BEGIN:VCALENDAR VERSION:2.0 X-WR-CALNAME:www.indybay.org PRODID:-//indybay/ical// v1.0//EN BEGIN:VEVENT UID:Indybay-18847850 SEQUENCE:19008681 CREATED:20220207T070900Z DESCRIPTION:2/11/22 Thursday SF Rally At SF Japanese Consulate! No More Fukushimas!\nStop Restartinng NUKES in Japan\n99th Action of NNA Committee\n\nThursday February 11, 2021 3:00 PM \nSan Francisco Japanese Consulate \n275 Battery St/California St. \nSan Francisco \nSponsored by No Nukes Action \n\nDespite the fact that the Fukushima nuclear plant meltdowns still has not been contained and is continuing to leak radioactive water into the Pacific ocean the\nJapanese Fumio Kishido wants to continue re-open more nuclear plants.The inability to remove the melted nuclear rods from the broken Fukushima plants more\nthat ten years after the reactor explosions and releases is a warning to the people fo Japan and the world that allowing these plants to restart is a danger to the world.\nAt the same time the Fumio Kishida government is plannning to dump over 1 million tons of radioactive water with Tritium into the ocean.\nThe need to cool the melted nuclear rods with water is another example of this continuing cotastrophe.\nThe families and evacuees continue to be coerced to return to Fukushima despite the real health and environnmentals threats.\n\nWe demand that these plants not be restarted and also the Japanese government end the US-Japan Security Agreemennt which allows US nuclear weapons into\nJapan. The continued military occupation of large parts of Okinawa and other areas continues as well to harm the well being of the people of Okinawa and Japan.\nThe US troops have also brought covid to Okinawa through the US military bases where they allow covid to grow.\nThe Japanese governnment is an active supporter of US plans to surround China and move towards war in the region.\nThis would be catastrophic for the people of Japan and the world. The continued operation of these nuclcear plants also provide Japan with nuclear material for weapons and the growth of militarism remains a growing danger.\n\nJoin the Rally and Speak Out\n\nPhysical distancing and masks for all participants at action \nSpeak-out In Stop The Restarting Of The Nuke Plants \nDefense of the Residents of Fukushima \nDon’t Dump The Radioactive Water In The Pacific Ocean \nThursday February 11, 2021 3PM \nSan Francisco Japanese Consulate \n275 Battery St/California St. \nSan Francisco \nNo Nukes Action \nhttp://nonukesaction.wordpress.com/ \n\nChildren From Fukushima Sue Tepco Over Thyroid Cancer \n\nInsisted that "the exposure of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant caused thyroid cancer" Six children who were children at the time of the accident filed a lawsuit against TEPCO \nhttps://www.tokyo-np.co.jp/article/154959\nJanuary 19, 2022 06:00 \n\nA woman who decides to sue TEPCO. It is necessary to completely remove the thyroid gland and continue to take the medicine that you get for the rest of your life = in Fukushima Prefecture\n　Six men and women aged 17 to 27 who lived in Fukushima Prefecture at the time of the accident were told that they had thyroid cancer due to radiation exposure from the TEPCO Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant accident on the 27th, totaling 616 million against TEPCO. File a lawsuit seeking damages for the yen in the Tokyo District Court. According to the lawyers, this is the first time a patient with thyroid cancer as a child has sued TEPCO for the nuclear accident. (Natsuko Katayama) \n◆ Defense side "I can't think of any cause other than radiation exposure."\n　Four people who lived in Fukushima City and Koriyama City, and one person each who lived in both the Aizu region in the western part of the prefecture and Hamadori in the eastern part of the prefecture. At the time of the accident, he was 6 to 16 years old, and now he is a high school student in the prefecture and Tokyo, working as an office worker and part-time job. \n　Six people were diagnosed with thyroid cancer by a prefectural health survey in Fukushima Prefecture. Two have had one side of the thyroid gland removed, and four have had a total resection due to recurrence and have been or are scheduled for radiation therapy. Some have had four surgeries and some have metastasized to the lungs. Due to medical treatment and surgery, he gave up employment in his desired occupation and was forced to drop out of college or retire. Not only recurrence, but also strong anxiety about marriage and childbirth. \n　The lawyers argue that most of the thyroid cancers found in children, including six, are papillary cancers found in children and adolescents in the Chernobyl accident and are not hereditary and have no other possible cause than exposure. "Many people have relapsed, and overdiagnosis is unlikely. TEPCO admits that the cause is a nuclear accident and should be relieved immediately," said Kenichi Ido. \n◆ The expert meeting is in the position that "causal relationship is not recognized"\n　Regarding the causal relationship between radiation exposure from the nuclear accident and thyroid cancer, the Fukushima Prefecture expert meeting is in the position that it is "not recognized at this time." \n　After the nuclear accident, as part of the prefectural health survey, the prefecture was exposed to a total of about 380,000 people under the age of 18 at the time of the accident and born by April 1, 2012 (including evacuees outside the prefecture). I am testing for thyroid cancer that may develop due to. \n　Normally, the number of childhood thyroid cancer cases is about 1 to 2 per 1 million people a year, but according to surveys, about 300 people were diagnosed with thyroid cancer or suspected thyroid cancer by June last year. The entire amount of medical expenses is provided by the "Prefectural Health Management Fund" established by the national financial support and TEPCO's compensation. \n　Regarding the diagnosis results, the expert meeting is continuing the investigation, saying that "the possibility of overdiagnosis finding cancer that does not need treatment in the future has been pointed out." \n[Related article] 26-year-old thyroid cancer "Marriage, childbirth, future. I can't think of it.”