新型コロナウイルス感染拡大の影響で延期された東京五輪の聖火リレーについて、県実行委員会は開始百日前の十五日、県内の詳細ルートを発表した。二十六市町村二十八区間を走る従来の計画を維持した。運営の簡素化・効率化のため、通過する自治体の順番やルートを一部変更し、総距離は一・二キロ伸びて計五一・七一キロとなった。聖火リレーは来年三月二十五日にＪヴィレッジ（楢葉・広野町）を出発し、二十七日までの三日間、県内を巡る。
県内の実施市町村と通過順は【表】の通り。初日は４区から９区までの順番が変わり、川内村、いわき市、富岡町、葛尾村、双葉町、大熊町の順となる。三日目は４区から６区までが本宮市、須賀川市、田村市の順番。二日目は従来計画と変わらない。
双葉、浪江、猪苗代の三町でルートが変わる。浪江町で約二百メートル、猪苗代町で約一キロ走行距離が伸びる。
各日の最終地点で聖火の到着を祝う「セレブレーション」の会場は延期前と同じ会場に設けた。初日の南相馬市は国重要無形民俗文化財「相馬野馬追」の主会場となる雲雀ケ原祭場地、二日目の会津若松市は鶴ケ城公園市営駐車場、三日目の郡山市は開成山公園自由広場。
FUKUSHIMA – Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings Inc. will compensate for declines in sales of local agricultural products caused by the planned release of treated water from its Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant, executive Makoto Okura said in an interview.
Tepco will work hard to prevent local agricultural products from being hit by harmful rumors related to the release of tainted water, said Okura, managing executive officer and representative of the company’s Fukushima Revitalization Headquarters.
If sales of such products fall due to the release of water, Tepco “will compensate in an appropriate way,” he said.
The government is considering releasing treated water, which includes tritium, a radioactive substance, from the tsunami-crippled nuclear plant into the ocean.
[…]
He said that the 10-year statute of limitations period does not apply to claims for compensation related to the March 2011 nuclear accident.
Read more at Tepco to compensate for losses from Fukushima water release
TOKYO — Japan’s Nuclear Regulation Authority (NRA) launched an on-site inspection at the Japan Atomic Power Co.’s head office in Tokyo on Dec. 14 after it was learned earlier this year that the firm rewrote data related to safety reviews necessary to restart its Tsuruga Power Station Unit 2 in central Japan.
The nuclear watchdog will check related documents and interview Japan Atomic Power employees, based on the nuclear regulation law, through Dec. 15. It is rare for the NRA to make an on-site inspection of a company over issues related to safety reviews.
[…]
Regarding Tsuruga Power Station Unit 2, it has been pointed out that there lies an active fault directly beneath the reactor building, which Japan Atomic Power has argued against, claiming that it’s not an active fault line. If it is determined that an active fault runs beneath the building, the firm will not be able to restart the power station.
The NRA had temporarily halted its safety review of the Tsuruga plant’s No. 2 unit after finding 80 data alterations and deletions in documents related to the power plant’s geological condition.
(Japanese original by Hisashi Tsukamoto, Science and Environment News Department)
Read more.
旧ソ連チェルノブイリ周辺 支援団体、カレンダー販売
1986年に旧ソ連・ウクライナで起きたチェルノブイリ原発事故の影響で、今も健康被害に苦しむ子どもの姿を伝えるカレンダーを、市民団体「チェルノブイリ子ども基金」（東京都練馬区）が制作した。収益はウクライナや汚染地域となった隣国ベラルーシのほか、東京電力福島第1原発事故で被災した子どもの支援に充てる。
基金は91年、募金活動をきっかけに設立。汚染地域では、事故を直接経験していない子どもにも健康被害が相次ぎ、回復を目指す保養プロジェクトや、甲状腺の手術を受けた後の医薬品代などを支援してきた。
（略）
小寺隆幸共同代表は「チェルノブイリを考えることにつながれば。原発で被害を受けた子どもの声は未来への警告だ」と強調。新型コロナウイルスの影響で講演会などを開けない中、購入し活動を支援してほしいと呼び掛ける。
見開きA4判、1部800円。問い合わせは基金電話03・6767・8808。
What happens when the fallout from the nation’s largest industrial disaster goes nuclear?
