Osaka Prefecture

Osaka Prefecture (大阪府, Ōsaka-fu) is a prefecture located in the Kansai region on Honshu, the main island of Japan. The capital is the city of Osaka. It is the center of Osaka-Kobe-Kyoto area. Osaka is one of the two "urban prefectures" (府, fu) of Japan, Kyoto being the other (Tokyo became a "metropolitan prefecture", or to, in 1941).

History

Until the Meiji Restoration, the area of Osaka prefecture was known as Kawachi, Izumi, and Settsu provinces.

Osaka Prefecture was created on June 21, 1868, at the very beginning of the Meiji era. During the instigation of Fuhanken Sanchisei in 1868, the prefecture received its suffix fu, designating it as an urban prefecture.

On September 1, 1956, the city of Osaka was promoted to a city designated by government ordinance and thereby divided into 24 wards.

In 2000, Fusae Ota became Japan's first female governor when she replaced Knock Yokoyama, who resigned after prosecution for sexual harassment.

On April 1, 2006: the city of Sakai was promoted to a city designated by government ordinance and thereby divided into seven wards.

Osaka

Osaka (大阪市, Ōsaka-shi) (Japanese pronunciation: [oːsaka];  listen ) is a designated city in the Kansai region of Japan. It is the capital city of Osaka Prefecture and the largest component of the Keihanshin Metropolitan Area, the second largest metropolitan area in Japan and among the largest in the world with over 19 million inhabitants. Situated at the mouth of the Yodo River on Osaka Bay, Osaka is the second largest city by the daytime population after Tokyo's 23 wards and the third largest city by the nighttime population after Tokyo's 23 special wards and Yokohama in Japan, serving as a major economic hub.

Historically a merchant city, Osaka has also been known as the "nation's kitchen" (天下の台所, tenka no daidokoro) and served as a center for the rice trade during the Edo period.

History

Prehistory to the Kofun period

Some of the earliest signs of human habitation in the Osaka area at the Morinomiya ruins (森ノ宮遺跡, Morinomiya iseki) comprise shell mounds, sea oysters and buried human skeletons from the 5th–6th centuries BC. It is believed that what is today the Uehonmachi area consisted of a peninsular land with an inland sea in the east. During the Yayoi period, permanent habitation on the plains grew as rice farming became popular.

Japan

Coordinates: 35°N 136°E / 35°N 136°E / 35; 136

Japan (ⁱ/dʒəˈpæn/; Japanese: 日本 Nippon [nip̚põ̞ɴ] or Nihon [nihõ̞ɴ]; formally 日本国  Nippon-koku or Nihon-koku, "State of Japan") is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, the East China Sea, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south. The kanji that make up Japan's name mean "sun origin", and Japan is often called the "Land of the Rising Sun".

Japan is a stratovolcanic archipelago of 6,852 islands. The four largest are Honshu, Hokkaido, Kyushu, and Shikoku, which make up about ninety-seven percent of Japan's land area. Japan's population of 126 million is the world's tenth largest. Approximately 9.1 million people live in Tokyo, the capital city of Japan, which is the sixth largest city proper in the OECD. The Greater Tokyo Area, which includes Tokyo and several surrounding prefectures, is the world's largest metropolitan area with over 35 million residents and the world's largest urban agglomeration economy.

Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant

The Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant (福島第一原子力発電所, Fukushima Daiichi Genshiryoku Hatsudensho) is a disabled BWR nuclear power plant located on a 3.5-square-kilometre (860-acre) site in the towns of Ōkuma and Futaba in the Futaba District of Fukushima Prefecture, Japan. First commissioned in 1971, the plant consists of six boiling water reactors (BWR). These light water reactors drove electrical generators with a combined power of 4.7 GWe, making Fukushima Daiichi one of the 15 largest nuclear power stations in the world. Fukushima was the first nuclear plant to be designed, constructed and run in conjunction with General Electric, Boise, and Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO).

The plant suffered major damage from the magnitude 9.0 earthquake and tsunami that hit Japan on March 11, 2011. The incident permanently damaged several reactors making them impossible to restart. Due to the political climate, the remaining reactors will not be restarted. The disaster disabled the reactor cooling systems, leading to releases of radioactivity and triggering a 30 km evacuation zone surrounding the plant; the releases continue to this day. On April 20, 2011, the Japanese authorities declared the 20 km evacuation zone a no-go area which may only be entered under government supervision.

Physicians for Social Responsibility

Physicians for Social Responsibility (PSR) is the largest physician-led organization in the US working to protect the public from the threats of nuclear proliferation, climate change, and environmental toxins. Continuing its long history of physician-led activism, PSR produces and disseminates its own publications, provides specialized training, offers written and oral testimony to congress, conducts media interviews, and delivers professional and public education. PSR’s 50,000 members and e-activists, 30 state and local chapters, 39 student chapters, and 14 national staff form a nationwide network that target what they consider threats to global survival, specifically nuclear warfare, nuclear proliferation, global warming, and toxic degradation of the environment.

Organizational history

PSR was founded in Boston in 1961 by a group of physicians concerned about the public health dangers associated with the testing, stockpiling and use of nuclear weapons. Drs. Bernard Lown, Victor W. Sidel, Sidney Alexander, Jack Geiger, Alexander Leaf, George Saxton and Robert Goldwyn were among the founding group of physicians. PSR's initial reports on the real human, physical, social and environmental consequences of a nuclear war commanded immediate national attention and was followed by a sustained and highly effective campaign over the ensuing decades to educate the public about the irrevocable consequences of the use of nuclear weapons and the unwinability of a nuclear war. PSR originally opposed atmospheric nuclear testing by documenting the presence of testing byproduct strontium-90 in children's teeth.