Japan to hand over nuclear material to United StatesEver since the nuclear meltdown at Fukushima
in the aftermath of the tsunami,
nuclear power stations have been standing idle
Japan has agreed at a nuclear summit in The Hague to turn over
hundreds of kilos of nuclear material to the United States.
President Obama and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said the
plutonium and highly enriched uranium would be disposed of in the US.
The nuclear fuel could potentially be used to make some 50 nuclear
weapons.
The US administration is trying to secure worldwide supplies to stop
them falling into the hands of terrorists.
Japan will still retain large quantities of additional plutonium in spent
fuel from its nuclear power industry.
US Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz described the deal to return some
300kg of plutonium as a very significant nuclear security pledge.
The material was originally bought from the US in the 1960s for what
were described as research purposes.
The Abe administration was reported to have resisted initial
approaches from the US to hand it back.
That led to expressions of concern by China at Japan's nuclear
intentions.
Japan has a long-standing policy not to develop nuclear weapons.
But experts say its remaining stockpile of lower-grade plutonium
contained in waste fuel could potentially be reprocessed as fissile
material for an extremely large nuclear arsenal.
Japan is planning to open a nuclear reprocessing plant this year in the
north of the country, which could turn out large quantities of
additional plutonium.
The plutonium was intended to be reused as fuel in Japan's nuclear
power stations, but they have been standing idle for three years in
the aftermath of the disaster and meltdown at the Fukushima nuclear
plant in 2011.
In February, China expressed grave concern at what it called Japan's
possession of weapons-grade nuclear materials.
State media in China said that Japan needed to explain why it was
stockpiling so much plutonium.
Some experts believe that Japan has the technology to build a
nuclear weapon within a year should the government abandon its
longstanding opposition to nuclear weapons.
Japanese public opinion, conditioned by the atomic attacks on
Hiroshima and Nagasaki, remains hostile to such a move.
China has accused Mr Abe of taking Japan down a more nationalistic
path as he resists Chinese pressure over disputed islands
administered by Japan in the East China Sea.
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Fukushima: Is fear of radiation the real killer?In the "dead zone"
around the Fukushima nuclear plant,time stands still
I went back to the little Japanese town of Namie this week. It lies just
5km (three miles) north of the sprawling complex that was once the
Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant.
You can see the tall white chimneys of the plant peaking over a low
hill. I've been to Namie before. Each time I go back is like the first,
so arresting is the scene that confronts you.
For three years, time here has stood still. An old wooden house
brought down by the earthquake still lies in the middle of a road.
Through the broken window of a noodle shop I can see used bowls and
chopsticks still lying on tables.
I look through the windows of an old people's home. Beds lie unmade;
laundry hangs from a drier. It's as if the residents have gone off for
breakfast and at any moment they'll be shuffling back in.
But no one is coming back. When explosions hit the nuclear plant the
pall of radiation was blown right across this town. And so Namie
remains utterly deserted, its residents scattered far and wide.
In their exile they live in constant fear and anxiety. Fear of what the
radiation may have done to their children and anxiety that they will
never get their old lives back.
'Need to be sure'
At a private hospital 60km from the plant I meet Miyuki Arakawa and
her two little boys, five-year-old Ryota and three-year-old Haruto.
The boys are changing in to hospital pyjamas. They giggle with the
nurses. They've done all this before; it's no longer frightening. But it is
for their mother.
Miyuki Arakawa wants her children
to be tested regularly for thyroid cancer
In a narrow room Haruto climbs in to a large blue machine that looks
a bit like a bath. The big blue bathtub is the world's first and only
infant full-body radiation scanner. Inside Haruto begins to fidget as
the data starts to show on a nearby computer screen.
"After the Chernobyl disaster children were diagnosed many years
later," Miyuki said. "My boys may be fine now, but if there is any risk
I need to find out as soon as possible."
Her anxiety level has been raised further by the latest government
findings. Since 2011 Japan has surveyed 260,000 Fukushima children.
So far 33 cases of thyroid cancer have been confirmed; another 42
are suspected.
Rupert Wingfield-Hayes visited some abandoned areas near Fukushima
"The government gives us very little information," she said.
"I need to be completely sure my boys are fine. I want this hospital
to follow up next year and the following year and the one after that."
Look up "Fukushima thyroid cancer" on the internet and you will find
a legion of horror stories, predictions that thousands of Fukushima
children will get cancer. It's little wonder parents like Miyuki are
scared. But should they be?
