長崎市の田上富久市長は３１日、被爆７０年となる８月９日の「長崎原爆の日」の平和祈念式典で読み上げる平和宣言の骨子を発表し、安全保障関連法案の慎重な審議を政府や国会に求める内容を盛り込むと明らかにした。
[…]
広島市は安保法案に直接言及しないとしており、対照的となった。
田上市長は会見で「平和宣言では何らかの形で平和の理念を盛り込んできた。その理念が『揺らいでいるのでは』と多くの人が思っているのは事実」と理由を説明。一方で「さまざまな意見がある」として法案の是非には踏み込まず、国民への丁寧な説明などを求める。
TOKYO — In the first criminal prosecutions of officials connected to the Fukushima nuclear plant disaster of 2011, the Japanese authorities said Friday that they would move forward with cases against three former executives of the Tokyo Electric Power Company, the owner of the plant where reactors melted down after a tsunami.
The move was a victory for citizens’ groups that have been pursuing charges against dozens of officials at Tokyo Electric Power, known as Tepco, and the government, with no success until now. Prosecutors had twice rejected requests to indict the three former Tepco executives, but a review board overruled their decision on Friday and ordered that charges be brought.
[…]
It is rare for prosecutors’ discretion over indictments to be challenged in Japan. The reversal was ordered by a panel of 11 private citizens, convened through a rarely used feature of the Japanese legal system that allows outsiders to review prosecutors’ decisions under certain circumstances.It was the second time that such a panel, known as a committee for the inquest of prosecution, had determined that the former executives should be prosecuted. The first panel delivered its conclusion last year, after the Tokyo district prosecutors’ office rejected a criminal complaint against the executives filed by the plaintiffs group.
The prosecutors declined to act on the first panel’s recommendation, but the plaintiffs group appealed, and a second and final panel was convened. Under the rules governing the review panels, the second panel’s decision is binding on prosecutors.
The three executives who face indictment are Tsunehisa Katsumata, 75, the chairman of Tepco at the time of the accident, and two former heads of the utility’s nuclear division, Sakae Muto, 65, and Ichiro Takekuro, 69. The review panel ordered that they be charged with professional negligence resulting in death.[…]
Though the indictments represent a long-sought symbolic achievement for the antinuclear movement, the likelihood that the men will be found guilty at trial may be low. When Japanese prosecutors bring charges on their own initiative, they win convictions more than 99 percent of the time, but cases forced on them by citizens’ review panels are different. Almost by definition, they involve charges that prosecutors saw little hope of proving.Nobuo Gohara, a former prosecutor, said a large majority of such cases result in acquittals. To convict the Tokyo Electric Power executives, prosecutors would have to prove that their failure to predict the massive tsunami that struck Fukushima’s coast in March 2011 and to equip the power plant with sufficient protections against it constituted an act of criminal oversight.
[…]
Read more.
２０１１年の東京電力福島第１原発事故を巡り、東京第５検察審査会は３１日、東京地検が２度にわたって容疑不十分で不起訴とした東京電力の勝俣恒久 元会長（７５）ら旧経営陣３人を、業務上過失致死傷罪で起訴すべきだとする「起訴議決」を公表した。審査を申し立てた「福島原発告訴団」の被災者らメン バーは午後２時過ぎ、検察審査会の入る東京・霞が関の東京地裁前で「市民の正義」と書かれた旗を掲げ「やっとここまで来た」と喜んだ。
武藤類子団長（６１）は続いて開いた記者会見で「裁判で事故の真実が明らかにされ、正当な裁きが下されることを信じている」と声明を発表。「今も仮設住宅から家に帰れない人がいる。（旧経営陣には）裁判で包み隠さず真実を語ってほしい」と力を込めた。
弁護団の河合弘之弁護士は「事故がなぜ起きたのか。検察の不起訴で永久に闇に葬られるところを、何とか市民の正義感が防いだ」と強調した。海渡雄一弁護士は東電が経済事情から津波対策を先送りにしたと議決が指摘した点などを「非常に論理的」と評価した。
福島県庁でも告訴団のメンバー８人が会見した。副団長の佐藤和良さん（６１）が議決要旨を読み上げると、涙を流す人もいた。佐藤さんは「事故から ４年半たち、ようやく事故の原因と責任を特定するための土俵に立てた」と感慨深げに話した。自営業の人見やよいさん（５４）は「原発を再稼働しようとして いる電力会社は、事故を起こせば刑事責任を問われるという覚悟を持ってほしい」と訴えた。【平塚雄太、近松仁太郎、土江洋範】
◇検察審査会は社会常識に照らして適切な認定
元検事で原発事故捜査を研究している古川元晴弁護士の話 検察は「原子力ムラ」の論理で旧経営陣の過失を否定したが、検察審査会は社会常識に照ら して判断し、適切な認定をした。１０メートルを大きく超える津波の対策を講じなかった経緯について、当時の科学的知見を踏まえ詳細に認定しており説得力も ある。原発事故では取り返しのつかない被害が発生する。万が一を想定して対策を講じるのが当然で、検察は市民の判断を重く受け止めるべきだ。命に関わる重 大事故では、責任の所在を曖昧にしてはならない。国民が納得する判決を期待したい。
◇無罪判決が言い渡される可能性も
（略）
◇妥当な判断、司法の場で真相や証言を明らかに
[…]
Although enriched uranium was the fuel used in the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima, plutonium was the fuel in the atomic bomb that devastated Nagasaki—and virtually all atomic bombs ever since have used plutonium, not enriched uranium.
