An eerie story that recently appeared in The European Union Times tells of talks between Japanese and Russian representatives over the possible evacuation of people from Northern Japan to the disputed Kuril Islands because of the danger of radioactive exposure.

Discussions also are going on between Japan and China over the possible relocation of Japanese citizens to the Inner Mongolian and Zhengzhou Districts where entire cities of newly constructed but unoccupied homes and shops are sitting empty because of the worldwide economic downturn.

The story said that the Japan Foreign Ministry has informed Russia that up to 40 million people are in “extreme danger” from radioactive poisoning and need to be evacuated from the “eastern most located cities . . . including the world’s largest one, Tokyo.”

The Kuril Islands, a 56-island chain located 810 miles northeast of Hokkaido, Japan, have been in dispute since the end of World War II, after Soviet forces seized possession during the closing days of the war. Both Japan and Russia claim sovereignty over the islands. The San Francisco Peace Treaty drawn in 1951 by Allied Powers states that Japan must give up all claims to the Kuril Islands, but it does not recognize Russia’s sovereignty. Thus the dispute has continued to this day.

The Union Times story also quotes Japanese representatives as saying the government is seriously considering an offer by china to relocate tens of millions of Japanese people to inhabit China’s mysterious “ghost cities.”

The London Daily Mail published a series of satellite images of sprawling cities filled with newly constructed houses, shops and business structures sitting empty. All are located in remote areas of China. The Mail story did not disclose how many “ghost cities” exist in China, but said some have been standing ready for occupancy for years. The story suggested that a rising property value problem in China may have been the reason the cities remain empty.

Thus the Japanese appear to have some options for relocation. But just how serious is the disaster at the Fukushima site? A recent story in the Prison Planet Internet blog quoted a startling report by Mitsuhei Murata, Japan’s former ambassador to Switzerland, during a March appearance at the Budgetary Committee of the House of Councilors. He warned that if the crippled building of reactor unit 4, with 1,535 fuel rods in the spent fuel pool 100 feet above the ground collapses, it would cause a shutdown of all six reactors and affect all of the 11,421 fuel rods at the site. These rods, Murata said, are not protected by a containment vessel and are dangerously open to the air.

He warned that such a meltdown could cause “a global catastrophe like we have never before experienced. . . Such a catastrophe would affect us all for centuries.”

Akio Matsumura, a diplomat to the United Nations, explained on his website just how severe the threat of a total meltdown at Fukushima is. He quoted a report by Murata that said the spent fuel rods contain roughly 336 million curies of long-lived radioactivity. “About 134 million curies is Cesium-137 – roughly 85 times the amount of Cs-137 released at the Chernobyl accident as estimated by the U.S. National Council on Radiation Protection.

“The total spent reactor fuel inventory at the Fukushima-Daichi site contains nearly half of the total amount of Cs-137 estimated by the NCRP to have been released by all atmospheric nuclear weapons testing, Chernobyl and world-wide reprocessing plants,” the Murata report stated.

He said it was important for the public to understand that the reactors at Fukushima have been operating for decades and have generated “some of the largest concentrations of radioactivity on this planet.”

Matsumura wrote: “Many of our readers might find it difficult to appreciate the actual meaning of the figure, yet we can grasp what 85 times more Cesium-137 than the Chernobyl would mean. It would destroy the world environment and our civilization. This is an issue of human survival.”

The Union Times story added that Russian military observers participating in the Open Skies Treaty with the United States now report “unprecedented” amounts of radiation in the Western regions of the U.S. It said the finding has been confirmed by scientists at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute.

Researchers are detecting radioactive particles in California kelp and have confirmed that a large block of “highly radioactive waste” is drifting slowly eastward over the Pacific, and headed directly for the West Coast of the United States.

Another Union Times article noted that TEPCO released 3 million gallons of radioactive waste into the Pacific Ocean from the disaster site. One report said the deadly drifting mass could be 70 miles in width.

“In the United States the Environmental Protection Agency and other corrupt federal agencies are literally ignoring the danger posed by the radioactive waste,” the story said. It warned that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has “intentionally mislead the public by covering up the dangers posed by radiation released from Japan.”

Why would they do this? Think politics and the Obama Administration’s push for alternative sources of energy as alternatives to the use of coal and oil to run our factories, automobiles, ships, trucks and aircraft and heat our homes.

“Sadly, corporate interests and nuclear apologists continue to push for more nuclear power plants while ignoring the dangers to the entire world,” the Union Times editorial said.