\n\nOnuma, 40, is the one who created the slogan in 1988 when he was 
 in the sixth grade. Back then, he was commended by the town mayor and felt 
 "proud." Onuma recalls that he used to pass under the signboard every day 
 on his commute to work.\n\nBut since the disaster and ensuing nuclear 
 crisis, he started to feel "ashamed." Every time TV footage showed the 
 slogan and the abandoned town as its background, Onuma says the conflicted 
 feelings got worse.\n\nOnuma then thought that he had to "deal with it once 
 and for all." He asked the town to keep the signboard as it is to remember 
 the nuclear accident, even though the request could see him face ridicule 
 in the community.\n\nOn March 17 last year, however, the town assembly 
 decided to remove it. Earlier in the month, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe 
 visited Futaba. Town officials trimmed grown tree branches to welcome the 
 premier, which made the sign even more visible.\n\nOnuma opposed the 
 removal, collecting some 7,000 signatures for his cause. In June, Mayor 
 Shiro Izawa decided to keep the removed signboard at the town hall, but 
 Onuma's request that it remain in its original position was denied. The 
 signboard itself was taken away on March 4 this year.\n\n 
 https://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2016/04/09/18785034.php
SUMMARY:Speak Out Against Nukes In Japan And For Evacuation of Families and Children of Fukushima
LOCATION:275 Battery St. near California and Embarcadero BART\nSan Francisco
URL:https://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2016/04/09/18785034.php
DTSTART:20160411T220000Z
DTEND:20160411T230000Z
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