Japan is reeling between economic and nuclear crises

October 23, 2012 Leave a comment

By LUIS MIRANDA | THE REAL AGENDA | OCTOBER 23, 2012

The earthquake that shook Japan last year is not the only origin of the shock waves the country is now experiencing. The economic crisis has also shaken the Asian nation. During the first semester of the current fiscal year, the Japanese had a historic fall in exports, which in turn resulted in the largest fiscal deficit.

The financial crisis in the Euro zone and North America, greatly decreased the amount of products that Japan was able to send abroad which together with the costly imports of crude oil gave the island’s economy a double punch right on the face. The explosion and collapse of the nuclear reactors at the Fukushima complex not only caused the contamination of most of the food and water on the island, but also meant that Japan had to increase imports of oil to satisfy its energy needs.

In the period from April to September, the trade deficit in what is considered the third world economy, surged 90.1 percent year on year and stood at 3.22 trillion yen (31,200 million euros), the highest since 1979, when the Ministry of Finance began compiling the results of this indicator.

Behind this decline was the drop in exports, a pillar that supports about 40% of Japan’s gross domestic product and has been handicapped primarily by lower demand due to the global economic crisis. Japanese exports fell sharply especially in Europe, where they were down 16.1%, with significant losses in countries like the UK (-26.3%), Italy (-31.4%) and Germany (-11, 7%), and Japanese traditional sectors such as semiconductors, electronic devices or vehicles.

Japan posted its first trade deficit in this period with the European Union, which registered at 92,100 million yen (890 million euros), according to preliminary data released Tuesday. In the case of Spain, in the spotlight because of its debt crisis, Japan closed the fiscal semester with a trade deficit of 59.259 million yen (573 million euros), the result of a fall in exports of 19.3%, while imports increased by 13.7%.

To this scenario, Japan had to add the difficult situation with China, which is Japan’s largest trading partner. The two countries began a  territorial dispute that resulted in the worst bilateral tension in years and is reflected in the decline in demand for Japanese products in the Chinese mainland.

In the first six months of the current fiscal year, exports from Japan to the second largest economy contracted by 8.2% over the same period last year, while imports rose 2%. The consequence was a growing deficit of 1, 53 trillion yen (14,800 million euros). The drop was even more pronounced in the month of September, when the conflict with China escalated and there was a wave of demonstrations against Japan all over China. Some protestors even attacked Japanese-owned companies.

Sales for that month, which originated in Japan, suffered a setback of 14.1%, while imports increased by 3.8% over the same month of 2011. The general decline in Japanese exports was also influenced by the strengthening of the yen, which is seen by many investors as a refuge in times of economic uncertainty. The value of the Yen caused Japanese manufacturers to get a smaller return for their products.

The slowdown in exports stopped Japan’s economic recovery after the setback at the devastating tsunami and nuclear accident in March 2011. Imports from Japan increased between April and September by 2.6% year on year to 35.38 trillion yen (EUR 342.537 million), largely due to an increase of almost 10% on the purchase of energy resources.

Japan used to get around 30% of its power from nuclear plants, but after the Fukushima explosion, and with nearly all of its nuclear plants out of service, the country had to buy more oil to power up its thermal power plants. Crude oil imports increased by 8.3% in the first half of the fiscal year, while purchases of liquefied natural went to 24.3%.

Unfortunately, the crisis is all but ending for Japan. New reports as recent as last week, state that Unit 4 from the Fukushima Nuclear Complex, which currently holds more than 1,500 nuclear fuel rods, is near complete collapse. If the total decimation of the nuclear reactor is completed, the deadly radiation would make it imperative to evacuate the whole island. The amount of radiation could be so serious, that it could make much of the world completely uninhabitable.

As reported on NaturalNews.com:

“According to the Secretary of former Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan, the ground beneath Unit 4 has already sunk by about 31.5 inches since the disaster, and this sinking has taken place unevenly. If the ground continues to sink, which it is expected to, or if another earthquake of even as low as a magnitude six occurs in the region, the entire structure could collapse, which would fully drain the cooling pool and cause a catastrophic meltdown.”

As it turns out, Japan’s economic problems are not necessarily what is attracting the attention of the country and the rest of the world.

