Japanese company will reportedly complete a deal for two planned new reactor site within a few days 26/10/2012

http://www.businessgreen.com/bg/news/2220070/reports-hitachi-to-buy-horizon-nuclear-projects?WT.rss_f=Energy

Hitachi has won the race to purchase the UK's Horizon nuclear venture, after fending off competition from Westinghouse Electric, according to reports circulating yesterday........

NGO Information Meeting (Japan) in United Nations Office at Geneva

TIME:    OCTOBER 30 (TUESDAY), 2012, 14:00-16:001: Mr Katsutaka IDOGAWA: mayor of Futaba town which was "worst hit by Fukushima fallout" Organized by Japanese Association for the Right to Freedom of Speech (JRFS), Association of Fukushima Collective Evacuation Trial for the Right to Education in a Safe Place 
2. Professor Michel Fernex: Professor Emeritus, Medical Faculty, University of Basel, will speak about the effects of radiation on children. 
3: Mr Toshio YANAGIHARA: lead lawyer representing the Fukushima Collective Evacuation Trial for the Right to Education in a Safe Place representing 14 children plaintiffs for a collective evacuation (whole school) from heavily contaminated Koriyama city, Fukushima.  
4. Video letters by:*Mr Ken'ichi Ido: lawyer of the Fukushima Collective Evacuation Trial…*Two Mothers of children plaintiff: 

5. Ms Tsuneko KAKIUCHI: General-Secretary of Japanese Association for the Right to Freedom of Speech (JRFS), NGO in Special Consultative Status with the ECOSOC, will speak on the freedom of speech and ratification of individuals reporting system in Japan.   This is a very rare opportunity for overseas delegates, media, and citizens to hear what has been happening in Fukushima, as the Japanese government, Fukushima prefectural government, Japanese major media, and the nuclear lobby have been trying to send messages "it is safe to keep living in Fukushima", and Fukushima citizens cannot express their concerns about radiation effects on their children.  Since the national and local governments do not adopt a collective evacuation, children have been living in heavily contaminated areas, ie. 27μSv/h near a primary school in Date city, 1.3μSv/h in Koriyama city where these child plaintiffs have been living since 3.11, 2011. ---------------------------------------------------------- 
Please support them by signing this urgent petition:  http://fukushima-syomei-e.blogspot.jp/ 

You can help them as a jury. Here is how: 

http://fukushima-evacuation-e.blogspot.jp/2012/03/global-citizens-

EU to ease Japan food import rule…

http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/national/T121020001960.htm　　 
Takehito Kudo / Yomiuri Shimbun Correspondent  BRUSSELS--The European Union has decided to substantially ease import restrictions on food products and animal feed from Tokyo and 10 prefectures that were imposed due to the crisis at Tokyo Electric Power Co.'s Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant last year, it has been learned.  The 27-nation EU on Friday approved a draft revision to the import rules, which the European Commission is expected to finalize at its ministerial meeting by the end of this month and implement from Nov. 1.　　…… The EU began restricting Japanese food imports in late March last year after the start of the nuclear crisis triggered by the Great East Japan Earthquake.  Under the current rules, the EU requires food and animal feed from Tokyo and 11 prefectures--Fukushima, Gunma, Ibaraki, Tochigi, Miyagi, Yamanashi, Saitama, Chiba, Kanagawa, Shizuoka and Iwate--to be inspected for radiation prior to being exported to EU countries.  An analysis report must also be attached to prove the products' radioactive iodine and cesium levels do not exceed EU standards. . 
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Do you know that EU’s allowable radiation level in the food is 200 - 600BQ/kg (500BQ/kg in UK) while in Japan it has lowered down to 100BQ/kg from 500BQ/kg in this April except for rice and meat.  So we might end up eating more radioactive Japanese food than people in Japan unless we know food we eat come from safer place in Japan.  
Reference: Are imported food safe after Chernobyl and Fukushima disaster?　　http://fukushimaappeal.blogspot.co.uk/2012/10/are-imported-food-safe-after-chernobyl.html

Japan's radiation monitoring unreliable: Greenpeace

http://www.japantoday.com/category/national/view/japans-radiation-monitoring-unreliable-greenpeace 
Japanese government radiation monitoring in areas near Japan’s crippled Fukushima nuclear plant is unreliable, Greenpeace charged on Tuesday, with heavily populated areas exposed to 13 times the legal limit. .……Greenpeace found that in some parks and school facilities in Fukushima city, home to 285,000 people, radiation levels were above three microsieverts per hour. Japan’s recommended radiation limit is 0.23 microsieverts per hour.  “We also found that official monitoring posts placed by the government systematically underestimate the radiation levels,” said Rianne Teule, Greenpeace’s radiation expert, adding that some machines are shielded from radiation by surrounding metal and concrete structures.  “Official monitoring stations are placed in areas the authorities have decontaminated. However, our monitoring shows that just a few steps away the radiation levels rise significantly,” she said…….“It is especially disturbing to see that there are many hot spots around playground equipment, exposing children who are most vulnerable to radiation risks,” she said.
In tests carried out over four days last week, Greenpeace also found that radiation levels in Iitate village, where the government is hoping to soon return evacuated residents, are still many times over the limit, with decontamination efforts patchy.  Greenpeace’s Japan nuclear campaigner Kazue Suzuki said attempts to clean up were “misguided”.  “One home or office may be cleaned up, but it is very unlikely that the whole area will be freed of radiation risks within the next few years,” given the mountainous and heavily forested nature of the region, she said.  “The government continues to downplay radiation risks and give false hope (of returning home) to victims of this nuclear disaster,” said Suzuki…….

http://fukushima-diary.com/2012/11/monitoring-posts-are-made-by-nuclear-plant-maker/ Monitoring posts in Minamisoma city, Fukushima prefecture are made by Fuji electric, that is a nuclear power plant maker.

World Nuclear Industry Status Report maps nuclear power’s global decline

http://www.beyondnuclear.org/home/2012/10/22/world-nuclear-industry-status-report-maps-nuclear-powers-glo.html 

A new World Nuclear Industry Status Report 2012, authored by Mycle Schneider with Antony Froggatt and Julie Hazemann, maps the continuing global decline of nuclear power. The report shows that nuclear's future rests not on new construction, but that "Plant life extension seems the most likely survival strategy of the nuclear industry at this point" - a good reason to continue to block reactor license extensions. The report noted that: "Only seven reactors started up, while 19 were shut down in 2011." By July 2012, "only two were started up, just compensating for two that were shut down so far this year". Other highlights: 
China is spending five times more on renewables than nuclear post-Fukushima with no new nuclear construction since 3/11; nine reactors have been listed as "under construction" for more than 20 years; four countries - Belgium, Germany, Switzerland and Taiwan - will phase out nuclear power and five more to date - Egypt, Italy, Jordan, Kuwait and Thailand - have abandoned plans to develop, or re-develop nuclear power; new builds have been canceled in Brazil, France, India and the US; certification of new reactor technologies has been delayed numerous times; in the US, of the 28 license applications received, 16 were subsequently delayed and eight were suspended indefinitely or officially canceled; of the 59 units under construction in the world, at least 18 are experiencing multi-year delays, while the remaining 41 projects were started within the past five years or have not yet reached project start-up dates.