Geography Archives: Asia

Given the large amount of radioactivity that could be released from the damaged reactors and spent-fuel pools at the Fukushima Dai-Ichi facility, the Japanese government was wise to evacuate residents within a 12 mile (20 kilometer) radius of the reactor site. Unfortunately, the crisis in not over.  Given the uncertainty over future releases, we believe […]

The imperialist killers headed by the USA, France, Britain and NATO as a whole and with the approval of the UN started a new imperialist war.  This time in Libya. Their allegedly humanitarian pretexts are completely misleading!  They throw dust into peoples’ eyes!  Their real goals are the hydrocarbons in Libya. We, the Communist and […]

The Japanese government, taking a break from its nuclear class war against its own people, issued a nonsensical statement on Libya,1 supporting the Western war against Libya . . . and at the same time claiming to support the African Union, which is opposed to the war, and the Arab League, which is now trying […]

  March 20, 2011 We Urge the Japanese Government to Take the Following Actions Regarding the Crisis at the Fukushima Nuclear Plants: Despite strenuous efforts, there is an increasing danger that large amounts of radioactive material might be released from Unit No. 3, which is loaded with fuel containing plutonium.  We are particularly concerned about […]

  China’s Foreign Ministry on Sunday expressed regret over the multinational military strike against Libya, saying that it did not agree with resorting to force in international relations. “China has noticed the latest development in Libya and regrets the military strike against Libya,” Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu said. China, as it always, does not […]

Note that the criminal government of Japan is still advising people outside the 20-km exclusion zone to just use umbrellas, wear raincoats, and wash themselves later if they are worried about the radioactive fallout in the rain. — Ed. Prime Minister Kan Cancels Visits to Disaster Areas “Due to Bad Weather” Asahi Shimbun, 21 March […]

In these bitter days we have seen pictures of an earthquake that reached 9 on the Richter Scale with hundreds of strong after-shocks, and a tsunami 10 metres high whose waves of dark waters dragged tens of thousands of people between cars and trucks over homes and 3 and 4 storey buildings. Sophisticated mass media […]

Prabir Purkayastha: If you really look at what is happening, what we have is a historical split between the east and the west, which could be the outline of what could emerge at least in the near future, unless Gaddafi has the strength to push his troops right up to Benghazi.  Aijaz Ahmad The real […]

Fidel Castro was right.  The West was planning an attack on a sovereign third world nation imminently: Libya.  Nothing like a good old war against brown and black people in Libya by the West to remind oneself of what Western civilisation is all about.  Many of us who have been politically active since the 1990s […]

Carlos Latuff is a Brazilian cartoonist.  Cf. “Citizens’ Nuclear Information Center, a Japanese environmental group, has documented previous safety problems and cover-ups by Tepco at the Fukushima reactor complex: cnic.jp/english/newsletter/nit92/nit92articles/nit92coverupdata.html” (Nuclear Information and Resource Service, “Fact Sheet on Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant,” 11 March 2011). | Print

At last, the prime minister of Japan faced up to the inconvenient truth.  Had he done so from Day 1, and based his evacuation plan on the possibility of this worst case scenario, it would have been possible to evacuate tens of millions more people, in orderly fashion, than we can now.  The criminal government […]

  As of 11:30 pm EDT Monday 3/14/11 Three of the six reactors at the Fukushima Dai-Ichi nuclear facility were operating at the time of the earthquake — Units 1, 2, and 3.  The reactors shut down when the earthquake hit, but even after they stopped producing power, the reactor cores were very hot and […]

“Economic and Financial Policy Minister Kaoru Yosano, at a post-cabinet-meeting press conference on the 15th of March, said this about Japan’s nuclear power policy: ‘There is no alternative energy source if we want to secure a lot of energy.  To support the Japanese economy, we have no choice but to use nuclear power.  The people […]

Even in the best case scenario available at this point, all workers at Fukushima 1 and 2 battling to save the lives of others must have already suffered great harm to their health, and the harm is about to become greater. — Ed. Japan’s Ministry of Health, Labor, and Welfare has determined that the existing […]

IF the speed of light didn’t exist, if the closest star to our sun weren’t four light years away from Earth, the only inhabited planet in our solar system, if UFOs truly existed, imaginary visitors to the planet would continue their journey without understanding much of anything about our long-suffering human race. Just a few […]

You have seen the Japanese government’s response to the nuclear disaster unfolding in Japan.  Top officials have been slow to expand the exclusion zone around the Fukushima 1 and 2 Nuclear Power Plants.  They have been less than forthcoming in providing information about exactly in what state the reactors in trouble are.  By failing in […]

“Pray for Japan.” — Carlos Latuff Carlos Latuff is a Brazilian cartoonist.  Cf. Nuclear Information and Resource Service, “Fact Sheet on Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant” (11 March 2011); Union of Concerned Scientists, “Nuclear Crisis in Japan: What We Know” (11 March 2011); Philip White, “On the Nuclear and Earthquake Disaster Unfolding in Japan” (12 March […]

15 March 2011, 01:05 Tokyo Electric Power announced that, at around 11 PM on the 14th, it became impossible to inject cooling water into the Unit 2 reactor of the Fukushima 1 Nuclear Power Plant, resulting in a precipitous decline of the water level, so Unit 2’s fuel rods probably became fully exposed again.  Also, […]

In reporting on the nuclear situation in Japan, terms describing the possible state of the reactors have been used by Japanese officials and international experts.  Unfortunately, these terms are not always used consistently.  We discuss some of them below. The reactor core containing nuclear fuel is the “engine” of a nuclear power reactor.  The reactor […]

15 March 2011, 04:59 Around 11 PM on the 14th, Unit 2 of the Fukushima 1 Nuclear Power Plant had suffered a breakdown of its cooling water injection system, and its fuel rods became fully exposed.  At 1 AM on the 15th, Tokyo Electric Power recovered its ability to inject seawater into the Unit 2 […]