Archive for April, 2011

Japanese Government Complains After French TV Show Jokes About March 11 Disaster

N-H-K reports that the Japanese embassy in France has officially complained to the Canal+ channel after a television show made some insensitive jokes about Japan after the recent earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear accident:

The offending jokes were on Les Guignols de l’info, a famous satirical latex puppet show. According to the embassy, the following types of jokes could offend and hurt the feelings of disaster victims:

• Putting a radiation mark on the Japanese flag.
• Depicting rescue work like it was a video game.
• Commenting on how the wreckage of Sendai city looked like Hiroshima after the atomic bombing.

Canal+ has responded to the complaint by stating that the show’s creators were exercising their right to freedom of expression. The network has refused to apologize.

N-H-K notes that the video it used came from YouTube, so I searched around and dug up a few examples. Here are some screen captures, with links to the actual clips. (As I am not fluent in French, I do not know what kind of jokes are introduced in each clip.)

Prime Minister Naoto Kan introduces Mr. Burns to deliver some remarks about the nuclear accident in Fukushima:

The Mario Brothers discuss rescue work:

Surfers excited by footage of the tsunami:

N-H-K said this clip apparently shows photos of post-March 11th Japan with post-bombing Hiroshima with the comment that not much has changed in the last 60 years:

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Increased Russian & Chinese Military Flights Near Japanese Airspace

The Yomiuri reports that 2010 saw a very big increase in the number of times Japan’s Self-Defense Forces needed to scramble fighters to intercept foreign military aircraft near Japanese airspace. As the graph shows, it has reached a high not seen since 1991:

ASDF jets were scrambled to ward off planes from China 96 times, an increase of about 2.5 times from the previous fiscal year, and Russian aircraft on 264 occasions, an increase of 30 percent.

According to the ministry’s Joint Staff Office, Russian aircraft accounted for 68 percent of the total number and Chinese planes 25 percent. Taiwan jets comprised 2 percent, or seven instances, while planes of other nationalities together made up 5 percent, or 19 incidents.

Last fiscal year, there were no instances of North Korean aircraft approaching Japanese airspace, although the ASDF scrambled on eight occasions against that country’s jets in fiscal 2009.

The ministry said no foreign aircraft actually violated Japanese airspace in fiscal 2010.

The article implies that the increase is because of the DPJ and a perceived decline in U.S.-Japan relations:

The increase in sorties to ward off foreign aircraft approaching the nation’s airspace appears to correlate with the Democratic Party of Japan’s 2009 ascent to power and subsequent tensions in the Japan-U.S. defense relationship.

A Defense Ministry senior official said, “[Foreign countries] might have been testing Japan’s defense capability as they regarded Japan-U.S. relations as weakened.”

The increased flights were also probably linked to the Chinese anger after the Senkaku boat incident and Russia’s increasing emphasis on its ownership of the Southern Kuril islands.

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Wasao Visits Tsunami Survivors

Celebrity dog Wasao has taken a break from his stationmaster job in Aomori so he can visit children at a evacuation shelter in tsunami-hit Kesennuma:

Children at the shelter were given school supplies and a chance to have their picture taken with Wasao.

The visit was made after Wasao’s master discovered that a 14-year-old girl who had written fan letters to Wasao had lost her home in the tsunami and was now living at the shelter.

(If Wasao looks tired in the video, it’s because it was a rather warm day. Apparently he prefers the cool weather up in Aomori prefecture.)

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A Thank You Gift to the American Military: Free Pizzas

On April 25th, the Strawberry Cones pizza delivery chain sent a truckload of pizzas to an area of Miyagi prefecture where American and Japanese troops were participating in disaster relief operations. Here’s a YouTube video of the “Arigato Pizzas” being served to troops:

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Radioactive Bricks Used in Tokyo

Back in May of 2010, Japan’s TBS network aired an investigative report about the sale and use of bricks that contain small amounts of radioactive uranium. Shortly after it was aired, somebody uploaded it to YouTube. Because the recent nuclear accident in Fukushima prefecture has heightened public interest in radiation safety, the video has been getting a lot of views in recent weeks. As the report is quite interesting, I’ve decided to post a partial summary of its contents.

