A young girl's world circumscribed by radioactive risks: precautions are not child's play in Fukushima Prefecture

A heartbreaking BBC News Asia video focuses on Ayaka, a young girl who lost her grandfather and home to the tsunami in Fukushima Prefecture on March 11, 2011, and whose life is now circumscribed by radiation precautions that limit her freedom to play outdoors. This, despite now living beyond the arbitrarily small 12.4 mile (20 km) "Dead Zone" around the destroyed Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. Her father bought a Ukrainian radiation monitor on the internet, which he uses to check background levels before he lets Ayaka play on the parking lot for at most 30 minutes, only on weekends. She's not allowed to play on the grass, or near trees or surface water, because the radiation levels are higher there. Ayaka also wears a face mask on her way to school, and a personal radiation monitor to track her exposures. Ayaka reads from her diary entry from March 13, 2011, in which she expresses her fear of the invisible radioactivity around her. Writing helped her deal with her emotions -- she was afraid to express her fears directly to her father or grandmother.

Lessons from Fukushima: new Greenpeace report a warning on nuclear risks

Jan Beranek blogs on a new report just published by Greenpeace International on the "Lessons of Fukushima." He provides links to a 12 page executive summary, as well as the full 52 page report.

"Ex Japanese Nuclear Regulator Blames Radioactive Animal Feed on 'Black Rain' "

In a video dated July 19th and entitled "Ex Japanese Nuclear Regulator Blames Radioactive Animal Feed on 'Black Rain'," Arnie Gundersen of Fairewinds Associates describes widespread radioactive contamination caused by fallout from Fukushima Daiichi. Radioactive hay fed to cows contaminated beef long distances from the melted reactors. Mushrooms grown indoors far from Fukushima Daiichi exhibited severe contamination. The data points for severe radioactive contamination over a broad region of Japan are very troubling. ("Black Rain" was first observed by the survivors of the atomic bombings of Japan by the U.S. in August 1945, and refers to radioactivity precipitated down to the ground by rain.)

Warning against radioactive catastrophe for ocean at Fukushima Daiichi

Takao Yamada, Expert Senior Writer at The Mainichi Daily News, has published a compelling editorial calling upon Tokyo Electric Power Company and the federal government of Japan to build an underground barrier to prevent catastrophic amounts of radioactivity from leaking into the ocean from Fukushima Daiichi's three melted down atomic reactors.

Green tea exports from 4 prefectures in Japan banned due to radioactive cesium contamination

The London Telegraph reports that portions of Tochigi, Chiba (located in the greater Tokyo area), and Kanagawa Prefectures, as well as the entirety of Ibaraki Prefercture, have been banned by the Japanese federal government from exporting green tea, due to unacceptable contamination by radioactive cesium fallout from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear catastrophe. Many additional agricultural crops over a vast region have likewise been condemned.

Update on June 12, 2011 by admin

In a sign of the ongoing cover up of the truth about radioactive contamination of people, places, and produce, yet another prefecture, Shizuoka, has pressured a green tea retailer to remove from its website information that green tea from that area has tested positive for radioactive contamination in violation of safety standards, the Mainichi Daily News has reported.