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A project of Common Dreams

For Immediate Release
Contact: Sam Husseini, (202) 347-0020; or David Zupan, (541) 484-9167

Japanese Delegation on Fukushima and Nuclear Safety

WASHINGTON

A farming family from the now radioactively contaminated Fukushima region in Japan, along with one American and three leading Japanese anti-nuclear campaigners, will be available for interviews while visiting the U.S. The group will deliver eye-witness accounts about the health impacts and continued contamination produced by the Fukushima-Daiichi reactor units that suffered catastrophic damage on March 11, 2011 and the similar risk of a Fukushima-style nuclear disaster in the U.S. They will discuss the failures and inadequacies of the Fukushima region evacuations and particularly the impacts on children. The speakers are also calling for the Fukushima disaster to become a new opportunity for the world to shut down all nuclear power plants as Germany has decided to do by 2022.

The speakers include:

AILEEN MIOKO SMITH, executive director of Green Action and a veteran anti-nuclear campaigner in Japan. In March 1995 she wrote "On Shaky Ground: Will Japan's Nuke Plants Be Next?"

SACHIKO SATO, an organic farmer from Fukushima and a board member of "Fukushima Network for Saving Children from Radiation" and her 13- and 17-year old children, Mina and Yuuki.

YUKIKO ANZAI, who operates an organic farm close to the Tomari reactor.

KAORI IZUMI, director of Shut Tomari, an organization working to close the first reactor to re-start since the Fukushima meltdowns, will discuss the unhealthy and corrupting relationship between government, business, the media and pro-nuclear intellectuals and the judiciary.

KEVIN KAMPS, radioactive waste specialist at Beyond Nuclear who visited Fukushima last year.

All speakers are available for interviews through Beyond Nuclear media director:

LINDA PENTZ GUNTER, linda at beyondnuclear.org

The delegation will speak at the National Press Club at 9:30 AM on Tuesday, September 20. The press conference will take place prior to an afternoon meeting with commissioners at the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission. The group will visit legislators on Capitol Hill on Monday, September 19. On September 21 the delegation will travel to New York where they will appeal to the UN to recognize the violation of human rights of children caused by the Fukushima disaster. They will ask the UN to cease its global promotion of nuclear energy.

A nationwide consortium, the Institute for Public Accuracy (IPA) represents an unprecedented effort to bring other voices to the mass-media table often dominated by a few major think tanks. IPA works to broaden public discourse in mainstream media, while building communication with alternative media outlets and grassroots activists.