[A-List] Fwd: [R-G] Yoshie Furuhashi, "An Appeal to All Foreign Embassy Personnel and International Media Present in Japan, regarding the Nuclear Disaster"

[Suzanne de Kuyper]

Yoshie Furuhashi explains why such skewed news was coming from Japan.
 Please read and pass on.  Suzanne

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Sid Shniad <shniad at gmail.com>
Date: Tue, Mar 15, 2011 at 3:24 PM
Subject: [R-G] Yoshie Furuhashi, "An Appeal to All Foreign Embassy Personnel
and International Media Present in Japan, regarding the Nuclear Disaster"
To: Suzanne de Kuyper <suzannedk at gmail.com>


http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2011/furuhashi140311p.html

*An Appeal to All Foreign Embassy Personnel and International Media Present
in Japan, regarding the Nuclear
Disaster<http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2011/furuhashi140311.html>
*
by Yoshie Furuhashi

You have seen the Japanese government's response to the nuclear disaster
unfolding in Japan.  Top officials have been slow to expand the exclusion
zone around the Fukushima 1 and 2 Nuclear Power Plants.  They have been less
than forthcoming in providing information about exactly in what state the
reactors in trouble are.  By failing in these two critical aspects, the
government of Japan is exposing your countrymen and countrywomen present in
Japan, as well as the Japanese people, to mortal danger.

Partial meltdown of the reactor fuels has already occurred at three of the
troubled reactors: the Unit 1, 2, and 3
reactors<http://www.asahi.com/special/10005/TKY201103140442.html>of
the Fukushima 1 Nuclear Power Plant.  Hydrogen explosions at Units 1
and
3 have caused the loss of their reactor containment buildings.  It is
impossible to say if the Japanese officials in charge, and the workers at
work in Fukushima, can manage to avert the complete meltdown of one or more
of the reactors that have suffered cooling system failures.  Senior
scientist at the Union of Concerned Scientists Edwin
Lyman<http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2011/lyman130311.html>warns that
"Fukushima Dai-Ichi reactor Units 1, 2, and 3 are boiling water
reactors with Mark I containments.  The Mark I is unusually vulnerable to
containment failure in the event of a core-melt accident."  In the worst
case scenario, according to Dr. Lyman, a radioactive plume may be dispersed
*hundreds of miles<
http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/ultimate-impact-of-damage-to-japan-nuclear-reactors-still-unknown/2011/03/13/ABbwoBU_story.html
>
*.

Pentagon officials<
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/14/world/asia/japan-fukushima-nuclear-reactor.html
>reported
yesterday that "helicopters flying 60 miles from the plant picked
up small amounts of radioactive particulates -- still being analyzed, but
presumed to include cesium-137 and iodine-121 -- suggesting widening
environmental contamination."  Even before that, an elevated level of
radiation, which Japanese officials themselves have said must have resulted
from emissions from the Fukushima reactors, was detected at the
Onagawa<
http://www.thejournal.ie/nuclear-rods-melting-inside-three-fukushima-reactors-japan-admits-2011-03/
>Nuclear
Power Plant, about 120 miles away from the Fukushima plants.  The 20
km-radius exclusion zone set by Japanese authorities is clearly, and
tragically, inadequate.

Despite that, at a press conference today, US Ambassador to Japan John V.
Roos <http://japan.usembassy.gov/e/p/tp-20110314-75.html> said:

Our position that was set forth yesterday has not changed: we are
encouraging U.S. citizens to heed the instructions of the Japanese civil
defense authorities.

Japan's Nuclear Industrial Safety Agency has recommended that people who
live within 20 kilometers of the Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant evacuate the
area immediately.  No other evacuations have been recommended.

However, heeding "the instructions of the Japanese civil defense
authorities" will result in a grave threat to the lives of *Americans* in
Japan for whom Ambassador Roos *is* responsible -- the threat that the
ambassador *can* help minimize by taking more proactive precautionary
life-saving measures: take all US citizens in Japan *as far away from the
Fukushima reactors as possible* and be ready to administer iodine tablets
*far
beyond* the 20 km-radius zone; and urge the Japanese government to do the
same for all -- foreign residents as well as Japanese nationals -- who are
subject to the same threat.

The same goes for all other foreign embassy personnel present in Japan.

International media, too, have a life-saving role to play, by providing
critical information.  Hire Japanese-language translators, translate into
Japanese what your nation's best nuclear scientists who are not beholden to
the nuclear industry have to say about Fukushima, and publish and broadcast
it so the people of Japan can understand what needs to be done.

>From the beginning of the Great East Japan Earthquake, I have followed
Japanese-language media closely, to see what they have to say about Japan's
nuclear reactors.  It is clear that the Japanese people were under a virtual
information blockade <http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2011/ucs110311.html>,
regarding the severity of the problems and their potential health
consequences, due to the Japanese media's failure to challenge their
government's lack of transparency and accountability.  The possibility of a
complete meltdown was frequently raised in international media from Day 1,
but the Japanese media were silent on the worst case scenario at least for
the first 24 hours.  That information blockade has begun to be breached,
especially since the explosion at Unit 1 of Fukushima 1, but even now the
Japanese media's performance is woefully inadequate.  More can and *must* be
done to inform the public.  Tell the Japanese what they need to know to save
as many lives as possible in the event of a complete meltdown.  It's in your
power to do that.
------------------------------
Yoshie Furuhashi <http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2011/furuhashi120311.html
>,
born in Japan, is Editor of *MRZine*.
------------------------------
 URL: mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2011/furuhashi140311.html
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