Showing 41 posts tagged Japan

High-res thepoliticalnotebook: Picture of the Day. Tokyo, Japan. A woman walks past a stock quotation board outside a brokerage. In the news: The share average for Japan’s Nikkei stock market slid to a 2 1/2 year low this morning after a weekend of Wall Street losses compounded by growing fears over Greek default. The Greek debt crisis, and the possibility of a massive economic fallout as a result of Greek default, was also weighing on the proceedings of a meeting of economic powers, the World Bank and the IMF. US Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner warned that the possibility of default “must be taken off the table.” Photo Credit: Toru Hanai/AP. Via. View more Picture of the Day posts. Submit a photo

thepoliticalnotebook:

Picture of the Day. Tokyo, Japan. A woman walks past a stock quotation board outside a brokerage.

In the news: The share average for Japan’s Nikkei stock market slid to a 2 1/2 year low this morning after a weekend of Wall Street losses compounded by growing fears over Greek default. The Greek debt crisis, and the possibility of a massive economic fallout as a result of Greek default, was also weighing on the proceedings of a meeting of economic powers, the World Bank and the IMF. US Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner warned that the possibility of default “must be taken off the table.”

Photo Credit: Toru Hanai/AP. Via.

View more Picture of the Day posts. Submit a photo

High-res mohandasgandhi: What Happened to Media Coverage of Fukushima? While the U.S. media has been occupied with Anthony Weiner, the Republican presidential candidates and Bristol Palin’s memoir, coverage of Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant disaster has practially fallen off the map. Poor mainstream media coverage of Japan’s now months-long struggle to gain control over the Fukushima disaster has deprived Americans of crucial information about the risks of nuclear power following natural disasters. After a few weeks of covering the early aftermath of Japan’s earthquake and tsunami, the U.S. media moved on, leaving behind the crisis at Fukushima which continues to unfold. U.S. politicians, like Rep. Joe Barton of Texas, have made disappointing and misleading statements about the relative safety of nuclear power and have vowed to stick by our nuclear program, while other countries, like Germany and Italy, have taken serious steps to address the obvious risks of nuclear power — risks that the Fukushima disaster made painfully evident, at least to the rest of the world. News outlets in other countries have been paying attention to Fukushima, though, and a relative few in this country have as well. A June 16, 2011 Al Jazeera English article titled, “Fukushima: It’s much worse than you think,” quotes a high-level former nuclear industry executive, Arnold Gunderson, who called Fukushima nohting less than “the biggest industrial catastrophe in the history of mankind.” Twenty nuclear cores have been exposed at Fukushima, Gunderson points out, saying along with the site’s many spent-fuel pools, this gives Fukushima 20 times the release potential of Chernobyl. […] For Americans who think “out of sight, out of mind” or “it can’t happen here” when it comes to Fukishima and its ramifications, think again. Janette Sherman, M.D., an internal medicine specialist, and Joseph Magano, an epidemiologist with the Radiation and Public Health Project research group, noticed a 35% jump in infant mortality in eight northwestern U.S. cities located within 500 miles of the Pacific coast since the Fukushima meltdown. They wrote an essay, published by CounterPunch, suggesting there may be a link between the statistic and the Fukushima disaster. They cited similar problems with infant mortality among people who were exposed to nuclear fallout from Chernobyl. Sherman and Magano urge that steps be taken to measure the levels of radioactive isotopes in the environment of the Pacific northwest, and in the bodies of people in these areas, to determine if nuclear fallout from Fukushima could, in fact, be related to the spike in infant mortality.  (Read more) [Image via]

mohandasgandhi:

What Happened to Media Coverage of Fukushima?

While the U.S. media has been occupied with Anthony Weiner, the Republican presidential candidates and Bristol Palin’s memoir, coverage of Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant disaster has practially fallen off the map. Poor mainstream media coverage of Japan’s now months-long struggle to gain control over the Fukushima disaster has deprived Americans of crucial information about the risks of nuclear power following natural disasters. After a few weeks of covering the early aftermath of Japan’s earthquake and tsunami, the U.S. media moved on, leaving behind the crisis at Fukushima which continues to unfold. U.S. politicians, like Rep. Joe Barton of Texas, have made disappointing and misleading statements about the relative safety of nuclear power and have vowed to stick by our nuclear program, while other countries, like Germany and Italy, have taken serious steps to address the obvious risks of nuclear power — risks that the Fukushima disaster made painfully evident, at least to the rest of the world.

News outlets in other countries have been paying attention to Fukushima, though, and a relative few in this country have as well. A June 16, 2011 Al Jazeera English article titled, “Fukushima: It’s much worse than you think,” quotes a high-level former nuclear industry executive, Arnold Gunderson, who called Fukushima nohting less than “the biggest industrial catastrophe in the history of mankind.” Twenty nuclear cores have been exposed at Fukushima, Gunderson points out, saying along with the site’s many spent-fuel pools, this gives Fukushima 20 times the release potential of Chernobyl.

[…]

For Americans who think “out of sight, out of mind” or “it can’t happen here” when it comes to Fukishima and its ramifications, think again. Janette Sherman, M.D., an internal medicine specialist, and Joseph Magano, an epidemiologist with the Radiation and Public Health Project research group, noticed a 35% jump in infant mortality in eight northwestern U.S. cities located within 500 miles of the Pacific coast since the Fukushima meltdown. They wrote an essay, published by CounterPunch, suggesting there may be a link between the statistic and the Fukushima disaster. They cited similar problems with infant mortality among people who were exposed to nuclear fallout from Chernobyl. Sherman and Magano urge that steps be taken to measure the levels of radioactive isotopes in the environment of the Pacific northwest, and in the bodies of people in these areas, to determine if nuclear fallout from Fukushima could, in fact, be related to the spike in infant mortality. 

(Read more)

[Image via]

[Flash 10 is required to watch video]

producermatthew:

New video filmed by an amateur photographer of the large tsunami that swept through Japan one month ago. In the film, villagers from an unknown town in the Miyagi Prefecture could be seen running for their lives away from a large wave of water, cars and homes.

Japan Starts Dumping Radioactive Water into the Pacific

kateoplis:

Japan started dumping 11,500 tons of low-level radioactive water at sea Monday to free up storage space at its crippled Fukushima nuclear plant for more highly contaminated water.

Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) insisted the release of the water — the equivalent of more than four Olympic sized swimming pools — would not harm marine life or seafood safety.

But a TEPCO official fought back tears when he announced the step, saying: “We have already caused such pain and nuisance to local residents. We cannot express how sorry we are to have to impose another burden.”