Germany's ZDF Poll: "Solt Griechenland Weiter Am Euro Beteiligt Bleiben?"

November 2011:
Ja: 41%
Nein: 49%

Jetzt:
Ja: 31%
Nein: 60%

(ZDF, via Zero Hedge)

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Germany's ZDF's Latest on Fukushima: Interviews with Workers at Fukushima I Nuke Plant

German TV ZDF's "Frontal 21" features Japan's nuclear disaster on a regular basis, and here's the latest from October 4, 2011. The reporters interviewed Fukushima plant workers, whose remarks coincide with what the Fuku-1 Livecam finger-pointing worker has said - that they are kept ignorant of the radiation danger.

They also interviewed Dr. Eisuke Matsui of Gifu Environmental Medicine Research Institute, who talked about potential damage from radiation on the workers at the plant.

They also went to the TEPCO headquarters in Tokyo to ask about the unfair contract that the workers receive (if at all) for their work at Fukushima I Nuke Plant. A junior manager (if that) met them, only to tell them it was none of the TEPCO's problem. It's subcontractors' problem, of course.

The program concludes with these words:

Workers, who for a pittance do the dangerous dirty work at the atomic ruins,
An employer who steals away from his responsibility,
Doctors who recommend smiling as protection against radiation damage.

Contempt for human beings, in Japanese.

That doctor is of course Dr. Shunichi "Damashita" (I tricked you) Yamashita.

Translation of the Frontal 21 segment into English was done by Viola, who also regularly posts comments on this blog. Thank you. Her Youtube channel has many Fukushima-related videos in English and German.

(If you do not see the subtitle, click on the "cc" button.)

In case you missed it, France 24 also had an excellent report on Fukushima workers, which I posted here.

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#Radioactive Rice to Come? Rice Growing in a Rice Paddy with 35,000 Becquerels/kg of Radioactive Cesium?

No wonder the first trading of rice futures in Osaka fetched 40% premium over the exchange-suggested contract price.

If this number is correct, the harvest season in Japan will be indeed "chaos".

From the tweet of Ryuichi Kino, who has attended and reported on almost all TEPCO/government press conferences regarding the Fukushima accident since March, reporting on the TEPCO/government joint press conference on August 8:

【東電会見】ドイツZDFがきてる。作付けしている田んぼの土壌が35000Bq/kgだった。徹底したチェックはしないのか？。細野さん、なが〜く周囲の人に確認した後で、牛肉で抜けがあったので再確認してチェック。育っている稲もチェックすると。

Germany's ZDF Television is here. Said 35,000 becquerels/kg [of radioactive cesium, most likely] has been found in the soil of a rice paddy planted with rice, and asked if the government does any thorough check. Hosono [minister in charge of the nuclear accident] consulted with his staff for a very long time, and said they will confirm the number. He said the government will check the rice as they grow in the rice paddies.

The transfer factor from the soil to rice is considered to be about 0.1. 35,000 becquerels/kg in soil may result in 3,500 becquerels/kg of harvested rice, 7 times the provisional safety limit which is already far too loose for the staple like rice.

I've found the video clip for this part. It's the rice paddy in Fukushima City. Fukushima City was OUTSIDE the evacuation zone of any kind, so the soil was apparently never tested by the prefectural government. The reporter asks the question in English, with a Japanese interpreter.

Japanese people who watched the video or knew about it from Kino's tweets are thanking ZDF for having shown up and asked questions at the press conference. It's been a very long time any foreign media showed any interest in these conferences given by TEPCO/government on Fukushima I Nuke Plant and radiation contamination.

I hope more foreign media (not their Japanese bureaus) will come and ask hard questions.

35,000 becquerels/kg of cesium in soil would translate into 2,275,000 becquerels/square meter (35,000 x 65), which is way above the forced evacuation criterion in the Chernobyl accident (1,480,000 becquerels/square meter).

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