\n\nWorker at bases in Okinawa worried about no-mask troops\nhttps://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/14524672\nBy TAKERO YAMAZAKI/ Staff Writer\nJanuary 18, 2022 at 18:00 JST\nMunetsuka Kayou in Nago, Okinawa Prefecture, on Jan. 9 (Takero Yamazaki)\nNAGO, Okinawa Prefecture—Munetsuka Kayou was quietly drinking beer at a “snack” bar here when he heard music and English-speaking voices emanating from a nearby drinking establishment.\nU.S. military personnel, apparently from the nearby U.S. Marine Corps Camp Schwab, were celebrating the Christmas holidays on the night of Dec. 23. And many of them were not wearing masks.\n“An infection cluster can occur from that,” said Kayou, 38, who works at U.S. military bases.\nThe snack bar’s proprietress was also concerned about COVID-19 outbreaks occurring at U.S. military bases in Okinawa Prefecture.\n“Is Schwab OK?” she asked.\nKayou said about the U.S. personnel, “They might be enjoying a sense of liberty, free from daily drills, but I want them to understand how nervous we are.”\nDuring the previous week, Okinawa Governor Denny Tamaki requested the U.S. bases to order their personnel to refrain from going out.\nKayou looked down at his drink and said, “We are not even told to wear masks at the base.”\nThe more infectious Omicron variant of the novel coronavirus started spreading among Okinawa residents near U.S. military bases at the end of 2021.\nIt also became known that the U.S. military had eased COVID-19-related border controls and restrictions for its personnel without telling the Japanese government.\nTamaki said the variant was “spilled from U.S. military” and led to the recent infection surge in the prefecture.\nKayou said he has been more frustrated at the central government.\n“When a problem occurs, it is always Japan that makes a compromise,” he said.\nKayou also said he is not sure if the central government’s protest over the novel coronavirus “has resonated with” the U.S. military.\nKayou used to deejay abroad and worked at a trading company handling paint in Nagoya.\nHe returned to his hometown, the Henoko district of Nago, five years ago and started working at U.S. bases.\nJapanese workers at U.S. military bases are employed by the Defense Ministry. Kayou said he was attracted to the job security and the monthly pay of 200,000 yen ($1,740).\n“The wage standard in Okinawa is low, so employment at a base is comparatively popular,” he said.\nHis work includes selling protein at a gym inside Camp Schwab and working at an automobile repair shop of Camp Foster, which is located in the central part of the main island of Okinawa.\nHe also runs a ramen shop targeting America troops in Henoko on weekends.\nHe started the business because he “felt sorry for the soldiers when restaurants voluntarily shut down due to the pandemic.”\nAlthough his shop’s ramen is relatively expensive, at 1,000 yen per bowl, he can sell 40 to 50 bowls on a busy day.\nOne dish called “spicy ramen,” which is full of backfat and hot peppers, is particularly popular.\nSome soldiers have contacted Kayou through social media after they returned to the United States and said: “I want to eat it one more time. Tell me the recipe.”\nKayou said many U.S. personnel become interested in Japanese culture, and they often observe how he cooks and are delighted to learn the Japanese language.\nU.S. troops have long been a part of Kayou’s life. His father was a fisherman in Henoko and often invited American soldiers to his home for meals of his freshly caught fish.\nWhen Kayou was in elementary school, he and other children in the community were invited to a military base for a Christmas party, where a soldier dressed as Santa Claus gave them candies.\n“Soldiers would get drunk and get in fights, but I don’t associate them with crimes. I feel closer to them,” he said.\nNAGO ELECTION\nSince Jan. 9, the prefecture has been under the pre-emergency measures to stop the latest surge in infections. The central government and the U.S. government have also agreed to start work to ban military personnel from going out.\nKayou on Jan. 11 started teleworking twice a week.\n“Each member of the U.S. military is a good person, But I feel the coronavirus is very annoying,” Kayou said.\nCampaigning for the Nago mayoral election has kicked off, but Kayou, who is a Chatan resident, cannot vote for the leader of his hometown.\nHe said he feels sad that the ocean off Henoko where he played when he was a child is being reclaimed for a new U.S. military base.\nHe said he feels the central government will carry out the relocation project no matter what.