TOKYO (AP) ? Japan unveiled its first draft energy policy since the Fukushima meltdown three years ago, saying nuclear power remains an important source of electricity for the country.

The plan presented to Cabinet for approval in coming weeks, says Japan's nuclear energy dependency will be reduced as much as possible. It says reactors that meet new safety standards set after the 2011 nuclear crisis should be restarted.

The draft says nuclear, renewables and fossil fuel will provide Japan's energy until about 2020. It did not specify the energy mix. It says Japan will continue its nuclear fuel recycling policy despite uncertainty at key facilities for the program.

All 48 Japanese commercial reactors have been offline for safety inspections since the crisis.

Thyroid Cancers Surge Among Young In Fukushima

It seems US sailors aren't the only ones who three short years after the Fukushima disaster are being stricken by cancers and other radiation-induced diseases. For once, the media blackout surrounding the Japanese nuclear power plant tragedy appears to have crumbled, and at least a portion of the truth has been revealed. Hong Kong's SCMP reports that fifty-nine young people in Fukushima prefecture have been diagnosed with or are suspected of having thyroid cancer. Notably, all of newly diagnosed were younger than 18 at the time of the nuclear meltdown in the area in March 2011. They were identified in tests by the prefectural government, which covered 239,000 people by the end of September.

And while it is not rocket surgery to put two and two together, now that the data is in the public domain, here come the experts to explain it away.

On one hand, there are those who seemingly have not been bribed by the Abe government to " bend" reality just a bit in the name of confidence. People such as Toshihide Tsuda, a professor of epidemiology at Okayama University who has called upon the government to prepare for a possible increase in cases in the future. " The rate at which children in Fukushima prefecture have developed thyroid cancer can be called frequent, because it is several times to several tens of times higher," Japan's Asahi Shimbun quoted him as saying.

He compared the figures in Fukushima with cancer registration statistics throughout Japan from 1975 to 2008 that showed an annual average of five to 11 people in their late teens to early 20s developing cancer for every 1 million people.

And then come those who probably would still be touting the great job Tepco is doing in containing the worst nuclear catastrophe in history, even though Tepco itself has now admitted the exploded nuclear power plant is out of control.  

Tetsuya Ohira, a professor of epidemiology at Fukushima Medical University, disagreed. It was not scientific to compare the Fukushima tests with cancer registry statistics, he argued. Scientific? Or not politically feasible for a prime minister who is desperate to restart domestic nuclear power plants, since Abenomics is getting monkeyhammered thanks to soaring energy and food import costs (and, among other factors, leading to a crash in Abe's popularity rating), and any reality leaking, pardong the pun, from Fukushima will end both that ambition, and his political career prematurely.

Shockingly, a month ago, prefectural officials deemed it unlikely that the increase in suspected and confirmed cases of cancer was linked to radiation exposure. Their " logic" is that in the Chernobyl disaster of 1986, it was not until four or five years after the accident that thyroid cancer cases surged. Apparently the thought that the local cancer victims may have been subject to radiation orders of magnitude higher than Chernobyl thanks to a lying government which consistently repeated that " all is well" has not crossed anyone's mind.

" It is known that radioactive iodine is linked to thyroid cancer. Through the intake of food, people may absorb and accumulate it inside glands," said Dr Choi Kin, a former president of the Hong Kong Medical Association.

 

Children might absorb more of it than adults because they were still growing, he said, but it remained to be proven that the radioactive iodine came from the nuclear disaster instead of the normal environment.

http://sg.news.yahoo.com/39-stunning-39-tsunami-record-discovered-indonesia-cave-140146964.htmlts

A discovered cave on the Indonesian island of Sumatra that provides a " stunning" record of Indian Ocean tsunamis over thousands of years.

They say layers of tsunami-borne sediments found in the cave in northwest Sumatra suggest the biggest destructive waves do not occur at set intervals -- meaning communities in the area should be prepared at all times for a tsunami.

" It's something that communities need to know," research team leader Charles Rubin told AFP, adding that the team wanted to " promote safety of coastal communities" .

Professor Rubin and other researchers from a Singapore institute were working with scientists from an Indonesian university when they discovered the cave, south of Banda Aceh, the capital of Aceh province.

A quake-triggered tsunami devastated Aceh and areas across the Indian Ocean in 2004, leaving some 170,000 people dead in the province alone.

Inside the cave the researchers found layers of sandy sediment, which had been washed in by tsunamis thousands of years previously.

The layers, which contained small fossils from the seabed, were well-preserved and separated by droppings deposited by bats in the cave, he added. " This is a beautiful, stunning record of tsunamis that you just don't have very often," Rubin said.

Highest Radiation Level Ever, Lethal In 20 Minutes, Recorded Outside Fukushima Reactor

• FUKUSHIMA RADIATION TO REACH U.S. COAST AT SAFE LEVEL: NRC

A 5.5 magnitude quake struck eastern Japan Sat evening, according to US Geological Survey, Quake hit at 8:44pm local time at a depth of 63 k/m (39 miles), in the Chiba prefecture which neighbours Tokyo.

Service on a high-speed train line was briefly halted but later resumed after a track inspection and causing skyscrapers to shake in Tokyo.

Neither the Tokyo-Narita airport nor any nuclear installations in the region were affected, public broadcaster NHK said.

Tremor came exactly  1 wk after another 5.5 struck close to the capital, and  3 wks after a major 7.1 magnitude quake generated small tsunamis on Japan's north-east coast, without causing damage or casualties.