Many residents lost homes, livelihoods and family ties
as they scattered amid the disaster
At Fukushima University Medical School Professor Shinichi Suzuki
leads the team studying the children of Fukushima. A cheerful round-
faced man with a grey moustache, Prof Suzuki is frustrated by the
constant likening of Fukushima to Chernobyl.
"The first thing to understand is that the amount of radiation
released from Fukushima was much lower than at Chernobyl," he
said. "Second, the number of children in Fukushima who got a
radiation dose above 50 millisieverts is very few, maybe as low as
zero."
In other words the highest level of exposure children at Fukushima are
thought to have received (50 millisieverts) is at the very lowest end
of exposure for children in Chernobyl.
In that case how does Professor Suzuki explain the 33 confirmed
cases of thyroid cancer his team have found?
"In Japan there has never been a survey on this scale done before,"
he said. "Once you start using very sensitive equipment to check for
thyroid cancer in a very large group of children then you will
inevitably find an increase in the number of cases.
That is why we are seeing the increase now. These cases are not
related to the nuclear disaster."
Prof Suzuki says his team will need to carry on their work for many
more years to be sure that the children of Fukushima are in the clear.
But he and other experts now say they think there will be very few,
or even zero, extra childhood cancers because of Fukushima.
That does not mean that the Fukushima disaster is not taking lives.
According to the government's own figures, in the last three years
more than 1,600 Fukushima evacuees have died from causes that
are "related to the disaster"
On a freezing March morning I meet 56-year-old Hideko Takeda at a
grave yard a few kilometres from the little town of Namie.
Hideko Takeda says her father never recovered
from losing his home and his work
She has come to burn incense on her father's grave. The black
marble is still shiny and new. She has a photograph of him with her.
He was tall for a Japanese farmer and at 80 still robust. Each day he
still milked the cows and tended his fields.
But then the disaster stuck and he was forced to flee, leaving his
cows to starve to death in their shed. It broke him, Mrs Takeda says;
his health collapsed, within two years he was dead.
"I blame the power company [Tepco] for his death," she said.
"They took everything from him, his dreams, his hope. They took his
land and scattered his family far from home. Nothing will ever bring
those back."
There is also growing evidence of an increase in suicides among
Fukushima evacuees. Mrs Takeda says she knows of several from the
villages around her farm.
"One man I know went back to check his house," she said. "When he
didn't return his family went to find him. His car was parked outside.
He had hanged himself. I think he'd given up, he couldn't see any
future."
So far no one has died from radiation in Fukushima. But unable to
return to their homes, scattered in evacuations centres, perhaps
lonely and depressed, a growing number of evacuees are dying from
anxiety, from suicide or from simply losing the will to live.
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Japan's Fukushima nuclear plant leaks radioactive waterPrevious Fukushima problems9 Oct 2013:
Six workers are accidentally doused in radioactive water
7 Oct 2013:
A plant worker accidentally switches off power to pumps used for
cooling damaged reactors
3 Oct 2013: Tepco says there is a radioactive water leak after workers overfill a
storage tank
21 Aug 2013: Japan's nuclear agency upgrades Fukushima alert level
20 Aug 2013:
Tepco says 300 tonnes of radioactive water has leaked from a storage
tank into the ground
July 2013: Tepco for the first time admits radioactive water is going into the sea
June 2013: Tepco says radioactive water leaking from a storage tank to the
ground
April 2013: Tepco suspects a fresh radioactive water leak at Fukushima
March 2013: Tepco suspects a rodent may have been behind a power cut that shut
down cooling systems
Dec 2011 Contaminated water leaks from a treatment system, caused by a
crack in the foundation
The operator says the leak occurred when contaminated water was
accidentally pumped into a large storage tank that was already full,
our correspondent adds.
"We apologise for worrying the public with such a leak," Mr Ono
said. "Water is unlikely to have reached the ocean as there is no
drainage in that tank area."
"We are now in the process of recovering the leaked water and the
earth it has contaminated," he added.
On 11 March 2011, an earthquake and tsunami crippled the plant.
Waves knocked out cooling systems for the reactors, leading to
meltdowns at three of them.
Water is being pumped in to cool the reactors. However, this creates
large amounts of contaminated water that must be stored securely.
The Fukushima nuclear power plant suffered a number of setbacks
last year, including worker errors and a series of toxic water leaks
that have lead to concerns contaminated water is mixing with
groundwater that is flowing into the sea.