\n“I’ll just have to see how things go,” Kayou said.\nAlthough he wants U.S. bases to implement thorough infection measures, he doesn’t want them to go away.\n“Even with mayors and governors who oppose to the relocation, the construction work has not been stopped. If nothing changes and the town stagnates, the mayor’s job is, preferably, getting money from the central government,” he said.\n\nJapan TEPCO slow to respond to growing crisis at Fukushima plant\nhttps://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/14503708?fbclid=IwAR3arDNZvOGQCwqCodb6IAB3bpfUFSytpB93As_wFZJADZZomC_Eyt3ABkk\nTHE ASAHI SHIMBUN\nJanuary 2, 2022 at 07:00 JST\n\n A special container, right, to store radioactive slurry at Tokyo Electric Power Co.’s Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant on Nov. 26 (Pool)\n\n\nRadioactive waste generated from treating highly contaminated water used to cool crippled reactors at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant has thrown up yet new nightmarish challenges in decommissioning the facility, a project that is supposed to be completed in 30 years but which looks increasingly doubtful.\nThe continuous accumulation of radioactive slurry and other nasty substances, coupled with the problem of finding a safe way to dispose of melted nuclear fuel debris at reactors No. 1, No. 2 and No. 3, has plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Co. frantically scratching around for ideas.\nOne problem is that storage containers for the tainted slurry degrade quickly, meaning that they constantly have to be replaced. Despite the urgency of the situation, little has been done to resolve the matter.\nFuel debris, a solidified mixture of nuclear fuel and structures inside the reactors melted as a consequence of the triple meltdown triggered by the 2011 earthquake and tsunami disaster has to be constantly cooled with water, which mixes with groundwater and rainwater rainwater that seep into the reactor buildings, producing more new radioactive water.\nThe contaminated water that accumulates is processed via an Advanced Liquid Processing System to remove most of radioactive materials. The ALPS is housed in a 17-meter-tall building situated close to the center of the plant site.\nReporters from the Japan National Press Club were granted a rare opportunity in late November to visit the crippled facility to observe the process.\nThe building houses a large grayish drum-like container designed especially to store radioactive slurry. The interior of each vessel is lined with polyethylene, while its double-walled exterior is reinforced with stainless steel.\nALARMING DEVELOPMENTS\nThe use of chemical agents to reduce radioactive substances from the contaminated water in the sedimentation process produces a muddy material resembling shampoo. Strontium readings of the generated slurry sometimes reach tens of millions of becquerels per cubic centimeter.\nTEPCO started keeping slurry in special vessels in March 2013. As of November, it had 3,373 of the containers.\nBecause the integrity of the vessels deteriorates quickly due to exposure to radiation from slurry, TEPCO and the Nuclear Regulation Authority (NRA) predict that durability of the containers will reach the limit after exposure to an accumulated total of 5,000 kilograys of radiation--a level equivalent to 5 million sieverts.\nBased on that grim forecast, TEPCO speculated the vessels will need replacement from July 2025.\nBut the NRA accused TEPCO of underestimating the impact of the radiation problem. It blasted the operator for measuring slurry density 20 centimeters above the base of the container when making its dose evaluation.\n“As slurry forms deposits, the density level is always highest at the bottom,” a representative of the nuclear watchdog body pointed out.\nThe NRA carried out its own assessment in June 2021 and told TEPCO that 31 containers had already reached the end of their operating lives. Its findings also showed an additional 56 would need replacing within two years.\nThe NRA told TEPCO to wake up and “understand how urgent the issue is since transferring slurry will take time.”\nIn August, TEPCO conducted a test where slurry with relatively low radiation readings was moved from one container to another. The work took more than a month to complete due to mechanical troubles and other reasons.\nAn analysis of the radioactive materials’ density data collected during the transfer procedure also turned up another challenge to be overcome. The NRA in October said there was an unacceptable risk of radioactive substances being released into the air during the process and insisted that the refilling method be radically reviewed and changed.\nTEPCO is currently considering what steps to take, including covering the workspace with plastic sheets.\nSlurry in some containers in need of replacement have strontium levels of more than 1,000 times that of the one in the August test.\nTEPCO says that the “container covers will be opened and closed remotely.” But it has not revealed how it plans to safely deal with such readings to carry out the vital work.\nIt was envisioned that equipment to dehydrate hazardous materials to prevent radiation leakage could be built, but as yet there is no finished design for the device.\nWith no drastic solutions in sight, a succession of containers will reach the end of their shelf lives shortly.