On Oct. 21 the International Atomic Energy Agency's Expert Remediation Mission to Japan submitted their preliminary findings based on their visit to Tokyo and Fukushima over the previous seven days.

Remediation is a very important area of the IAEA's work, and "aims to reduce the radiation exposure from contamination of land areas or other contaminated media, such as surface — or groundwater." In line with this role, the IAEA were requested to inspect Japan's decontamination efforts after the Fukushima No. 1 disaster. This is in fact their second visit, a followup to an October 2011 mission.

Reading the IAEA's findings, and contrasting them with the reality in Fukushima, one is left wondering whether the IAEA mission got lost in a Potemkin village during their trip.