Finding Home
After Fallout
Activists find their voice after 3.11
Protestors still gather weekly in Tokyo
Writeen by Sydney MacDonald
The chant “Protect our children from nuclear power plants” filled the street corners in front of the Diet, Japan’s capitol building, on Friday, May 26, 2017. Protesters who are part of the Metropolitan Coalition Against Nukes have been coming to demonstrate on this block for the past 247 Fridays to express their opposition of nuclear energy.
 Tomodachi of TokyoClick on each picture to learn more |  Mayumi Suzuki"...my father would be proud ..." |  Yasuhiko NumataFamilies fear food from Fukushima. |  Shinichi Yamada“If people start buying, I think we have a chance.” |  Suzuka Hirota“There was irony with the beautiful sky” |
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 Katsushi YasodaThe industry will never be what it was ... |  Hiroshi Koizami and Masamine KoizamiSupermarkets continue to monopolize the Japanese food industry |  Yasuo HayakawaHe loves all the fish he sells equally. |
Written by Jana Wiegand
Japan’s media tug of war:
Facts and self-censorship
Written by Katy Spence
Asahi TV had a scoop for the late night airing of Hodo Station, but the chief editor held back.
Leaked emails showed that the prime minister promoted a major project backed by a friend and that he pressured the agency to accelerate its acceptance. It was an abuse of power by the prime minister, and it was clearly a scoop. Still, the chief of the news division needed to confirm it was true. The newsroom was haunted by a 2006 incident involving a fake email and incomplete reporting. The lawmaker who had shared that email -- he didn’t know it was fake -- committed suicide several years later. The press hadn’t done due diligence to check the email’s veracity...
Taking over the family business
By Rehana Asmi
The Triple Disaster: Explained
An earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear
meltdown that altered Japan's national psyche
By Rehana Asmi
It all started on Friday, March 11, 2011, at 2:46 p.m. when an earthquake shook the northeast coast of Japan. The tremor was the largest earthquake recorded in Japan’s history, measuring 9.0 on the Richter scale. Buildings shuddered, and roads buckled under the stress...
Libby in transition
The EPA is leaving and taking its money with it; now, residents must face life post-environmental disaster
By Zachariah Bryan
In preparation for reporting on the ongoing recovery efforts in Japan post 3/11, University of Montana journalism students made their way to Libby, where they reported on how the community has recovered from asbestos contamination.
While the scale of disaster is different, there are many similarities between what is currently happening in the Fukushima Prefecture and what happened in Libby. Both are dealing with contaminants (radiation and asbestos) that are invisible and odorless, and which over time can present life-threatening health problems in residents. They both have gone through large-scale cleanup efforts of residential and commercial properties, dealing with questions of what to do with waste and when it can be called safe. And both, as a result of the cleanup efforts, have seen a surge of investment and workers.
In the case of Libby, this investment is about to dry up and the community, which has already seen the lumber and mining industries leave, is figuring out what comes next. Zachariah Bryan reports...
So what is nuclear power?
And what makes its radiation so dangerous?
By Sammi Queenan
Nuclear energy occurs when atoms split apart (fission) or when atoms combine (fusion). Fusion occurs naturally in stars like the Sun. Inside the Sun, fusion reactions continue for billions of years and give off enough energy to make the Earth a warm and bright place. Fission, on the other hand, is a form of radioactive decay, and humans have learned how to control fission reactions to produce enough energy to power everything from navy submarines to entire cities...