Gathering plutonium for atomic bombs from spent fuel from a nuclear power plant can be accomplished by having a “hot cell”—s very common, indeed ubiquitous machine used in nuclear technology—and separating out the plutonium chemically with it.
Hot cells are shielded nuclear radiation chambers. They’re used to protect technicians inspecting nuclear fuel rods from a nuclear plant or processing medical isotopes. But they have long been a concern when it comes to the proliferation of nuclear weapons because of their potential use to carry out the chemical steps of extracting plutonium from reactor fuel.
When I was an anchor of the nightly news at the then Long Island commercial TV channel, WSNL-TV 35 years ago, anchorpeople from all over the U.S. were invited to a three-day symposium on nuclear weapons proliferation held at the Kennedy School at Harvard. The object was for us to know the facts behind the proliferation issue if and when we needed to report on what could be the terrible outcome of it. The hot cell was a major item discussed. It remains a major proliferation concern.
[…]
“A large power reactor,” they noted, “annually produces…hundreds of kilograms of plutonium.” Civilian nuclear power technology, they concluded, provides the way to make nuclear weapons, furnishing the material and the trained personnel.
Indeed, that’s how India got The Bomb in 1974. Canada supplied a nuclear reactor to be used for “peaceful purposes” and the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission trained Indian engineers. And lo and behold, India had nuclear weapons.
[…]
It was the U.S. with its “Atoms for Peace” program in the 1950s that encouraged Iran to develop nuclear power. After the rupture of relations between the countries with the Iranian revolution of 1979, Russia stepped in, completing Bushehr I.
More details on how plutonium, a manmade element, is created in a nuclear power plant: 97 percent of the uranium fuel in a nuclear power plant is Uranium-238 which does not fission or split. Only 3 percent of the uranium is Uranium-235, which does fission or split, and it is from
this reaction that comes the heat used to boil water, turn a turbine and generate electricity. However, much of the Uranium-238 will, in proximity to fission, absorb a neutron and change to another element, Plutonium-239. Plutonium-239 is extremely radioactive and has a half-life of 24,100 years, so it’s radioactive for 240,000 years. It was first produced during the World War II Manhattan Project as an alternative fuel for atomic bombs to uranium, the supply of which was considered limited. Plutonium-239 became the preferred bomb fuel for atomic bombs and plutonium is also used as the “trigger” in hydrogen bombs.
[…]
Admiral Hyman Rickover, “father” of the U.S. nuclear navy and in charge of construction of America’s first nuclear power plant, Shippingport in Pennsylvania, opened in 1957, saw the light regarding nuclear power decades later—and voiced his completely changed position.
In a “farewell address” in 1982, to a committee of the U.S. Congress, Rickover bluntly declared that the world must “outlaw nuclear reactors.”
He said it had been “impossible to have any life on earth: that is, there was so much radiation on earth you couldn’t have any life—fish or anything. Gradually, about 2 billion years ago, the amount of radiation on this planet and probably in the entire system reduced and made it possible for some for some form of life to begin.”
“Now,” he continued, “when we go back to using nuclear power, we are creating something which nature tried to destroy to make life possible.… Every time you produce radiation, you produce something that has life, in some cases for billions of years, and I think there the human race is going to wreck itself, and it’s far more important that we get control of this horrible force and try to eliminate it.”
As for atomic weaponry, Rickover said the “lesson of history” is that nations in war “will use whatever weaponry they have.”
Read more at Karl Grossman: There is no “peaceful nuclear power”
However evacuees were found to be almost five times more likely than average to have suffered psychological distress. Experts writing in the special edition of The Lancet, published to mark the 70th anniversary of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic bomb attacks, said that the social and psychological aftermath of a nuclear accident was too often overlooked.
Among people affected by the 1986 Chernobyl disaster, rates of depression and post-traumatic stress remain high, and a UN assessment conducted in 2006 concluded that the incident’s effect on mental health was the most serious resulting public health issue.