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Fukushima contractor falsified radiation readings

July 23, 2012

RT | JULY 23, 2012

A company charged with decontaminating the devastated Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant encouraged its workers to falsely lower their radiation dosimeter readings by covering the devices with lead, according to a leaked tape of an internal meeting.

Nuclear plant workers are not allowed to be exposed to more than 50 millisieverts of radiation a year. But managers at Build-up, a company that provided insulation on the pipes that would pump irradiated water out of the plant, believed that doses experienced inside the plant, which suffered a meltdown, meant workers would quickly reach their limit.

A senior executive gave the team at the site lead boxes that they were told to make into shields.

The workers were then told to place these over the dosimeters. Lead effectively blocks radiation, and produces a significantly lower reading.

When some of them refused, the executive called a meeting.

The executive cajoled the workers by saying, “You can no longer make a living when the dose runs out,” according to a tape that was given by somebody present at the meeting to the Asahi Shimbun newspaper.

“I think this is almost a crime,” reported one of the workers.

An argument broke out, and while the executive said the decision was voluntary, the rhetoric became threatening.

“Perhaps you are not cut out for working at nuclear plants,” he said. “Go back to your hometown and do some other job.”

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Fukushima Disaster was Man-made, says report

July 5, 2012

The report incriminates the power plant operator, the Japanese government and the regulators.

By ANTHONY BOND | MAIL ONLINE | JULY 5, 2012

‘They effectively betrayed the nation’s right to be safe from nuclear accidents’ says report. The findings call for further investigation into the impact of the 9.0 magnitude earthquake on the reactors at Fukushima.

The nuclear accident at Fukushima in Japan last year was a ‘man-made disaster’ and not completely caused by the devastating tsunami, a new report has said.

The Japanese parliamentary panel today submitted its final report on the catastrophe. The probe is the third of its kind in Japan since the world’s worst nuclear crisis in a generation.

In a damning report, the Diet’s Fukushima Nuclear Accident Independent Investigation Commission said:

‘The TEPCO Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant accident was the result of collusion between the government, the regulators and TEPCO, and the lack of governance by said parties.’

‘They effectively betrayed the nation’s right to be safe from nuclear accidents. Therefore, we conclude that the accident was clearly ‘man-made’.

‘We believe that the root causes were the organisational and regulatory systems that supported faulty rationales for decisions and actions, rather than issues relating to the competency of any specific individual.’

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Fukushima Reactor 4 Threatens Humanity Worse Than Chernobyl

May 7, 2012

By MIKE ADAMS | NATURALNEWS | MAY 8, 2012

The news you are about to read puts everything else in the category of “insignificant” by comparison. Concerned about the 2012 U.S. presidential election? Worried about GMOs? Fluoride? Vaccines? Secret prisons? None of that even matters if we don’t solve the problem of Fukushima reactor No. 4, which is on the verge of a catastrophic failure that could unleash enough radiation to end human civilization on our planet. (See the numbers below.)

The resulting releasing of radiation would turn North America into a “dead zone” for humans… mutated (and failed) crops, radioactive groundwater, skyrocketing infant mortality, an explosion in cancer and infertility… this is what could be unleashed at any moment from an earthquake in Japan. Such an event could result in the release of 85 times the Cesium-137 released by the Chernobyl catastrophe, say experts (see below). And the Chernobyl catastrophe made its surrounding regions uninhabitable by humans for centuries.

Yet, astonishingly, the usual suspects of deception are saying absolutely nothing about this problem. The mainstream media (the dying dinosaur media, actually) pretends there’s no problem with Fukushima. President Obama says nothing about it. Federal regulators, including the NRC, are all but silent. It’s as if they think their silence on the issue somehow makes it go away.

Perhaps these professional liars in the media and government have become so used to idea that they can simply spin their own reality (and get the public suckers to believe almost anything) that they now believe they can ignore the laws of physics. That’s why they have refused to cover the low-level radiation plume that continues to be emitted from Fukushima.

The fate of the world now rests on reactor No. 4

“It is no exaggeration to say that the fate of Japan and the whole world depends on No.4 reactor.” – Mitsuhei Murata, Former Japanese Ambassador to Switzerland and Senegal, Executive Director, the Japan Society for Global System and Ethics.

