“Reconstruction is unnecessary” verbal abuse of top-level bureaucrat on his blog makes him two-month suspension from office / “Shut up” remark of ambassador makes him resign


I said that “Bureaucrats are hopelessly idiots though they were always best students in class” more than 15 years ago when I started lecture activities.  I believe you completely agree with me now because their true character has been shown since 3/11.  I’d like to give you a piece of advice.  Please raise your children with affectionately holding them so that they may not become such fools in the future.

Masatoshi Takeshita
September 28, 2013


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English translation of a Japanese article: Gendai Net – September 26, 2013 – (1)

(1)  “Reconstruction is unnecessary” verbal abuse of top-level bureaucrat on his blog makes him two-month suspension from office

Outrageous verbal abuse of a top-level bureaucrat of the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) has caused sensation on the Internet.  A male bureaucrat (51) who is on temporary assignment at an extra-governmental organization posted the following anonymously.

<Originally almost destroyed depopulated area in the Tohoku region with deeply-indented coastlines> <I think politicians who don’t say the right thing that reconstruction is unnecessary should die.> -

This top-level bureaucrat posted this article two years ago, in September 2011.  This post has been widely rumored for a few days.  His real name was put on in a message board, and this article has been continuously reprinted.  It has become a “festival.”

The bureaucrat reportedly explains that “I wrote my personal opinion.”  In July 2011, he also wrote that “I’ll do my best for three more years until I can get a cushy job after retirement,” which suggests the appointment of a governmental official to a high position in a private company after retirement.

The METI, which listened to the bureaucrat’s explanation about what he wrote, placed him on two-month suspension.

Councilor for Reconstruction Agency Yasuhisa Mizuno, who had repeatedly written “verbal abuses” on Twitter, was forced out of the government in June this year.



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English translation of a Japanese article: excite.news – September 20, 2013 – (2)

(2)   “Shut up” remark of ambassador makes him resign


Hideaki Ueda, who made a remark “Shut up” at a U.N. Committee against Torture and was reprimanded by the Foreign Ministry, resigned as Japan’s Human Right Ambassador on 20, the Foreign Ministry said on the same day.  He will be replaced by Mr. Satoji who concurrently serves as spokesman for foreign affairs.

When Mr. Ueda was explaining about Japan’s judicial system at a meeting in Geneva of the Committee, he heard giggling over his statement and shouted “shut up.”  Later the Ministry of Foreign Ministry orally reprimanded the ambassador for his inappropriate remark on a formal occasion.

[Takashi Hirose] People across the country, please pass this information on to the world.


Information from a reader named Katatsumurin-sama posted on our blog on September 28, 2013

Although I have no acquaintance in the International Olympic Committee (IOC), I’m going to pass this on to overseas friends in the hope of getting the actual state of Japan known to the world.
(Comment of the reader)


English translation of an excerpt from a Japanese article: Hibi Zakkan – September 27, 2013 –

People across the country, please pass this information on to the world.

Everybody in Japan, I am Takashi Hirose.

We cannot continue to disgrace Japan by letting Shinzo Abe’s big lie keep going on.  I have written a letter in English to athletes across the world.  I’d like to ask you to translate the letter into your language to pass it on to young people in your country.  If you have an acquaintance in IOC in your country, please pass it on to him/her.  Since the athletes who will join the Tokyo Olympic Games are junior or senior high school students now, it is important to correctly convey the reality of Japan to their parents.

The weekly Asahi published this week on September 24 (October 4 issue) ran a feature article.  It gives a detailed report on the risk of exposure to radiation the children living in the Kanto region have faced, which was found by cesium urinalysis.  However, please read about the relationship between cesium and polluted water with the following fact in mind.  Fish caught in waters close to Japan read 0.086 Bq/kg on average before the Fukushima nuclear accident, while fish reading the current standard of 100Bq/kg, which is 1160 times higher than the normal level, is distributed as “safe fish.”  Every media reports that all seafood is “less than the limit of detection” with 1000- times dangerous seafood as the standard.


(Reference): We see no rise in radiation dose in Hiroshima whitebait, while we see a leap in radiation dose in Ibaragi one.


2013-09-27
Report about seafood off Ibaraki, distributed in Takahagi City, Ibaraki Prefecture

Everybody, please hurry to disseminate this information to your acquaintances or friends overseas.


A Letter to All Young Athletes Who Dream of Coming to Tokyo in 2020, and to Their Coaches and Parents: Some Facts You Should Know (Takashi Hirose)



A Letter to All Young Athletes Who Dream of Coming to Tokyo in 2020, and to Their Coaches and Parents: Some Facts You Should Know

On 7 September, 2013 Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said to the 125th session of the International Olympic Committee, the following:

Some may have concerns about Fukushima. Let me assure you, the situation is under control. It has never done and will never do any damage to Tokyo.

