According to news sources, UK authorities tried to play down the nuclear crisis in Japan in order to deflect anticipated calls for an end to the use of nuclear energy. The documents were released in response to a Freedom of Information request, and show bureaucrats and nuclear business leaders going so far as to paint the Fukushima events as par for the course safety processes, a lie they could not meantain in the face of the crisis escalating.

Some of the culprits (I call them criminals given their blind pursuit of profit at the expsense of safety) are: the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS)  and the Energy Department, EDF Energy, Areva and Westinghouse. Also mentioned in secret communications between the British authorities and the nuclear industry that have been made public was that an official of METI was actually working with the BIS and could be called on to help. METI is  the Japanese ministry that both promotes the nuclear industry (and big business in general) and oversees nuclear safety issues. Of course, as has been widely reported, the Japanese nuclear industry, like its counterparts worlwide, is rife with corruption and coverups over numerous accidents. 

The secret commucantions  also swore to use “the facts to discredit” any comparisons to Chernobyl. Interestingly, this tactic is being employed widely by suspected nuclear industry agents who have inundated web forums on popular social media such as Facebook with “facts” that purport to show, for example, that normal background is often higher than what has been found in some areas of Japan since the disaster.  Facts, out of context, can indeed be used to deflect criticism of nuclear energy, but what these amoral, supposedly objective scientists and government officials ignore are the observations of responsible nuclear scientists such as Hiroaki Koide that give the lie to nuclear industry propaganda. (Such as that there IS no background level of cesnium, or that some official data is suspect, or gathered from areas far from the hot spots and therefore artificially low.)  Pro nuclear postings also go out of their way to discredit anti-nuclear activists, accusing them of having an agenda that makes them biased. As if there is no bias on the part of those who make ernomous profits in the nuclear industry.

One problem in Japan, moreso than elsewhere, is that the mainstream media is pretty much subservient to big business through the kisha club system, and therefore voices like Koide’s are blocked by Japan’s public broadcaster, NHK and most commercial stations.  Incredulously, METI and the Japanese nuclear industry, aided by a compliant media, are going full steam ahead and  ignoring criticism, whitewashing, downplaying  and bribing a weary citizenry  with assurances of “stress tests” that will allow business to resume at shutdown reactors in Saga, or even Hamaoka, sitting on the site of an expected megaquake.

NOTE: Some of you may have seen this report saying that although radiation ws found to have contaminated the thyroid glands of young kids, the dose was very small.  There is some confusion over the statement that the levels are generally less than 50 millisieverts per year and therefore less than the Hiroshima threshhold of 100 milliseiverts.  It has been suggested than one is a measurement of external and the other internal radiation.  While we are waiting to confirm this, we should mention than Hiroaki Koide says that the figures suggest the government went out of its way to find kids with lower levels of exposure, suggesting that this too may be part of the METI coverup.

45% of kids sustained thyroid radiation

Kyodo

http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20110705x2.html

Around 45 percent of children in Fukushima Prefecture checked by the prefectural and central governments in late March experienced thyroid exposure to radiation, although in all cases in trace amounts that didn’t warrant further examination, officials of the Nuclear Safety Commission said Tuesday.

The survey was conducted on 1,080 children from newborns to age 15 in Iwaki, Kawamata and Iitate from March 26 to 30 in light of radiation leaking from the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant.

Among children who tested positive for thyroid exposure, the amounts measured 0.04 microsievert per hour or less in most cases. The largest exposure was 0.1 microsievert per hour, equivalent to a yearly dose of 50 millisieverts for a 1-year-old.

None of those surveyed was exposed to over 0.2 microsievert per hour, the government’s benchmark for conducting more detailed examinations, according to the officials.

Scientific surveys of hibakusha from Hiroshima and Nagasaki have indicated that exposure of 100 milisieverts in total could increase cancer morality risk by 0.5 percent.

Separately, a survey of soil at four locations in the city of Fukushima on June 26 found that all samples were contaminated with radioactive cesium, measuring 16,000 to 46,000 becquerels per kilogram and exceeding the legal limit of 10,000 becquerels per kg, citizens’ groups said Tuesday.

The city, about 60 km northwest of the crippled plant, does not fall within the 20-km no-entry zone or nearby evacuation areas.

The citizens’ groups, led by the Fukushima Network to Protect Children from Radiation, had asked Kobe University professor Tomoya Yamauchi, an expert in radiology, to lead the survey.

Another sample taken from a street ditch — where nuclear fallout often accumulates — registered as much as 931,000 becquerels per square meter, surpassing the 555,000 becquerels per sq meter limit for compulsory resettlement in the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear accident. Samples from the other three locations measured between 326,000 and 384,000 becquerels per square meter.

An earlier survey on soil in the city of Fukushima by the science ministry has found 37,000 becquerels of radioactive substances per 1 kg — equivalent to 740,000 becquerels per square meter.

Some of the sources for this article

NEWS STORY

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/jun/30/british-government-plan-play-down-fukushima

UK GOV TREATING THE PEOPLE WITH CONTEMPT

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/damian-carrington-blog/2011/jul/01/nuclear-power-british-government-fukushima

SECRET LETTER

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/interactive/2011/jun/30/email-nuclear-uk-government-fukushima

JAPANESE COVERUP

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=25502