Mr. Murata’s stunning statement should be front-page news everywhere around the world. Why? Because he’s right. If reactor No. 4 suffers even a minor earthquake, it could set off a chain reaction of events that quickly lead to North America becoming uninhabitable by humans for centuries to come. Imagine California, Oregon and Washington states being inundated with radiation — up to 85 times the radiation release from Chernobyl. We’re talking about the end of human life on the scale of continents.

Here’s how this could happen, according to Mr. Robert Alvarez, former Senior Policy Adviser to the Secretary and Deputy Assistant Secretary for National Security and the Environment at the U.S. Department of Energy:

“The No. 4 pool is about 100 feet above ground, is structurally damaged and is exposed to the open elements. If an earthquake or other event were to cause this pool to drain this could result in a catastrophic radiological fire involving nearly 10 times the amount of Cs-137 released by the Chernobyl accident. The infrastructure to safely remove this material was destroyed as it was at the other three reactors. Spent reactor fuel cannot be simply lifted into the air by a crane as if it were routine cargo. In order to prevent severe radiation exposures, fires and possible explosions, it must be transferred at all times in water and heavily shielded structures into dry casks. As this has never been done before, the removal of the spent fuel from the pools at the damaged Fukushima-Dai-Ichi reactors will require a major and time-consuming re-construction effort and will be charting in unknown waters.” (http://www.nuc.berkeley.edu/forum/218/nuclear-expert-fukushima-spent-…)

Note: He says “10 times” the Cesium-137 of Chernobyl. Others say up to 85 times. Nobody is 100% certain of what would actually occur because this has never happened before. We are in uncharted territory as a civilization, facing a unique and imminent threat to our continued survival. And both governments and the corporations that assured us nuclear power was safe are playing their “cover my ass” games while the world waits in the crosshairs of a nuclear apocalypse.

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Fukushima killed at least 14,000 people in the US, mostly babies.

January 9, 2012 2 Comments

by Jonathan Benson
NaturalNews.com
January 9, 2012

For the very first time, a scientific study published in a peer-reviewed journal has come up with a solid estimate of the total number of US deaths caused by the Fukushima nuclear disaster in the weeks following it. Epidemiologist Joseph Mangano, MPH, MBA, and his colleagues say that, based on compiled data, at least 14,000 people in the US were killed during the 14 weeks following the Fukushima catastrophe — and the majority of these deaths were in children under age one.

Published in the International Journal of Health Services, Mangano’s study looked at both infant and adult death rates during the time when Fukushima occurred, as well as in previous months and years. During the 14 weeks prior to Fukushima, for instance, infant deaths had been declining by 8.37 percent, while in the weeks following the disaster they increased by 1.8 percent. Among adults, a 4.46 percent death rate was observed in the weeks after Fukushima, compared to 2.34 percent, which is about half that rate, a year prior.

“This study of Fukushima health hazards is the first to be published in a scientific journal,” said Mangano. “It raises concerns, and strongly suggests that health studies continue, to understand the true impact of Fukushima in Japan and around the world. Findings are important to the current debate of whether to build new reactors, and how long to keep aging ones in operation.”

During the first few months when the Fukushima disaster was unfolding, NaturalNews reported on radiation spikes in milk (http://www.naturalnews.com/032048_radiation_milk.html), rainwater (http://www.naturalnews.com/031871_radiation_rainwater.html), and the general food supply, both in the US and abroad. Though tangible harm in humans was not necessarily evident at that time, it now appears that this systemic poisoning translated into thousands of known deaths, and likely tens of thousands more cases of cancer and other illnesses.

“Based on our continuing research, the actual death count here may be as high as 18,000, with influenza and pneumonia, which were up five-fold in the period in question as a cause of death,” added Mangano. “Deaths are seen across all ages, but we continue to find that infants are hardest hit because their tissues are rapidly multiplying, they have undeveloped immune systems, and the doses of radioisotopes are proportionally greater than for adults.”

Sources for this article include:

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/medical-journal-article-14000-us-deaths-tied-to-fukushima-reactor-disaster-fallout-2011-12-19

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