This will surely be remembered as one of the great lies of modern times. In Japan some people call it the “Abesolute Lie”. Believing it, the IOC decided to bring the 2020 Olympics to Tokyo.

Japanese government spokespersons defend Abe’s statement by saying that radiation levels in the Pacific Ocean have not yet exceeded safety standards.
This recalls the old story of the man who jumped off a ten-storey building and, as he passed each storey, could be heard saying, “So far, so good”.
We are talking, remember, about the Pacific Ocean – the greatest body of water on earth, and for all we know, in the universe. Tokyo Electric Power Company – TEPCO – has been pouring water through its melted-down reactor at Fukushima and into the ocean for two and a half years, and so far the Pacific Ocean has been able to dilute that down to below the safety standard. So far so good. But there is no prospect in sight of turning off the water.
Here are eight things you need to know.

  1. In a residential area park in Tokyo, 230 km from Fukushima, the soil was found to

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    have a radiation level of 92,335 Becquerels per square meter. This is a dangerous level, comparable to what is found around Chernobyl ④ zone (the site of a nuclear catastrophe in 1986). One reason this level of pollution is found in the capital is that between Tokyo and

    Fukushima there are no mountains high enough to block radioactive clouds. In the capital people who understand the danger absolutely avoid eating food produced in eastern Japan.

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  2. Inside Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Reactors #1 - #3 the pipes (which had circulated cooling water) are broken, which caused a meltdown. This means the nuclear fuel overheated, melted, and continued to melt anything it touched. Thus it melted through the bottom of the reactor, and then through the concrete floor of the building, and sank into the ground. As mentioned above, for two and a half years TEPCO workers have been desperately pouring water into the reactor, but it is not known whether the water is actually reaching the melted fuel. If a
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    middle-strength earthquake comes, it is likely to destroy totally the already damaged building. And as a matter of fact, in the last two and a half years earthquakes have continued to hit Fukushima. (And as an additional matter of fact, just as this letter was being written Fukushima was hit by another middle-strength earthquake, but it seems that the building held up one more time.
    So far so good.) Especially dangerous is Reactor #4, where a large amount of

    nuclear fuel is being held in a pool, like another disaster waiting for its moment.

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  3. The cooling water being poured into the reactor is now considered the big problem in Japan. Newspapers and TV stations that previously strove to conceal the danger of nuclear power, are now reporting on this danger every day, and criticizing Shinzo Abe for the lie he told the IOC. The issue is that the highly irradiated water is entering and mixing with the ground water, and this leakage can’t be stopped, so it is spilling into the outer ocean. It is a situation impossible to control. In August, 2013 (the month prior to Abe’s IOC speech) within the site of Fukushima Daiichi Reactor, radiation was measured at
    8500 micro Sieverts per hour. That is enough to kill anyone who stayed there for a month. This makes it a very hard place for the workers to get anything done. In Ohkuma-machi, the town where the Daiichi Nuclear Reactor is located, the radiation was measured in July, 2013 (two months before Abe’s talk) at 320 micro Sieverts per hour. This level of radiation would kill a person in two and a half years. Thus, over an area many kilometers wide, ghost towns are increasing.
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  4. For the sake of the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, an important fact has been left out from reports that go abroad. Only the fact that irradiated water is leaking onto the surface of the ground around the reactor is reported. But deep under the surface the ground water is also being irradiated, and the ground water flows out to sea and mixes with the seawater through sea-bottom springs. It is too late to do anything about this.

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  5. If you go to the big central fish market near Tokyo and measure the radiation in the air, it registers at about 0.05 micro Sieverts – a little higher than normal level. But if you measure the radiation near the place where the instrument that measures the radiation of the fish is located, the level is two or three times greater (2013
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    measurement). Vegetables and fish from around the Tokyo area, even if they are irradiated, are not thrown away. This is because the level established by the Japanese Government for permissible radiation in food – which if exceeded the food must not be sold – is the same as the permissible level of radiation in low-level radioactive wastes. Which is to say, in Japan today, as the entire country has been contaminated, we have no choice but to put irradiated garbage on the dinner table.

    The distribution of irradiated food is also a problem. Food from near Fukushima will be sent to another prefecture, and then sent on, relabeled as produced in the second prefecture. In particular, food distributed by the major food companies, and food served in expensive restaurants, is almost never tested for radiation.
  6. In Japan, the only radiation from Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Reactors that is being measured is the radioactive cesium. However large amounts of strontium 90 and tritium are spreading all over Japan. Strontium and tritium’s radiation consists of beta rays, and are very difficult to measure. However both are extremely dangerous: strontium can cause leukemia, and tritium can cause chromosome disorder.
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  7. More dangerous still: in order, they say, to get rid of the pollution that has fallen over the wide area of Eastern Japan, they are scraping off the top layer of the soil,
    and putting it in plastic bags as garbage. Great mountains of these plastic bags, all weather-beaten, are sitting in fields in Eastern Japan subject of course to attack by heavy rain and typhoons. Eventually the plastic will split open and the contents
    will come spilling out. When that happens, there will be no place left to take them.