The video is divided into two parts (Part I and Part II). Embedding has been disabled, so this post will just contain screen captures:

In front of the Ministry of Agriculture building in Tokyo, a reporter uses a gieger counter to measure radiation levels. Some bricks are giving off about 0.15 microsieverts per hour. They’re radioactive!!

The bricks come from Ningyo-toge at the border of Okayama and Tottori prefectures, which was the center of Japan’s uranium mining operations in the 1950′s.

Inside one of the Ningyo-toge mines, they measure the radiation of some uranium. It is 16 microsieverts per hour, meaning that one hour in that area would expose a person to the equivalent natural radiation exposure that most humans get in three days. Since visitors to the mine are only in the area for about 5 to 10 minutes, there is no reason to be worried about the low level radiation.

The leftover dirt and rocks from mining contained small amounts of uranium. Until the Chernobyl accident, nobody really worried about the radiation from that soil, so it was just piled up outside. Since the late 1980′s, warning signs and barriers have been put up.

Citizens groups wanted the soil stored in a safer place. After years of campaigning, they finally succeeded in winning a lawsuit in 2004. Authorities finally started to dispose of the soil. Of the 3,000 cubic meters of soil, 290 cubic meters of the most radioactive soil were sent to America for disposal. The remaining soil, which contained much lower levels of radiation, is being turned into bricks.

The soil is mixed with cement to make bricks, which are then sold for about 90 yen each. Nobody has calculated the exact cost that goes into the production of each brick, but it seems very likely that they are being sold at a loss. Authorities carefully measure radiation levels, trying to make bricks that do not exceed readings of 0.22 microsieverts per hour.

Authorities insist that the level of radiation in the bricks is not dangerous. The bricks are being sold to anyone who is interested. Some people are afraid to buy them. Others, such as the man in the above screen capture, don’t really think that the radiation is worth worrying about. He bought some of the bricks for his garden.

Hundreds of thousands of bricks have been sold. About 430,000 have been used by the government and the nuclear industry. About 210,000 have been purchased by private businesses and individuals. Nobody is tracking the bricks, so they could be used almost anywhere.

Professor Kiyonori Yamaoka of Okayama University is interviewed about the possible health risks of exposure to the bricks. He says that it hasn’t been proven that such low levels of radiation are dangerous, but one cannot be 100% sure about it. On the other hand, Professor Hiroaki Koide of Kyoto University (an anti-nuclear activist) thinks there is absolutely no “safe” level of radiation.

While the journalists were working on this investigative report, they noticed a change on the homepage of the organization that was selling the bricks. In a section describing example uses of the bricks, it used to mention indoor gardens. They asked an official why that example had been removed, and if it meant that the bricks were unsafe for indoor use. The official didn’t give an exact reason why it was removed from the homepage, but said he believed that the bricks are still safe for indoor use.

At the time this report aired, there were about 16,000 containers of soil that was apparently too radioactive to be made into bricks. Authorities were in the process of figuring out how to dispose of it.

[hat tip to Ken Y-N]

Side Note: It seems that most of these Japanese bricks are being used in outdoor gardens, where their direct contact with humans is somewhat limited. In the United States, some radioactive construction materials have been used in the interiors of major public buildings. The U.S. Capitol Building and Library of Congress are made of granite that contains uranium, emitting radiation 65 times higher than EPA safety limits. The dosage for the Capitol Building is about 0.85 millisieverts per year (0.097 microsieverts per hour).

A few other radiation readings for your consideration:

• Natural Background Radiation in Hong Kong: between 0.06 and 0.30 microsievert per hour.
• Natural Background Radiation in Cornwall, U.K.: 0.251 microsievert per hour
• Natural Background Radiation in Chennai, India: 3.42 microsievert per hour
• “High” Level of Radiation in reported in Tokyo, Japan on March 16, 2011: 0.809 microsievert per hour
• Radiation Level in Tokyo, Japan on April 29, 2011: 0.0677 microsievert per hour

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Valuables Stolen From Houses Near Fukushima Daiichi

Two men have been arrested for breaking into homes in Fukushima prefecture and stealing valuables:

They targeted houses in the city of Iwaki, about 30 kilometers from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. Many homeowners had left the area because of the nuclear accident, so their houses were left unguarded. The two men broke in and stole jewelry, handbags, televisions, and other valuables.

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