"Storage tanks holding the cooling water at the ruined facility are full. Japan has had to cool the reactors at the nuclear power plant since they were destroyed during a catastrophic tsunami in 2011. It takes 170 tons of cooling water per day to keep them cool. In addition, rain and groundwater have been seeping into the site. There are 1,046 storage tanks holding 1,343 million cubic meters of water. Once the water has been filtered, it is considered safe and sent through a one-kilometer (0.62 mile)-long tunnel before being released into the Pacific Ocean — a process that will take an estimated 30 years to complete. The radioactive waste, meanwhile, will remain on land." (dw 23. August 2023)

Links: https://www.meti.go.jp/english/speeches/ministers_statements/2023/20230824.html

https://www.dw.com/en/fukushima-nuclear-water-release-how-safe-is-it/a-66608666

"Zusätzlich dazu, die Menschen zum Nachdenken über traditionelles volkstümliches Kunsthandwerk anzuregen, gab diese Bewegung auch einen Anstoß dazu, ganz neue Produkte zu kreieren. Hayakawa bemerkte, dass diese Entwicklung „mit dem Wiederaufbau verknüpft war“ in Form eines Vermittelns von Impulsen, und sie begann, völlig neue Papiermaché-Formen herzustellen. Ihr erstes neues Produkt war ein negaidama oder „Wunschball“, der auf ein okiagari koboshi mit traditionellen japanischen Mustern gemalt wurde, die Glück bringen sollen. Später beteiligte sie sich an einem Akabeko-Projekt, das den Wiederaufbau in den betroffenen Gebieten durch Mal-Workshops und Ausstellungen von akabeko unterstützte, die von unterschiedlichsten Menschen kreiert worden waren. Im Rahmen dieses Projekts schuf Hayakawa eine Kuh mit einem Wellenmuster, das als seigaiha bekannt ist. Seigaiha ist ein traditionelles japanisches Muster, bei dem die sich ins Unendliche fortsetzenden Wellen die Vorstellung von anhaltendem Glück verkörpern. Auf der anderen Seite erinnert das Muster aber auch an den Tsunami, der derart tragische Verheerungen anrichtete. Hayakawa: „Auch wenn ich unmittelbar nach dem Erdbeben zögerte, dies so deutlich zum Ausdruck zu bringen, wollte ich doch nicht, dass die Menschen den Tsunami vergessen. Ich bemalte daher die Kühe auch deshalb mit diesem Muster, um die Entschlossenheit zum Ausdruck zu bringen, dass wir den Tsunami überwinden werden.“" (HAYAKAWA Minako/ Mai 2023, BOTSCHAFT VON JAPAN - Kultur)

Link: https://www.de.emb-japan.go.jp/NaJ/NaJ2305/post_two.htm

"Seventy years ago today, at 8:15 in the morning, the U.S. dropped the world’s first atomic bomb on the Japanese city of Hiroshima. Destruction from the bomb was massive. Shock waves, radiation and heat rays took the lives of some 140,000 people. Three days later, the U.S. dropped a second atomic bomb on the Japanese city of Nagasaki, killing another 74,000. President Harry Truman announced the attack on Hiroshima in a nationally televised address on August 6, 1945. Today, as the sun came up in Hiroshima, tens of thousands began to gather in Hiroshima’s Peace Memorial Park to commemorate the world’s first nuclear attack. We are joined by the acclaimed Japanese novelist and winner of the 1994 Nobel Prize for Literature, Kenzaburo Oe, whose books address political and social issues, including nuclear weapons and nuclear power. "If Mr. Obama were to come to the memorial ceremonies in Hiroshima or Nagasaki, for example, what he could do is come together with the hibakusha, the survivors, and share that moment of silence, and also express considering the issue of nuclear weapons from the perspective of all humanity and how important nuclear abolition is from that perspective—I think, would be the most important thing, and the most important thing that any politician or representative could do at this time," says Oe, who has also spoken out in defense of Japan’s pacifist constitution, which Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has pushed to amend in order to allow the country to send troops into conflict for the first time since World War II."

Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Az4Px2_3Kmc

"After the war, Oppenheimer said “I feel I have blood on my hands.” I don’t think that was just a one-time expression: Oppenheimer must have felt a pang of regret when he said this. But such a regret was different from Szilard’s attitude, which not only recognized moral responsibility but also questioned the use of atomic bombs long before Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Oppenheimer, as one of the members of the Scientific Panel to the Interim Committee (which discussed many important things about the conduct of the war and the possible use of atomic bombs) clearly expressed his opinion that the bomb should be used against Japan as soon as possible. As a leader of the Los Alamos Laboratory—which undertook the final process of the development of the atomic bombs—he could not bring himself to deny the use of the new weapon." (Shiho Nakazawa, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, 21. Juli 2023)

Link: https://thebulletin.org/premium/2023-07/a-japanese-scholar-gives-her-personal-view-on-j-robert-oppenheimer/