In 2009, App Thacker was hired to run a dredge along the Emory River in eastern Tennessee. Picture an industrialized fleet modeled after Huck Finn’s raft: Nicknamed Adelyn, Kylee, and Shirley, the blue, flat-bottomed boats used mechanical arms called cutterheads to dig up riverbeds and siphon the excavated sediment into shoreline canals. The largest dredge, a two-story behemoth called the Sandpiper, had pipes wide enough to swallow a push lawnmower. Smaller dredges like Thacker’s scuttled behind it, scooping up excess muck like fish skimming a whale’s corpse. They all had the same directive: Remove the thick grey sludge that clogged the Emory.
[…]
Then there was the nuclear waste. According to a 2011 TVA report, the river-bound coal ash and sediments contained higher radiation levels than the holding pond. Half of the river sediment samples taken contained cesium-137, a highly soluble compound with a 30-year half-life that can contaminate large bodies of water for well over a generation. It’s best known as the predominant source of radiation in the fallout of the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear disaster. It can cause burns, acute radiation sickness, and death. Exposure also increases the risk for cancer.
[…]
Cesium-137 also happens to be a byproduct of the nuclear reactions and weapons testing that began in the 1940s at the 35,000-acre Oak Ridge Reservation, which is roughly 30 miles upstream from Kingston. The federal facility is infamous for its role in the Manhattan Project, which resulted in the U.S. dropping twin atom bombs on Japan at the end of World War II, demonstrating the horrific effects of radiation exposure to the world.
The Kingston coal ash spill was the nation’s largest industrial disaster to date, releasing five times as much toxic material as the 2010 explosion of BP’s Deepwater Horizon oil rig. Workers like Thacker now wonder what they were really exposed to during the cleanup. Coal ash is toxic in its own right, but additional radioactivity may have made the dredged material more dangerous than the ash alone.
[…]
While no one was killed by the 2008 coal ash spill itself, dozens of workers have died from illnesses that emerged during or after the cleanup. Hundreds of other workers are sick from respiratory, cardiac, neurological, and blood disorders, as well as cancers; the jury in a 2018 court case determined that many of these ailments could have been caused by long-term coal ash exposure. Whether or not the coal ash alone was responsible for the deluge of illnesses — and whether or not TVA was aware of exposure to additional hazards that it did not disclose to workers — remains an open question.
[…]
Interviews with those involved in the cleanup and sworn declarations in court indicate that workers were in contact with unambiguously hazardous material, including discarded barrels with nuclear hazard symbols. A documented spike in radiation readings at the site, which state regulators deleted without explanation from public reports in 2009, has raised further questions about the extent of worker exposure.
TVA did not acknowledge these dangerous risk factors publicly. Doing so could have triggered a far more expensive and more stringently regulated cleanup, as well as a stain on the utility’s upstanding reputation. Instead, TVA and its contractors failed to inform workers about the known possibility that unusually high levels of radioactive contamination could put their lives in danger. Whether this potential coverup caused or exacerbated any of the cluster of illnesses that has killed at least 51 former workers since the spill — and wreaked havoc on the lives of hundreds more — may never be known.
Read more at A Legacy of Contamination
レバノンとUAE＝アラブ首長国連邦は、福島第一原子力発電所の事故のあとから続けていた日本産の水産物などに対する輸入規制を撤廃しました。
福島第一原発の事故のあと、レバノンは日本産の食品や飼料などを輸入する際に放射性物質の検査を義務づける措置を続けてきました。
また、UAEも福島県産の水産物などを対象に、同様の検査を義務づけていました。
農林水産省によりますと、レバノンとUAEの両政府はいずれも12月10日付けで、こうした措置をすべて撤廃したということで、これによって対象となっていた地域への食品や水産物などの輸出がしやすくなります。
