By arevamirpal::laprimavera16 December 2011 Declaring a cold shutdown, even with “state”, is a joke, but Noda went further and declared the Fukushima I Nuclear Power Plant accident to be over. Why did he do that? Asahi Shinbun (12/16/2011) reports that: 「事故の収束」という、より強い表現に置き換えることで、風評被害など国内外に根強い原発事故への不安を払拭（ふっしょく）したいという狙いがある。政権は今後、放射性物質の除染を進めていく方針。避難区域の縮小も行い、住民の帰還へとつなげたい考えだ。 By using the word “the accident is over”, the government wants to dispel […]
By Arwyn Rice, Peninsula Daily News14 December 2011 PORT ANGELES – The first piece of debris that could be identified as washing up on the West Coast from the March 11 tsunami in Japan — a large black float — was found on a Neah Bay beach two weeks ago, Seattle oceanographers Curtis Ebbesmeyer and […]
By William Pesek 13 December 2011 Want to know why Japan’s earthquake recovery efforts are moving in slow motion? Ask the whales. Tokyoites have grown accustomed to shocking news items since the earth shook and the oceans rose: the nuclear meltdown has proven far worse than the government admitted; radioactive cesium made its way into […]
By arevamirpal::laprimavera 12 December 2011 There are foreign nuclear experts who have said the explosion in Reactor 3 on March 14 at Fukushima I Nuclear Power Plant was a nuclear explosion. But this Japanese engineer and whistleblower at JNES (Japan Nuclear Energy Safety Organization) Setsuo Fujiwara says there were two explosions at Reactor 3: a […]
By Krista Mahr12 December 2011 They’re baaaaaaaccck. Whale hunting season kicked off in Japan last week as three ships set off with a security vessel on their annual pilgrimage to cull hundreds of minke and fin whales in Antarctic waters. And so begins the annual showdown between the whalers and the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, […]
By MARTIN FACKLER6 December 2011 FUTABA, Japan – Futaba is a modern-day ghost town — not a boomtown gone bust, not even entirely a victim of the devastating earthquake and tsunami that leveled other parts of Japan’s northeast coast. Its traditional wooden homes have begun to sag and collapse since they were abandoned in March […]
There are deals and then there are deals. That’s my takeaway from the U.N. climate negotiations in the South African city of Durban, which finally concluded early Sunday local time — more than a day after the talks had been scheduled to end. Exhausted negotiators — seriously, look at these poor guys — managed to […]
It’s time for the yearly retrospectives on 2011, and we’re kicking them off with 2011’s most-viewed stories on Desdemona. It won’t surprise anyone to see that the triple meltdown at the Fukushima-Daiichi nuclear plant was the most popular event, with 9 of the top 20 stories. Most surprising is the continued popularity of a 2009 […]
By Kim Chipman and Alex Morales7 December 2011 The U.S. view that no new global climate deal is possible before 2020 is derailing negotiations aimed at slashing the world’s oil and coal emissions, according to an envoy at the talks. “The present U.S. position of no new agreement until post- 2020 is really blowing negotiations […]
By HIROKO TABUCHI and MARTIN FACKLER4 December 2011 TOKYO — At least 45 tons of highly radioactive water have leaked from a purification facility at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power station, and some of it may have reached the Pacific Ocean, the plant’s operator said Sunday. Nearly nine months after Fukushima Daiichi was ravaged by […]