  8. On 21 September, 2013 (again, as this letter was being composed) the newspaper Tokyo Shimbun reported that Tokyo Governor Naoki Inose said at a press conference that what Abe expressed to the IOC was his intention to get the situation under control. “It is not,” Inose said, “under control now.”

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It’s a sad story, but this is the present situation of Japan and of Tokyo. I had loved the Japanese food and this land until the Fukushima
accident occurred. But now...

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My best wishes for your health and long life. Takashi Hirose
Takashi Hirose is the author of  Fukushima Meltdown: The World’s First
Earthquake-Tsunami-Nuclear Disaster  (2011) available on Amazon both as a Kindle e-book and a Createspace on-demand book.

Former Chairperson of NRC George Jaczko Ventures into Abandoning Nuclear Power Generation


I have watched the personality and behavior of Chairperson Jaczko on TV since March 11, 2011 and I have told to my wife that there is a respectable person involved in nuclear energy.  Looking at the photo, I have found him really beautiful – oh, I’m not talking about his head.
He emits very beautiful light, not reflected light.
If you get to see through a person at first sight, you will understand everything else very well.

Masatoshi Takeshita
September 24, 2013


English translation of a Japanese article: Ryusaku Tanaka Journal – September 23, 2013 –

Former Chairperson of NRC George Jaczko Ventures into Abandoning Nuclear Power Generation


Mr. Jaczko who checks terminology with an interpreter before a lecture
= on 23 at Chiyoda Ward  Photograph: Shun Yamada =

Former Chairperson of Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) George Jaczko has come to Japan and given a lecture in Tokyo today.
Mr. Jaczko had tried to strengthen nuclear regulation following the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster, which had him isolated within the Commission.  He resigned as chairperson in May last year.  (According to Wikipedia and others)

Mr. Jaczko has never bent his principles as he witnessed a harsh accident in the country to which the U.S. had sold nuclear power plants.  He gave a very thought-provoking speech.  (Remarks indicated by boldface are given by Mr. Jaczko.)

Suprisingly, Mr. Jaczko made such remarks that he ventured into abandoning nuclear power generation.

“Every time I visit Japan, I am surprised at the spirit of the Japanese and technology.  I believe it is possible to create energy source for the next generation and a new electric power transmission system.  That will free us from the use of nuclear energy that requires expensive facilities.  It will also free us from the use of technology (nuclear power) that causes harsh accidents.

Nuclear safety myth was not just limited to Japan but we also had it in the United States that had experienced the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant accident.  Japan, a client state, has also been infected with the myth.

“The nuclear power industry says ‘All nuclear power plants are safe and no accident will happen.’  If an accident happens, they try to make an improvement.”  “If an accident happens, we will make a fuss about it.  We have to talk about nuclear power plants with understanding of a possibility of nuclear accident.  Accident will happen at some future point.”



Former Chairperson of NRC George Jaczko says: “Several nuclear power plants in the U.S. have been closed for a several years due to safety problems.” 
= Photography: Shun Yamada =

It seems that no lessons from the Three Mile Island accident have been learned in Japan, where only the Chernobyl accident has been in the news.

“The Three Mile Island accident showed that evacuation planning was very fragile.  (And yet,) you didn’t learn the important lesson (of the Three Mile Island accident) in Fukushima nuclear power plants.  Since no careful planning was made beforehand, evacuation got extremely confused.”
“The safety standards you have to develop following the Fukushima nuclear power plant accident are not to produce any evacuees and not to contaminate the environment outside power plant facilities.”

Additionally, the former chairperson emphasized: “It is also important for citizens to lobby the Diet and the government.”

In a Q and A session, this writer asked him: “What do you think about the Japanese government that underestimates the contaminated water problem?”  The former chairperson answered as follows:

I am afraid that the people might have been more concerned about TEPCO’s lack in competence to cope with the problem.  Why wasn’t the government engaged in it earlier?  The government paid too much attention to resumption of the nuclear power plant.

Mr. Jaczko might make a bold remark because he is the “former” NRC chairperson.  I wonder what Japan Nuclear Regulation Authority Chairman Shunichi Tanaka will say about the Fukushima nuclear accident after retiring from office.

Mr. Jaczko will hold a lecture and press interview in Foreign Correspondents’ Club of Japan (FCCJ) tomorrow on 24.