戦後の映画を通して、広島・長崎の原爆のことを「ひどい」「破壊力がすごい」と思い知らされた。同時に、中学のころ、ビキニ環礁での水爆実験時の第五福竜丸事件で、放射線被害とはこれほど過酷なものなんだと知った。水爆の存在というものをリアルに認識している世代です。だから、ガンダム作品で水爆は宇宙空間で使っても地球上では使っていない。
核兵器禁止条約の理念は高潔だし素晴らしい。けれども、それは道徳論なんです。道徳論と政治論は分けて考えるべきです。現実にどう核を減らすのか。
（略）
ただね、そうは言っても、日本政府が核兵器禁止条約にサインをしなかったというのは本当に残念。「我々は道徳論としては賛同を表す」ということでサインしてもよかったんじゃないのかな。道徳論と政治問題をぴしゃっと分けて。
ガンダムでは、初めから戦争ありきで物語を作ったから、戦争の本質を考えるようになった。政治があって、リアリズムがあって、好き勝手にはいかないと。ガンダム世代から、政治家や経済人になる人が出てくれれば良いなと期待していた。でも４０年経つのに、新しい政治家は出てこなかった。僕は敗北感しかない。
近代、どうしようもない戦争が絶えず行われてしまった。その時の一番の不幸は科学技術の進歩であり、とどめが原爆です。戦争がなければおそらく原爆は開発されなかった。絶対に。戦争があったために、原子力発電よりも前に原爆ができてしまう不幸があった。それこそ、人類が戦後、背負わなければならなくなった一番の罪じゃないか。
ガンダム作品の「逆襲のシャア」のように、直径が５キロや１０キロある隕石（いんせき）を粉々に破壊しようと思ったら核を使うしかない。だけど、核は破壊力が大きすぎて地球上の戦線で使えるような便利なものではない。だから、軍が保有する必要があると思っている政治家と軍人がいるのは、僕には絶対に理解できないな。
（略）
もし自分が大統領で、組織のしがらみも考えないで済むなら、ミサイル基地は全廃しますね。だって維持する経済的な負担がとても大変です。ただ、解体には技術者が欠かせない。１発でも残っていたら誰かが何とかしなければ。なくせ、解体せよと言うのは簡単ですが、次に起こることをどう処理するのか、政治的に考えなくてはなりません。（聞き手 編集委員・副島英樹）
Four major Japanese life insurers do not invest in or extend loans to producers of nuclear weapons or companies related to them, Kyodo News learned Saturday, as part of their efforts toward socially responsible investing.
The revelation comes as various lenders in Japan, Europe and the United States have refrained from investing in companies involved in the nuclear weapons industry.
It also precedes the entry into force in January of a United Nations treaty that will ban such weapons.
The four life insurers which managed a combined ¥151 trillion in assets in fiscal 2019 — Nippon Life Insurance Co., Dai-ichi Life Insurance Co., Meiji Yasuda Life Insurance Co. and Fukoku Mutual Life Insurance Co. — did not disclose lists of targeted companies.
The restraint shown by the life insurers reflects a growing trend toward valuing environmental, social and governance (ESG) factors in making investment decisions.
[…]
Three of the insurers, with Nippon Life being an exception, say they do not invest in companies involved in the maintenance of nuclear warheads or manufacturing of ballistic missiles, in addition to those making nuclear weapons.
According to PAX, an international nongovernmental organization for peace, U.S. Lockheed Martin Corp., which develops the long-range Minuteman intercontinental ballistic missile, is among such companies.
More than 300 lenders including major Japanese banks invested a total of $748 billion in companies involved in the nuclear weapons industry between January 2017 and January 2019, according to the NGO.
In April, Dai-ichi Life published a basic policy that excludes weapons producers from its portfolio. The company told Kyodo News that companies linked to nuclear weapons raise concerns from the viewpoint of ESG.
Meiji Yasuda said it does not invest in or extend loans to companies that are found to have links to nuclear and other inhumane weapons based on undisclosed internal rules. Categorizing companies related to nuclear weapons as “socially problematic,” Fukoku has excluded them from its investible universe in line with its own guidelines adopted in February 2019.
Nippon Life, meanwhile, said it does not invest in shares or bonds of nuclear weapons producers.
[…]
Sumitomo Life Insurance Co., which does not have guidelines on investing in nuclear weapons companies, said it will consider exercising restraint as investing in such companies would hurt its reputation once the nuclear ban treaty takes effect.
Read more at Major Japan life insurers shun investing in nuclear weapons-linked firms
東日本大震災と原発事故から来年、10年となるのを前に、高校生がみずからの物語を語る発表会が、福島県郡山市で開かれました。
この発表会は、若者ならではの目線やことばで福島について発信してもらい、震災と原発事故の風化を防ごうと福島県が初めて企画し、郡山市の会場では震災当時、小学生だった県内の高校生22人が発表しました。
(略）
磐城農業高校の塩田智恵さんは会場に集まった人たちにまず「あなたの名前は何ですか」と「困っていることは何ですか」と伝える2つの手話を教えました。
そして兄に聴覚障害があることを明かしたうえで、「震災当時、兄は情報が入らず困っていたので、災害時には勇気を持っていま覚えた手話を使って話しかけてほしい」と呼びかけました。
また、郡山高校の秋山風凜さんは、福島につきまとう震災と原発事故というイメージを変えるためには、自分たちの世代が情報を発信していくことが大切で行動を起こす必要があると訴えていました。
A nuclear power plant in Byron, Illinois. Taken by photographer Joseph Pobereskin (http://pobereskin.com).