Exposure to radiation can increase the risk of cancer throughout life, and those exposed to very high doses can suffer severe and sometimes fatal symptoms known as acute radiation syndrome (ARS). At Chernobyl, 134 workers involved in the emergency response developed and 28 died. No such cases were reported at Fukushima.
In a study led by Dr Koichi Tanigawa, of Fukushima Medical University, experts said that along with the immediate radiation risks, the displacement of hundreds of thousands of people created a new wave of public health impacts.
[…]
However, there are still problems with stigma, Dr Tanigawa’s study reported, particularly among women from Fukushima, owing to “misconceptions” about the effects of radiation on future pregnancy and children’s health.
Professor Simon Wessely, president of the Royal College of Psychiatrists, said that the Lancet series showed that “the psychological and social consequences of nuclear accidents are more profound, long-lasting, divisive and difficult to manage than the more direct consequences of radiation leaks.”
“In future, far more attention needs to be given to community engagement and choice, and less to the extreme risk aversion which currently dominates thinking,” he said.
Read more at Psychological impact of nuclear disasters like Fukushima more damaging than the risk from radiation, experts say
El pasado 22 junio, una decena de alcaldes de la comarca de la Mancha Alta acudieron a la llamada de Carmen Barco, la secretaria del Ayuntamiento de Villar de Cañas (Cuenca), y de otros tres municipios de la zona. Ella, que ganó su oposición en los noventa, se ha transformado en una experta en centrales y cementerios nucleares. De ella partió la idea de instalar uno en su pueblo. Lleva diez años sin parar de convencer a sus vecinos, empezando por el alcalde, José Sáiz, a quien no solo ha persuadido sino que sustituye en su asiento cuando encarta.
A las 11.30 de la mañana de aquel caluroso lunes de principios de verano estaban —como ella quería— reunidos los regidores “con Arturo, el representante de Enresa”. La empresa pública española que gestiona los residuos nucleares, cuenta con una sede en el municipio manchego donde —si la polémica desatada esta semana no lo impide— se construirá un basurero de residuos procedentes de las siete centrales nucleares de España.
[…]
La veintena de pueblos afectados se debate entre argumentos a favor y en contra expresados por técnicos e ingenieros y sus informes y notas aclaratorias que salen y entran oportunamente de los cajones de los políticos y las Administraciones competentes, como el Consejo de Seguridad Nuclear. Pero en última instancia todo se reduce a una cuestión económica. Los pueblos tienen que apostar por un modelo de desarrollo industrial-nuclear, “con turismo científico, congresos, convenios y subvenciones que permitirán realizar residencias de ancianos de última generación para exportar modelos a Europa”, en palabras de Carmen Barco. O agropecuario y turístico. “Reivindicando los productos y el modo de vida de la zona como un atractivo”, como defiende María Andrés, cabrera y portavoz de la plataforma anti-ATC. El Estado, por su parte, tendrá que ver cómo supera las dificultades de esos suelos de yeso que, según algunos estudios, requieren costosos revestimientos.
Leer mas
A Japanese civilian judiciary panel on Friday forced prosecutors to indict three former Tokyo Electric Power (9501.T) (Tepco) executives for failing to take measures to prevent the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster.
The decision is unlikely to lead to a conviction of the former executives, after prosecutors twice said they would not bring charges, but means they will be summoned to appear in court to give evidence.
Tokyo prosecutors in January rejected the panel’s judgment that the three should be charged, citing insufficient evidence. But the 11 unidentified citizens on the panel forced the indictment after a second vote, which makes an indictment mandatory.
The three are former chairman Tsunehisa Katsumata, 75, and former executives Sakae Muto, 65, and Ichiro Takekuro, 69.
Citizens’ panels, made up of residents selected by lottery, are a rarely used but high-profile feature of Japan’s legal system introduced after World War Two to curb bureaucratic overreach.
The panel ruled that the former executives had failed to take countermeasures to strengthen the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant despite foreseeing the dangers of a severe nuclear crisis it faced from tsunamis, according to a copy of the 31-page ruling seen by Reuters.