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Pro-nuclear candidate Masuzoe wins Tokyo governor vote Yoichi Masuzoe promised to make Tokyo
"the number one city in the world"
Related StoriesFormer TV presenter and cabinet minister Yoichi Masuzoe has
won the election for Tokyo governor by a wide margin.
The vote had been seen as a test of popular sentiment on nuclear
power.
Mr Masuzoe agrees with government plans to restart Japan's nuclear
reactors, while his two closest rivals campaigned on an anti-nuclear
platform.
He won 2.1 million votes, more than the combined total of his two
nearest rivals.
A field of 16 men fought a two-week campaign to become chief
executive of the city of 13 million people.
Yoichi Masuzoe wants nuclear reactors
to be switched on again in Japan
Turnout in Tokyo was low at 46% as the capital, like much of Japan, is
enveloped in its heaviest snowfall in decades.
The weather was to blame for at least five deaths and 600 injuries
across the country by early Sunday, reports said.
Relief for Abe
Following the release of exit polls, Mr Masuzoe, 65, appeared smiling
before cameras in Tokyo.
He promised to make Tokyo "the number one city in the world''.
"There is no time to spare for relishing the result," he added. "I have
to work with a sense of the heavy responsibility the post brings."
Mr Masuzoe has the backing of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's
conservative Liberal Democratic Party.
Mr Abe told reporters he wanted Mr Masuzoe to work on issues such
as "low birth rate and longevity as well as economic revitalisation".
There were fears the heaviest snowfall in decades
could have affected voter turnout
As much as 27cm (10.6in) of snow was recorded in Tokyo
by late Saturday, weather forecasters said
The snowfall is thought to be the heaviest for 45 years
The icy conditions have been blamed for scores of injuries
Mr Masuzoe's closest rivals were lawyer Kenji Utsunomiya, 67, who
came second, and former Prime Minister Morihiro Hosokawa, 76, who
was backed by popular fellow former Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi.
Mr Utsunomiya received around 982,000 votes, while Mr Hosokawa
received 956,000, AP news agency reported.
The victory for Mr Masuzoe will come as a relief for Mr Abe, who
suffered a rare setback in another local election last month.
Correspondents say much of the voting is likely to have been based
on issues like the economy and social welfare programmes.
But the starkest difference between the men was their stance on
nuclear power. Public support for nuclear technology has fallen
sharply since a tsunami caused a disaster at the Fukushima nuclear
plant in March 2011.
The post of Tokyo governor became vacant in December when Naoki
Inose stepped down after admitting wrongdoing in accepting an
undeclared 50m yen ($500,000; £300,000) from a scandal-hit hospital
tycoon.
The new governor is expected to spend much of his time preparing for
the 2020 Summer Olympics, with construction projects and the
renovation of the city's infrastructure already under way.
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Japan former prime ministers unite over Tokyo raceMr Koizumi, right, has backed Mr Hosokawa's bid for Tokyo governor
Former Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi has endorsed Morihiro Hosokawa, another ex-PM, in the race for governor in the capital, Tokyo.
Mr Koizumi is supporting Mr Hosokawa's candidacy on an anti-nuclear platform.
Their stand puts them in opposition to the candidate supported by the party of
current PM Shinzo Abe, which backs the restart of Japan's nuclear plants.
The former governor stepped down last month after admitting he had received
money from a hospital chain.
Naoki Inose said he had resigned to avoid affecting preparations for the Tokyo
2020 Olympics.
"I have a sense of crisis myself that the country's various problems, especially
nuclear power plants, are matters of survival for the country,"
Mr Hosokawa, 76, told reporters.
Mr Hosokawa was prime minister from 1993-94 after his coalition defeated the
ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP).
For his part, Mr Koizumi said he would "work hard and actively" for
Mr Hosokawa's election.
"The election will be a battle between a group of people who say Japan cannot
advance without nuclear power plants and another group of people who say
Japan can," he said.
Mr Koizumi was pro-nuclear for most of his term between 2001 and 2006. But he
came out in public last year saying that he had changed his mind.
Health Minister Yoichi Masuzoe is standing as an independent candidate
supported by Mr Abe's LDP.
Three years after the Fukushima nuclear disaster, the nuclear debate is suddenly
back front and centre in Japanese politics, says the BBC's Rupert Wingfield-
Hayes in Tokyo.
Four reactors at the Fukushima power plant were severely damaged by the
earthquake and tsunami that struck in March 2011.
The power plant has suffered a number of setbacks last year, including a series of
toxic water leaks and worker errors.
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