Fukushima has not made fish radioactive – Russian data

More than 440 samples of seafood products from the area of the dump have been studied, Rosselkhoznadzor says

The fish caught in Russia’s Far Eastern seas since Japan began releasing wastewater from the Fukushima nuclear power plant into the ocean last week show no excessive levels of radiation, Russia’s veterinary and phytosanitary watchdog, Rosselkhoznadzor, has announced.

According to the agency, 443 samples of fish products, including cod, fluke, walleye pollock, halibut, salmon, crab, mussels and canned food, have been studied by its experts.

There were “no positive findings” in the tested products, with the level of radiation in them being within the normal range, Rosselkhoznadzor said. The results “indicate the safety of fish products,” it concluded.

The agency’s laboratory in the Far East monitors fish products on a regular basis, but has stepped up its activities since Tokyo announced plans to dump treated radioactive wastewater from the stricken nuclear plant.

Japan began releasing the liquid into the ocean last week, as part of a plan approved by the UN. The water was used to cool down the nuclear reactors that were damaged during the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami disaster, preventing them from fully melting down.

Despite claims that the liquid is perfectly safe, the move by Tokyo has sparked a backlash from its neighbors China, South Korea, and North Korea. Beijing called it “extremely selfish and irresponsible” and introduced a blanket ban on Japanese seafood products.

In an attempt to alleviate concerns at home and abroad, Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and three of his cabinet ministers sat down for a meal on Wednesday, sharing sashimi made from fluke, octopus, and sea bass caught off the coast of Fukushima.

Kishida called the meal “very good” and encouraged people to enjoy “safe and delicious” seafood and thus support the Fukushima prefecture.

A similar stunt was repeated by the US ambassador to Japan, Rahm Emanuel, who visited the city of Fukushima on Thursday and had a seafood lunch with its mayor.

Emanuel claimed that “the economic coercion against Japan, the robocalls of harassment and disinformation both here in Japan and around comes right out of China’s playbook.”

He promised Washington would support Tokyo if it fulfilled its promise and filed a complaint to the World Trade Organization (WTO) over Beijing’s seafood ban. The US is going to do so “not just because they [Japan] are an ally, but because there’s legitimacy to the case,” the ambassador said.

https://www.rt.com/news/582159-fukushima-japan-fish-nuclear/

Japan complains about Russian victory celebration

Moscow recently renamed its Day of Military Glory as the ‘Day of Victory over Militaristic Japan’

Japanese Foreign Minister Yoshimasa Hayashi has expressed regret over Russia’s decision to declare September 3 the Day of Victory over Militaristic Japan and the End of World War II.

Addressing the issue at a press conference on Friday, Hayashi said, “we’ve made our representations to them and hope that there’s no emotional confrontation” between Tokyo and Moscow over Russia’s renamed holiday.

“A series of events is being planned for the Northern Territories and various places in Russia” on September 3, but as a member of the Japanese government, he won’t comment on them, the foreign minister added.

Japan refers to parts of Russia’s Kuril Islands as the Northern Territories, which it claims have been occupied by Moscow after WWII.

In late June, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a law to rename the Day of Military Glory, celebrated on September 3, the Day of Victory over Militaristic Japan and the End of World War II.

Hayashi’s comments on Friday echoed those previously made by Chief Cabinet Secretary Hirokazu Matsuno, who called Russia’s move “extremely regrettable” and warned that it “could not only stir anti-Japanese sentiment among the Russian people, but may also lead to anti-Russian sentiment among the Japanese people.”

Russia and Japan have failed to reach a post-WWII settlement and have officially remained at war for almost eight decades. The stumbling block for the peace treaty is Tokyo’s claim to four of the islands in the Kuril Archipelago, which the Soviet Union captured during the war. In the San Francisco Treaty of 1951, Japan relinquished its claims to the Kurils but later claimed that those islands were never a part of the archipelago.

Earlier this year, Russia’s Foreign Ministry reiterated that “the subject of a peace treaty [with Tokyo]… has been closed for us.” According to Moscow, Japan’s “unfriendly” stance, supporting Ukraine in the conflict with Russia and joining the Western sanctions against the country, makes any further negotiations impossible.

https://www.rt.com/news/582220-japan-hayashi-victory-celebrations/

Pentagon seeks UFO reports

Government employees, and later the general public, will be able to submit information on sightings to a new website

The US Defense Department has launched a website where service members can log their encounters with UFOs and the public can view declassified documents on the phenomena. Despite the Pentagon’s recent embrace of transparency, some whistleblowers allege that the military still knows more about extraterrestrial life than it’s letting on.

The department’s All-Domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO) launched the website on Wednesday. According to a statement from the Pentagon on Thursday, the resource will serve as a “one-stop shop” for press releases and briefing transcripts, as well as declassified photos, videos, and documents on UFOs.

The AARO was formed last year after the Pentagon admitted that a series of videos captured by military personnel – including one that showed mysterious “pyramid-shaped objects” harassing a US Navy vessel off the coast of California in 2019 – were genuine. The AARO refers to UFOs as ‘unidentified anomalous phenomena’ (UAPs), and studies reports of land- and sea-based UAPs as well as flying objects.

The new website, which the AARO was required by law to set up, also allows current or former military members and government employees to submit their own UAP reports. A mechanism for members of the general public to make reports will be announced in the coming months, the Pentagon said.

By last December, the AARO stated that it had collected almost 400 UAP reports. However, US Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence Ronald Moultrie told reporters that the office’s experts “haven’t seen anything that would lead us to believe any of the objects we have seen are of alien origin.”

Some whistleblowers say otherwise. In June, US Air Force veteran David Grusch claimed that a top-secret military unit has been “retrieving non-human-origin technical vehicles” for decades and possessed the remains of “dead pilots” from these extraterrestrial spacecraft. In testimony to Congress in July, Grusch alleged that the Pentagon is using taxpayer dollars to fund the reverse-engineering of alien craft.

The AARO denied Grusch’s claims, although he insisted that the supposed reverse-engineering program was being conducted without the knowledge of the AARO or US lawmakers.

Two former Navy pilots testified alongside Grusch, with one claiming to have seen UAPs exhibit “technology… far superior to anything that we had,” and the other stating that senior military officials had discouraged him and his fellow pilots from reporting such sightings.

https://www.rt.com/news/582230-pentagon-ufo-reports-website/