WASHINGTON — The United States on Nov. 10 designated three sites related to its nuclear weapons program in the 1940s as a national park, stepping up preparations to open it to the public over the next few years. Some U.S. officials told a designation ceremony that the National Park Service, the operator of the park, […]
Looking onward from the year of infamy
Accomplished jazz musician and composer Anthony Brown will debut his “life’s work to date” in remembrance of both the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the nuclear disaster in Fukushima, Sunday, Aug. 2 in San Francisco’s Japantown. Brown, founder of Fifth Stream Music, composed “1945: Year of Infamy.” Unlike his 1995 instrumental piece, “Never […]
Journalists use ‘restorative narrative’ to report on Fukushima
The San Francisco State University’s Dilena Takeyama Center for the Study of Japan and Japanese Culture presented April 4 on the state of Fukushima, Japan at the Japanese Cultural and Community Center of Northern California. The presentation, featuring the works of San Francisco State University students who visited Fukushima last year, included a series of […]
Thousands visit site of first nuclear bomb test 70 years on
SAN ANTONIO — Cars, trucks, trailers and motorcycles, with license plates from numerous states, crawled in line miles long early April 4 as people flocked to the site where the world’s first atomic bomb was detonated in southern New Mexico’s Tularosa Basin. The wait to visit the Trinity Site was longer than expected but worth […]
Japanese scholars searching for dispersed A-bomb health records
TOKYO — Japanese scholars are trying to locate records of early research on the health impact of radiation from the 1945 U.S. atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, with the aim of creating a digital archive accessible from around the world. The group of scholars began by searching for photos, records of medical treatment and other […]
Antinuclear rally draws 170,000 people
TOKYO — An anti-nuclear power plant rally called for by a group led by Nobel literature laureate Kenzaburo Oe and other celebrities drew a crowd of around 170,000 people on July 16 at Tokyo’s Yoyogi Park, according to organizers. The Metropolitan Police Department, which provided security for the event, said the assembly attracted around 75,000 […]
Veterinarian works to save surviving animals in Fukushima
A long row of cows is crowded at a gate, their heads straining through the metal as if desperately reaching for food. All of them are dead. For Dr. Shigeki Imamoto, a veterinarian who travels to Fukushima Prefecture to save animals in communities devastated by last year’s disaster, this was not an uncommon sight. In […]
TOWARD RECOVERY, HEALING: Japanese relief workers visit Bay Area for workshops
On the week of Sept. 18, 12 employees and volunteers who are aiding various relief and reconstruction efforts in the earthquake and tsunami devastated regions of Japan came to the Bay Area to learn about community-based health care, mental health services and training, and enjoy a brief respite to recover from the stress of the […]
Reading for recovery
In the aftermath of the March 11 earthquake, tsunami and ongoing nuclear crisis, social media played a key role in raising funds for victims in the earthquake and tsunami-hit region. Through social media and e-book publications, several fundraising efforts have come to fruition in the form of books. Here are two books that support relief […]
As we rebuild, will people remember us?
In a few days, Miyagi Prefecture and all of Japan will mark the one-year anniversary of the Great East Japan Earthquake. During this past year, we have had a number of foreign visitors to Miyagi, who have all expressed their surprise at how fast the area has cleaned up. My family and I visit my […]