China Can Afford to Out-wait Abe

    An escalating ambassadorial war of words between Japan and China has descended into a kind of “pot calling the kettle black” situation. In an opinion piece published in the Daily Telegraph last Monday,…

A New State Secrecy Law for Japan? The Abe Proposal

    The last major change to Japan’s secrecy law was made in 2001 when the Diet revised the Self-Defense Forces Law (jietai-ho) to include a new provision protecting information designated as a “defense secret”…

Death Of The Pacific Ocean: Fukushima Debris SOON TO HIT American Shores

An unstoppable tide of radioactive trash and chemical waste from Fukushima is pushing ever closer to North America. An estimated 20 million tons of smashed timber, capsized boats and industrial wreckage is more than halfway across the ocean, based on sightings off Midway by a Russian ship’s crew. Safe disposal of the solid waste will be monumental task, but the greater threat lies in the invisible chemical stew mixed with sea water. This new triple disaster floating from northeast Japan is an unprecedented nuclear, biological and chemical (NBC) contamination event. Radioactive isotopes cesium and strontium are by now in the marine food chain, moving up the bio-ladder from plankton to invertebrates like squid and then into fish like salmon and halibut.

Fukushima: TEPCO Says It DOES NOT KNOW HOW the Contaminated Water Leaked out or Where It Has Leaked to

Fukushima operator reveals leak of 300 tonnes of highly contaminated water Spillage is most severe since March 2011 as Tepco says it does not know how the water leaked out or where it has leaked to Frantic efforts to contain radioactive leaks at the wrecked Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant have been dealt another blow after its operator said about 300 tonnes of highly contaminated water had seeped out of a storage tank at the site. The leak is the worst such incident since the March 2011 meltdown and is separate from the contaminated water leaks, also of about 300 tonnes a day, reported recently.

The Fukushima Nightmare Gets WORSE

Just when it seemed things might be under control at Fukushima, we find they are worse than ever. Immeasurably worse. Massive quantities of radioactive liquids are now flowing through the shattered reactor site into the Pacific Ocean. And their make-up is far more lethal than the “mere” tritium that has dominated the headlines to date. Tepco, the owner/operator–and one of the world’s biggest and most technologically advanced electric utilities–has all but admitted it cannot control the situation. Its shoddy performance has prompted former U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commissioner Dale Klein to charge: “You don’t what you are doing.” The Japanese government is stepping in. But there is no guarantee–or even likelihood–it will do any better. In fact, there is no certainty as to what’s causing this out-of-control flow of death and destruction.