Continue reading at Tokyo Electric executives to be charged over Fukushima nuclear disaster
◇検察審査会「業務上過失致死傷罪で起訴」と起訴議決公表
２０１１年の東京電力福島第１原発事故を巡り、東京第５検察審査会は３１日、東京地検が２度にわたって容疑不十分で不起訴とした東京電力の勝俣恒 久元会長（７５）ら旧経営陣３人を、業務上過失致死傷罪で起訴すべきだとする「起訴議決」を公表した。第５検審は「３人は『万が一にも』発生する事故に備 える責務があり、大津波による過酷事故発生を予見できた。事故を回避するため原発の運転停止を含めた措置を講じるべきだった」と指摘した。３人は今後、裁 判所が指定する検察官役の弁護士によって強制起訴される。
議決は１７日付。他に武黒一郎（６９）、武藤栄（６５）の両元副社長が起訴議決を受けた。第５検審は、３人が事故を未然に防止する注意義務を怠 り、原発建屋でがれきに接触するなどした東電関係者と自衛官１３人を負傷させ、福島県大熊町の双葉病院から避難をした入院患者４４人を死亡させたと認定し た。
三陸沖から房総沖で大地震が起きるとした政府の地震研究機関の予測に基づき、東電は０８年、想定される津波の高さを最大１５．７メートルと試算し た。こうした経緯から、３人が巨大津波の発生を事前に予測できたか、予測を踏まえて対策を取れば事故を回避できたかの２点が焦点となった。
（略）
◇東京第５検察審査会の議決骨子
▽旧経営陣３人は、津波による事故が「万が一にも」「まれではあるが」発生した場合に備える責務があり、過酷事故の発生が予見できた
▽適切な安全対策を検討している間だけでも運転停止を含めた津波対策を講じていれば、事故は回避できた
▽事故の被害者は、がれきに接触するなどして負傷した東電関係者・自衛官１３人と、双葉病院から避難して死亡した入院患者４４人
関連記事：
More than 60 percent of second-generation hibakusha still feel anxiety over their parents’ exposure to radiation from the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki 70 years ago, a survey showed.
The Tokyo Federation of A-Bomb Sufferers Organizations released its study report on July 29, the first in Japan covering children of those exposed to the 1945 nuclear attacks.
The group sent questionnaires to 2,391 residents of the capital who are children of atomic bomb survivors in Nagasaki or Hiroshima. It received 660 responses.
[…]
About 20 percent of the respondents said they suspect that any health problems they may suffer could be associated with the 1945 atomic bombings.According to the results, around 20 percent are worried about diseases related to radiation, while another 20 percent are also concerned that the effects of radiation exposure could appear in their children and grandchildren.
“It is difficult for people to find effective ways to address problems if their causes are unclear,” Yagi said. “The central government needs to carefully examine the mental conditions of second-generation hibakusha and provide some care.”
[…]
Toyoko Tasaki, 47, who heads a group of second-generation hibakusha in Tokyo, said her mother was exposed to radiation in Hiroshima in 1945.“Many second-generation victims cannot talk about their anxieties in fear of prejudice,” Tasaki said. “The latest findings could be a good way to represent the silent voices of those people.”
Read more.
屈辱的な体験だった。広島で被爆した吉岡幸雄さん（８６）＝広島市南区＝が１９５０年代、ジープ型の車に乗せられて向かったのは、市街地を見下ろす比治山（ひじやま）。米原爆傷害調査委員会（ＡＢＣＣ、現放射線影響研究所）が拠点を構えていた。日本人の男性スタッフは、サックをつけた指を肛門に突っ込んできた。前立腺の状態を調べる触診だったが、指の動きが不快でたまらなかった。
吉岡さんは爆心地から約１・７キロで被爆し、背中などに大やけどを負った。ＡＢＣＣでは唾液の検査もあった。約１カ月後、「肺浸潤」との検査結果が出て広島市内の病院を紹介されたが、吉岡さんは「人権も人格も無視された」と憤る。母が亡くなると献体を求められた。ＡＢＣＣへの反感と不信から、申し出を断った。
米国人医師のウィリアム・シャルさん（９３）＝米テキサス州＝はＡＢＣＣの新生児調査を指揮した。今春、毎日新聞の取材に当時の経験を語り、協力者の母親には高品質せっけんを贈ったことを明かした。「出産費用の一部を負担するなど、できる限りのことはした」とも証言したが、それは協力者確保のためのアメだった。しかし、被爆者や遺族には調査への協力が還元された実感が薄い。長崎で被爆し多重がんで亡くなった父を献体した坂牧幸子さん（７１）＝三重県四日市市＝ら遺族の元に、ＡＢＣＣの感謝状が残る。「検査結果の概要を主治医に報告した」と記されただけで、その後は何の連絡もない。
ＡＢＣＣなどが収集した膨大な資料は米国に持ち帰られ、核戦争の準備に活用された。シャルさんは「ソ連などが情報を得る心配があったので、機密扱いになった」とみる。日本に返還されたのは７３年以降。臓器標本やカルテなど約２万５０００点以上が広島大と長崎大に移された。
「ＡＢＣＣからは『被爆者を救うための献体だ』と説明されたのに、米国の研究材料だったと思うと残念でならない」。坂牧さんの心には、トゲが刺さったままだ。
[…]
もっと読む。
A nuclear power plant in Byron, Illinois. Taken by photographer Joseph Pobereskin (http://pobereskin.com).