\nANOTHER NIGHTMARE PROBLEM\nRadioactive slurry is not the only stumbling block for decommissioning.\nIn the immediate aftermath of the 2011 disaster, TEPCO stored contaminated water in the underground spaces below two buildings near the No. 4 reactor. In doing so, bags full of a mineral known as zeolite were placed in the temporary storage pools to absorb cesium so as to reduce the amount of radioactive substances.\nTwenty-six tons of the stuff are still immersed in the dirty water on the floors under the buildings. Radiation readings of 4 sieverts per hour were detected on their surfaces in fiscal 2019, enough to kill half of all the people in the immediate vicinity within an hour.\nTEPCO plans to introduce a remotely controlled underwater robot to recover the bags, starting no earlier than from fiscal 2023, However, it has not determined how long this will take or where to store the bags once they are retrieved.\nIn addition, radioactive rubble, soil and felled trees at the plant site totaled 480,000 cubic meters as of March 2021, leading TEPCO to set up a special incinerator. The total volume is expected to top 790,000 cubic meters in 10 years, but where to dispose of the incinerated waste remains unclear.\nTEPCO is in a race against time. That’s the view of Satoshi Yanagihara, a specially appointed professor of nuclear engineering at the University of Fukui who has specialist knowledge on processes to abandon reactors.\n“Now, only 30 years remain before the target date of the end of decommissioning set by the government and TEPCO,” said Yanagihara.\nAs decommissioning work is due to shortly enter a crucial stage, such as recovering nuclear fuel debris on a trial basis from as early as 2022, Yanagihara noted the need for careful arrangements before forging ahead with important procedures.\n“The government and TEPCO need to grasp an overall picture of the massive task ahead and discuss how to treat, keep and discard collected nuclear debris and the leftover radioactive waste with local residents and other relevant parties,” he said.\n(This article was written by Yu Fujinami and Tsuyoshi Kawamura.)\n\nUS Imperialist Base Infects Okinawa With Omicron\n\nOkinawa fears link between 1st Omicron case and base cluster \nhttps://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/14505250\nBy SHOGO MITSUZUMI/ Staff Writer\nDecember 18, 2021 at 19:01 JST\n\n \nCamp Hansen in Kin, Okinawa Prefecture (Asahi Shimbun file photo)\nNAHA--Prefectural authorities in Okinawa announced the first known case of a local resident confirmed infected with the Omicron variant of the novel coronavirus.\nThe Dec. 17 disclosure came on the heels of a report from U.S. military authorities that close to 100 personnel recently arrived in Okinawa were found to have COVID-19.\nPrefectural government officials requested that those individuals be tested for the Omicron variant to determine if a causal relationship exists.\nU.S. military officials have refused to cooperate with the prefectural government.\nThe infected resident, a man in his 50s, worked at Camp Hansen in Kin, Okinawa Prefecture, and lived in Uruma.\nPrefectural government authorities believe that at least 10 individuals were in close contact with the patient, including family members and work colleagues.\nOfficials are conducting genome analysis because they suspect a woman in her 50s and a male in his 60s who was in close contact with her also may be infected with the Omicron variant.\nU.S. military officials notified the Okinawa prefectural government Dec. 17 that 70 military personnel were found infected. There were also infection reports on Dec. 15 and 16, and the total number of cases came to 99.\nOn Dec. 18, prefectural authorities were informed by U.S. military officials that an additional 59 COVID-19 cases were confirmed among military personnel at Camp Hansen.\nAll of the individuals flew to Kadena Air Base directly from the United States under a planned troop deployment to Okinawa.\nU.S. military officials told prefectural government officials that those recently deployed had no contact with local residents outside the base under a protocol for restricted activity and that those who tested positive were self-isolating.\nThe Okinawa man infected with the Omicron variant did not work directly in the self-quarantine facility in Camp Hansen. Prefectural government officials said an epidemiological study was being conducted to determine if there was a link to the infection cluster among U.S. military personnel.\nOn Dec. 17, prefectural government officials asked the U.S. military to conduct a genome analysis of those infected to determine if any of the individuals had the Omicron variant.\nBut U.S. officials said they did not have the necessary equipment to conduct such tests in Okinawa, adding that if they deemed such tests were necessary they would have to be performed in the United States.\nOkinawa prefectural government officials offered to conduct the genome analysis, but U.S. officials refused on grounds that personal information had to be protected.\n https://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2022/02/06/18847850.php SUMMARY:SF Rally At SF Japanese Consulate! No More Fukushimas! Stop Restartinng NUKES in Japan LOCATION:Japanese Consulate\n275 Battery St./Califoria St.\nSan Francisco URL:https://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2022/02/06/18847850.php DTSTART:20220211T230000Z DTEND:20220212T000000Z END:VEVENT END:VCALENDAR